“Can you please cut that? I told you I’m not a royal!”
Carmen had just entered her hotel to a welcome committee lining up with all the service staff bowing to her.
“B-but Headmaster Clint told us you were…” A fidgety elderly lady put forth.
Then Carmen realized quickly that she couldn’t insist so hard on that or Clint would be seen as a liar, so she immediately elaborated.
“So here’s the deal…” She added holding the bridge of her nose in exasperation “Only my biological father is of royal blood. Eleventh Count of Larceny or whatever… but I don’t have a title, I don’t own land, I don’t have any inheritance, I regrettably have royal blood but I’m not a royal!”
The rows of service staff stood back up and Carmen thought for a moment she got through to everyone.
“Oh! Well you’re still our most esteemed guest, so let us pamper you, won’t you?”
And then realized she didn’t.
If anything, it got worse.
As the old lady gently pushed her ahead, she could see it in everyone’s eyes.
Before it was a nervous admiration like that of someone afraid of saying the wrong thing. But now it was sincere admiration, that of someone that wouldn’t say the wrong thing because their heart was fully into it.
“They think I’m a down-to-earth aristocrat, they didn’t hear a single word I said…” Carmen thought with a deep sigh.
“Okay but have you considered that maybe you look more royal than the royals?”
Carmen’s room was big, so big it gave her “the opposite of claustrophobia if such a thing exists”. In it she immediately dropped her things and huddled in the corner with the telephone.
Her call with Headmaster Clint was brief because Carmen decided to skip the part where they treated her like an actual royal and because most of it was Clint making sure nothing crazy had happened yet.
When she called Lucretia, however, it was a different story.
“What do you mean?” Carmen asked.
“Well, when people think of royals they tend to have this mental image of luscious hair, piercing eyes, svelte figure, beautiful voice…”
Lucretia then started mumbling, losing her train of thought.
They both kept dancing and trying to pretend the kiss before Carmen left didn’t happen, but they couldn’t keep avoiding it after Lucretia started gushing over Carmen so openly.
They remained quiet for what seemed like hours but was only about half a minute. Half a minute where the only thing in the phone was breathing that resulted in no words and half formed sentences that trailed off.
“I’m sorry Carmen…” Lucretia was the one that finally broke the stalemate “I kissed you without your permission, and now I’ve gone and made things awkward…”
“No! Nonono!! You didn’t do anything awkward!” Carmen insisted upon hearing Lucretia’s voice crack near the end there “I… haven’t stopped thinking about it, it’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”
“R-Really?” Lucretia asked, seemingly breaking into tears earlier anyways.
“Yeah!” Carmen insisted emphatically “It only makes me more annoyed that I’m stuck here instead of being with you”
“So… um…” Lucretia’s voice cracked again, but this time with different emotions “What do you… you know… how do you feel…?”
“Well, I-”
Knock knock…
“Your highness, do you want dinner in your room?” A voice asked from the outside.
“I’M BUSY!”
ZAP
“Eeek!!”
“…”
“-men? Carmen? Carmen!” Lucretia repeated until Carmen seemed to finally react.
“Ah, sorry…”
“What was that?!”
“Me not helping my case…” Carmen wiped her forehead despite it having no sweat.
“What does that mean?”
“Doesn’t matter” Carmen replied, determined to get back on track “It’s awkward to tell you how I feel over the phone, I’d much rather tell you in person.”
“…you’re not avoiding me, right?”
“No? I’m just saying you’re worth reciprocating those feelings in person.”
Then both gasped in unison.
Reciprocating.
She was getting ready for a back and forth where Lucretia keeps jumping to the wrong conclusion but with a single word she was as direct as one could be short of outright saying “I love you and every second away from you is pain and suffering.”
“Well then…” Lucretia added with undisguised expectation “I’ll patiently wait for your recipro… recipre… re…”
Then a brief pause.
“I’ll be waiting, so don’t take long!” Lucretia finished flustered before hanging up.
Carmen sat with the phone’s receiver on her hand while the dial tone droned on.
“Reciprocate…” She repeated “Why can’t I be that smooth on command?”
Then remembering what had happened a few moments ago, she stood up and peeked outside her room.
There was a mark of sorts on the ground, it wasn’t a burn because her lightning bolts don’t burn things, they’re more… blunt, concussive. Though they still leave a small static charge sometimes.
How did this happen though? She’s indoors, she wasn’t singing before, there were no fireflies…
…she WAS really annoyed, however.
She then looked around and a group of staff whispered to each other.
“Excuse me…” Carmen approached them and asked “Which of you was the one that knocked on the door?”
A young woman took a step forward, fear in her eyes.
“I’m really sorry!” Carmen exclaimed profusely while bowing “That was… out of my control to be honest, but also rude. I’ve just been a bit on edge. I’m sorry.”
“Is there anything we can do to help, your highness?” The woman asked, her fear being replaced by something else entirely and the rest of the staff nodding in agreement.
Carmen thought about how the best thing they could do is leave her alone, but her gut told her this wasn’t the right answer.
“I’ll be fine after resting…” she added “Please bring the dinner to my room when you can. Thank you.”
And then the whispering resumed as soon as she turned around to her room.
“Two more days…” Carmen whispered while feeling she was taking too many steps to reach her bed “Just two more days and I can go back…”
The next morning Carmen took her breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant.
She was idly nibbling at her choices from the buffet while reading a magazine.
The food was something that she thought of as dry, not necessarily in texture but in general feeling. “Breakfast food” through and through, meant to not upset any stomachs or fill you with something heavy, but a bit bland as a result.
The magazine was actually one they had in the reception when she arrived. It detailed a lot of really pretty beaches and luxurious hotels… in Valvion, very far away.
Normally Carmen wouldn’t read while eating, this was because Headmaster Clint taught her since she was a kid that she should eat with her mind in her food and not elsewhere.
But today she had to do it to keep her mind away from… the stares.
Everyone was trying to dissimulate and do their usual things while glancing at her and whispering.
“I hate this…” Carmen thought while turning a page “I hate hate this…”
“Your highness?”
“Ha-… hm?” Carmen turned to see a middle-aged man holding a small box in his hands.
“May I be so bold as to bother you and open this for me?”
“Oh sure…”
Carmen flipped the small lock with her thumb and pushed the lid up to confirm the deed was done.
“Thank you!” the man exclaimed while retreating.
It was weird, but everything was weird. This man needing help opening a box wasn’t the weirdest thing so far. That would be being able to call a lightning strike indoors. Carmen was still confused as to how she was able to do that.
“Indoor lightning…” she mumbled “I’ve heard of indoor lighting but…”
She laughed at her own joke while turning a page on the magazine, and pictures of models in swimsuits promoting “Lamorant! Valvion’s Pleasure Bay” suddenly showed up.
“That’s a spicy ad for a magazine…” Carmen thought, noticing the nipples of the models seemed ready to pierce through what little swimsuit there was at any moment.
But instead of thinking too much about the models, one of the words was nagging at her.
Valvion…
But why?
Then, as if finding the thread to pull, she tried to remember what the box that the man from just now looked like.
She was distracted when she did that but it was… it wasn’t wood, it was metal, very smooth metal, like the one in…
…in relics from the mothership.
She had seen a lot of them in the Archivum, it was actually amusing to her how much value was given to things that were so simple and utilitarian. It’d be like if someone decided to venerate the fork she was using right now.
“…”
If it was a relic, there’s a high chance it was locked with a biometric sensor.
If so, she wouldn’t have noticed a difference as it unlocked because of the royal blood that got her into this mess to begin with.
If so…
She turned in the direction that she saw the middle-aged man walking towards and he was showing the box to a few people, excitedly mimicking the way she flicked it open over and over again.
“The more you push against a belief, the harder it will bounce in the other direction when the belief is validated.”
Carmen turned and on the other side of her table there was a woman with big soft curves covered head to toe by a robe of thin green silk.
“You’ll be gone eventually anyways. There’s no harm in letting them have this for a bit, right?”
She turned towards the man and its group, and Carmen followed suit. But her head hadn’t finished turning when she quickly turned back towards the other side of the table only to find the woman in green silk gone.
“Well…” She said out loud as if to be able to listen to herself over the mess in her brain “This is weirder than the lightning indoors, at least.”
Practice time for the next day’s reading arrived after lunch and it was all silent.
Well, the bustle of the city was very, very loud, it was Carmen’s spectators in the practice that were silent.
Did she do that bad of a job? She pronounced her i’s properly, enunciated the s in the way she had practiced fastidiously so many times, she even tried to give the reading a bit of rhythm like she had read that old poets gave to epic passages.
Then the clapping started and it startled her.
Clapping and tears, tears! Either she did a great job or an awful one and people don’t clap that fervently for bad jobs.
And it dawned on her.
These people weren’t expecting any quality were they?
From what Carmen knew about royals -which thanks to Lucretia was more than she ever wanted or needed to- the expectations were probably set at the level where her reciting half of it without a break because she ran out of breath while sweating was already an achievement.
They probably weren’t expecting the kid that stood on orange boxes to sing for locals since she had use of memory.
“Do you want a repeat?” She asked the event organizer.
“No no your majesty, we won’t tire you. Please save that energy for tomorrow” the event organizer, a sharply dressed man with some baldness creeping into his head, told her while slowing his clapping.
“I’ll be doing a bit of tourism then, if you don’t mind.”
“Please! Do you need any chaperones to show you around or…?”
“No thank you, that would attract too much attention.”
“Oh but of course.” The man agreed “Please enjoy your time in our lovely Station.”
It was that easy.
All Carmen had to do was play along with the royal stuff and they let her go. If she had told him that no it was fine he would’ve probably been like “it’s no problem, here, we’ll have half our military escort you”.
This realization only made her more miffed than she already was.
“They’re off your back Carmen…” she muttered to herself “Enjoy your freedom while it lasts…”
As she stepped outside the tarp surrounding the stage where she’ll open up the ceremony tomorrow, she attuned herself to the bustle she kept hearing while in there.
Lots of people are moving things around and giving the finishing touches to everything.
In that mass of people Carmen’s eyes kept being drawn to someone that stood out in the crowd.
A redhead, with said red hair in a long braid, they wore a white suit and were carrying something big in their back… and despite all of this they were also moving boxes to and fro.
Bemused by this, she kept walking past the festival area and into the “city” of the station proper.
There were so many buildings…
“Nine… twelve… twenty three?!” Carmen thought while counting the floors in one of them “One of those alone can hold half of Station 35, and there’s so many of them?!”
Carmen remembered how the elders spooked kids to not mess in the transport area of Station 35 because at four floors all it took was one wrong step and you’d end up like… well… they never really agreed on the name of the kid that supposedly ended up like a pancake for messing in the building.
She started to feel a bit homesick remembering this, and she had only been away for one day.
Trying to push these thoughts away, she tried to find a spot away from the bustle. And in that effort ended up at the edge of the station.
A dry breeze blew from the badlands outside and she leaned against a wall to take that in.
“Overwhelmed” was the word that kept coming back to her mind. First in the prelude to coming here and now here proper.
Up until now Carmen thought Cerro Bronco, a big settlement near Station 35 was the biggest thing imaginable.
Sure, there were all the pics and videos from Valvion, but they didn’t feel real, something in her mind couldn’t fathom so many buildings and so many people in a small space.
After a deep sigh, she saw the same redhead in a suit from before moving some boxes around to one of the trucks.
“Why don’t you lend me some of that energy since you have so much to spare!” Carmen muttered to herself with a smile.
When she turned back to the badlands, there was someone in the distance.
A woman dressed in thin red silk. Her figure reminded Carmen of the models she saw promoting Lamorant. Sexy, sure; curvy definitely; but not the kind of curvy that exuded fullness and joy like the woman in the green silk.
“Do you hear it?”
Despite being so far away, the red woman’s voice felt like it was behind her, whispering in Carmen’s ear. She felt tempted to turn around but last time she did the woman vanished, so she stared intently instead.
“The ground resonates with a distant malaise…”
For an instant, Carmen saw the woman mere inches in front of her. She hadn’t moved, Carmen also hadn’t moved, but for she still perceived her closer briefly and when she did, the red woman said…
“Tomorrow, do not leave without your heirloom.”
And then the woman vanished, as if she was made out of sand gently blown by the breeze.
Carmen then started absentmindedly walking back to her hotel.
Where does this rank in her scale of weirdness so far?
Does she put the red woman over the green one? One vanished like sand, but the other she saw even less of.
That’s assuming they were real, however.
If they weren’t then the redhead in the white suit definitely ranks at the top so far. It’s already odd to see someone so energetic, much less doing what had to be volunteer work all over the place.
So absorbed was she in thinking about this, that she didn’t even notice all the staff fastidiously greeting her at the hotel.
She entered her room and saw the scepter she got almost one week ago in a corner.
“Tomorrow, do not leave without your heirloom” she repeated “Heirloom…”
Carmen grabbed it, saw around her room through the crystalline part of it, spun it in her hands, swung it and leaned on it.
It was so perfect, so light, so tailor-made for her short height…
“Heirloom…” She repeated.
Then she laid in her bed and sighed.
“I was wrong, it’s not my Royal Blood that’s a curse…” she said in a low voice while turning to her side “My whole blood is just a soup of curses.”
The day finally came.
Carmen should’ve been relieved, after this she was free to go home.
But the visions yesterday started to give her a bad feeling.
“Heirloom…”
She repeated the word as she prepared to go out, this time as a mental list to herself..
She was wearing the dress that was prepared for the occasion. It was modest and simple, made out of a pale blue cloth with a pattern resembling clouds near the bottom of it.
She also wore high heels of a silvery white color meant to complement the bottom of the dress, but heeding the warnings of yesterday and her own gut feeling, she put her normal walking shoes in a small cloth bag that she tied to her “heirloom”.
The hotel staff then covered all around her to keep the “surprise” fresh for everyone as they escorted her to the stage.
“It’s gonna be fine…” Carmen reassured herself to push away nerves she hadn’t felt until just now.
And it wasn’t about being on the stage.
They left her backstage and she put her heirloom with the cloth bag leaning near one of the speakers.
To her surprise, however, all of her fears vanished the moment she stepped on the stage proper.
Seeing everyone waiting for her to start not only filled her with calm that nothing was going wrong, it excited her! This was her element, this was where she thrived, she was starting regret that she was ONLY reciting those passages.
But recite them she did.
What’s more, as she kept going she could feel the bustle quiet down gradually, as if everyone was stopping to hear her.
But then…
“The truth they saw was as the sun-“
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
An earthquake started, and no longer had it finished when Carmen, feeling almost relieved that whatever was going to happen was finally happening, jumped to her heirloom and started changing her footwear.
After seconds that felt like they lasted forever, she started to feel silly at how she was standing with the scepter in her hands, on guard…
…and then a tide of people started rushing in. And Carmen could see from her vantage point on the stage why they were running.
Shambling humanoids made out of purple rock started walking slowly but menacingly into town.
“Your majesty! Please come take cover ov-”
Despite his best intentions, the balding organizer of the event had turned just in time to see Carmen jump down from the stage and rush into the crowd rather than away from them.
Carmen started running towards the shambling menace while trying to sing something, but her voice was not coming out due to the exertion.
“Your usual methods would be a waste of time and energy against this threat.”
Carmen slowed looking for that familiar voice and she realized the red woman from yesterday was standing near her.
“You don’t need all that preparation, you’ve seen yourself that you can cast your punishment with less ritual.”
Carmen then remembered immediately the lightning she was able to cast inside the hotel.
“Focus through your heirloom on the threat…”
She obeyed and saw the crowds of people running away from the purple rock creatures.
“Feel your emotions gather at your throat, the fear, the anger, the wish for them to be gone for interrupting you.”
“Yeah…” Carmen thought then “How dare they interrupt me in my recital?!”
“And when you’re ready, just get your eyes on your targets and command them to perish with all of those emotions.”
“DIE!!!”
BZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAP
With this single shout, multiple lightning strikes hit the rock creatures only, leaving nothing but confused humans behind.
Carmen turned excited towards the red lady but she was already vanishing.
“Look for the redhead Blazer, they’re going to the source of this.”
“Redhead?”
Carmen could only think of a single redhead in recent memory…
…but nah what are the chances?
She couldn’t find a redheaded Blazer but she figured going to the source involved going where the creatures were coming from so she kept running into the outskirts of the Station.
On her way she kept practicing her lightning strikes on them, though she had soon devolved from just shouting “Die!” to obscenities she was glad neither Clint nor Lucretia were here to hear.
Eventually, however, she finally saw a red head.
“It WAS the same redhead I saw yesterday!” she said while slowing a bit.
The Blazer then jumped down some opening that wasn’t there yesterday and Carmen rushed to it.
It was deep, she already took quite the risk jumping down the stage and this wasn’t a stunt she was particularly inclined to repeat.
She looked around, found a length of rope, and took it for herself.
“Hey!” Some voice exclaimed from the second floor of a nearby building.
“The crown requires this for everyone’s good! I’ll return it later!” She shouted back as she made her way to the ravine that the Blazer had jumped into.
Carmen tied it to a nearby rock with one of the knots that Lucretia taught her years ago and slowly went down.
Once she was in solid ground, Carmen gave the rope a gentle tug and she felt its tension let loose.
She then pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and in a few seconds she had the other end of the rope in her hands.
Realizing how easily it let go of its anchor point shook Carmen to her core.
In fact, everything was starting to dawn in at once. The earthquake, the jump down the stage, facing the weird creatures without even thinking about it, the creatures themselves, the nonsense she told the worker on the second floor…
But then she started hearing the noise of something hitting rocks really hard in the distance and remembered why she went down to begin with.
“I’ll worry about getting out later” She said out loud to distract herself “If I don’t do something there might not be an out to return to…”
As she cautiously traversed the tunnels, she kept hearing the noises of a fight.
Or at least she assumed it was a fight, it sounded more like someone was mining rocks with a heavy stick.
Then the cave shook, it was followed by a purple glow that gave Carmen a path to follow, and yet another shake up.
She hurried up to the source of it right until she almost fell from quite a height.
From her vantage point, however, she was able to see the redhead Blazer she followed, though they looked really roughed up.
They weren’t bruised though, they just looked in pain, clutching their chest, black veins all over their pale skin.
“Sing them a song to soothe them, won’t you?”
Carmen smelled something that was like soil after rain and the curvy green woman from before was there looking at her.
At least, looking as much as it was possible to assume with her whole face covered.
Following the instructions, Carmen looked at the Blazer through her scepter but they looked in so much pain the only voice that came out was trembling and anguished.
“Then close your eyes, you don’t need to see them.”
As she did so, Carmen also took a deep breath.
“Now, picture how energetic you saw them before and channel that wish to see them like that again.”
Carmen started singing. It was a song she didn’t know that well, but she focused on the melody.
She dared open up her eyes a little and the green fireflies were already gathered on the scepter, the Blazer’s pain also seemed to stop.
This made Carmen’s voice become stronger and stop trembling, with the result of the green glow covering the Blazer intensifying. She saw them sit up, still a bit lost, and decided to end the song.
“Every creature in a storm of emotions, what makes you human is that you can choose to focus on one.”
Carmen felt a cool breeze, and the green woman was gone.
She then made her way down, taking cautious steps as she did.
After a hop, a step, and a jump, she reached the Blazer and extended her hand towards them.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
The Blazer took her hand but still stood up without pulling on her at all.
This really stood out to Carmen.
It wasn’t her first impression of them because she saw them helping around in the festival, but as a first proper contact it was an impressive display.
To accept the gesture, yet still do their best to not impose themselves…
The Blazer bowed with gratitude and then reached nearby for the giant sword-like thing they were carrying on their back before. As they picked it up their face curiously went from deeply regretful to meekly apologetic.
As they turned to continue their objective, however, Carmen remembered something.
“Look for the redhead Blazer…” She muttered “…they’re going to the source of this…”
She took two steps to catch up and announced in a clear voice.
“Esteemed Blazer, let me help you!”
The esteemed Blazer looked back, emphatically nodded, and signaled her to follow them.
They walked through winding paths that already had Carmen lost as to where they came from to begin with, but the Blazer in front of her was walking with contagious certainty.
That item in their back also kept glowing, and Carmen mused that maybe that was the source of their instructions.
It was a great light source nonetheless, even if all it did was pulse, and even if it was covered in bandages.
Finally, after a left turn they saw a purple glow and a clearing, they rushed in but then…
“Hooooooooooooooold it right there. Not one more step, friends.”
There were two things of note in that room.
One was a huge purple crystal with many different devices connected to it.
And the other was a tall blonde woman of tanned skin pointing a gun at each of them.
Forsaken Gaia – Chapter 5: Noblesse
Written by: Fernando Damas (@ironiclark)