Estella wakes up to find herself curled under her silk sheets, snuggling a pillow between her arms. Her chin rests over its edge, and her plush lips pull in a pout.
She's naked under the bed spreads so she curls her knees closer to her chest for some warmth. Her fingers feel as dirty as her soul. Impurity surrounds her.
Why did I do it?
Why did I let him kiss me?
Was it worth it?
No.
Her conscious is quick to reply. It wasn't worth it. But it's too late. She is tainted now. If anyone gets the wind of it...she will be doomed. Her family would be banished from the castle grounds, shattered dreams piled up in a bag of regrets.
Her involuntary scratching of nail against nail is the only sound that surrounds her.
She was their only hope, only family, and still she let her inhibitions get the best of her. Let crappy flirt Julius Castello get his way with her!
Estella sighs an exasperated sigh. Her electric eyes fall on the window and she sees the dawn settle in the skies.
Estella hugs the pillow closer to her breasts, digging her nails in its fabric. She clenches her teeth against the pillow's softness and cries.
Her tears darken the red of the pillows, as if she were bleeding infinitely. Her wolf is distressed and it forces a want to phase. To change. To give in to her animalistic side and let go of all boundaries and forget all faults.
Be one with her true self. So, phase she does; breaking her bones and deforming her limbs into a majestic creature of gold spun fur. She howls over her bed, her primitive conscious having set itself on one goal:
To find Julius Castello and make him silent for good.
Estella tears away from the silk bed spreads and lunches at her imperial windows. She jumps out on the castle roof, following the bitter scent of the Second Prince. It's not far, citrusy...its mixed with someone else's.
The majestic Aningmoon Castle is surrounded by walls that are too high to climb but not too high to jump over. A draw-bridge separates the Castle grounds for Royalty from the castle grounds for the Rich. Estella spies Julius to be crossing that draw bridge with something or rather someone clung to his back.
He has royal knights walking alongside him which comes as a shock to Estella because Julius hated his privacy being tampered with.
Were they caught already?! It hasn't been that long...
No, it can't happen! She needs to make a move, right away!
So she runs, tearing her way through the wind and jumping unimaginable distances just to get a closer look. In her haste, she misses Czar Castello's unblinking stare at his brother's lagging form.
Estella runs up to the group and pounces right at the center of it. The Knights act immediately, drawing their spears and attacking her from every direction. Estella dodges the attacks with pure grace and swift elegance whilst making her way to the unguarded Alpha and tackling him to the ground.
Julius falls on his back with Estella's wolf perched on top of him and Edith pressed under, groaning sweet "Fuck you(s)" in his ear.
The guards keep their weapons at the wolf, not wanting to hurt but protect.
Being sandwiched between two girls, the situation would have been sexy for Julius if Edith wasn't sounding so venomous and Estella wasn't glaring her way through his soul.
Estella growls, forcing a paw on Julius' chest as the Royal guards point all their spears closer to her neck.
Czar smirks, standing at Julius' window and muttering, "What a harem you've got there, little brother..."
Julius' face drowns in anxiety as Edith keeps on pinching his 'tainted' hand away from her proximity.
"Release His Highness this instant or we will attack, Lady Crowne," one of the Knights order. Estella's wolf grunts in answer.
Edith, tired of being pressed under this slow burn bullshit of speaking and not attacking, pinches Julius' sides. He jolts up, squeaking, like a teenage girl, and ends up toppling over Estella. The sudden jerk was miraculous enough to get him out of Edith's chains.
The blonde sighs a breath of deep relief, coughing, for Julius nearly had her choked.
"Stelle, lovely, this it's not what it seems like..." Julius starts speaking while Edith sits up, noticing the wolf's fur shining under the dawn. An involuntary smile graces her face, the pain in her skull lulled to a bare minimum now.
"It's exactly what it seems like," Edith chimes, "he made me his wife."
"For Goddess' sake, can you shut up?! I don't even know you!" Julius snaps back, growling at her. Edith pulls a middle finger at him and kicks him in the face.
Gasps weren't enough a measure for the disrespect the second prince of their realm had to face today. It's safe to say that Estella was satisfied.
The wolf scoffs pleasantly and the Knights murmur collectively. Noticing how they weren't taking any action, Edith knew they were too invested in the drama. Poor working men with bland lives.
Julius, now aggravated on a personal level, pushes Estella off by mere force and pulls Edith bt her legs. His patience was now thinning for good.
Estella groans after hitting the drawbridge's gate.
The Knights gasp collectively as if they were a stock sound for a TV commercial.
Edith gets dragged from her feet, screaming sweet death threats, when Estella runs up to them and tackles Julius to the ground again. Edith takes the opportunity of Julius' haze and dashes to them, wrapping her chains around his neck.
The wolf narrowed her eyes at Edith. The blonde nods at the wolf. A moment of understanding was shared.
Czar tips his chin on his palms, amused.
Before the guards realised that their dear prince was being overpowered and could stab a person or two to help, the wolf sits on Julius' face and farts on it.
Edith hastily crawls away with her chains, disgusted yet impressed. The Knights stand frozen, processing the act of sheer bravery that the wolf committed.
This would be a long day...
The victim of fart abuse gives up on retaliation and lays splat on the ground as Estelle gracefully walks away from his pungent face.
"I think I'm in love with you..." Edith drags out, looking Estella in the eye and smiling. Her doe eyes held genuine adoration, somewhat erratic yet present. Estella's golden fur dances with the wind, shining like an unattainable treasure that Edith wants to possess.
Estella, not used to straightforward words of appreciation, looks away with a grumpy scowl. "You're beautiful," Edith waves at the wolf as Julius plays dead and the Knights drag him away from Estella's arse.
The crumbled paper that Julius had fished from somewhere within is left lying on the grounds. Edith narrows her eyes at it... would it be worth the effort?
She decides against it.
For once, the guards were too busy to bother her. Edith looks away from Estella to find herself sprawled in front of a castle. Her jaw drops open at the sight of the glimmering architectural mishap smack-dab in the midst of the unending forest trees.
Four surrounding towers, uneven in heights and widths, bordered the quadrilateral piece with a domed roof. The castle's color had a distinct inkling to the color of prison food bowls. Edith could almost feel a gooey yellow liquid flow down one of those towers.
The blonde visibly cringes, rubbing her aching palms against her fore-arms and wondering how she's still alive after all the tomfoolery that she has committed.
The doors, maybe their uneveness was a choice, suddenly pull open and out walkes a chubby man with curled moustaches and a stern gait. He carries an ochre colored scroll in his hand, dressed in silver and blue robes.
Edith wonders if this morning was a fever dream...or these shenanigans around her were an elaborate yet offensively designed prank. Offensive to her eyes, that is.
The chubby man almost waddled his way in front of her. He stands before her and the wolf, opening up the scroll and clearing his throat before announcing—
"Lady Crowne, by order of His Royal Highness, you shall be detained until further jurisdiction at the Royal Court commencing henceforth to the sixteenth hour on Sunday."
Edith looked around, right and left, to find a lady in presence. There wasn't one.
"You've got the wrong person, my dude," Edith replies, airily scrunching her nose at him. "It's fine really, no need to apologize or feel embarrassed, happens to the best of us," she nods at him with her lips pressed in a diplomatic smile.
The man looks at her like an irritable booger in his eye. Edith leans forward, tunneling her mouth with her palms so only he could see what she spoke, and whispers, "If you move away now, no one will notice your blunder."
The wolf beside her scoffs yet again as Edith leans back to pet its head.
"Knights, please follow through," The chubby man announces yet again, grimacing at Edith with his small face that barely had room for any expressions considering his generously endowed features and hair growth.
And it wasn't until the Knights circle Edith once again that she realises the wolf's name to be Lady Crowne. How unique.
The guards collar the poor pet while Edith thrashes around in her bounds again, they detain her by her arms now.
"That's animal abuse you wet nugget! I bet it can eat you all alive and you're just scared!" She screams, resisting with all her might, trying to lurch forward and help the wolf...but it complied willingly and leaves Edith to wonder if it could understand human language?
As usual, no body pays mind to Edith's fountain of opinions and does their job in leading the wolf inside the castle.
The chubby man then turns to face Edith and opens a smaller scroll that was rolled inside the larger one.
"Edith Aberdeen Chambers, by the order of our Royal Highness—"
"Fuck your Royal Highness!" Edith mimicked his slurry accent, which earned her a loud slap in return. It stung on her cheeks like a real bitch.
This is not a fever dream.
The man coughs and continues, "—you have been captured as human leverage from the Maley abode—"
"Wait, Maely as those freakishly annoying neighbors who won't shut up singing carols?! They had me captured?! Was it Pristine who reported me? Did it have something to do with climate change and eating pizza?!" Edith rants again, only to be ignored maliciously.
"—and are to be detained under supervision for being a test subject to..."
"Test subject?" Edith raises an eyebrow at the man talking almost mechanically. She has had enough of this now. "Hey, is anyone of authority here? Can I talk to someone with conversational skills please?" Edith shouts to no one in particular.
The man keeps continuing, "...Program for transformation of species as devised in the treaty..."
"Common, man up, talk to me you peasants! What are you so afraid of, huh?!" Edith shouts again. Though, this time, her cries bring avail.
A strange presence overwhelms the air around them and she could feel her gut drop. A feeling a bitter dread overcomes her limbs and whelms them cold. The Knights surrounding her drop to their knees, consecutively, in a pattern.
The chubby announcer too falls on the ground, almost licking it.
The men withholding her drop as well, dragging her along. Her knees are pressed against the cobbled ground, now scratched and bleeding.
A man walks into her line of sight, dressed in a crisp pant suit, reeking authority with his raven curls tied behind his nape and tattoos peeking through his collar and spanning all over his neck. With a gesture of his eye, the soldiers bounding Edith abandon her side and stand away.
Edith frowns at him, rubbing her arms over for the men surely left some bruises. In a strange place, amongst strange people, under strange circumstances, Edith does not let her eyes show weakness. Though her head hurts, limbs sting and wrists feel burdened with the weight of the world, yet she looks the man in the eye and stands up.
Her brown eyes are blazing under the morning sun, an anger behind them. It makes the man smirk greedily.
She was too irksome and responsive.
"What gives you the right to hinder the peace of our territory so early this day?" the taller man questions, voice deep, hands folded behind his back and a stance demanding respect and radiating pride.
Edith breaths in a wish of courage and walks up to him, closer, eye in eye. Her neck is craned because he towers over them all. She feels small in his presence. In the vast expanse of the trees that surrounded them and the excuse of a castle behind him, she is a nobody.
He stands like he is everything.
Edith clenches her jaw and tip toes, faces almost touching, as she breathes out her words, seething, "And what gives you the right to inject me at my doorstep, kidnap me, detain me and then have the audacity to order me around?!"
Her words are so feeble against his massive form. He isn't even that big, broad or menacing— maybe it's just the way people react to his presence.
Dropping and cowering.
Edith is better than them and she lets him know with her stance.
"You are leverage," he speaks, leaning even closer to her face, almost breathing on it. "I'm sure you have heard. Along with that little girl...what a chatty thing—"
A Slap.
Right across his face.
Stopping him mid sentence.
It was as if time itself came to a standstill after witnessing Edith's act of dumb valor. Too stunned to run again.
Peace prevailed. Everyone but Julius witnessed it. Pity.
A human slapping the Werewolf Lord.
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE— A GREAT FUCKING KING OR SOMETHING?! MAKING INNOCENT PEOPLE YOUR LEVERAGE AND KIDNAPPING CHILDREN WHEN THINGS DON'T GO YOUR WAY?!"
She shouted in his face, blind, fearless rage upon her face. Pristine. She wishes the child was safe. He could smell her blood coursing through her veins and somehow it urged his wolf to commit unimaginable things. There wasn't a trace of fear in her scent and it excited him. He looks back at her with something inexplicable in the scarlet pits of his eyes.
"I am the King," he replies in modest and calm undertones.
A slap.
Yet again.
On the other cheek this time.
This fucking lass—
Czar realizes she has nothing to lose.
"Aren't you so proud to be one! You little hooligan living with your head up your delusional little arse. Get out of my sight and bring me someone whom I can talk to, who has brain cells of normalacy left in their head. Standing in front of a castle in the middle of nowhere, calling it your kingdom— fools."
Edith snaps again, hindering his line of thought with her bitter words. She is infuriating, absolutely, unbelievably, pure vision of everything Cazr Castello hates and she makes him feel.
Feel anger. Feel rage. Feel Fury. Feel happiness at feeling.
Edith Chambers— a defenceless human of 5'5", standing unknowingly on the grounds of supernatural creatures, surrounded by around a hundred of them— has the audacity to slap the first prince of the Royal Household. Twice.
Czar Castello. The true alpha. The most feared among all werewolves and shapeshifters. Second to none but the Moon Goddess herself.
Mans got anger issues.
HIM OF ALL PEOPLE!
The sheer disrespect of their acting King was not tolerated by one of his Knights who ran up to them, a sword unheated, shouting, "How dare you disrespect our King you wench!"
But he couldn't make it to them. He stood a few feet away from her. Blood gushing out of his mouth and his sword stabbed in his own stomach. Czar stood behind him, pushing the sword further deep.
"You weren't ordered to move."
There was a hollow smile on his face, something maniacal in those red eyes that scrutinized the ever so brave form of the human standing before them.
So brave and unflinching.
Czar looked her in the eye and knew, she was the one he'd torment for eternity to come.