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10
Mara
Iwoke up to Simeth softly kissing my cheek. I found his lips and continued the kiss through a sleepy smile.
“Hey,” I muttered. “What’s the plan for today?”
“Maybe we can skip the tours, and I can just keep you in bed with me all day,” he teased.
“Oh, that sounds perfect,” I said as I stretched out on the seemingly endless bed. I yawned and he chose that moment to try and kiss me again. I let out a giggle and kissed him back until we’d had our fill.
“I actually have a meeting in about twenty minutes.” He confessed.
“Aw,” I groaned. “Can you call in sick?”
“That’s not really an option.”
“Damn.” I followed the line of his tattoo, trying to memorize it for the time he’d be away from me.
“If you want to explore, though, the kingdom is completely open to you.”
“Completely open? So, I can just waltz into a bank and—” I joked.
“And I’ll tell them to give you every penny,” he added with a chuckle. Pressing me into the bed, he kissed me again and again until I felt dizzy with affection. “I’ll be back within a couple of hours.” He kissed me one more time for good measure.
I’d never felt this cared for.
It was sweet and somehow surprising.
I never thought I’d have someone who was as crazy about me as I was them. When he left, a man with a large brunch cart knocked at the bedroom door.
I got one of everything, of course.
After eating way too much and picking an outfit that said I was here to try but didn’t want to look too slutty, I headed into the main part of the castle. As I wandered the endlessly empty space, I thought about my tiny duplex apartment that I shared with my grandmother, and it suddenly felt like I had nothing at all.
Peering through an arched window, I saw the expanses of beautiful fields and mountains and realized how I could take the kingdom back to my grandma. My phone may not have cellular service in Crystal Glass, but I could still take pictures.
Suddenly a little too excited, I took pictures of everything I could.
From maids to bizarre tapestries and paintings to sculptures of dragon shifters.
The castle had everything: beautiful terraces, vast gardens, some kind of weird blue roses that grew like weeds. Pulling my sketchbook out of my bag, I flipped to a new page and got to work drawing.
I only really fell into art because of my grandma.
She’d read me stories about daring adventurers and amazing shifters. Aliens. Merfolk. Secret kingdoms in mountains and water. She inspired me to draw and create whatever I could conjure up.
At some point that turned into me painting signs and windows. It wasn’t a terrible way to make a living, but it wasn’t what I’d alwaysimagineddoing. It would be nice if I didn’t have to make art that would get erased a month later or painted over or washed off… something permanent.
I loved illustrating fanciful and bizarre things and thought that maybe someday I’d have my illustrations of the weird and wonderful seen by children, and it would make their world a little brighter too.
I packed up my sketchbook and went to continue my exploration. In the next building, there were great cavernous halls that seemed to swallow all sound. Perhaps it was judicial, as it seemed to have a more formal and less ornate design than the castle. Some of the doors felt like they were begging to be opened, while others felt dangerous in a way. I’d never felt that about an untouched closed door before.
As I headed deeper in, I saw a young woman that didn't look like the rest of them. Most of the women in the kingdom seemed to wear servant uniforms, but she walked by in jeans and a tee-shirt.
A fellow tourist?
Not wanting to explore alone, I decided to chase her down.
