THE POPE'S DAUGHTER

Chapter 12 - The Highlands

Venezia suddenly gasps When she noticed mark coming out of nowhere from behind .

"Oh my goodness , stop scaring me like that !!! " She scolded .

"Haha , how're you doing?" Mark replied playfully .

"What are you doing here ?" Venezia interrupted.

"I don't know , I just missed you.. why ? "

Venezia rolled her eyes "well , miss somebody else if you may ?" She turned and found daisy standing in front of her and jumped again in shock .

"Jesus Christ ! You both?" She shouted in frustration .

"Shh , oh my god ! Calm down !" Daisy came running in haste .

"How can I?" Venezia explained her behaviour .

Seeing the view , mark chuckled slightly in his deep manly voice , grabbing Venezia's attention back at him .

"And what he's doing here ?" Venezia asked daisy in disbelief and continued without letting her explain herself .

"You cannot be seen here , you have to go" Venezia slightly pushed him , gesturing him to hurry outside .

"Okay , okay . I'll go" mark speaks out and suddenly holds Venezia's wrist and handing her sword to her . "But you're coming with me".

Venezia felt a lot of mixed emotions at that moment. She couldn't process what was going on and kept looking at mark and daisy both when mark held her and made her run away with him.

"Oh I'm coming too ..." Daisy's voice fades away in the background when she screams for herself behind them running .

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They took thier horses and reached upto the highlands . In first day , Venezia accompanied mark on his stallion.

Venezia got down in excitement and took a fresh breath of cold air of the mountains , she looks around and notices the beautiful view for the first time . Fields of wheat was all over that area along with an empty arena .

"This used to be the Viking's war camp"

Mark said to Venezia , while getting down from his stallion . "The place is empty now and occupied by random opportunist farmers." He took a look at the view himself for a minute and then offered the place to Venezia , bowing down like a gentlemen.

Venezia took a step ahead , feeling proud of herself . For the first time , she felt proud of herself for doing what she wants . It felt like her prayers have been heard by the heavens . She stepped upto a higher valley walking through a steep course and turned around drawing her sword .

Both mark and daisy , watched her drawing the sword against a crescent moon . It looked like a warrior has been fully risen out of her soul , ready to fight with whatever comes in front of her .

Venezia closed her eyes and took a moment to listen to the breeze which passed through her swords blade to her face into the unknown.

She took a deep breath in and thought to herself . "This is it !"

The warrior inside her woke up .

She turned her blade in front of her face and straight to her sight , she saw mark standing .

A thunder broke down behind mark . They both staring at each other at the moment .

Mark tried to give her strength through his eyes and she envisioned the sacrifice she was going to make . "I couldn't bear it , I couldn't bear losing him but i have to." She thought to herself while looking into his eyes from a distance.

A tear drop fell during this course. she tried her best to stay strong but the overwhelming feeling defeated her . Then she simply smiled .

She was ready.

Now , she was not scared anymore , and wanted to face every problem that came

in front of her.

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Epilogue :

After that night , they'd come everyday together to hang around in the highlands. Sometimes they're friends would tag along with them.

But , altogether those were the best 15 days of thier life when Venezia would simply practice in peace and mark would sit beside either reading and practicing still life painting on his own .

Either be it morning or in the middle of a night , whenever the situation felt easy , they would escape into the highlands.

Nobody in the convent had any idea as always of how Venezia escapes , because her and daisy were used to it before but the master knew about the prince's secret escape timings.

Gladly he was totally in support, because it caused no harm to him and was matured enough to understand what age the prince was going through.

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"Ugh , this won't work"

Venezia exclaimed after getting tired of sharpening her blade over and over again.

"We will have to go to the blacksmith , to get it repaired ."

It was a midsummer afternoon and daisy along with mark's friends tagged along with them to the highlands this time again . When Venezia was sharpening her blade as always , mark couldn't find any new view to paint , so he decided to paint her and got fully engrossed in it .

She noticed getting ignored totally and walked upto him. She admired herself for the first time in her life by looking at the painting .

"I look beautiful" she whispered !

"You look bold!" Mark corrected her. Mark always admired her beauty , so he had different variations of it in his mind.

There was a second of silence when they both were admiring the painting and Venezia noticed it.

"Well , I can make paint you like this very easily." Venezia broke the silence by talking casually.

"Oh yeah? Well then let's see how talented you are madam." Mark challenged !

He changed the canvas immediately and stood up , offering her his seat and his brush.

She watched him surprisingly and kept her sword on the ground , accepting the brush.

For 25 long minutes , mark stood still watching the clouds.

"Good heavens!" Venezia got very nervous thinking how seriously he takes challenges like this.

It was one hell of a task for her . She couldn't understand why making such simple strokes can be this difficult when she can cut a huge tree with a heavy sword.

Mark got there what she was going through but resisted himself in order to tease her. He kept on giving her a side eye and secretly laughing while enjoying the view.

After some time he gave up and walked up to check her status.

It was a horror.

"The amount of black you've used , my goodness!" Mark picked up a brush feeling irritated and dipped it extremely in white acrylic.

Venezia gasps dramatically "humph! Don't hate on your my favourite colour ! You understand?" She scolded , pointing her brush at him.

"Well , it is a colour to hate on ! Such a monstrous colour !!" Mark provoked her while trying to correct the painting as much as he can.

Venezia got extremely pissed at what he had said and marked his face with black paint with her brush.

Mark stopped for a second to digest her deed , and then attacked her back with light green colour.

Both painted each other pathetically in the course of thier fight and mark realised it. He held both of her hands with his , locking it up in a crisscross form.

The proximity between them was very less because of thier hands and they caught hold of themselves suddenly while looking deep into each other's eyes.

Mark's heart jumped with happiness in this situation with Venezia. He wanted this for so long but she kept avoiding him for no reason. He couldn't understand why , or maybe because she's told to. But her rebellious charecter wouldn't care enough.

Venezia felt a commotion of affection inside her when she looked at his hazel green eyes. It always had an hypnotic effect on her that's why his eyes was the hardest to escape from. She was totally caught up in the moment and couldn't get out of it. It felt like she has been paralysed.

"Venezia !!" They soon heard Daisy's voice coming for the lower mountains.

Daisy came running towards them and they immediately left each others hands after gaining thier consciousness.

"We're done , only your food is left . Go eat something or you'll have no energy to even pickup yourself" daisy taunted her and took Venezia with her back.

She turned at him for a second , not sure what she was feeling and left the highlands.

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