The Rogue Princess

I am Your Mother

Maya

“It is so dark, what is this place?”

Maya found herself surrounded by thick darkness; she could not move forth or back neither could she move to either side. She wanted to call out but was not sure if somebody was there with her. The only person she could trust was her Nona and she was most likely dead. Her memories were so clear, she remembered her grandmother fighting with the white haired old man. He had been using magic, as soon as the thought came to her she remembered Rita using the same kind of magic to fight as well. Maya could not help but feel so proud of her bad ass Nona, and then she remembered she might never see her again. As soon as she thought about her Nona being dead, despair descended on her like a blanket cloaking every ray of hope she might have to keep living.

Grandma Rita was the only living relative she had but the old man with the long beard had killed her and kidnapped Maya. There was not much she knew about the reason why the old man kidnapped her; she had only woken up in a strange place inhabited by strange people who thought she was a princess. They had strange eyes; some looked like those of a cat and they glowed if you looked closely. Their physical build made the males look like the Greek Adonis, or to be precise, the one she had met looked like a god walking that walked the earth. He had mismatched eyes that made him surreal, his long nose accentuating the curve of his mouth when he smiled. Just the thought of his smile brought a cute blush on Maya’s face. Her heart beat in tune with her thoughts, butterflies having a blast in her tummy as she thought of how it would taste to kiss his lips.

“Stop it Maya, concentrate on how to get out of here; wherever that is,” she scolded herself for having such indecent thoughts about someone she had just met briefly. Maybe he was one of the people that had killed Nona and kidnapped her - she could not trust them. No matter what kinds of tricks they used on her to get her to lower her guards, she would trust her instincts and not fall for their childish tricks. The charade of her being a princess was so out the world that she wondered how anyone in his or her right mind would fall for such nonsense.

She scoffed, the thought of her being a royal was so outrageous that it would be easier for people to believe she came from a rich family, one that would be willing to pay a hefty sum of money to the kidnappers. Tears came to her eyes suddenly feeling alone without her grandmother - the only living relative she had in this world. There were times she would fantasize of being a beloved daughter, who was dotted on and adored by both her parents. She would imagine all sorts of scenario whenever she was feeling alone – her father would be out in the open fields with her, running after her trying to tackle her down while her mother watched, a smile plastered on her beautiful face. Maya would try to outrun her father but he would be too fast for her. He would catch her and start tickling her while she would be laughing and yelling at the same time calling for her mother to come and rescue her.

With a huge smile, she would watch the father-daughter duo as if they were performing a show for her. Maya tried to guess what her mother would be feeling at such a moment, how much the woman in her fantasies loved her child and husband. Her fantasy always ended with her running from her father straight into her mother’s outstretched arms where she snuggled, feeling completely at home in her mother’s embrace.

Alas, life was not so kind!

Her reality negated her fantasy; her parents died in an accident when she was only two years of age. Grandmother Rita brought her up the best way she could, they did not have much, but she felt loved. There was no picture of her parents and so she creatively gave them a beautiful and handsome countenance. Her father she imagined was tall, bulky, with hair dark as the night that he tied at the nape. Her mother, she imagined had platinum blonde hair, eyes blue as the sky, a button nose and lips that looked as ripe as cherries. She would imagine her in elegant dressing and glamorous shoes. She never envisioned her father in suits; rather he was always casually dressed in jeans that hugged his lanky figure making him look like a Greek Adonis.

Her fantasy gave her but just a brief respite in the world of should-have-beens but reality always brought with it torture because no matter how happy she would be, even if it was just for the moments she created her own world; reality would come knocking on the door too soon, reminding Maya that her parents were long gone.

The darkness that surrounded her brought forth memories better buried in the past but it was not what she needed to stay alive. She needed her Nona, she tried calling out for her to see if she would answer. Her voice echoed back to her, she tried several times to call out for help but that too was of no use. She was in the company of echoes, silent bystanders and menacing darkness, Maya gave up trying to find help after a few attempts, she was just about to try and move forward feeling her way with her bare hands when a sliver of light so thin passed before her own eyes. She thought she had imagined it but another one more prominent than the previous one illuminated where Maya stood. Footsteps were heard coming from the opposite direction from where she stood, she could not tell from the way each step sounded that the owner was not heavy. It could be a young man or a woman, the steps were too light to be those of a man. Her breath caught when she thought that maybe they had come to finish her off just as they did with her grandmother.

She panicked!

“Who is there, hello… can you hear me?” she kept trying to reach out to the owner of the footsteps. A nagging thought took hold of her mind, what if that person was the same person responsible for her kidnapping. What would she do, would she be able to run from her or would she kill her? Her fright was fast helping her mind create gruesome scenarios of her end, whichever way she would look at the situation at hand she could only come to one conclusion; today was going to be the day she finally died.

Kharisi … Kharisi,” a voice whispered the name.

“Who is there,” she panicked.

Suddenly a bright light illuminated the darkness to reveal a beautiful room that had a queen size bed in the middle, a beautiful velvet ruby drapery that hung from the ceiling to form a tent-like cover for the bed. Silk strands twined to form a rope that fastened one end of the drapery to the wall, making it look like a patterned flower. On the floor was a maroon Persian rug with beautiful flower designs at the rim and one huge curved bell-like design in silver grey. On the far side of the room, a very elegant, beautiful woman with a long platinum blonde hair sat on a rocking chair holding a white cat. Her hair had a long braid that fell on one of her shoulders giving her a look of youth.

Maya thought she was in her fantasy world yet again but this time it happened involuntarily. She was in her fantasy world and the woman sitting in the rocking chair was someone she knew very well. She had conjured her so many times that it felt like she had created the image before her due to stress. The only difference was, in Maya’s world, this woman wore simple, beautiful, flowery dresses, but here she was elegantly dressed in a gown fit to be worn by a queen, and had that aura of a royal. Maya was tempted to curtsy to give obeisance to the royal woman but before she could, the woman stood and came towards Maya.

“Kharisi darling, finally you come to me,” the woman said as she lovingly caressed Maya’s cheek.

“I’m sorry lady; you are confusing me with someone, I am not Kharisi!”

“Oh but you are, I’d recognize my daughter anywhere,” the woman told Maya with such conviction that she had nothing to say to contradict her.

These people were crazy, first they confuse her to be a royal princess, and now here she was with a woman who claimed to be her own mother.

“I am an orphan, my parents died when I was two years old and I live with my grandmother. So you see, there’s no way I would be your daughter,” Maya clarified.

“I’ll tell you of something you like being kept a secret, only your grandmother knows; you have a birthmark just below your bellybutton. It looks like a crescent moon that has three stars, one at the top side and two at the bottom side.”

Instinctively Maya’s hands went to touch he navel, she had the funny looking birthmark that had caused children in her third grade class to bully her because they thought she was a witch. They had been outside playing when the shirt Maya wore pulled up revealing a birthmark. Colton her third grade nemesis had seen it and shouted to the others that she had the witch mark. For a week, her classmates continued to bully her until she could not take any more and punched Colton so hard on the face, breaking his nose in the process.

The punishment she received for breaking Colton’s nose, was a week’s suspension from school and when she resumed nobody dared to say she had the witch mark again. From then on, she hid it very well making sure nobody ever saw it again.

How do you know of it, are you not trying to get into my head just like the others?” she asked.

“No, I am your mother Celestine Mayalou Adolfo, first daughter of Emperor and Alpha king Casper Adolfo the third.”

“My mother? How?”

“Listen here child, there isn’t much time to waste. You are in an alternate dimension where our souls can interact freely. This in reality as you see is my room in the northern quarters where I am kept in secret.”

“Why,” she asked meekly all the fight in her subdued by the urgency in Celestine’s voice.

“You are about to wake up, Greta is really working extra hard to make sure you do,” she winked at Maya.

“No wait please …,” Maya pleaded.

“Trust your intuition, what does it tell you? If you need me you’ll always be able to reach me. Simply close your eyes and call out to me and I will be there. You need to know your identity and the dangers that lie ahead. Come to me tomorrow, you will learn all about yourself and your father,” she smiled sweetly before fading from Maya’s sight.

“No wait,”

“Finally, we were so worried about you,” Greta said hugging her.

She had woken up back to the same place that held so many mysteries that she was yet to uncover.

“What happened? Where am I,” she asked Greta.

“You lost consciousness, what do you remember?” the Greek Adonis spoke.

“What are you doing here?” asked Maya, irritated at him.

“He is the one who carried you when you lost consciousness,” Greta spoke with just a hint of rebuke without being too obvious.