Though I was in a world with three suns above my head, none of them could reach out to me to wake me up in the morning. But just like my mum, my new grandmother was there to get me out of the bed.
'Good morning darling!" she greeted me cheerfully. "I am soo excited to spend my first day with you. Common get changed into these new clothes. Your clothes look shabby."
I was still wearing the same clothes that I wore On the day I got kidnapped. I couldn't believe That I survived for several months in one set of clothes. She handed over to me a beautiful dress that looked very familiar to those on earth. The clothes the others wore were very different from what we wore. It was made out of thick and light material.
After I got changed Grandma took me on a tour around the palace. She showed me different rooms explaining what happened inside each of them. Everything was new to me. After the inside tour, she took me To the outer palace. For me, that was the best part of the tour.
There were trees, herbs, and ponds, and what excited me was the fact that they were all built under the ground. On top of the outer palace is a large opening from the top that allowed a small amount of sunlight to pass through it. Small colorful flowers were covering a large area but there were no any tree or flowers that I had seen before.
While walking, I suddenly felt something hit on my feet. I screamed. When turn around a small cute cotton ball was behind me.
"That is the newborn baby of my pet Jingi." grandma said.
" I'll show you, my baby. Jingi my little thing! Where are you?" she started calling out to her pet. In a second a big cotton ball was in front of us.
"These are the most tamable animal you can have on this planet," grandma said patting her pet. "If you want, you can keep her baby with you."
"And don't forget to name it as well." said grandma handing me over the baby.
The cotton ball didn't have any eyes. There was an opening like a mouth and two big pairs of ears. It had eight little legs with no fingers in them.
"I will name him as… err, is this thing a he or a she?" I asked her shyly.
She laughed and said "there is no he or she for them. Everyone is of the same gender"
"seriously! That's cool." I laughed.
"Speaking of names, grandma what is your name?" I asked her holding her hand.
"My name? well, my name used to be Beth. But people call me muhao Soline. Muhao means mother, so in your language that is going to be mother Soline", she replied to me as we walk down along the huge trees.
"Should I call you mother soline or grandma?" I asked her with my eyes wide open.
She smiled and said, "please call me grandma. That is lovely".
"grandma…, how did you know our language?" I slowly stopped and asked her.
Her face changed in a second. Her eyes were filled with a sense of unbearable sadness. She looked down and sighed, "you don't need to know that now. When the time comes I'll tell you". she continued her walk.
Maybe I shouldn't have asked that. The whole atmosphere between us changed. We continued the rest of our tour in awkward silence.
After a long walk, we returned to the inner palace. I was exhausted. When I entered grandma's room, there was another small bed next to her's.
"This will be your bed from today onwards." She pointed at the bed and said happily. "what do you think? Do you like it".
"Yes, grandma. It looks so comfy" I faked a smile as I replied. It would have been better if I had a separate room. But staying with her was not too bad.
After lunch, grandma took me to her library. That was a huge room and there were about thousands of books inside it. I walked around the room touching the antique-looking books. The materials of the papers were very rough and thick and the letters inside were of another language.
I spent my time walking from shelf to shelf while grandma continued reading. As I was walking, I was stopped by two brown yes. He was reading a book, leaning onto a book rack. My eyes were caught inside the sight of this man. He raised his head and smiled at me. I walked closer to him and asked,
"What are you doing here? I mean, I know that you are reading… Maybe I'll change my question to what are you reading?" I stuttered. He closed the book and asked me, "How are you?".
"Me?..err... I am fine. Yeah, I am fine" I answered forcing myself to lie.
He looked relieved to hear my answer. He kept the book on the shelf back and held my hand. His hand was so big and warm. Then he started running dragging me out of the library.
That was so fun. We ran through the palace hiding from the palace guards and the soldiers. Both of us were laughing with our mouths shut tight. We climbed and climbed hundreds of steps and finally ended up in front of a door. He opened the door and said, "come in". As I walked in, I felt like I was at the top of the whole world.
"This is the tallest place inside my palace. You can see everything of the palace from here." Chithak said.
He was right. We were at the top of the palace.
"But wait did you say 'my palace' right now?" I said while coming back to reality.
"Yes, my palace. Why do you ask? I know it is not yet mine, but one day it will." He said while trying to match up the words to make the perfect sentence.
"You are living in the palace and this palace will be yours one day?..." I started adding up the situation. "So that means, are you a crown price?"
"I don't know exactly what you mean by that. But I guess that is what you call the son of the king. If that is the case, then yes. I am a crown prince" he replied proudly.
I was speechless. "That means I was running all the way here with the crown prince and the person I raised my voice to that day was… was a crown prince!"
I couldn't believe that I was still alive. I felt a small shiver running down my nerves. I gathered all my courage and said "I am really sorry for that day. I didn't mean to. But.. but…"
Chithak smiled and patted my head and said " That is okay"