Chapter 14
Q u e e n Q l e r i n

The view of the garden could really take your breath away. The rich color that shone under the shinning sun which peeked from the green leaves gently touched each petal on each crown flower. The wind also took part. It blew the flower gently, making it dance accordingly with the music of the woods. Bees buzzing around, (only to be taken as small snack for the spiders) and other creature sat quietly on the flowers or the leaf waiting for the kiss of spider’s death.

Maybelle was walking by when all of this happened. Her admiration was shown clearly on her face. As she began walking around the area, her hand gently touches each petal. The flower magically shivered after she touched it. Little flower fairy, as they called it, shown themselves and began to fly around.

“It is much better when it’s at night,” said someone from behind Maybelle.

As she turned around, she saw an elegant woman, wearing a long silk dress that touches the grass as it sways around while she moved closer. Her eyes was no normal human eyes, it was magical. It was almost looked like cat’s eyes if it weren’t for the purple color. Her lips were blood red and somehow she looked like a vampire. Her black hair was pulled up and tied in bun. No matter how you look at it, she was a woman with high charisma.

“I didn’t know there was another human than our group. I’m sorry.” Maybelle replied foolishly.

“From how you reply, I don’t think you know me, Maybelle daughter of none?” the woman asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t—wait, Qlerin?!” she stopped, realizing how rude it was to call her name only. “I—I mean, Queen Qlerin. Forgive my rudeness!!” She bowed down really low, trying to hide her flushed face.

The queen laughed as she covered her mouth with her hand so as not to seem rude. “Oh don’t mind the title, dear. I’m always the queen around here. I need to get away from all of it. Even if you care so much about title, you might actually have the same title as I am.”

“I—I do?” Maybelle asked as she slowly rose up.

“Yes, of course. Don’t you know who you are, princess?”

“Me? Princess?”

“Hmm . . . . at first I thought you were pretending to be a normal person when you introduced yourself as daughter of none, but alas, you are daughter of none.” Qlerin sighed. “Let me tell you who you really are, Maybelle. You deserve to know.”

Qlerin led Maybelle to a place where flowers were blooming around the lake forming a way towards a gazebo. They sat there and enjoyed the view for a while. After a small talk, Qlerin began to tell the tale.

“Enough formal chit chat. Now it’s time to talk.”

“That was formal?” asked Maybelle in disbelieve.

“Not really, I was just trying to be nice dear. Anyways, I wanted to talk about your family so keep quiet and listen.”

She straightened her rumpled dress and looked at Maybelle. Her eyes seemed enchanting and hypnotizing. Her gentle voice were impossible to ignore. Anyone who was doing something would stop and listen to her talk. Even if someone was dying, I bet they would hold back for a while and died after she stopped talking. She was magical.

“Your mother was a fairel, an important part of this forest. She has the power to control all spirit just like. Of course I presume that you already know these powers since you gave out a fairel aura. When you were born, your kingdom was treathened. The Durthar Kingdom has started the war and was attacking your kingdom.”

“My kingdom?”

“The Brothren Kingdom is the palace that is located in the heart of the forest. We are the guardian and we make sure no human can come across it. If they do, our lives will be worthless and we will abandon our homeland. For many years, none of our ancestors had failed our mission as guardians. At least, not until now.

“The Durthar force has already begun their attack as we started to gather our troops. We know we didn’t stand the chance even if we did gather our forces together. Luck was not on our side and soon Brothren Kingdom was attacked. Many of our people were forced to flee and hide here while your people was scattered to places they think is safe. Your parents hid you away to a human’s house until things are safer. She knew they cannot find you in a human’s house, and she was right. You were safe for the last 16 years.”

“But why was I hidden?” Maybelle cuts off Qlerin’s storytelling. “Were they so devious that wants to kill everyone even a baby?”

“Because of who you are, my dear.” Qlerin leaned closer and touched her gently by the face.

“But . . . I don’t know who I am.” Maybelle looked down on her trembling hand. Tear suddenly fell on her hand and Qlerin wiped her tear off her eyes.

“Don’t worry dear, you’ll soon find out and it’s not my place to say. You need to go your place and find out by yourself.”

“Can’t you tell me? I’m sick and tired of not knowing who I am. If I am that important, why can’t anyone tell me?!”

Maybelle cried in front of Qlerin partly because she was afraid and partly because she was tired to be told lies and not the truth. She only wanted to know the truth, was it so damn hard? What she didn’t know was that truths are sometimes better not known. Qlerin sat down silently, staring at the crying girl. She gently rubbed her back as Maybelle bent to her knees.

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Far away from the lake, Keith felt something wrong. He stood up and looked around. Although there was no sign of danger, but Keith somehow felt someone was in need of help. But who? He said to himself.

“What’s wrong Keith? Fake danger alert?” asked Justin from under the web-sheet. He was cuddling on the comfortable bed, trying to sleep but couldn’t. Keith was too noisy cleaning his sword to let Justin to sleep, and he did it on purpose to make Justin awake so he didn’t have to clean his spear.

“Nah, I just—it’s . . . nah. Nothing’s wrong.” He sat back down and tried to continue his work but something was still bothering him. He put down his sword and walked outside their web-house. He looked around the area and found nothing to worry about, until he saw two silhouettes over the park next to the lake. One was sitting down and leaning towards the other person was . . . bending down.

“Hey, Justin. Jus, come here.” Keith called Justin and pointed towards the view of those two silhouettes.

“No . . . stop bothering me . . . I don’t want to clean my spear. Not now Keith.” Justin was grumbling under his sheet and started to move around.

“Don’t worry my friend, we still have time to torture you with your spear.” Keith laughed at Justin who was still struggling to get up. “Come here. I want you to look at those girls up there.”

“WHAT?!” Justin directly stood up. His eyes were wide open. No one would know that he was deeply sleepy before Keith said something shocking. “D—did you—did I . . . you said . . I don’t believe it. You called me up there just to talk about girls?? Keith . . . you’ve grown.”

“Actually, the girls I’m talking about is your sister and Maybelle.”

“Wha—”

Justin ran as fast as he could. He slipped over the web and stumbled some other stuff that was lying around the area. Roughly, he landed next to Keith and was sweating with fear and anger.

“That always work.” Mumbled Keith. “You’re too attached to Kate. You should try to . . ease it up a bit. You know that she’s . . . ” Keith hit Justin’s shoulder gently. His face actually showed concern.

“Just shut up Keith. You don’t know how I feel.” He slapped off Keith’s hands from his shoulder. Justin wasn’t looking at Keith. He was looking down from the balcony right on the spot where Keith wanted him to see.

“Hey.” He budged Keith to make him see what he was seeing. “isn’t that Maybelle, crying to Queen Qlerin?”

“She’s crying?” Keith’s heart jumped at the sound of her name. He looked closely at the chair by the lake. Justin closely watched Keith’s face and reaction.

“You love her don’t you?”

That caught Keith off guard. He turned and faced Justin; all flushed. His eyes looked mad but also embarassed. Justin knew that Keith wasn’t ready to go on a relationship, especially with a girl he barely know.

“Are . . . are you trying to get back on me for what I just said to you?” His voice was full of anger but his face was burning. Keith know he was flushing but he couldn’t help stop himself from burning up. He could only look away and hide his face.

“No . . . not really.” Justin stood still, looking at the crying Maybelle. Then he looked at Keith. I really wish they would be together. Maybelle has changed Keith. A lot. If only they were ready to be together. I can’t bear it if they are going to be separated by a terrible fate.

“Aren’t you going to go to her?” asked Justin.

Keith fell silent. He glanced at Justin and stared blankly at the far sight of Maybelle. “What are you going to do if I do?” He finally talked.

“I’m going back to sleep.” Justin said as he stretched and walked back to his bed.

After Justin left Keith alone, he saw Kate’s sleeping body snuggling around. He bent down to her and kiss her on her cheek. I wish things wouldn’t turn out so bad for them like mine. Huff . . . . If only she wasn’t my sister.

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Meanwhile, Maybelle was a bit calm and she wiped her tears off her face. Qlerin still didn’t say anything. She only gave out her handkerchief.

“Apparently our storytelling should be held for a while.”

“I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . Your dress is . . wet. But none of them has my . . phlegm . . . on it.” Maybelle rubbed her face with the handkerchief, trying not to look embarrassing.

“No worries. I’m the one that should apologize. I couldn’t do anything to comfort you from all of your crying.” Qlerin observed closely and showed deep concern. “Are you sure you’re all right? I could take you to my place and help you calm down a bit.”

“No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll just go back to my room. Thanks anyway.” Maybelle left Qlerin with a bow. Her eyes were still swollen and her nose was red. Her breath was heavy so she couldn’t breathe well because her heart carried a heavy burden.

As she was walking back to her place she heard a noise from behind her. The tall grass was rustling but there was no wind blowing. That’s weird, is there someone there? Maybelle slowly walked towards the noise. Trying hard not to be scared, she think about all the wonderful things that might be behind the grass.

“I saw you crying.”

“Oh my gosh!!” Maybelle turned around after hearing Keith’s cold voice.

“Sorry, didn’t think I’d scare ya.” He covered his mouth with his back hand as he snickered.

“I wasn’t scared.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was just . . . startled.”

“Yeah, sure. Just so you know, startled is another form of scared.” He put his hand in his pocket and looked at Maybelle deeply.

“What is it??”

“What did you talk to her about that made you cy?”

“I wasn’t crying.”

“Oh, please. I can see you clearly from our balcony without those any special eagle eyes of Kate’s. I saw you crying.”

Maybelle looked startled (again) for a while and smiled. “Since when do you care about me . . . Keith?” Her eyes looked happy and suspicious. Something was behind her eyes, and it looked happy.

“Excuse me?” Keith’s eyes widened with shock. No one has ever said a thing like that. Nope. Not to Keith the cold guy. “I don’t care about you, you little . . . missy.”

“Hoh? Wha—Missy? Who are you to call me missy, mister?”

“That’s because you said that I cared about you.” He pointed at Maybelle.

“And what’s wrong with that? Isn’t it a good thing?”

For Maybelle, that was an easy question where you answer it “yes, it’s a good thing”. For someone like Keith, it was a tricky question. Keith was always taken care by his parents, or more likely his foster parents. Since he never had the chance to know his real parents, caring and love didn’t really seem to be the real option for him. Nothing on this earth has made me care for people and for sure no one can do that too. Not even a girl that I just met 3 days ago. It’s impossible for me to care. Not after what I’ve been through.

Although Keith didn’t want to admit it, but he was changing and everyone knew it. Even a blind man could sense some changing inside of him. Maybelle knew it too. The spirits told her. She can sense it and she could also hear it. It was a beauiful sound that words could not describe.

”Never mind. Let’s go back. I wanna go to sleep and tomorrow we’re gonna continue our little walk.” Maybelle smiled as she went past Keith.

“Little? There’s no such thing as a little walk in this big forest. How could you even say such a thing?” Keith tried to catch up with her with confusion written all across his face.

“Come on Keith, don’t make too much fuss. You’re bothering everyone here.”

“You’re not listening to me are you?” he exhaled; his hands on his sides.

“Nope.”

“Hey, come back here.”

When they both arrived to their given room, Maybelle was smiling and Keith was still trying to convince her to listen to him. Still, not even a single word had made Maybelle looked at him. She only smiled and went to one of the bed.

“Oh that’s just nice. After what you said to me you’re gonna leave me and go to sleep?”

“Good night Keith.”

“Whatever.”

Then after Keith turned back to leave Maybelle at peace, she looked at him.

“Thanks Keith.”

And she went to sleep.