Aurelie was on the second floor of an inn, looking down upon a massive sitting area. There were so many people around her that a cake of soap would not have fit between her and the person standing next to her.
The air came in thick through her nose and she felt like she had to breathe extra hard to get the stuffy air into her lungs.
Aurelie took a step to her right, coming to stand directly behind Daerious. She had not expected nearly as many people to live here. Their chatter sounded like the buzz of a very large bee colony, coming mostly from the sitting area below her. She stood on a narrow balcony of sorts and leaned against the rail, studying faces and watching movements.
The couches were spread around in groups, sponge sticking out from their legs, and the brown leather cushions were cracked with age.
Balls of light levitated above the rails of the stairs, and spread all across the room, moving around the room in wide circles. Her floor must have contained at least twenty rooms. The double staircase led to several floors above her, twisting out of her sight.
Her eyes caught a big woman in a bright green dress that had just arrived at a large party who sat by the fireplace. It looked like she was searching for somewhere to sit, but the couches had been filled to the brim. The woman turned to look at her and scanned the room until she found an empty seat, in the far corner of the room, right by the stairs. She watched it for a minute, and then just as a tall man walk past the lapidated light leather chair, she stuck her hand out toward itâfingers spread, as if in greetingâheld it there for a second and dropped her hand. The woman turned back around to the party and turned her attention to a woman with thick curly hair. Aurelie thought that perhaps she misunderstood what was happening, and the woman had just waved. Just as that thought crossed her mind, the chair began to move across the room toward the woman in the green dress. Two people had to dodge as it slid past them. It reached her and stopped just behind her legs as if it had eyes hidden somewhere in its pillows. The woman sat without turning.
"S'cuse me," said someone behind her. The young man pushed past her shoulder and turned to his side to pass through a group of people that were talking in the passageway.
His eyes caught her just as his head started to turn and he stopped dead in place. She saw the flicker of recognition. Whether it had been from how close she stood to her bedroom door or the fact that she had been a strange new face, she did not know, but he almost instantly knew exactly who she was.
"Oh, goodness!" he said, staring. He had been standing right in the middle of the group. Their eyes followed his, and landed on her too, coming to the same realization just as quickly. Aurelie wiped a hand over her nose just in case she was not as popular as she thought and there had, in fact, been something giant sticking out of it. There was nothing.
The man came to stand close to her, his olive skin tone turning a shade or two whiter by the second. "I'm Vel."
"Aurelie," she said, but her voice was muffled out by the buzz of the crowd. She swallowed bubbles of air and gave him her hand. He leaned down and kissed it.
"Such a pleasure," he said, picking his head up slowly, and keeping his eyes glued to her.
The eyes of the group he disturbed were still on her. She did not look at them to make sure but felt the sting of them almost as if she did.
She smiled at him, unsure of what else to say or what to make of his expression. He let go of her hand after a long while and disappeared into the crowd.
Daerious smirked but said nothing of it. He bumped her lightly with his shoulder and gestured forward with his head, starting to lead her toward the stairwell.
"Welcome dragon," said an old, dirty looking man, with more teeth missing than he had left inside of his mouth.
He stopped them on the very first step and took a good long look at her before nodding and walking past them.
Then more people followed, shaking, kissing, or just introducing themselves. Aurelie moved closer to Daerious, trying to hide behind him, and avoid any more kisses, but they came in packs. Her heart raced. She did not like any of it. After the third kiss, she felt a layer of moisture on her hand. It was too much. The circle of people tightened closer and closer around her, and Daerious was no longer in front of her. She saw his curls down below, about ten steps behind her.
"Princess!" someone called.
"Over here," another voice.
"Aurelie," a familiar voice called. Sasha raised her hand over the crowd. Aurelie saw her and her eyes almost watered. A man stood so close to her that she was almost sure she inhaled the air he exhaled. There was another breath warming her right ear every two seconds.
"Please," she said, but their voice muffled hers. They were calling her name and trying to get her attention, some of them were trying to touch her, and others just pushed their way closer to get a look. "Please, you're . . ." It was no use, they weren't moving.
She felt fingers tapping her shoulder, the sole of someone's shoe pressing against the back of her heels, and an elbow digging into her ribs. There was no space for her to move.
The tips of her fingers suddenly felt hot as red coals. Oh no, she thought as an orange hue spread over her vision.
"Please, let me through!" she said louder, but the loud murmur had only gotten louder since the last time she spoke, and her words were silenced.
People started turning to the left of her. She saw them step back, pressing tightly into the people behind them.
An iron grip fastened around her wrist and pulled her so hard that she felt the skin on her wrist burn as someone's fingers slid down it when it briefly lost its grip. She bumped into a man, her face pressing tight against his damp shirt, and then into another as the iron grip kept pulling at her. She went from being pressed against one body to the next. None of them moved to let her through, they couldn't. The crowd around her had been so large that everyone that had been around her first was trapped on the stairs with her.
Someone was shouting something but the words weren't clear. It was a woman's voice, high in pitch and growling with anger.
The odors of their bodies combined to make one foul reek of tobacco, liquor, and sweat. It was so potent that she could taste a stale sweetness in her mouth.
She couldn't breathe. Her lungs burned and her head felt as if something was tightly fastened around it. Stepping on toes, and tripping over every second foot, Aurelie kept herself upright merely by the bodies of the people around her.
They were still shouting.
"Princess!"
"There!"
"There she is!"
The pressure around her felt as if it had loosened suddenly as if the people had slowly begun to disperse there where she found herself now. She still couldn't see anything over their heads, being shorter than most of them, other than the very small children.
An explosive noise came from above them. Then another. Someone cried out in fright. The glowing lights, that floated above their heads, began to go dim. With every burst of sound, it got darker and darker until the whole room grew dark.
Aurelie closed her eyes. She did not want to be tracked by the light coming from them. Whoever led her had to be her eyes now. The people seemed to have been dispersing. It was easier to pass. She no longer had bump shoulders with everyone she passed. The air felt clearer too.
Something bright illuminated her closed lids and the murmur grew silent.
"You're behaving like oafs!" The woman's voice became clear now. It was Sasha. Her voice sounded raspy and dry, she must have been shouting for a while.
"You can open your eyes," Daerious whispered in her ear.
"If anything remotely like this ever happens again, we're transferring the Princess to Halbrook," Sasha continued. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my inn."
Aurelie opened her eyes. She and Daerious stood outside on the porch.
A man lay on the grass, his pants torn at the knees and some buttons of his shirt were missing. An empty glass lay beside him. Grounds of people sat in circles on the grass, talking and enjoying their drink. Some had been curiously turned toward the inn, eyeing her and Daerious or trying to get a look at what was happening inside the inn.
"I'm sorry about that."
Aurelie looked up at him without saying anything, then his face blurred as her mind drifted away from the present and she attempted to process what just happened to her. She felt dirty from everybody that she had to brush up against and the smell of them that still clung to her clothes.
What am I going to do? The trees swayed in the light breeze, casting their shadows onto the grassy ground.
"Are you alright?" Daerious asked.
She flinched in the realization that he had still been standing there. Her mind was not right. "I . . ." she began, but her throat felt thick and it was an effort to speak. "I need a minute to myself," she said after a minute. "Please don't follow me."
She rushed off the steps, her steps quickly turned into a run and she made her way toward the trees, yearning for the peach that almost radiated from them.
From the outside, it looked like a simple inn, though a bit strangely built and dilapidated in appearance. The right side of it was large with two floors while the left was smaller, and appeared to have been subsiding over time. There were twelve windows on the first floor, from and three big windows on the ground floor. The door was plain but worn and barely hanging on to its hinges. There were no more than two floors, though. Not from the outside, at least. She had sworn that there should be at least two more by the length of the stairs.
If she had walked past this place on her journey, she would never have guessed that it had been hiding so many magical people inside. The only thing she found to be strange was that the building was in the middle of the woods, exactly how far she didn't know.
She heard water, not waves, but faint splashing. The voices grew fainter. When she looked back, there was no light coming from the path she had followed. The inn was hidden too, safely behind the thickness of the trees. She was completely on her own in the woods.
What is wrong with me? I wanted this.
She had finally arrived at the water she had heard in the distance, it was a large pond surrounded by large boulders. The moon shone its light upon it, making it look like dark silk.
She climbed up, boulder by boulder until she was atop the largest one. Blood and sweat clung to her like a layer of a second skin.
Aurelie dove in headfirst, the water soothing and cooling her down.
Knowing this world, there would be some kind of three-legged, half-faced, and five tailed monsters waiting for her, but she didn't care. She swam further into the pond trying to get to the reflection of the moon.
Her legs started to itch and then her arms. She scrubbed her fingers along her skin, kicking with her legs to stay afloat. Layers of filth gathered beneath her fingernails. Goosebumps rose where her fingernails passed. She wanted to wash the journey off her. The journey and what happened in the inn.
Something bubbled behind her. Aurelie felt as air rose from the water, passing her legs and then her back. Small bubbles rose from the center of the pond, a few seconds later ripples formed in the water. The ripples grew, and a purple glow appeared beneath the water. Something was coming to the surface and it was close.