~Serana⚜

The queen retook her seat gesturing to the seat beside her for me to take.

Sitting down, I'm careful not to knock anything over or plop in my seat. As much as I hated it, I had to play nice. With one word or even a gesture this woman could have me killed, no questions asked. Try not to make it necessary. Rings in my ears again. If I gave her the slightest reason to, she would have me killed or worse.

As I sit back my eyes land on the plate of food in front of me. The smell of roasted meat, smoked vegetables, and fresh bread along with something else I can't identify invades my nose causing my stomach to twist painfully.

Clenching my jaw I refrain from reaching out with my hands and shoveling the food into my mouth. Glancing sideways at the queen I find her eyes already on me, watching me to see how I act.

Picking up the fork I fiddle with it until I get what I assume is a good grip with my fingers wrapped firmly around the handle.

Holding the fork I try to stab the pile of red saucer shaped vegetables. I only half succeeded in getting the food onto the fork. Picking up one of the red saucers it starts dripping some sort of semi translucent dressing over the plate.

Not wanting to get the stuff all over me I lean forward to take a bite out of the dripping vegetable. A burst of sweetness spread across my tongue followed by a sharp bitter bite.

Jerking back in my seat my face pulls into a pucker and I drop the fork back onto the plate.

A low airy chuckle has me prying my eyes open to see the queen with the ghost of a smile touching the corners of her mouth.

Scowling I reach for the glass next to my plater of food. It had what assumed to be water. Taking a small sip I was relieved to find out that it was water and not some weird concoction.

Washing down the bitter aftertaste of the vegetable I pick up my fork once again and pull it out of the disgusting red thing. I looked around for something to wipe the clearish goo from my fork. There wasn't anything near my plate that I could see would be okay to wipe my fork off on.

Something landed near my plate brushing my hand. Jumping my eyes land on a black piece of cloth with gold embroidery around the edges.

Looking up I find the queen has stopped starring at me and returned to her own meal. Picking the cloth up I wipe off my fork and focus back on my own plate.

Before I can catch myself I find my eyes darting up to look a the queens hand as she holds the fork.

Unlike the way I had tried to hold it with a tight grip, she held it gently between her fingers with the end resting against her palm between her thumb and forefinger.

Adjusting my grip to match her I try to eat again. This time finding it much easier to pickup the food with this new grip. I made sure to stay far away from the red vegetable this time around and ate the other foods on my plate.

The food was delicious and better than anything I'd ever had in my life but I couldn't find it in myself to enjoy the flavors bursting in my mouth. I was too antsy and nervous.

I wanted to say something, to break this defining silence and insure that I wouldn't be getting friendly with the executioners blade.

But I wasn't sure what to say or if I should not say anything at all and just wait for the queen to speak to me.

"You are frightened of me." The smooth voice of the queen breaks the silence and obliterates my trail of thought. She states the sentence like a fact, definitive and unfortunately true.

I don't answer not only because I'm not sure if I am supposed to but also I'm not sure what I could say to that. I couldn't argue the point, I was scared more than I've ever been, even with resent events. There was a difference between a vyx trying to eat you and the queen constantly judging you, waiting for a misstep to give her reason to drop the axe dangling overhead. The vyx was predictable a constant reliable thought process. But the queen wasn't so simple, she had an indeterminable amount of reasons behind every decision she made. So vast a web only she could navigate. I couldn't hope to best her, but I could certainly twist the odds in my favor.

"I know you're not shy of speaking your mind, as you've already proven, so by all means don't hold your tongue on my account." She says goading me to speak.

Taking a deep breath I face her and do as she ask. "I see no reason to speak." I force out through a painfully fake grin and then as an afterthought add, "Your majesty."

She didn't respond, only stared. Her dark blue eyes boring into me, digging through my walls in search of something.

"Be careful who's games you play, Serana." She warns and the way she says my name, with so much weight and meaning behind it, makes a chill crawl up my spine. She knew things about me, like my name and other more personal things my nani has seen fit to share with the queen, and all I knew was her tittle and reputation.

"I have a knack for turning things in my favor." I respond, my voice sounding much more confident than I felt.

"Funny, so do I." Her voice isn't hard or threatening, not like it had been before back in the yard. She spoke in an oddly gentle tone that scared me much more than the angry demanding tone of before.

That woman I had expected, a mean tyrant like queen. This one with a calm voice and knowing eyes was far different than the queen rumors had spoke of. A raging, selfish queen was an easy enough adversary to best mentally. But the woman in front of me held a deathly intelligence within sapphire eyes shielded by a mask of gentle calm.

I could not best her head on but I was just as skilled at evasion as a skirte. I could survive, for now.

One great white wing shifted and my eyes caught on a shiny silver pike protruding from the tip of her arch with swirling decor engraved all across it.

As far as I knew only deamons had pikes on their wings and they were made of bone not metal. Not to mention it didn't look to be the right shape, it was too rectangular with a curve in one side almost as if it were made to be held in a firm grip like a handle of some sort.

The wing shifted again this time followed by the rest of the queens body. She was sitting up even straighter lifting her head to look over me and at the door.

Turning my head to look at the door as well I see a man with brown and gray dappled wings standing in the doorway looking at the queen with a stern expression that screamed urgency.

"If you will excuse me, there seems to be a matter I must attend to." The queen says rising from her seat. Snapping my head back around to face her I watch her take long clipped strides to the man.

That's when I notice that no one else was in the room. The guards having stepped outside to give the queen and her 'guest' privacy.

The moment the queen stepped out the door the guards would come in a few seconds later.

Seeing that the man seemed to be focused entirely on the queen as she approached I took my chance. Now or never. Sliding under the table I use the tablecloth to hide from sight.

Crouching under the table something exhaled at my side nearly causing me to jump up and scream. Biting my tongue I look to where the sound came from, the chair the queen had been sitting in.

Under the table with me, laying at the foot of the queens chair, was a black mass of feathers and fur with slim taloned forefeet and thick pawed hind legs. A curved wicked looking beak making up half its face with a broad angled head. A gryph had been lying asleep under the table at the queens feet the whole time we were eating, just inches away from me.

Swallowing down the rising lump in my throat I quietly turn away and crawl in the other direction.

I hear shifting noises by the door and dunk down to get a glimpse from under the tablecloth. I see two pairs of feet exiting the room, the queens standing out in sharp contrast to the other pair as white as she was.

Turning to the other side I quickly slip between the chairs. Most would think it wise to stay down below the tabletop and sneak across the room. But that was expected so of course it would be noticed.

Not wasting another second I spring to my feet and dash for the wall. Using my talons I practically run up the side of the wall on all fours.

Latching on to a wooden support along the high vaulted ceiling I cling to it for dear life not daring to look down as the guards entered.

"What- where in the skies did she go?!" A mans voice booms. I hear the rustling and clang of cloth and metal as they search under the table.

"Skraaooo..." A loud shrieking roar pierces the air making me flinch and tighten my grip on the wood.

A woman's scream followed shortly after and more screams were drawn from the other guards.

Daring to turn my head and look down at the room below me I find all four guards in the room temporarily distracted be the gryph that had been previously sleeping under the table, who was now latched onto a guard snapping its sharp beak at her face. Taking my chance I crawl upside down across the wooden beam until I reach the door I had entered.

Unlatching from the beam I spin in mid air and land with a light thump and whoosh of air. It was just enough to draw attention.

Tensing up I quickly glance past my wing, none of the guards seemed to hear me, too distracted by the gryph.

Turning my attention back to the door I stand and open it as quietly and quickly as I can. Entering the hallway I close the door with a soft click. Glancing around I didn't see anyone roaming the hall and I couldn't hear anything other than the muffled commotion from inside.

Breathing in deeply through my nose I catch a scent from the dinning room, something I thought had been coming from the food. Closing my eyes I take another deep breath through my nose. The smell seems faintly familiar but I still couldn't place it.

Following the scent it takes me down the hall and through another ending in front of a nondescript door, compared to the others, at the end of the hall just before it split off in two opposite directions.

Placing my ear against the door I close my eyes and listen. Quiet voices were coming from the other side too muffled by the door to make out what they were saying.

Stepping back with my eyes still close I try to think. Before any thoughts can come to mind I hear talking and my immediate thought is to run, the guards found where I went.

But this was only one voice and it was coming from the opposite direction from which I had come. I didn't want to leave without finding out where the scent was coming from and why it was familiar so I looked around frantically for a place to hide. Spotting the statue of the fore mother holding a sapien child in a cutout at the split in the hallway I dash for it and hide behind the light gray, stone statue.

I hear what sounds like wheels accompanied by light footsteps and a woman's muttering. Hiding more fully behind the statue while still keeping an eye on the hall I see a cart enter my field of vision along with the muttering woman.

Something drops from the cart and the woman has to turn around to pick it up.

"She can't have gone far! We have to find her or the queen will clip all our wings!" The guards shouting echoes down the hall.

I couldn't stay here or they'd find me so before I could think about it too much I dove for the cart and hid under the tablecloth that covered the lower level of the cart while the woman was still distracted.

I was sat uncomfortably on towels and rags but I was more concerned with keeping my wings wrapped up and behind the tablecloth.

The cart started moving again but instead of going down the other hallway like I thought it would, it turns and heads down the one I came from.

Damn it all I'm trying to get away from the guards! I barely manage to prevent cursing aloud. The cart stops again but this time it was in front of the door I had been trying to get through earlier without being seen. Well I guess this is one way to do it. The woman opens the door and backs the cart in.

Before she can get more than five steps into the room a cold voice speaks. "I'm afraid this room is occupied." The clipped voice of the queen is heard through the room.

"Y-y-your majesty." The cart woman stutters a light clattering accompanying her words as she drops something. "My apologies I wasn't aware..."

The woman is cut off by a mans deep voice. "Well now you are so if you would, leave." He commands.

"Y-yes of course." The woman scurries out of the room leaving the cart, and me along with it.

Once the door clicks back into place the queen speaks again. "You didn't have to be so callous, she was doing her job."

"Need I remind you the urgency of the situation? The guards are acting funny and there are things being kept from everyone, even Avar is unaware of some things." The man hisses. My eyes have gone wide and my breath catches at the tone he uses with the queen.

"Urgency does not make room for cruelty Fyko." The queen responds, seeming to disregard his tone. "I will see to it that measures are taken. In the meantime you are relieved of your duty to watch Avar and will now find out anything you can about these instances and report them directly to me like always."

"Yes, my queen." The man answers take the words as his dismissal and leaves the room. The man was the queens spy I realized. Which meant I would have to be even more careful if the queen had spy's at her disposal.

Before I can get much farther in my train of thought I hear the tell-tell 'shink' of a sword being unsheathed a moment before the cart is flipped sideways.

Panicking I flail my wings and end up falling out of the cart on my back, landing at the feet of the person who flipped the cart.

Grimacing I peal my eyes open to find myself looking up at the queen with a long silver sword hovering inches above my neck.

All I can do is blink in response as she moves to straddle me hips with her feet on both sides and proceeds to drop to her knees on top of my wings.

Yelping in equal parts pain and surprise my body jerks trying to get out from under the weight of her body but I only end up pulling on my feathers that are pinned beneath her legs. With a painful twinge running up my wings I still my body to prevent further damage to my feathers.

The sword was now lay flush against my neck but I tried not to focus on it. Instead turning my gaze to the woman kneeling over me. My gaze finds the silver pike in her wing but the other was missing. Swords. She had swords in her wings. I'd heard about this happening in high nobility families or families with high ranking officers consistently enlisted. When the children were still young and their wings were still developing they would have surgery done to open a gap in their wings and they would grow with a splint in them until they reached the age they stopped growing in which by that time their wings would have fully developed around the obtrusion. They would get metal sheaths molded to their open wings and then they would receive their permanent weapons specifically made to them.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat I forced myself to take a deep breath. I was stopped short when my breath caught in my throat at the sent hanging thickly in the air.

The queens mouth was moving but I wasn't listening to a thing she said, my attention was solely on the familiar sent that seemed to be coming from the queen herself.

Taking another sniff I started to lean up but the twinge of pain in my wings and warm metal at my neck stopped me short.

Not knowing what else to do I couldn't lean up to see if she really was the source of the smell and she wasn't going to lean down. So I did the only other thing I could think of, I grabbed the hand holding the sword to my throat and reached up grabbing her behind the neck and pulled her to me.

Thankfully I was hold the sword baring hand in my left hand, I hadn't been lying when I said I was left hand dominant, and was just strong enough to push back and keep her from slitting my throat.

Pushing her hand across both our bodies I pin our arms between us and pull her closer. I could have easily sank my teeth into her throat and be done with it but the sweet tangy smell stopped me. It was stronger now, leaning forward and grazing the side of her neck with the tip of my nose I take a deep breath filling my lungs. The sent was coming from her.

"Are smelling me?" The queens voice breaks through my thoughts.

Realizing what exactly I was doing and to whom I let her go and lean back. She sits back up and rest her weight against my hips. I expect her to take the sword still gripped firmly in her hand and lop off my head but she doesn't. She just sits there staring at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have.

Clearing my throat I try to explain through waves of embarrassment. "You ah- smell- familiar." I stammer awkwardly looking anywhere but at her.

She still doesn't say anything and the silence is frying my nerves. I couldn't take it anymore so I fixed my red orange gaze on her dark blue eyes. They were searching, what for I didn't know, but after minutes of starring each other down she seemed to be satisfied with what she found.

"You are quite the little puzzle aren't you." The queen whispers more to herself.

Before I can catch it a soft growl rumbles deep in my chest vibrating my whole body. The pupils of her eyes grow large and I can just see the sharp points of her fangs through parted lips. Her eyes darken as she growls back louder and deeper causing my breath to catch in my throat cutting off my own rumbling.

She lifts the sword in her hand and I think she's about to finally use it but instead she sheaths it and leans forward placing both hands on either side of my head. She leans down until all I can see is her eyes boring into mine and lips whispering words that would become my motto. "Be very careful what game you play Serana. Every move counts."

And with that she leaned back and lightly flapped her wings, to help her regain her feet without messing up my wings anymore, and walked out the door. Leaving me to lay there until the guards found me a couple minutes later.