Setting the Butterflies in me Free

Morning came by sooner than expected and I was up bright and early to meet it. Today we had the fateful meeting with the queen, which meant I had to be ready.

“Alright, Samael…” I said to my snake as he slithered into my hair. “We're meeting a queen today, so you have to be on your best behavior.” I booped his nose.

“Ss…” he hissed.

“What do you mean, ‘you're more worried about me?’ I'm not going to get in trouble or anything.”

“Ss…”

Now he was just being silly! Trouble doesn't follow me everywhere. It’s not like a lost puppy or anything!

“Who are you talking to?” Indena startled me as she entered the bathroom. She was holding a toothbrush and toothpaste.

“I was talking to Samael,” I replied.

“How's he doing?” Indena asked as she brushed her teeth. “That was a lot of eggs he ate last night.”

Samael was doing great actually. Miss Adalyn personally made sure to give him a nice buffet style meal too. He was feeling a bit heavier than usual on my head.

“So, how are you feeling about the meeting?” Indena asked, rinsing the toothpaste foam from her mouth.

“I'm excited,” I nodded. “We get to meet a real queen.”

How often do you get a privilege like that? So many people dream about meeting royalty, as if it was the peak of elegance. Funny enough, one of the classifications for me in the Hive was Princess of the Bees. So I guess you could say I was royalty, thanks to dad being King of the Bees.

Tee hee…I bet Uncle is Uncle of the Bees.

“Eh…” Indena shrugged, washing her face. “Kings, queens, prime minister… Why do we pay so much attention to one person?” She wiped her face with a fresh towel. “Giving them more power means we lose some. Get what I mean?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don't think meeting a queen means I'm losing power.”

Maybe the queen was a vampire who drains your life essence the more you're around her. That would be one heck of a scandal!

“Eh… That’s what you'll say until they screw you over. Wasn't you who said politicians were all liars?”

Well… She had a point there. A queen is a political figure, after all.

“Why am I even bothering to talk to a two year old about politics?” Indena shrugged.

“You know my real age!” I shouted. “Stop getting it wrong!”

“That time was on purpose!” she shouted back.

Our intense glaring at each other was cut short when I realized Indena had toothpaste stuck in her hair. I started snickering, which prompted her to take a look in the mirror and blush.

“Laugh it up, pip-squeak,” She smirked, trying to clean it out.

That was when Yamin entered, her eyes all puffy and red, like she'd been crying. She let out a sneeze and sniffled. It was a miserable sight.

“Looks like death's entered the chat,” Indena commented. “You okay, Sparkle Face?”

“Oh, I'm just…” *Sniffle!* “Oh Lord… I just have allergies, that's all.” She was congested to the max.

I guess this happens pretty often to her. We didn't normally share a bathroom in the morning, so apparently we didn't see her like this.

“Achoo!” Yamin sneezed. “It's horrible.”

“You know, they say when you sneeze, someone's talking about you.” Indena commented.

“I must be pretty famous if I'm like this… Achoo!”

Despite that, getting a little steam from a hot bath seemed to fix her right up.

Once we were all done with our morning routines, everyone met in the foyer to discuss our plan for the day. Miss Lauri and Adalyn were well into a discussion when us three girls arrived.

“No…” Adalyn uttered in disbelief. “You mean that two timing masher tried to make a move on y’all?” Adalyn put a shocked hand up to her mouth.

“I know!” Miss Lauri lightly slapped Adalyn's shoulder. “Isn't it ridiculous? It was the moment you had your back turned too!”

“Irreverent behavior, I swear! And just when I got him to trial my new clothing line for working men!”

Yamin’s face cringed the longer she listened to them.

“Mom, what happened?”

Miss Lauri and Adalyn both turned to her with big smiles, then jumped from their seats to give Yamin a hug. Their arms were fighting to catch as much real estate Yamin's slender figure could offer. They were like motherly zombies, but instead of brains, they ate love.

“Gahh!” Yamin uttered as they crushed her with hugs “Guys, I can't breathe!”

Once they lightened off her, they explained the situation.

“The mail man asked me on a date!” Miss Lauri proudly adjusted her hair, clearly not completely upset by the ordeal. “I'm glad I've still got it, but he's a married man!”

“I'll be haven’ a talk with him next time he comes around.” Adalyn shook her head. “What a lecherous man he turned out to be!”

Indena shook her head.

“Yeah right.” Indena laughed. “Where are the boys?”

Almost on cue, Uncle and Marek showed up, both were pretty quiet until they reached the foyer. Now that we were together, it was time to figure out who was going.

Pretty much everyone besides Adalyn had a reason for going to the meeting today. However, she would be providing us with transportation, and Cynthia would be joining us for the car ride. With that said, we made our way for the exit.

Just as I was about to step out the front door, my body stopped moving. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push myself to take a single step more. Was this some kind of curse? I just couldn’t get through.

I think there was something wrong with me. I felt butterflies in my belly, and my body was shaking. This might have been me getting sick. I’ve never been sick, so this was making me scared. Could it be allergies, like Yamin had?

No… That was impossible. Something else was bothering me…

Oh, I know what it is.

“Yalda, what’s wrong?” Uncle stepped back toward me. “We need to leave.”

“I’m… I’m nervous about meeting all those people.” I mumbled. At first, the thought of meeting a queen sounded like a fantasy, but the closer the actual meeting came, I felt like the walls were closing in on me, forbidding me from leaving this house.

“You shouldn’t be afraid,” Uncle said. “This is for protecting humanity. Doesn’t that motivate you?” He asked.

It’s not that it didn’t motivate me, but I was just so worried that they wouldn’t understand so many things about me. Like how I was just a kid, or how I really didn’t know too much about my own prophecy. They wanted me to be an angel that I really didn’t think I was.

I mean, I’ve accepted that I am this foretold Eighth Star, or at least it was a title I was willing to go by. But did I really believe all of the power behind what that meant? These people looked at me as if I was going to solve all of their problems, but here I was, debating what clothes to wear, what to eat in the morning, and hoping God heard all my prayers the night before. That didn’t sound much different from humans.

Marek took pity on me, then went over to one of the hidden closets in the foyer. He dragged out a hamper and pulled up his old, tattered blue jacket that needed some stitching up.

He tugged on the bottom coat tales and started tearing away parts until he had something that looked like a long bandana.

“What are you doing?” Indena asked him.

“This was my lucky coat.” He took the blue bandana made from his coat and tied it around my waist. “I used to be afraid of public speaking too. I’d almost throw up whenever I got on stage…” he tugged the two ends tightly until the bandana was fastened in place. “My grandmother made this coat for me and enchanted it so I would never be afraid of going out in public again. Now I’m giving you a piece of it.”

“Woah…” I didn’t realize his coat was enchanted like that. It must have been a super powerful magic enchantment if even just a small piece would do that. Maybe my speech skill went all the way to a million. (Actually I don’t have a speech skill in my stats at all.)

“Is it really enchanted?” My eyes grew twice as big. “For real?

“It is,” he nodded. “Ever since I put it on I could feel its power working.”

“How are you going to talk today if you don’t have your coat though?” I asked.

He waved at my question in a sorta’ pshaw motion.

“I’ve worn it so long that I’m practically enchanted myself, no?”

Indena scoffed, turning away so we wouldn’t see her face. “Yeah, that’s how magic enchantments work alright.”

Yamin quickly nudged her in the arm to get her to stop talking for some reason.

“So, Yalda,” Uncle started, “do you feel the enchantment working?”

“I…I think I do.”

The butterflies in my stomach were gone. This thing was awesome!

“I do!” I cheered and gave him a big smile.

“Then what do you say to Marek?”

“Thank you, Marek!” I cheered and gave him a big hug.

“Ahh, it was nothing,” he brushed his nose, then accepted the hug. “You should really thank my grandmother.”

“Thank you, grandma Marek!”

I’m sure she could hear me from Heaven.

Everyone seemed really happy about this, even the maid Cynthia was happy too, but I could tell she was trying to hide her emotions by covering up her mouth. Marek and her shared a soft glance.

*Sniffle sniffle!*

Someone started crying, it was coming from Indena, who was still looking away.

“Are you crying?” Yamin asked her.

“I’m not crying. All those tears from your weak allergies must be making it look like that.” Indena ran into the next room. “Hold on, I gotta throw up from all this gushy crap.”

For all that tough talk, she was really emotional.

Yamin snickered. “I’ll go make sure she’s okay.”

We gave them a few minutes to get their bearings. In the meantime, Adalyn was kind enough to offer Marek a new jacket from her stock, which happened to be a nice blue colour like the last.

“I'll fix up this ole’ thing for you,” She winked, holding up the remnants of his previous coat.

“I appreciate that.” He gave her a cordial bow.

Finally Yamin was able to calm Indena down. She'd definitely been crying based on her red eyes, but she tried to hide it by setting a fire around her head.

“Let’s get going, alright?” Indena said. “This place is starting to give me allergies.”

“Ohh... Suddenly, she has allergies.” Yamin rolled her eyes.