Chapter 83: 83
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"I feel so exposed," I admit softly, casting my head around to make out any signs of potential civilisation or disturbance in the undergrowth that would indicate some form of temporary inhabitancies, keen to keep some form of conversation persisting between us for fear of being consumed by the trepidation welling inside my soul and the horror at what I might begin to hear in the dead silence of the forest. Ithuriel's answer shares the same sort of nervous vigour:
I know what you mean. Everything is so dark I feel like I could be jumped at from any angle. I don't know why anyone in exile would choose to live in such a desolate and grim place, but I suppose at least it keeps visitors away. At least, the kind of visitors that would be aware of the prince on your head.
Ithuriel's reply is cut short as he pauses every now and then to sniff the air, then changes direction slightly in adjustment to whatever it is he senses abiding in the cavernous expanse- a feeling I am neither privy nor experienced with.
The further we stroll, the bigger everything gets. We pass mushrooms as big as houses, heaving with dangling creepers and the slow traipsing of snails over its vast expanse, purple glowing flowers that dangle like funeral veils from the canopy of trees, emitting a cold, warmth-less luminescence that casts long shadows streaking from the forest so that every tree turns into a monster and every monster into a tree. Unknown creatures scuttle above our heads with clicking claws and gnashing teeth, the whispers of their breath playing through our heads the way an opera may warble its way through the narrow streets of the town and fill the air with its glorious hum. Only this is no opera, and the end isn't glorious.
A twig snapping to our right brings us both halting to sudden attention. Ithuriel's feeler's test the air, his two toned eyes wide and alert, scanning the dense shadows for movement amongst the gloom. Hairs prickle like knives on the back of my neck. My fingers flex at the hilt of my sword, ready and waiting.
Something drops down from the trees not two paces away from us, and out of the uncontrollable drive of instinct to keep myself alive, I unleash a torrent of fire in its general direction… which quickly disappears with a sharp noise of inhalation, as though sucked straight into a vacuum. My heart stops dead.
A low growl rips from the back of Ithuriel's throat, wavering in the air ominously between us as we sidle back to back, peering into the gloom as we strain to catch a glimpse of the culprit of such destruction.
It is at this point that a small black dragon plods into view. Both my jaw and my sword hand simultaneously lower in blatant disbelief and Ithuriel- frozen to a deathly stillness from shock or terror I am not entirely certain, appears to look no better.
The dragon passes between us, neither of us daring to breathe a whisper as we let it circle our bodies, sniffing the air with a faint dilation of its nostrils and narrowing its pitch black eyes at the necklace slung around my head- as though it had some personal quarrel with the object.
Ithuriel's voice hitting my mind is like being jolted with a series of electric volts.
It's asking our names. He says quietly, the hushed trepidation in his voice practically tangible in the stagnant air between us. Nervously, I shift my grip on my sword, too fearful of the consequences of sheathing it, and equally worried to keep the silver blade pointed in such a threatening manner to a creature of minute scale but seemingly untold power. My fingers tremble.
Tell the dragon who we are, I shoot back in my mind, desperate to ignore the unsteady fluttering of my heart and the tumultuous roiling of my stomach with an unsuccessful agony.
Ithuriel assumes eye contact with the dragon, who has since stopped in front of us to sit in a patch of fresh fallen leaves, claws digging into the muddied earth, head twisting and tilting in order to survey our every move. With locked eyes an unspoken air passes between the fox and the dragon, the only notion anything is going on at all is pronounced in the subtle flicking of Ithuriel's ears and the gentle tremors passing through the spines of the dragon's back as they breathe- pronouncing them both alive and not a product of the ends cruel games, frozen in time. After some time, Ithuriel turns his head in my direction, pain shifting the depths of his eyes. He shakes his head wistfully.
The dragon says our identities mean nothing, for identities can be forged and taken. Ithuriel says, inducing a despair ridden fear to begin to crawl its way under my skin. Instinctively, I reach my hand up to fumble with my pendant, a gesture which has long since become one of soothing nature, and breathe out steadily.
Come on, Serena, I think.
Then it hits me.
"We got the letter from Lilyana, the one you gave to Dawn."
The dragon freezes momentarily. Then, rising up on its hind legs, it suddenly begins to grow. Smoke streams from the dragons orifices, coating its form, its entire body in a thick, dense mist that in the void of darkness that encompasses us, becomes an impenetrable wall against our eyes. Ithuriel leaps back in alarm, snarling, body pulsing with a white light, angry and defensive as he curls himself around me, ready to protect me at all costs. But that snarling soon diminishes, sinking to a low whimper as a tall figure emerges from the mist.
His skin is pale, so pale, and carries the bright, dewy luminescence of youth which starkly contrasts to the shock of black-blue that is his hair- short and parted attractively in curtains to one side of his head. His ears are tapered at the ends, fined to a slight point that gives his small face a relatively refined appearance, accentuated by the midnight allure of his black oriental eyes. He is relatively handsome, no doubt about it: his tall, thin frame attired in black scaly fighting corset and a pair of long black trousers with a half cut deep red imperial jacket that is embroidered with fine, golden silks. The way he dresses is like that of a vampire: all fashion with no sense for the cold and a blatant disregard of the slights of dignity, yet there is one clear thing that sets him apart from the vampires.
His enormous, leathery wings.
"Well then, hello there, Serena, Ithuriel," he nods respectively to us both, flicking a hand back past his hair, his light voice thick with an accent that I neither know, nor can place. "My name is Kalydas. But you may call me Kal."
I breathe out a sigh of relief, the weight in my chest dissipating.
"Thank goodness. Does this mean you know Fangorn?" I ask, dropping my sword hand to my hip now, the rigid tension easing from my muscles as I let myself relax briefly in the shadowed light of the forest. Kal sways his way around a patch of mushrooms, sidestepping behind us as he rests a hand on my shoulder, lifting my chin with his free, gloved hand to inspect me. A sickly shudder runs through me, and not just from the cold.
"Indeed it does. Fangorn and Lilyana are my parents, so to speak. I have been with them for a very long time, and act as their go between when I can, but tell me," he says, sliding a hand down my arm with a half smirk on his face. "Are you the little miss that Soren is so fond of?"
I jerk my arm away, clutching my hands protectively to my sides, flushing furiously. Ithuriel noises a deep growl that reverberates through the trees, causing the leaves to shudder as small critters scatter fearfully into the abyss. I raise up my brow warily.
"How do you know about Soren?"
Kal laughs me off with a lazy shrug.
"Who doesn't know about Soren? He is infamous. Besides," he adds, gesturing with a curl of his fingers for us to follow him as he begins to head into the dark thickets of the forest, pushing aside dangling vines and clawing brambles that eat away like piranhas at his heels. "I often visit the palace. Unlike Fangorn, I am very much welcome there."
Ithuriel and I bound to keep up with him, scampering in the trail of his light, airy footsteps- of which he seems to float his way through the forest as if the branches and the brambles and all manner of obstacles as if they were barely more than a minor inconvenience. Perhaps to an end dweller like him, they were.
My ribs feel ready to crack and lungs bursting to explode by the time I can get to answering.
"Then how come I haven't seen you around? I have been practically living there these past few weeks and you mean to tell me you evaded us all this time?" I cry, a little exasperated, breath catching in the thick of my throat as the continuous strain to keep up with Kal ensues. Kal meanders a few feet ahead of us, leaning back against a particularly tall pine tree with a lazy satisfaction, nails picking over a pine cone between his fingers as if to say: I'm waiting.
If I had more energy and indeed, the nerve, I might have thrown him the finger.
By the time we have reached him, I am bent over double and heaving air into my lungs, unsure whether I am grossly unfit or simply not as nimble footed as this half dragon counterpart. Vaulting and traipsing my way over rocks and the slippery patches of icy mud, frozen by the lack of that forgiving hospitality provided by the warm streaks of sun, instead coating the whole of the end into an infinite wasteland of ice and decay, has formed a light rim of sweat on my upper brow. The stagnant smell of fresh decay lingers like a fine mist in the air, and even that which does decay, decays at such a snail's pace that the remains of an animal could still be visible, preserved in a thick sheen of frost, weeks after the point of death. My breath pricks the icy air. Ithuriel- clearly the lesser effected out of the two of us for his nimble, small body and natural speed as a woodfox, butts his head against me in silent sympathy.
"You haven't seen me because I have not let you see me. Nevertheless I have taken quite some interest in watching how the prince's marriage ceremony will unfold- its at the end of the month, is it not- your mating day? And- woah steady on there Serena-!"
My legs buckle beneath me, spiralling me down towards the ground.
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"I feel so exposed," I admit softly, casting my head around to make out any signs of potential civilisation or disturbance in the undergrowth that would indicate some form of temporary inhabitancies, keen to keep some form of conversation persisting between us for fear of being consumed by the trepidation welling inside my soul and the horror at what I might begin to hear in the dead silence of the forest. Ithuriel's answer shares the same sort of nervous vigour:
I know what you mean. Everything is so dark I feel like I could be jumped at from any angle. I don't know why anyone in exile would choose to live in such a desolate and grim place, but I suppose at least it keeps visitors away. At least, the kind of visitors that would be aware of the prince on your head.
Ithuriel's reply is cut short as he pauses every now and then to sniff the air, then changes direction slightly in adjustment to whatever it is he senses abiding in the cavernous expanse- a feeling I am neither privy nor experienced with.
The further we stroll, the bigger everything gets. We pass mushrooms as big as houses, heaving with dangling creepers and the slow traipsing of snails over its vast expanse, purple glowing flowers that dangle like funeral veils from the canopy of trees, emitting a cold, warmth-less luminescence that casts long shadows streaking from the forest so that every tree turns into a monster and every monster into a tree. Unknown creatures scuttle above our heads with clicking claws and gnashing teeth, the whispers of their breath playing through our heads the way an opera may warble its way through the narrow streets of the town and fill the air with its glorious hum. Only this is no opera, and the end isn't glorious.
A twig snapping to our right brings us both halting to sudden attention. Ithuriel's feeler's test the air, his two toned eyes wide and alert, scanning the dense shadows for movement amongst the gloom. Hairs prickle like knives on the back of my neck. My fingers flex at the hilt of my sword, ready and waiting.
Something drops down from the trees not two paces away from us, and out of the uncontrollable drive of instinct to keep myself alive, I unleash a torrent of fire in its general direction… which quickly disappears with a sharp noise of inhalation, as though sucked straight into a vacuum. My heart stops dead.
A low growl rips from the back of Ithuriel's throat, wavering in the air ominously between us as we sidle back to back, peering into the gloom as we strain to catch a glimpse of the culprit of such destruction.
It is at this point that a small black dragon plods into view. Both my jaw and my sword hand simultaneously lower in blatant disbelief and Ithuriel- frozen to a deathly stillness from shock or terror I am not entirely certain, appears to look no better.
The dragon passes between us, neither of us daring to breathe a whisper as we let it circle our bodies, sniffing the air with a faint dilation of its nostrils and narrowing its pitch black eyes at the necklace slung around my head- as though it had some personal quarrel with the object.
Ithuriel's voice hitting my mind is like being jolted with a series of electric volts.
It's asking our names. He says quietly, the hushed trepidation in his voice practically tangible in the stagnant air between us. Nervously, I shift my grip on my sword, too fearful of the consequences of sheathing it, and equally worried to keep the silver blade pointed in such a threatening manner to a creature of minute scale but seemingly untold power. My fingers tremble.
Tell the dragon who we are, I shoot back in my mind, desperate to ignore the unsteady fluttering of my heart and the tumultuous roiling of my stomach with an unsuccessful agony.
Ithuriel assumes eye contact with the dragon, who has since stopped in front of us to sit in a patch of fresh fallen leaves, claws digging into the muddied earth, head twisting and tilting in order to survey our every move. With locked eyes an unspoken air passes between the fox and the dragon, the only notion anything is going on at all is pronounced in the subtle flicking of Ithuriel's ears and the gentle tremors passing through the spines of the dragon's back as they breathe- pronouncing them both alive and not a product of the ends cruel games, frozen in time. After some time, Ithuriel turns his head in my direction, pain shifting the depths of his eyes. He shakes his head wistfully.
The dragon says our identities mean nothing, for identities can be forged and taken. Ithuriel says, inducing a despair ridden fear to begin to crawl its way under my skin. Instinctively, I reach my hand up to fumble with my pendant, a gesture which has long since become one of soothing nature, and breathe out steadily.
Come on, Serena, I think.
Then it hits me.
"We got the letter from Lilyana, the one you gave to Dawn."
The dragon freezes momentarily. Then, rising up on its hind legs, it suddenly begins to grow. Smoke streams from the dragons orifices, coating its form, its entire body in a thick, dense mist that in the void of darkness that encompasses us, becomes an impenetrable wall against our eyes. Ithuriel leaps back in alarm, snarling, body pulsing with a white light, angry and defensive as he curls himself around me, ready to protect me at all costs. But that snarling soon diminishes, sinking to a low whimper as a tall figure emerges from the mist.
His skin is pale, so pale, and carries the bright, dewy luminescence of youth which starkly contrasts to the shock of black-blue that is his hair- short and parted attractively in curtains to one side of his head. His ears are tapered at the ends, fined to a slight point that gives his small face a relatively refined appearance, accentuated by the midnight allure of his black oriental eyes. He is relatively handsome, no doubt about it: his tall, thin frame attired in black scaly fighting corset and a pair of long black trousers with a half cut deep red imperial jacket that is embroidered with fine, golden silks. The way he dresses is like that of a vampire: all fashion with no sense for the cold and a blatant disregard of the slights of dignity, yet there is one clear thing that sets him apart from the vampires.
His enormous, leathery wings.
"Well then, hello there, Serena, Ithuriel," he nods respectively to us both, flicking a hand back past his hair, his light voice thick with an accent that I neither know, nor can place. "My name is Kalydas. But you may call me Kal."
I breathe out a sigh of relief, the weight in my chest dissipating.
"Thank goodness. Does this mean you know Fangorn?" I ask, dropping my sword hand to my hip now, the rigid tension easing from my muscles as I let myself relax briefly in the shadowed light of the forest. Kal sways his way around a patch of mushrooms, sidestepping behind us as he rests a hand on my shoulder, lifting my chin with his free, gloved hand to inspect me. A sickly shudder runs through me, and not just from the cold.
"Indeed it does. Fangorn and Lilyana are my parents, so to speak. I have been with them for a very long time, and act as their go between when I can, but tell me," he says, sliding a hand down my arm with a half smirk on his face. "Are you the little miss that Soren is so fond of?"
I jerk my arm away, clutching my hands protectively to my sides, flushing furiously. Ithuriel noises a deep growl that reverberates through the trees, causing the leaves to shudder as small critters scatter fearfully into the abyss. I raise up my brow warily.
"How do you know about Soren?"
Kal laughs me off with a lazy shrug.
"Who doesn't know about Soren? He is infamous. Besides," he adds, gesturing with a curl of his fingers for us to follow him as he begins to head into the dark thickets of the forest, pushing aside dangling vines and clawing brambles that eat away like piranhas at his heels. "I often visit the palace. Unlike Fangorn, I am very much welcome there."
Ithuriel and I bound to keep up with him, scampering in the trail of his light, airy footsteps- of which he seems to float his way through the forest as if the branches and the brambles and all manner of obstacles as if they were barely more than a minor inconvenience. Perhaps to an end dweller like him, they were.
My ribs feel ready to crack and lungs bursting to explode by the time I can get to answering.
"Then how come I haven't seen you around? I have been practically living there these past few weeks and you mean to tell me you evaded us all this time?" I cry, a little exasperated, breath catching in the thick of my throat as the continuous strain to keep up with Kal ensues. Kal meanders a few feet ahead of us, leaning back against a particularly tall pine tree with a lazy satisfaction, nails picking over a pine cone between his fingers as if to say: I'm waiting.
If I had more energy and indeed, the nerve, I might have thrown him the finger.
By the time we have reached him, I am bent over double and heaving air into my lungs, unsure whether I am grossly unfit or simply not as nimble footed as this half dragon counterpart. Vaulting and traipsing my way over rocks and the slippery patches of icy mud, frozen by the lack of that forgiving hospitality provided by the warm streaks of sun, instead coating the whole of the end into an infinite wasteland of ice and decay, has formed a light rim of sweat on my upper brow. The stagnant smell of fresh decay lingers like a fine mist in the air, and even that which does decay, decays at such a snail's pace that the remains of an animal could still be visible, preserved in a thick sheen of frost, weeks after the point of death. My breath pricks the icy air. Ithuriel- clearly the lesser effected out of the two of us for his nimble, small body and natural speed as a woodfox, butts his head against me in silent sympathy.
"You haven't seen me because I have not let you see me. Nevertheless I have taken quite some interest in watching how the prince's marriage ceremony will unfold- its at the end of the month, is it not- your mating day? And- woah steady on there Serena-!"
My legs buckle beneath me, spiralling me down towards the ground.
"I feel so exposed," I admit softly, casting my head around to make out any signs of potential civilisation or disturbance in the undergrowth that would indicate some form of temporary inhabitancies, keen to keep some form of conversation persisting between us for fear of being consumed by the trepidation welling inside my soul and the horror at what I might begin to hear in the dead silence of the forest. Ithuriel's answer shares the same sort of nervous vigour:I know what you mean. Everything is so dark I feel like I could be jumped at from any angle. I don't know why anyone in exile would choose to live in such a desolate and grim place, but I suppose at least it keeps visitors away. At least, the kind of visitors that would be aware of the prince on your head.Ithuriel's reply is cut short as he pauses every now and then to sniff the air, then changes direction slightly in adjustment to whatever it is he senses abiding in the cavernous expanse- a feeling I am neither privy nor experienced with.The further we stroll, the bigger everything gets. We pass mushrooms as big as houses, heaving with dangling creepers and the slow traipsing of snails over its vast expanse, purple glowing flowers that dangle like funeral veils from the canopy of trees, emitting a cold, warmth-less luminescence that casts long shadows streaking from the forest so that every tree turns into a monster and every monster into a tree. Unknown creatures scuttle above our heads with clicking claws and gnashing teeth, the whispers of their breath playing through our heads the way an opera may warble its way through the narrow streets of the town and fill the air with its glorious hum. Only this is no opera, and the end isn't glorious.A twig snapping to our right brings us both halting to sudden attention. Ithuriel's feeler's test the air, his two toned eyes wide and alert, scanning the dense shadows for movement amongst the gloom. Hairs prickle like knives on the back of my neck. My fingers flex at the hilt of my sword, ready and waiting.Something drops down from the trees not two paces away from us, and out of the uncontrollable drive of instinct to keep myself alive, I unleash a torrent of fire in its general direction which quickly disappears with a sharp noise of inhalation, as though sucked straight into a vacuum. My heart stops dead.A low growl rips from the back of Ithuriel's throat, wavering in the air ominously between us as we sidle back to back, peering into the gloom as we strain to catch a glimpse of the culprit of such destruction.It is at this point that a small black dragon plods into view. Both my jaw and my sword hand simultaneously lower in blatant disbelief and Ithuriel- frozen to a deathly stillness from shock or terror I am not entirely certain, appears to look no better. The dragon passes between us, neither of us daring to breathe a whisper as we let it circle our bodies, sniffing the air with a faint dilation of its nostrils and narrowing its pitch black eyes at the necklace slung around my head- as though it had some personal quarrel with the object.Ithuriel's voice hitting my mind is like being jolted with a series of electric volts.It's asking our names. He says quietly, the hushed trepidation in his voice practically tangible in the stagnant air between us. Nervously, I shift my grip on my sword, too fearful of the consequences of sheathing it, and equally worried to keep the silver blade pointed in such a threatening manner to a creature of minute scale but seemingly untold power. My fingers tremble.Tell the dragon who we are, I shoot back in my mind, desperate to ignore the unsteady fluttering of my heart and the tumultuous roiling of my stomach with an unsuccessful agony.Ithuriel assumes eye contact with the dragon, who has since stopped in front of us to sit in a patch of fresh fallen leaves, claws digging into the muddied earth, head twisting and tilting in order to survey our every move. With locked eyes an unspoken air passes between the fox and the dragon, the only notion anything is going on at all is pronounced in the subtle flicking of Ithuriel's ears and the gentle tremors passing through the spines of the dragon's back as they breathe- pronouncing them both alive and not a product of the ends cruel games, frozen in time. After some time, Ithuriel turns his head in my direction, pain shifting the depths of his eyes. He shakes his head wistfully.The dragon says our identities mean nothing, for identities can be forged and taken. Ithuriel says, inducing a despair ridden fear to begin to crawl its way under my skin. Instinctively, I reach my hand up to fumble with my pendant, a gesture which has long since become one of soothing nature, and breathe out steadily.Come on, Serena, I think.Then it hits me."We got the letter from Lilyana, the one you gave to Dawn." The dragon freezes momentarily. Then, rising up on its hind legs, it suddenly begins to grow. Smoke streams from the dragons orifices, coating its form, its entire body in a thick, dense mist that in the void of darkness that encompasses us, becomes an impenetrable wall against our eyes. Ithuriel leaps back in alarm, snarling, body pulsing with a white light, angry and defensive as he curls himself around me, ready to protect me at all costs. But that snarling soon diminishes, sinking to a low whimper as a tall figure emerges from the mist.His skin is pale, so pale, and carries the bright, dewy luminescence of youth which starkly contrasts to the shock of black-blue that is his hair- short and parted attractively in curtains to one side of his head. His ears are tapered at the ends, fined to a slight point that gives his small face a relatively refined appearance, accentuated by the midnight allure of his black oriental eyes. He is relatively handsome, no doubt about it: his tall, thin frame attired in black scaly fighting corset and a pair of long black trousers with a half cut deep red imperial jacket that is embroidered with fine, golden silks. The way he dresses is like that of a vampire: all fashion with no sense for the cold and a blatant disregard of the slights of dignity, yet there is one clear thing that sets him apart from the vampires.His enormous, leathery wings."Well then, hello there, Serena, Ithuriel," he nods respectively to us both, flicking a hand back past his hair, his light voice thick with an accent that I neither know, nor can place. "My name is Kalydas. But you may call me Kal."I breathe out a sigh of relief, the weight in my chest dissipating."Thank goodness. Does this mean you know Fangorn?" I ask, dropping my sword hand to my hip now, the rigid tension easing from my muscles as I let myself relax briefly in the shadowed light of the forest. Kal sways his way around a patch of mushrooms, sidestepping behind us as he rests a hand on my shoulder, lifting my chin with his free, gloved hand to inspect me. A sickly shudder runs through me, and not just from the cold."Indeed it does. Fangorn and Lilyana are my parents, so to speak. I have been with them for a very long time, and act as their go between when I can, but tell me," he says, sliding a hand down my arm with a half smirk on his face. "Are you the little miss that Soren is so fond of?" I jerk my arm away, clutching my hands protectively to my sides, flushing furiously. Ithuriel noises a deep growl that reverberates through the trees, causing the leaves to shudder as small critters scatter fearfully into the abyss. I raise up my brow warily."How do you know about Soren?"Kal laughs me off with a lazy shrug."Who doesn't know about Soren? He is infamous. Besides," he adds, gesturing with a curl of his fingers for us to follow him as he begins to head into the dark thickets of the forest, pushing aside dangling vines and clawing brambles that eat away like piranhas at his heels. "I often visit the palace. Unlike Fangorn, I am very much welcome there."Ithuriel and I bound to keep up with him, scampering in the trail of his light, airy footsteps- of which he seems to float his way through the forest as if the branches and the brambles and all manner of obstacles as if they were barely more than a minor inconvenience. Perhaps to an end dweller like him, they were. My ribs feel ready to crack and lungs bursting to explode by the time I can get to answering. "Then how come I haven't seen you around? I have been practically living there these past few weeks and you mean to tell me you evaded us all this time?" I cry, a little exasperated, breath catching in the thick of my throat as the continuous strain to keep up with Kal ensues. Kal meanders a few feet ahead of us, leaning back against a particularly tall pine tree with a lazy satisfaction, nails picking over a pine cone between his fingers as if to say: I'm waiting.If I had more energy and indeed, the nerve, I might have thrown him the finger.By the time we have reached him, I am bent over double and heaving air into my lungs, unsure whether I am grossly unfit or simply not as nimble footed as this half dragon counterpart. Vaulting and traipsing my way over rocks and the slippery patches of icy mud, frozen by the lack of that forgiving hospitality provided by the warm streaks of sun, instead coating the whole of the end into an infinite wasteland of ice and decay, has formed a light rim of sweat on my upper brow. The stagnant smell of fresh decay lingers like a fine mist in the air, and even that which does decay, decays at such a snail's pace that the remains of an animal could still be visible, preserved in a thick sheen of frost, weeks after the point of death. My breath pricks the icy air. Ithuriel- clearly the lesser effected out of the two of us for his nimble, small body and natural speed as a woodfox, butts his head against me in silent sympathy."You haven't seen me because I have not let you see me. Nevertheless I have taken quite some interest in watching how the prince's marriage ceremony will unfold- its at the end of the month, is it not- your mating day? And- woah steady on there Serena-!" My legs buckle beneath me, spiralling me down towards the ground.
