A Modern Day Fairy Tale X

Once upon a time in a kingdom far far away, there lived a Vampyer Princess called Azure, now if you want to read this and understand what happened between her and Shiro – then there is a few things you should know about real Vampyers. They are deathly pale and angelically beautiful, they dwell in the Underworld – or hell as some people call it - they are also amazingly fast and their senses are much better than our dulled down Mortal ones. They don't melt or glitter in the sunlight; the sunlight doesn’t really affect them anymore except for a little bit of pain whenever they are caught in the pure glow of the sun. But it would be rare for anyone to see a Vampyer in the daytime anyway, because that is when they sleep – during the hours of Sunlight (but not in coffins – unless that was their particular desire) and they do have to drink Mortal blood since Mortal blood is the only blood which carries enough oxygen – because although Vampyer blood heals all wounds rapidly – carrying oxygen isn’t something Vampyer does particularly well. So without the correct amount of Mortal blood inside them, all their muscles would seize up, and not enough oxygen would get to their brain – which is the only way to kill a Vampyer really. That and a wooden stake through the heart, but we’ll get to that later. Time to get on with the story. . . I fiddled with my long flame red hair as my father paced around the huge, white Marble dome room, yelling at various people about various things, none of which I was paying the slightest bit attention to – I was rather happy in my own dream world fantasizing about going out with my friends later, that was until he was right up in my face of course – that did jerk me to my senses slightly. Apparently – so I am told – I was meant to be agreeing with him. ‘Well Azure?’ he demanded, his eyes popping slightly as he got right into my face. ‘Well?’ I looked over my father’s – the King of North of the Underworld’s – shoulder to see my older brother Ororon nodding over enthusiastically, apparently I was meant to agree with whatever my father was saying - so obediently I nodded and smiled a fake smile which was passable as a real smile, which lit

up my otherwise pale and gloomy face. He evidently brought that I meant what I was saying because he walked of mumbling something along the lines of – I-wish-youwas-a-boy-just-like-Ororon-and-Orthello. Like I’d never heard that before. ‘Little sister cant you at least try to take care of yourself?’ Ororon asked me softly as he walked over to me, his arms full of old pieces of parchment covered in words and symbols which I didn’t understand. ‘I’m alive aren’t I? ‘Barely.’ ‘Only in your opinion,’ I smiled at him and stuck my tongue out, making Ororon chuckle at me. Neither of us heard Orthello walk over behind us. ‘Sup Pretty boy and Witch girl?’ Orthello asked us with an evil smile playing across his lips. Ororon did his best to ignore him, I wondered idly if I was the only one who noticed the tension which was filling up the room. ‘I’m not a witch Orthello, if you had half a brain you’d notice that.’ I snarled, pushing my hair back behind my ears and unleashing the full force of my eyes smoky blue eyes, which had black circles surrounding the pupil and a smaller circle on the outside of the iris, on him, making him cringe back slightly in fear. ‘You’re eyes say something else Witchy,’ he said arrogantly. I narrowed my eyes and made a move to storm past him, but he grabbed my upper arm, and whispered threateningly in her ear, ’you need to make sure that you don’t do anything stupid.’ I frowned and Ororon stiffened, but we otherwise ignored him, I just walked past, leaving Ororon and Orthello to argue about which parchment is best to use and so forth. ‘Princess Azure,’ Blaise winked at me, as she bowed down, her short black hair flopping into her eyes. ‘Blaise,’ I whispered, raising her eyebrows and looking at Ororon significantly before grabbing Blaise’s upper arm and dragging her behind the thick red curtain. ’What are you doing here?’ I hissed, a note of panic leaking into my voice. ‘Oh don’t worry about the whole nice to see you B, how’s it going? That’s why you’ve always been my best mate Azurestraight to the juicy gossip.’ She smiled casually, leaning back on

one of the pure gold pillars with ease. ‘Blaise now isn’t the time for this, you know what will happen if he sees you.’ ‘But I am in an disguise,’ she smiled smugly, swaying her hips slightly, drawing my attention to the outfit she was wearing. She was wearing the usual daemonic black guard outfit, covered in daggers and one long samurai sword draped across her back. Wearing this she was invisible, unless anyone knew her, noticed. ‘Orthello might still recognize you though,’ I muttered half heartedly to Blaise who was busy peering around the curtain. She took a step forward, but I grabbed her arm and dragged her backwards again. ‘Blaise no,’ I hissed, I could feel my eyes widening and I was shaking my head slightly. ‘Why,’ she smiled, ‘I just wanna see Ororon get some paper then leave. And probably see Ororon. Again.’ I smiled back for the first time and allowed Blaise to go and walked talk to Ororon. I paled and leaned back, closing my eyes and sighed, if I’m not to careful she’d fall asleep… The next thing I heard was Blaise screaming and a few things smashing onto the ground, then more screaming. My eyes flew open and I dashed around the curtain and my mind was thrown into a state of disarray. I saw Ororon freeze, his face expressionless, while Orthello was laughing silently, my father looked furious, while Blaise was kicking and screaming against the strong arms which were dragging her out of the room. *** I rolled over and my stomach growled loudly, I muttered something under my breath as I quickly sat up ignoring the wave of nausea which hit me. I noticed that the guy in the cell next to me had finally fallen asleep, I could hear the mans heavy breathing through the thick walls and relaxed. ‘Hey, you wanna get your hands off me!’ I could hear some girl yell, she was obviously kicking and screaming, using up all of

her energy now. ‘Silly little girl,’ I thought to himself as I laid back down and wrapped the thin and tatty grey blanket around me, not because of the cold, I was used to that, just because I didn’t feel like having a conversation with the mad and lonely prison guard. ‘If only she’d calm down, and save her energy after the trial, then she could escape with me.’ I shook my head slightly as I noticed that the girl stopped screaming, I’m not allowed to care about other people, I reminded myself. That’s why I was here. Trying to help out Lucy, was what got me in this mess. I froze as the metal cell doors opened. ‘Maybe, Just maybe,’ I thought to myself as one of the guards stood in the doorway, ‘for once they have decided to be nice and let me go…’ But that small train of hope and happiness I had managed to scrape up, was squashed abruptly as the guard shot out and before I could even realise what was happening I was being roughly yanked out of bed, and both my arms were pinned to my back to tight that they felt like they were about to fall off. If measures of security were kept up like this, I’d have no chance to escape, which would mean… The ultimate ending. The last page. It annoyed me though - that I was caught doing good for once, and this proved my point perfectly, the world was full of scum, and anything and everything above scum was prosecuted for making the lower scum feel bad. *** ‘When’s the show starting?’ Orthello asked, almost over excitedly, I looked over at Ororon worriedly, as if he might suddenly just give over to the darker side of his thoughts and kill Orthello. ‘He’d deserve it though, when Blaise dies Ororon will too, and so will the only two things which have ever made the world a good place for me. I hope he dies too,’ I thought darkly and with a shudder, I realised that I had never wished pain of death on anyone before, and when I did I felt a sudden shiver go down my spine. I froze, and noticed that I didn’t have the usual bad gut feelings that I had which made me want to curl up and die a few

seconds before the trial started, but a shiver of anticipation and longing, something I had never felt before during time like this. I sighed and wondered if I was turning into my father or something as I smoothed down the purple silk bodice of my long gown and sat down on my own tacky throne, near the back, beside Ororon, who normally would turn around and check I was okay (my heart was too big, he’d often say) but today he was in a world of his own, his eyes locked on the door where Blaise was dragged out, hatred and passion was etched in his eyes. That’s when I knew, that’s when I knew that Ororon would kill Orthello. Not because of the fire which was burning in his eyes, it was the fact that you could nearly feel the heat radiating from them, which was a danger sign - it was because he was letting his usual calm and reasonable façade shatter, and you didn’t let your emotions out around Orthello, not at any cost. My father snapped his fingers impatiently as the doors opened and Orthello leaned forwards in his seat resting his chin on his hands, I was in half the mind to stand up and wipe the smug and conceited grin from his face. The accused was a pitiful state. There was Blaise sanding there as bold as brass, smiling half-heartedly, tapping her feet impatiently on the cold marble floor, a sign she was nervous, she seemed paler than usual, but that was nothing new. Beside her was what seemed a crazy man, he was in his late hundreds maybe, and covered in filth, his hands were cupped over his ears, and his eyes were wide with horror and he was rocking ever so slightly back and forth. The next person in the line of doom, was obviously a fallen angel, or a snatched one. She had huge, great, dirty, ruffled feathery wings sticking out her once white gown, her hair was dirty and lank, sticking to her hair and hanging in curtains down her face. Her eyes were closed slightly, like she praying for help. I looked past the fallen angel and my mouth nearly dropped open. Next to the fallen angel there stood a boy, not much older than me, so about one hundred, he had pure white skin, flawless in every detail, misty yellow cat eyes, which scanned everything in the room in about half a second. He had messy shoulder length black hair which suited him perfectly. When my father spoke it seemed like it was coming from a

mile away, I tried to concentrate and shift my gaze away from the mystery guy, only it felt like a magnetic pull, every time I shifted my gaze away from him, my heart felt like it would break, and at the thought of him dying, I felt physically sick. The King looked at Blaise pleasantly and she stared back defiantly. ‘Blaise Evergreen. Guilty, sentenced to death.’ Ororon tensed, but didn’t move, Blaise didn’t either she was still smiling at Ororon. Then he looked at the mad man, ‘Christen Lewis. Guilty, sentenced to death.’ I felt physically sick, he was next - after the angel, even at the thought of him being near death made me want to kill whoever threatened him. He didn’t even glance at the fallen angel, he sentenced her smiling happily, ‘Faith Lockwood. Guilty, sentenced to death.’ My stomach squirmed slightly and I fidgeted and attempted to sit on my hands again, to stop myself from jumping forwards and throwing herself into his arms. *** I knew what my sentence was going to be before the fat guy even opened his mouth, and he thought he’d be terrified, but I didn’t even seem to hear him, I was too busy staring at Princess Azure. Of course I knew who she was, one of the most shockingly beautiful girls in the world, she was pale and had a slightly blue tint to her cheeks (like all royalty) her flame red hair framed her face immaculately, making her shocking smoky blue eyes stand out, making her look like some exotic princess, even thinking about her made my pulse quicken. ‘You can’t,’ I heard her mutter, her voice sent a shudder down my spine. ‘You can’t,’ she repeated louder. ‘What do you mean Azure?’ Orthello asked sharply, looking at me then at her. Azure, a perfect name for her. I could see now what people meant when they were on about love at first sight. Seeing her I believed in it. Nothing could ever ruin this moment. Ever. ‘Nothing!’ Ororon spoke over whatever Azure was about to say, ‘she meant nothing.’ Azure opened her mouth again, but this time Orthello

himself cut over her. Speaking directly to his father. The king. *** My insides were squirming around as Father and Orthello talked to each other, discussing what they were to do with me, and Shiro. From what I could gather they put him back into his cell. I could break him out. I would. Ororon and I stood still each of us devising our own little plan in our heads, until we were excused. After that we both ran to the cells - I won - of course. And we waited. That was the worst part, just waiting for a few seconds for the guard to walk into the other room. The underground cells, where all prisoners are held, has a confusing, but the single guard on duty has to pace around the entire underground floor, making sure everything’s right. It takes about twenty minutes for a single guard to do a round. Twenty minutes for me to get Shiro out and twenty minutes for Ororon to get Blaise out. We could to it. Ororon rushed off to get Blaise out, and flew to the first door I saw, throwing myself on tip toes, peering through the hard metal bars, I could see his messy hair sticking up in odd angles on the dirty once white pillow. ‘Shiro,’ I hissed. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I didn’t even know him - yet I loved him. This wasn’t right. But how could something so completely stupid feel so clever, like the best thing ever. He sat up as soon as I called out to him, his startled face turning into happiness when he saw it was me. He ran straight to the bars his face inches away from me. ‘What are you doing here? You could get caught.’ ‘I don’t care.’ ‘You should, they’ll kill you.’ ‘I still don’t care. I love you Shiro, no matter what.’ I assured him, my heart beating on my ribcage so hard I thought it was going to break, it felt like I needed for him to say those four words for me to live. ‘I love you too,’ he smiled at me, ‘but its too dangerous.’ ‘I still don’t care. Help me get you out,’ I muttered, my mind whirling ferociously, there had to be something - I had about

seven minutes. That was when someone knocked me out. When the blackness took over. *** When I regained consciousness I was lying in the middle of a field of corpses, I could see the head of the fallen angel a few feet away, a few scattered remains of the mad guy and a few other body pieces strewn all over the place. I quickly got up to my feet and looked around the room wearily, I saw Prince Orthello, I saw the King a few soldiers and I saw Azure, her arms strapped behind her back, like the way they held me earlier, dragging me to this hell hole - and it hurt. ‘Get your filthy hands off her,’ I yelled furiously, loosing my temper already. The King smiled lazily, ‘Of course Shiro Hellwise. I take it from everything that you want to spend the rest of my life, but as you see as royalty we only let the best in. So some poor penniless man from the streets must get himself in on bravery alone. So I want you to go to the centre of Dead Mans creek and get the treasure which you love the most in life. And me being a noble gentleman will let my daughter help you. She has a rare mind you know…’ and with a small gesture of his hand the guards realised their hold on Azure and she ran over the bodies carefree without even looking down, without a speck of sadness in her eyes, right into my arms, angling her head back for a kiss. That’s when I pushed her away from me sharply, she slipped back on the bloody floor and smashed her head on the floor, making an horrible cracking sound. ‘Where’s Azure?’ I asked, my voice reasonably calm considering. ‘That was Azure.’ ‘No it wasn’t. She would run straight to me, she’d stay there, trying to make you believe the opposite to what was happening that she doesn’t love me. And if she did rush to my side, she would tread around the dead respectfully, not run all over them.’ He smiled. ‘Well done. You proved you have a sharp mind. And I lied about something else. If you want to see Azure ever again you will have to complete another two tasks - that one was

the first. Well done, run along.’