The Scared Princess

A crackle in the woods.

She looked back, her heart throbbing by the second. For she had broken the norm, the rules of this world. She thought it was just some nonsense of the old, but deep down she was scared of the consequences.

It all took one second. Now she found herself lost, with all her guards missing.

Blood flushed out of her face. She looked at her surroundings, trembling in fear.

“N-no…” she mumbled. “No… no no no no please…”

She circled around herself, trying not to faint. The strings of her heart danced over burning flames—like a fire tragon.

The winds seemed to have stopped, and she could see no hope.

“This… this is my fault…” she wept, grabbing her hair. “They were right… the customs were right all along…”

She was now trembling under the single sun, the singularity.

“None shall walk under the singularity when all the suns or moons align. For if they do, severe consequences await them…” She stuttered the old sayings of the ancients under her breath, with tears streaming down her face. She knew the customs. Still, she decided to break them. Now she was hoping someone would hear her cries and save her from its consequences.

But no one did…

She blinked again.

Her eyes were blurry. All she saw was the shadowy figure of three men before her. Two of them held her arms and legs, while another one was putting a leather bag over her face.

She could not react. It all happened in an instant. The last line of the customs was all she remembered.

But all of a sudden, those three disappeared, clicking their tongues.

Her vision cleared up as she stopped crying. And all she saw was a man.

“What? Didn’t… they leave? Then who is this?” She mumbled. This wasn’t the same man who was trying to kidnap her. They had black hair, and he had blonde hair.

But that didn’t terrify her. What did were his peculiar red pupils that stared intently at her with curious eyes.

She fell back, crawling back until she hit a tree. Her pupils shrank as she tried to run away. But her legs gave up.

“STAY AWAYYY!!!!!” She screamed for help. “SOMEONE HELP MEE!!!!! A… A VAMPIRE!!!!!”

A moment's notice—suddenly all of her guards reappeared from the woods at insane speeds, as if flowing with the spirits. They charged at Hitsuki, all of their swords pointing at his throat, expecting a battle.

But he… surrendered?

It took a while for them to digest the whole situation, and another while for all of it to make sense.

“How is he still alive?” One of the guards whispered. “Shouldn’t he be dead by now?”

“Did the lunaris develop a cure to resist the suns?” Another asked.

“Impossible, if the lunaris did that, then we should’ve been able to resist the burns of the moonlight as well!”

All ten guards looked at the man with red eyes in wonder. They have only read about them—the vampires, one of the five species of the lunaris. They have never seen one, but they couldn’t say Princess Hanahoshi was wrong as well. For, from what they had learned in the books, he was the one-to-one replica.

“Who are you?” The commander, Tsuyo Sa asked, grazing the neck of Hitsuki. Blood spewed from his throat.

“@%&@ @%& @%$ ##$%@$” he replied in all gibberish in a language they didn’t understand.

[T/L: “What are you saying?”]

They tied him up, for they didn’t know what to do. The queen shall decide his fate. But if he truly were a sunaris, he had very unique genetics.

*****

It was now midday.

The guards decided to take a break from their expedition, as Princess Hanahoshi was feeling unwell. If a simple journey for harvesting some eggs suddenly turns into a horror scene of her getting captured and seeing a vampire-human right after, anyone would feel the same.

“Captain, would you stop looking at your family?” One of the younger guards laughed.

“Listen, Yowa. You won’t understand it right now. The power that the bond of a family holds. It can fuel an army, it can bring victory.” He replied.

“Then that means you are the strongest among all of us!” He laughed again. “Since you keep looking at the picture so much!”

All of the royal guards looked at him in awe.

How can someone be so dull? They thought.

“Right…”

Amongst the commotion, Captain Tsuyo kept looking at his family—he had ten pictures. It featured her wife, a stunningly young beautiful woman staring at him with pearly eyes. She held a child who played with her silky brown hair and a two-year-old boy.

He smiled, touching the cheeks of his wife. He tried to imagine the warmth of her touch through the lifeless paper.

He immersed himself in the moment, thinking about the times at home. His children would play with his muscles while he watched his wife happily cook for all of them.

It would be a while for him to return home, for he had just come back from the holiday. But he couldn’t wait longer to meet them.

But life in the royal guards didn’t seem dull either—all because of his cheerful subordinates.

It was all just a moment. A moment of happiness.

Before he saw a flash.

A scene—his juniors lay lifeless over a pool of blood.

And he was with them.

It was just an instant, till the sky suddenly turned pitch black.

A red pupil appeared amongst the void. For it was not a pupil at all, but a moon.

The blood moon has arrived…

Only a custom appeared in his mind, as he felt a burn on his skin.

| None shall walk under the singularity when all the suns or moons align. For if they do, severe consequences await them… |