Desrho: A day like any other ~ Past

Electryone woke up when the first thunder struck on the island. Soon after, a brief earthquake followed.

But certainly, whatever that was is not her problem, so she quickly forgot about it.

She waited for her personal servants to enter, as they usually do as soon as she woke up, but after a while they did not. Were they truly gonna make her walk all the way to the dinner room to get her breakfast? The idea itself sounded out of the world, truly everything was over if royalty could not trust their servitude even with such a simple task.

Unfortunately for her, hunger is a great motivator, so she begrudgingly rose up and walked through the shrine. A marvelous shrine surrounded by four enormous walls that rose high enough she couldn’t even see the top of them unless she looked up almost vertically. She wondered what was the point of making the walls that high, is not like she could fly over them or something.

But then again, even that was not enough to stop her, so she understood the precaution they wanted to take. She couldn’t quite remember it but she was told she was a very impertinent child who managed to always hide from the priestesses and nannies in every chance she could. She was not a kid anymore, not by a longshot, but she could understand the principle of the matter.

Principle of the matter, seems like the speeches of the old man were starting to seep into her vocabulary. Hopefully that won’t stick for long.

She finally reached the main dinner room, but it was completely empty. Not a soul around, which was very weird. Part of the security scheme was for someone to be in the shrine at all times to keep watch on her.

She went to the kitchenette but there was no one there either. To make matters worse, all the pantries were empty. Was this some kind of attempt to starve her?

“I was told you had problems waking up even on the best of days, so I thought you wouldn’t roam around until midday”

Electryone could only sigh once she heard the old man’s voice. It was going to be one of those days, then.

The old man, whose name they always refused to tell her, was standing by the door. But unlike every other day, he had a really heavy ceremonial garb with a long train that dragged all the way to the hallway.

“Whose birthday are we celebrating today, old man? That garb looks too uncomfortable, even for you.”

Electryone looked around in the pantry another while, but all she could find were jugs with water, lots and lots of them. She grabbed one and held her in her arms, wondering what she should do with it.

The man gave her a weak smile, happy to see her in such a good mood, but weighted by the weight of the news he bore.

“It’s… clearly not a birthday, but you surely knew that already. I fear that the ceremony is finally taking place, my child.”

Turns out that what she should do with it was to let it crash into the ground. Hopefully at least, cause that’s precisely what she did. To say that she was shocked would be an understatement. After all, she had been told about the ceremony ever since she had memory, as a child. And now, out of nowhere, it was happening without any kind of forewarning?

The old man looked at her with pity, he didn’t even seem to care about the disaster she had just made on the floor.

“So… what now? what’s going to happen?”

“That’s precisely the crux of the matter. The ceremony is going to take place in a week, but for it to start, they need you to be… weaker”

Electryone may have been many things, she admitted it herself often. Vain, irresponsible, incapable of obeying even the simplest orders, very vain again. But unfortunately for everyone else, stupid was one thing she was not.

How could they do that to her?

“Are you gonna starve me?” She asked, her voice cracking for a moment.

“Goodness gracious, no!”

“But?” She asked, knowing he was still hiding something.

“But they are gonna let you hunger. The water is for you to not die of thirst during these days.” He finally admitted.

“And you allowed them to?!”

“My child, they wanted to bloodlet you! This is the best I could come up with for them to not hurt you.” He said, rising from his seat, getting closer and raising his voice.

“Great, so instead of bleeding for hours I’ll hunger for days. Such an amazing idea, do I applaud you for it? How about not letting them torture me to begin with, you are the head priest! You should do better than shit like this!”

She grabbed another jar of water, rose it into the air and threw it into the floor. They were very heavy, yes, but part of the preparations for the ceremony included a very thorough physical conditioning. Something like that wasn’t a problem for her anymore.

“I tried, I tried so hard, but… your grandmother came back. She and the queen gave the order, there’s nothing I can do about this anymore.” He said, sitting again, with a quiet voice.

Electryone was shocked, and how not to be. After all…

“My grandma is alive?”

Her disappearance had been the forewarning for a lot of changes that happened when she was a kid, still incapable of understanding what was going on. When she inquired about it, she told her that she was dead and not to ask about the topic again.

Her grandmother… the one who took care of her before any of the other nannies did. This could not stand, they couldn’t come up with this after so long.

“I need to see her, bring me to her. Is an order.” She said, going to the priest's side going up to his face to try to intimidate him.

“I'm afraid that I can’t do that.” He said, with a neutral, resigned voice.

“I order you as Electryone, daughter of Desrho and princess of this land, I command you to let me see her. Now!”

“For her orders, after I leave now, you are completely forbidden from seeing anyone from now until the day of the ceremony. All the preparations have been made. I tried to sneak some food in but it was not possible. Please, just… endure it. I’ll speak with them, I’ll make them see reason, but there’s nothing that I can do now.”

The head priest bowed in front of her, and as much as Electryone wanted to crash another jar into his head, she knew better than to do that. Although, certainly, that gave her a different idea of what she should do.

“I’ll guess the guards are waiting for you at the door, aren’t they? As soon as you get out of here, they will seal the exit… I see how this goes. Rise up, old man.”

She gave him her hand and helped him stand up. He still looked sad, but a little bit brighter by seeing how well she was taking it all. The news was awful, sure, but she always had a ferrous character, it would take more than that to break her down.

Unfortunately, that translated into the chaos that ensued in the entrance a while later. The guards were shocked when the head priest appeared in the door with the princess behind him, threatening him with a broken shard of a vase to his neck.

“Call my grandmother, now! If she isn’t here in an hour, I swear I’ll kill him.”

The guards weren’t sure what to do. They could surely restrain her, but didn’t believe they could do it before she killed the priest. Without many options, they shared a look and one of them started running to the palace, while the other stayed and tried to calm her down.

The head priest was similarly shocked, enough to mitigate the anger he felt at being used as a bargaining chip by the girl he took care of for years. He knew that she would not kill him, or at least hoped so, but didn’t dare to try and break free from her grasp.

The ground shook for some seconds, the second earthquake of the day went away as quick as the first one did. An omen of the catastrophe destined to strike the island in only a few days.