Part Eleven

Blue began to fidget as she started to wake up. She stretched and yawned, opened her eyes, smiled and then shut them again... only to open them immediately a second later.

The sun shone through the window right on her face as she sat up in bed...

... in her own bed in her own room.

Her head turned about looking around the room quickly, taking everything in. It was her room, but how was that possible? Last place she remembered being was on a balcony somewhere with... that man.

What was his name again?

Like waking from a dream, everything was slipping away... memories, details, conversations, everything. The harder she tried to remember, the faster everything seemed to rush away from her.

Then just like that... it was all gone.

She knew it happened... all of it. It had all happened like it was yesterday... like it was just moments before she awoke in her room. How did I get here? she thought, but the answer to that question eluded her as well. I will not forget, she told herself. It happened... I know it did. Trying one last time, as hard as she could, to remember something - when nothing came, she let out a loud exasperated sigh and fell back on her bed.

Preoccupied with herself and her thoughts, she didn't hear the door to her room open. "Milady?" she heard a voice say, and upon reflex, she lifted her head at the sound of her name but couldn't see past the bedframe to the door. Raising herself up on her elbows, she saw her head nanny Marcella at the door.

"Yes?" she questioned back.

"Are you all right?" Marcella asked.

"Yes," said Blue, unsure of her answer even as she gave it. "Yes, I'm fine. Why would you ask?"

"I just heard a noise, miss, that's all. I wanted to make sure you were well." She politely curtsied and started to close the door as she left when Blue stopped her. "Miss?" Blue waved her in to the room. Confused, Marcella did as requested.

"Close the door behind you, please," asked Blue, and Marcella followed orders. Then she came to stand at the foot of the bed awaiting further instruction. "Now, Marcella..." started Blue, but she wasn't sure how to finish. "Um, how long was I out?"

"Out?" the nanny repeated. "Not long, miss. Perhaps an hour or so."

An hour? she thought. It felt like much longer. "Where were you all this time?"

"In the front room," she answered, waving toward the door she entered in. "I was working on some needlepoint with the other ladies."

"Did you see me when I came in?"

"Of course, miss. You just finished your music lesson and said you were very tired so you were going to take a nap. You came into your room and laid down."

Blue thought back on her day's plans. Her music lesson was what she had originally been running away from. She enjoyed the piano greatly, but to be made to play just drove her mad and took all the joy out of it. She always argued that she'd rather play at her leisure, but she was never heard and always made to take her lessons (which she always tried to get out of). "Did you see me go to my lesson?"

"Why yes, miss. I escorted you there myself." But how could that be? thought Blue. I ditched her in the corridor after breakfast. "Are you sure you're all right, miss? You didn't hit your head or anything?"

"No," said Blue waving Marcella away. "I'm all right."

"You just seem a little disoriented is all. Bad dream, perhaps?"

"Yes," said Blue, confused as ever. "perhaps."

"Did you need anything else, miss? Should I call for-?"

"No," she answered quickly. Blue didn't need to see the physician. She was sure she was fine medically anyway... besides which she didn't really care for the doctor. Phyneas made her feel uneasy all the time. She tried avoiding him whenever she could.

"Well then, miss, if you should need anything else, the ladies and I will be in the other room." She curtsied, Blue said thank you, and Marcella left the room, closing the door behind her... leaving Blue alone.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" she asked the empty room before collapsing onto her bed, face in her pillow so no one could hear her frustrated screams.

Part Ten

He managed to get to her before she fell to the ground. Cradling her in his arms, he called out her name a few times with no response. In seconds, the doorway to the balcony reappeared and the old woman walked up.

"What happened?" she asked.

"She fainted," said Devon.

"I can see that," she replied sarcastically. Agathea then walked over and knelt down beside him. Closing her eyes, she placed her hand on the Princess's head. Devon watched her in silence for a moment. Then her right eye popped open to glare at him, and she said irately, "You told her?"

Apologizing for nothing, he said, "She has a right to know."

"Fool," she said, both eyes open now. "There is a time and place for everything." She took her hand from Blue's head, resting both her hands in her lap. "You stray from the path and look what happens."

He looked down at the woman in his arms. "What? What's wrong? Is something wrong?" he asked, worried.

"She's in shock," Agathea replied. "Aside from a faster heartbeat and a fainting spell, the girl's fine." She stood and headed back the way she had first come.

"Aggie..." he called to her, not knowing what else to say.

She stopped to look at him. He looked so helpless and sad. Things had not gone how he thought they would at all. What was wrong? "Come now," she said, trying her best to be soothing. "Let's make her comfortable, all right?" Devon scooped Blue up into his arms and followed the woman down the hall.

Part Nine

Devon looked at Blue for a moment, trying to think of what to say. Since he met her, she questioned everything (which he thought wise given her situation), but the more time he spent with her, the more he believed she was genuinely curious... which left him at a loss.

"What do you know of your childhood?" he asked then. "Your family?"

Blue was surprised by his questions - especially since they didn't answer her own. "Why is that-?"

Before she could say "important", he asked again. "I promise," he said, "you will have your answers. Please. Indulge me." As irritated as she was, she felt he was sincere. She also thought it not wise to anger or upset the man that could make the doorway reappear.

"Fine," she replied. She leaned back in her chair and started fidgeting with her hands. "My childhood?" He nodded. "I am an only child, daughter to King Beryl."

"What of the Queen?"

Blue's face became sullen at the question of her mother. "I never knew her," she said in a low voice. Her gaze travelled out at the view when she said, "I'm told she died giving birth to me."

"Who told you that?"

"Many people. My nannies and tutors... various people at court..."

"Do you believe these people?"

Blue's head sharply turned to Devon, heat in her eyes. "Why would I have any reason to doubt them?"

"I don't know," came Devon's reply, a little quiet himself. The heat slowly seeped from her gaze, and he then asked, "What about your father?"

"What about him?"

"What does he say of your mother?"

"He-," she started to say, and then stopped short. "He," she said again, thinking back to her younger years, and then finally said, "doesn't."

"What do you mean?" asked Devon. "Does he ever speak of her?" She opened her mouth to speak and again was confused by what she was going to say.

"No," she replied. "He does not speak of her."

"I find that strange that the King himself does not talk of his Queen... ever." He saw that Blue had a look on her face that he could only describe as part sadness and worry. "Well, what about these other people you mentioned before - the nannies and so forth. Do they speak of the Queen?"

"They used to," Blue recalled. "I remember walking into a room for a lesson or dinner or something, and I would hear talk... her name perhaps... but then I was there, and then there'd be silence." She looked down at her lap again, fiddling with her hands, took a deep breath and looked back at Devon when she said, "I just assumed they didn't want to upset me."

He stared at her from across the table, her eyes giving away her true feelings. "I can see how successful they were in that." As hard as she tried, she couldn't look at him anymore. She rose from her chair and turned toward the edge of the balcony, staring out at nothing... just turning away to hide the tears she was afraid were about to fall from her eyes. "What do you know of her? Your mother?"

With a deep breath in, she slowly let it out. It took her a few minutes before she was sure she could speak without her voice shaking. "Not much," she answered. "Like I said, I never knew her."

Devon rose from his own seat and walked over to Blue. She paid no attention to him, lost in her sullen mood. "But surely," he said, "someone must have told you something. Commented on how you have her eyes? Her smile? Do you have any idea what she even looks like?" Upon reflex, she wanted to say "no", but she thought about it for a moment. Her mother. The woman that bore her. Nothing. Her mind was blank. "No one talks of her - not even your father. There are none of her belongings around to pass down to her daughter. I doubt there is even a portrait of her anywhere in the castle." There were none that the Princess could recall. "Blue... do you even know her name?"

A tear fell down her cheek, cold against the heat of her skin. She turned then, a slight growl in her voice, as she said, "Why?! Why are you doing this?" With her next breath in, there was a sniffle as she fought back more tears. "You said you would answer my questions, but instead you proceed to hurt me. Why?"

"I do not mean to hurt you," he said, reaching toward to embrace her, to comfort her. She stepped away from his advance.

"Why is my dead mother so important to you?" she cried.

"Because," he said, his arms falling to his sides as he looked at her, "she's the answer to all of this." He stepped toward her then and stood inches before her, looking down into her face, when he said, "And she isn't dead."

The tears fells, and her body went limp.