Shaph plunged into the chair, merged with it if he could, both hands supporting his stone-loaded head, rabbit ears wilting sadly, mumbling. "Impossible..."
"Er...Shaph?" I slowly approached him and laid my hand on his shoulder.
"I am so sorry for causing the trouble milady." said Shaph politely looking at me with his earnest red eyes. "I did not mean to—"
I could not stand being hard with him at that tone and face (plus rabbit ears). "I—it's okay." I said and sat next to him.
"I thought....I thought..." Shaph trailed off as tears began to drown his eyes.
It startled me. "It's okay! It's alright Shaph! It really is alright! I don't mind. I—I had fun." I made a wide grin and tried hard to look fun by walking around admiring fake roses in the room.
"But Coronale..." He broke off, looking sad again.
"What happened?" Maybe I shouldn't ask, or I would have to be involved with some more problems. I thought but my mouth worked faster.
"Our world's falling apart," Shaph started explaining and it was too late to climb out of the problem pit. "Decaying, because there was no one with the power to defeat Magic. Queen Nara who possessed the holy power passed away for too long. It has to be the Coronale bloodline, you see, it has to be Princess Carla. But only Queen Nara knew where the Princess is, she sent her away on a vacation to her old hometown."
"Yes, yes," I tried to understand and to be understanding. "Yes."
"But it took almost twelve years for Princess's power to be activated and us to figure out the location!" Shaph wailed a lot of things which made no sense to me. "I even had to go all the way to Keon to ask Prince Valentine to help with opening the gate because Magic is in such turmoil that the only sorcerers who could control it would be the Keons! All has been for naught!" He threw up his hands and seriously cried.
"We can open the gate again, Shaph." I tried to console him. But at the thought of having to go back on such a short adventure, I—uh—alright, since I'm not the one they need and I seem to be more of a hindrance here.
Shaph shook his head. "I can't just go and tell Prince Valentine to help me open the gate again. It's a shame to Coronale! I'll have to find somebody else, but who could be good enough to open the gate in such chaos!"
"Is there—" Oh, I shouldn't interfere! I don't need to be nice, I'm not selling anything to him, I thought but as always, the habit got ahead of me. "Anything I can help?"
Shaph shook his head, then, as if an invisible blow struck at his weeping face, he stopped crying and looked at me. "During—this time—" Shaph carefully and slowly said. "Milady—you," he paused a little, "Until I find a way to open the gate again, you have to be the Princess!"
"What?!"
"I cannot go and tell everyone that I got the wrong person. They will lose hope and not just Magic, the people, the world will be in turmoil as well. Angry citizens might capture you and kill you for not being the Princess. Coronale might be invaded from the angry Kings and Queens, especially the Keons." His tear stained eyes looked entreatingly at me. "You have to help us, please!"
Well, that is serious. But—
"Please—" his red eyes seemed somewhat dilated radiating cuteness out of them. "Please help me so we can all survive and I promise I will find a way back for you."
"Okay, all—all right." I reluctantly submitted myself to the threat-liked request. Imposing a princess with magical power was not an easy job, especially, when you had no magic at all. But I hoped it would be only for a few days.
"Thank you so much!" Shaph beamed and rest a hand on his chin thinking. "But there's the Welcome Party. And so many princes and princesses are waiting to meet you. What should I do?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked dreading the answer.
"Umm," Shaph set his face straight about to seriously talk about serious matter and turned me serious too. "Prin—I mean, milady, Coronale is the most powerful Kingdom in this world, renowned for its rare ability of the Kings or Queens to control Magic. Therefore, every Kingdom is pouring every pinch of their sweets in on us just to be noticed. And when the news that I asked Prince of Keon's help spread, everybody gathers here."
I could see where he is going. This is not going to be a fun fun adventure. I held my sigh.
"It was a chaos," Shaph shook his head. "but I couldn't turn any of them back, they're all royalties, you see, and I needed to bring you—I mean, Princess back as soon as possible. So I leave them be, our castle is so crowded now."
The sigh gained weight and it was hovering right beyond my nostrils as Shaph went on. "Just before Prince Valentine and I prepared to open the gate, somebody talked about a welcoming party for Princess. I thought it was alright at the time, because Princess Carla could fix every Magic problem with just a flick of her fingers, but now—"
Okay, and me, I could mess every Magic and other matters with a mere existence of mine. I wanted to kill that 'somebody.' "And you still want me to pretend to be Princess Carla?"
"I—I had no choice," Shaph flicked his long fluffy ear. "Furthermore, both Prince Leonhard and Prince Valentine have seen you. It is purely luck that no one is aware of Princess Carla's features. All portraits of her are painted before she turned five."
I sat in a hump gazing at the rosy floor for a long while until I gave up and the sigh finally made its escape.
"Alright," I said.
"Hmm?"
"The party," I said. "let it proceed. Everybody will go back to their home after that right?"
"Very likely," Shaph's drooped ears were half-way perking up.
"We can sort out things after the party." I said and sighed again.
"Great!" Shaph made a rabbit jump. "There's no other way anyway. I will prepare this at once!" He sprinted toward the door, stopped with a sudden jerk swiveling his head, "Milady, one more thing, some Kingdom might request you to stabilize Magic in their countries, could you please also—?"
"Bu—but I don't know how to stabilize these Magic!"
"A mere act would do," said Shaph. "I will try to reject most of them as much as I can, but some would be unavoidable. It would also buy me times to find a way to open the gate again. So, pleaseeee..."
"Al—alright." Since I said I would help.
Shaph hopped up with glee. I could see some resemblance of rabbits now. "I'll get someone to fix you right away. You need more princess look!" He said running toward the door and suddenly halted turning to me again. "Oh, milady?"
"Yes?" The way he kept calling me milady made me embarrassed.
"May I ask what your name is?"
"I—" I held my tongue. A thought that I should not expose my real name occurred for some reason. Maybe it was because I was not the person from this world and I was going to stay here only for a short time, so there was no need to leave any trace of me behind. I would just go with a false name, "Kara," since I'm going to be Princess Carla, then—"just call me Kara."
"Kara? Right!" Shaph smiled. "It's a perfect name! I'll call you Princess Kara then. It's easier and sounds almost the same! Everyone will call you by your real name without any doubt. Isn't it great?" he said and left the room finally.
It would be, if only Kara was my REAL name. I shrugged.