Falling asleep was a nightmare for Salsa.
Nice bed, soft silky sheet, nice scent, tired aching body.
One would think sleep would come so easily to her but her eyes refuses to close and her mind refuses to shut up.
Salsa couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard she tried.
It was as if the darkness was a requisite for all the thoughts known to man to pass through her mind.
Every of those thoughts were playing a ping pong in her mind. Shifting like a rolling train from one topic to another.
First it was her small bed at home. Her mind compared where she was right now with the tiny cot bed in the small shack she called a room at home.
There was no comparison.
The bed cushioning her back was the softest thing she has ever had the fortune to lay on, yet she couldn't find peace on it.
She rolled around on the bed as the thought of her bed at home degenerated to the thought of her family.
She recalled all those times her brothers used to annoy her with their pranks and she would want to bite their heads off.
Being the only girl in the family she was always at the boots of her brothers jokes. Both the older ones and the younger ones none had mercy on her.
Just as they played their prank on her they were overly protective. No one else was allowed to play jokes on her or annoy her unless you want to get beat up.
She lost count how many times her older brothers fought in the village just because of her.
Salsa sighed and turned again. Wishing that sleep will claim her soon.
If she knew someday that she would be leaving them she would have cherished those moments with them more.
She wouldn't have wasted her time, daydreaming in her head and would have spent it with her brothers.
She has always been a dreamer wishing for a time she will leave the village to explore the outside world but this wasn't how she imagined it.
Salsa sighed and turned as the nostalgic feelings of her home gripped her like shadowless fingers, refusing to set her mind free to rest.
She found herself running through all the memories of her childhood and her home. It felt like an out of body experience as she watched the memories zoom past through her mind.
The memories of home became to painful to bear and Salsa forced her mind to make a shift.
Long black hair with piercing dark brown eyes, with face that reminded Salsa of a goddess, was the next thing her mind picked up but she quickly danced away from the thought of the Queen.
Thinking about the Queen was forbidden.
She didn't want to rehearse the night they just had. Her body is still pulsing with confusion and electricity of her touch.
No, she was just too wired to think about the Queen.
What else is there to focus?
Her mind continued to roam while her body turned restlessly on the bed. She couldn't settle and her mind refuses to sleep.
When she saw it was futile forcing herself to sleep she sat up on the bed, with her head swung down, the long tresses falling over her face.
She was exhausted mind body and soul and was at lost on what to do to sleep.
" Why can't I sleep? " she groaned in frustration, running her hand through her hair messing it up.
She got up from the bed and made her way towards the window.
The night has always held an attraction for her ever since she was a little girl. If she was to choose between daylight and nigh time she would pick the night.
Things look more beautiful at night.
The chills of the night pierce through her barefoot as they fell soundlessly on the wooden floor.
When she got to the window she unlatched it and then pushed it outwards. Immediately the night breeze swarm in her direction striking her skin and rasing goosebumps on her flesh.
Salsa hands raised to protect her against the chilling night breeze as she gaze out into the night.
The moon has never looked as beautiful and bright as it did this night.
She continued to stare at it marveled at its beauty.
It didn't escape her, the irony.
The night looked beautiful while her world has just turned ugly.
Despite the hopelessness of her thoughts she felt a little calm as she gazed into the night.
She stared at nothing in particular and was content looking into the distance.
The night was silent except the occasional calls of the night owls.
When she listened heard she could hear the footfalls of the guards as they patrolled the palace.
Without her permission her mind brought up the Queen.
She shivered not from cold but from the memory of the Queen's touch on her breast. She felt her nipples tighten as the memories replayed back in her mind.
Thinking about the Queen's touch felt so real that Salsa could almost feel her phantom hands moving over her flesh.
She gasped softly, her hands moving to her chest as if to curtain their beating. They were pounding with their cage just at the thought of the Queen.
She wondered what the Queen was doing right now.
Her mind wasted no time in supplying her the answer to her query.
She imagined the King running his hands over the Queen's body making her sigh in pleasure before finally owning her.
The thought of the Queen being with the King filled her mouth with a bitter taste and an emotion that made her chest hurt.
She doesn't know why she feels thus for the Queen and was confused about everything the Queen arouses in her and she wished things could go back the way it was before the start of this day.
She blinked severally shocked that is only just been a day since her world turned upside down and it was supposed to be her birthday.
" Happy birthday to me, " she muttered bleakly into the wind, her voice sad and mocking.
Salsa tried to imagine what the future holds for her from right now onwards but nothing came to mind.
She didn't know what is going to come of her in this new world she has been thrust into.
She was just a simple village girl with no idea how the world works and have no idea how she was going to survive here.
She has already experienced danger here and is not even a day she has been here.
The thought of Master Chang and his action earlier made her sad and scared. She couldn't bear the thought of what would have happened had the Queen not come.
She felt grateful for the Queen saving her and at the same time felt helpless at her own weakness.
The Queen is not always going to be there to save her. What will she do if she finds herself in the same situation.
" Nothing, "her mind supplied bitterly.
Being a slave now meant that her will was nothing when it comes to the Free born. She doesn't have the right to resist what ever they want of her no matter if it puts her in danger or not.
" You could run away, " a part of her suggested and Salsa scoffed and laughed at the same time.
The idea was ridiculous and dangerous.
The King kills any slave that attempts to run in the most horrifying way with no mercy.
The life of most slaves in the Kingdom especially pleasure slaves were abysmal. They are treated horribly with no say as to what happens to them.
Slaves are always attempting to escape their masters and the ones caught killed at once.
Salsa shivered at being subjected to the gruesome death at the order of the King.
Even if she manages to resist being captured she knows next to nothing about surviving on her own so it was a mute point.
She wondered if she was still a pleasure slave now or an ordinary slave.
The thought of being used for pleasure by the Queen caused a hot shiver to shoot through her spine leaving her trembling and warm between her legs.
She always abhor the thought of being a doll but being the Queen's doll didn't sound so horrible.
Numb from the night chills and her incessant thoughts Salsa decided to drag her tired body back to the bed.
She left the window open enjoying the beautiful shadow cast into the room by the moon.
She decided to turn off most of the lanterns in the room leaving only the moonlight streaming in from the open window.
When she laid back on the bed she felt calmer. The darkness offered her some comfort made her not see the strangeness of her new environment.
In the darkness she could imagine she was where ever she wanted to be. And the only place she could think off that brought her a certain comfort was her small cot at home.
With that particular thought in mind her eyes began to droop and slowly she slipped into the dream realms.
Lost in her subconscious she was transported from the world she knew to a place though familiar felt strange and unrecognizable.
She could feel that she was in the palace but the clothes she was wearing was a strange one.
She hand on a boy's clothes and her long blonde hair was shorter, just barely up to her shoulders.
Her appearance wasn't the only strange thing about her. In this new world she was carrying a bow and behind her back was a pocket bag filled with arrows.
A frown appeared on Salsa's forehead when she saw her other self shoot the arrows with an accuracy of a well trained soldier hitting the chest of her targets and never once missing.
This was a very odd sight.
Salsa has never carried a bow in her life neither has she ever fought in her life before but here not only does she know how to shoot an arrow from three miles away she also knows how to wield a sword and her enemies were the her people.
What is going on?
She stood at lost watching the carnality going on around her. Screams of death as swords slashed through flesh, arrows pierced through the skin bodies dropping like they are rain drops.
And in the middle of all these she was there and not just her. The Queen also.
The Queen looked like the fiercest warrior she has ever seen with her dark hair swaying around her.
Her movement was feral and swift as she moved through her enemies like they weren't there cutting through them before they even knew she was there.
She was poetic to watch, and Salsa couldn't look away.
As much as she was turned off by the blood and gore around her, watching the Queen as she slashed through her enemies lit a fire inside her, making her heart race.
She was a sight to behold and nothing else held her interest except for the Queen.
A scream made her look in that direction and her eyes grew wide as she saw the arrow heading towards the Queen before she realized it she was moving, yelling out warning to the Queen that was still slashing through her enemies unaware of the danger she was in.
She wasn't the only one who have seen the danger to the Queen. Her other self had also seen the arrow fired towards the Queen and had let her bow and sword fly while she raced towards the Queen, yelling a warning to her.
Salsa drew to a forceful stop when her other self got to the Queen first and used her body as a shield.
The arrow hit home, piercing through her chest.
Salsa gasped in shock as she watched herself get it by the arrow and the Queen realize what has happened.
The Queen's painful gut wrenching hurl followed her out of the dream world to reality.
She gasped clutching her chest as her eyes opened.
Her chest heaved from the ordeal of her dream and her eyes looked terrified. It took her a while to make sense of reality and pull herself fully out of her dream.
" Are you alright? " A soft familiar voice asked.
Panting Salsa turned in the direction of the voice and fell into the worried eyes of the Queen.