The Final Days of Springborough

Kyrstin didn’t even see the arrow. She had fallen backward to the dirt in one of those fearful moments of forgetting how to balance properly on your own two feet, and the next thing she knew, her rear end hurt, her hands were dirty, and the bear looked even bigger as it roared its furry head down at her. All she saw were black lips, huge teeth, and spittle flying when suddenly the great, brown beast stopped roaring, and whimpered. It jumped backwards onto its four paws, and hobbled off, favoring three of its legs over the right front one. And just as suddenly as she discovered it, it was gone.

The long slow fear of the bear ambling toward her and perhaps eating her didn’t give her quite the start the blonde girl with the bow and arrow did when the hunter grabbed her under the arm and began to drag her away from the cottage. Kyrstin had to collect her wits as she was dragged hard across the dirt ground, her thigh being scraped by rocks and roots as she tried to twist from the girl’s grip and grab Thomas’ sword before she got too far away from it.

“Stop!” Kyrstin screamed. “Let me go!”

Brynn did just that, surprised that the girl could speak because when she first stooped down to see if she was all right, the pretty girl seemed completely in shock, still staring after the bear who had disappeared into the woods, hobbled and groaning. Brynn had aimed for what she thought was the bear’s heart, but having no idea of the inner biology of a bear, she guessed by the fact that it was still mobile that she had unfortunately missed. Or, maybe she didn’t mind not killing the bear. She certainly didn’t want to kill anything that didn’t deserve it, and she certainly couldn’t eat all the meat its dead carcass would provide without most of it spoiling. So yes, Brynn thought, it’s good the bear is still alive

When she let the girl go, they broke apart. Kyrstin stayed on the ground, gathering up her sword and her clothes about her, inspecting the areas of her skin the dirt or rocks had scraped away. The lower half of her body was littered with sporadic drops of blood from, what Brynn assumed, was her being dragged by the necromancer. The Princess started to slap her hands together, trying to get the dirt off, but realizing small, sharp rocks were embedded in her palms, thought better of it, and carefully picked at the pieces of earth in her skin. Brynn thought of apologizing, but, once again, reminded herself that she had just saved this young girl from being eaten. Let’s put things in perspective, Brynn thought.

“Who are you?” Kyrstin demanded.

And, for the second time in just a couple moments, Brynn felt like she might not want to answer that question fully and truthfully. She simply offered her name.

“Brynn.”

Kyrstin thought about the answer, looking the girl up and down. She seemed to be about her age. Actually, this was the first girl of Kyrstin’s age that she had ever met. Her family didn’t provide her with friends, not that that was a family’s obligation, but the castle had no one her age to play with, or read with, or study with. She simply had Thomas, who was close to her age, and Patrick, who was younger and lived in the field. Here was a girl that could be Kyrstin’s peer, who had already given Kyrstin such painful and burning dirt burn on her rump that the young princess didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive her. Perhaps friends are overrated, Kyrstin thought, and painful to have.

The other thing, Kyrstin wondered, was if this was her grandmother’s killer. This Brynn was young enough, innocent-looking enough, probably, for Queen Grace to have lowered her door for if Brynn had begged, or cried, or pleaded for her to do so. It didn’t explain the blood splatter, though, if this girl hunted only with arrows. Bowhunting left less of a bloody mess than, say, blunt objects.

Which might explain the large patch of blood behind the cabin, Kyrstin thought.

“Where did you come from?” Kyrstin asked.

Brynn didn’t know whether to point in the direction of Fortis, where she was born, or Quakenfalls, where she now resided. So, Brynn pointed between the two, knowing full well the girl would take it that Brynn was claiming the forest itself, but it didn’t seem like the young, bleeding, blonde girl cared at all.

“Did you know my grandmother? The Queen?” Kristen asked, scolding herself for letting it be known to this stranger, who quite possibly could be dangerous, that she was a royal.

“The Queen…” Brynn mumbled, knowing full well she had only just met the Queen, posthumously, and that Kyrstin was in great danger or that she could be in great danger herself. Regardless, they were in a bad area, and had to get away.

It did not matter what either of them thought or said, because as they looked at each other, they began to hear the rain come down hard on the canopy of leaves over their heads. The forest itself had blocked out most of the light, but when the girls looked up, and saw through the leaves, they now saw just how dark the clouds had gotten. They were about to be trapped in a storm, and neither of them considered that good news.

“Get in the cottage!” Brynn screamed over the wind picking up, half-stepping toward the missing Queen’s open door before being stopped by Kyrstin’s outstretched hand.

“No!” Kristen replied, choosing not to tell this stranger with a bow that they could not go inside because it was filled with blood said, “We’ll go to your place!”

My place?! Brynn thought, conjuring up images of her little haunted hut on the cliff’s edge. That was no place for a member of the royal family. “We can’t go to my place.”

“Why not?” Kyrstin asked.

“Because, it’s… it’s all the way-… the cabin is right there.”

Kyrstin stood up, picking her sword up so that it rested next to her body as she stared at Brynn. She looked scarier than she wanted to, more ready for combat than she actually felt, but already the rain was beginning to soak into her clothes and she didn’t have time to argue with someone who would be bending the knee to her if they were within her kingdom’s walls. Who Brynn thought she was and who she actually was were two totally different things as far as the Princess was concerned. Right now, Brynn was being disobedient and, therefore, disrespectful.

“Brynn, as Princess Kyrstin Lishens of the Kingdom of Springborough Lishens, I command that you lead the way to your house, or hut, or hollowed out tree, or whatever it is you have for us to take shelter from this storm.”

Brynn looked at the Princess beginning to get soaked, looked at her sword which shone majestically in the rain, reflecting whatever light that it seemed to find in the world, and she looked back at the Princess. Princess Kyrstin, Brynn thought to herself. So, royals can get soaked from the rain just like us, huh?

Princess Kyrstin couldn’t dodge raindrops like Villager Brynn couldn’t dodge raindrops. Mother Nature did not seem to respect man-made laws and titles.

Although she had never heard otherwise, Brynn never thought about all the ordinary, human things a member of royalty must do like everyone else. They must bathe, right? They must clean out their ears, and brush their teeth. They must have to remember to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom. She almost had to laugh at herself when she thought of a royal, complete with robes and a crown on their head, sitting in their big, fancy throne chair, shifting uncomfortably because they had trapped air in their stomach and didn’t want to pass wind in the grand hall where it might echo for all their subjects to hear. The thought of the grand hall made her think of The Kingdom of Gambrille, which made her think of her lost family, which removed all want of laughter from the bottom of her mind.

“My hut, your majesty, is this way,” Brynn motioned in the direction she thought to be her hut. She did get turned around with talking to the dead Queen, and was open to the possibility of being wrong.

When Kyrstin stepped beside Brynn the two got a chance to look at each other, pinpointing their similarities with ease. They both were, roughly, the same height, although Kyrstin carried herself a little taller. Both had blonde hair, although Brynn’s was lighter. They both had the same awkwardness about them that came with puberty and being fourteen years of age. Brynn had more muscle, Kyrstin was more slender, both were fit, and did not look like they needed any rest even though both were deep in the woods. Brynn noticed Kyrstin held the sword like she was vaguely familiar with it, and Kyrstin saw that Brynn held the bow-and-arrow like she was a master at archery.

“Do you wish to run, Princess?” Brynn asked, feeling foolish using the term of endearment that her father would sometimes use with her. She wondered if her father could be convicted of treason or a “Crime Against the Crown” to call someone who wasn’t a Princess like his daughter “princess.” Although, according to Brynn’s mom, Brynn was a Princess; just in a far away land that nobody thought existed anymore.

“No. We’ll be soaked regardless. Might as well not turn an ankle for the inevitable.”

Brynn nodded, watching her feet, making sure not to trip over a root, or get her foot stuck in mud so that her shoe came off to be lost within the earth. The girls walked an arm’s length apart, both of them noticing the other reach out any time one of them lost their balance and threatened to fall. Neither touched the other, but it was always possible that they just might.

“You live in the woods, Brynn?” Kyrstin asked, thinking of the death of her Grandma, looking for suspects beyond the bowhunter.

“No, I live on the cliffs. Quakenfalls. With my parents and my brother.”

Three new suspects for the princess. Kyrstin never heard of a father being a murderer, but she wouldn’t be surprised if a son committed a heinous crime.

“Your brother. Where is he?”

“Out at sea, commanding The Hampton Chase. He left several weeks ago. I hope beyond hope he didn’t find his way into this storm.”

Kyrstin nodded, looking up at the dark covering and the fat raindrops coming down. Trees would fall in this storm, she knew. She felt bad for Patrick who probably would have seen this storm coming from a distance and been afraid of it as it rolled slowly in on top of him. She felt bad that she wasn’t there, cooking up hot water and cocoa beans, nestling under a branch until the worst was over. She thought she could steal away on a random day to go visit her grandmother and realized this day wasn’t random at all. It was the day the Queen was murdered. It was the day the storm came in. It was the day she was almost attacked by a bear and saved by a villager. This day, for Kyrstin, was anything but normal.

“Why didn’t you want to go into the cottage? That was your grandma’s cottage, am I right? The Queen?”

“Ex-queen,” Kyrstin corrected her, knowing this girl must not really know the happenings of the kingdom if she was going to make such a blunder as that.

“Sorry, my lady. Ex-queen.”

“That was her cottage. And, I have my own reasons why I didn’t want to go in there.”

“Of course…” Brynn thought about what she wanted to say next. She wasn’t accustomed to talking with royalty, or anyone living for that matter. “Did you know your grandmother was dead?”

Kyrstin stopped in her tracks, raising the sword in the rain, and pointing it right at Brynn who only carried her bow, the arrows all tucked into her quiver. Kyrstin knew that if she wanted, she could jab Brynn with the pointy end of the sword before the cute, blonde-headed hunter could even grab for another arrow. Brynn looked back at the Princess, innocence in her eyes.

“How did you know my grandmother was dead?”

Brynn knew the next part was going to sound even crazier.

“She told me. I saw her spirit in the woods. She told me she had been murdered right before she told me to save you.”

Kyrstin let that sink in. She didn’t want to just come out and laugh at Brynn, because she wasn’t a hundred percent sure a human being couldn’t see spirits. She knew the witch in the village, Leila, could do a slew of things, and perhaps communing with the dead was one of them. So, Kyrstin didn’t want to flat out not believe her new acquaintance about talking with her dead grandmother, but she refused to show it.

“She told you?”

Brynn nodded, continuing to walk, forcing the Princess to follow her. The rain was very loud on the canopy, drowning out any sound of the girls’ footsteps or their breathing. Brynn would sporadically look around for an angry bear or something to eat for dinner. She never got something for herself, and now she was about to host a Princess. She couldn’t imagine feeling less prepared for such an event.

“What else did she tell you?” Kyrstin asked, hoping that the more Brynn talked about it, the more she could either prove or disprove her claim.

“She said the wind opened her door. I couldn’t get out of her what killed her, though. Maybe the bear? Although she said she was murdered. I don’t think people say they were “murdered” by animals, right? Attacked and killed, maybe, but not murdered.”

“That’s what she said? “Murdered”? She said “murdered” and “the wind opened the door”?

“Yes, and she made a cranking motion with her hand, like-“ Brynn imitated the Queen’s movement, a hand turning a crank.

Proof, Kyrstin thought. Brynn would not know that was how the door opened unless she was telling the truth about the Queen’s spirit talking with her. Or, unless Brynn was the killer herself. Kyrstin felt the weight of the sword in her hand, and carried it by her side, keeping one eye on her new acquaintance, the communicator with spirits; the only girl in the forest who seemed to know of the Queen’s death other than Kyrstin herself. Kyrstin suddenly shivered. She didn’t know if she was cold from the rain, or simply allowing herself to be afraid.