'. . . so that's the tale of The Billowing Gardens,' I say, concluding the hour-long story.

Silence follows this statement in which I stare at the faces of the children seated in front of her. Most of them look confused, not sure the story had actually ended and waiting for her to continue.

I smile at this and start to stand up from the stone bench on which I am sitting. It is almost night now, although there is still a little brightness, the white sun had gone to rest and very soon the blue sun will be out.

'Is that all, Åra Koe?' a bright girl asks, her copper eyes gleaming.

'Yes.' I am now up and stretching my back.

'Uh,' says the child. She looks so downcast that it seems funny to me, the way her small head is bent and her mouth slightly open, showing off scanty milk teeth.

'But I shall narrate another tomorrow, about the shellpad reptile.'

I watch as the children's little faces brighten at this.

'Yay!' they chorus.

I laugh. Which child didn't enjoy tales of the infamous shellpad reptile?

'Thank you, Åra Koe,' some of them say.

Oh, that.

I stop laughing. 'Please, do not call me that, call me Thirada,' I gently explains for the nth time in my life.

I've always been called 'The King's Daughter' my whole life except by close friends and family and I don't really like it. I prefer to be called my own name, Thirada, but it's tradition and I have to succumb to tradition.

'But it's rude to,' a bright redhead says, his golden eyes wide.

'I know, Teym,' I say to the boy. 'I know.'

'And Åra Koe suits you, Åra Koe,' another bright redhead says.

'Because you're our Åra Koe,' the third redhead adds.

I shake my head in resignation and sit back down. The triplets wouldn't be the death of me. I had known this was coming the second Teym opened his mouth; when one spoke -usually the boy, Teym- the others followed suit.

'Peim, Seim,' I say to the girls and loudly, for the benefit of the other children, 'Yes, I'm the Åra Koe and it's tradition to refer to me as such but I'm saying you can call me by my name.'

I shrug and cross my legs. It is no use trying to explain; they'd never call me anything that isn't Åra Koe, same for the whole domain. I might as well be talking to a post.

'No, Åra Koe,' says Seim.

'Åra Koe, Åra Koe,' chanted Peim and Teim.

I shrug again, at least my own title is better. My elder brother, Teisan, hates his titles to the end of the realm and back. One just needed to see the look on his face to know that.

I spot someone coming towards us from afar and start to wave. 'Deeka!' I call, glad to see my best friend.

O'Deeka soon reaches the congregation and comes to hug me. 'Thira,' she says in greeting.

'Thira!'

Before I can even look down a dark boy jumps onto me. I laugh and hug him back.

'Nachi,' I call his name, laughing. 'Nachi, where did you go?'

The little boy gets out of my arms and sits beside me on the bench. He stares up at me with his big, innocent violet eyes. 'Miya took me to The Billowing Gardens.'

I frown. I had promised to take my brother to The Billowing Gardens as he isn't old enough to go on his own but now our mother had beat me to it.

'I know you promised to take me, Thira, but I couldn't find you.' Nachi frowns at his me. 'So Miya took me.'

'You went to wake her from her chamber?' I ask, ignoring his frown.

'Yes, I did.'

It is now my turn to frown at the boy.

'What? You know I can't go on my own yet. I'm only a hand minus one.'

'A hand minus two,' I correct him, still frowning.

'I'm almost a hand minus one now.' He sticks his tongue out at me.

'Stop being so childish, Åri Koe,' O'Deeka says to Nachi.

'No!' Nachi says and jumps down to seat with the other children.

O'Deeka rolls her eyes at him and plunks down beside me. 'Moe Reyna handed him over to me when I went over to the castle.'

'Oh,' I say. 'Of course Miya did.'

O'Deeka rolls her eyes at me and starts to look away but then seems to notice something on me and looks back.

I frown, confused. 'What's the matter?'

'Thirada, why do you have your royal necklace on?'

'Oh.' I raise my hand to my neck to finger the crystal much similar to the colour of my eyes. 'I just felt like it. Today seemed like a good day to wear it out.' I shrug.

O'Deeka stares at me for a while then looks away, smiling. 'If you say so.'

'What?!' I smirk at her. 'Can't I wear it whenever I feel like?'

'Yeah, yeah.' O'Deeka rolls her eyes again. 'Whatever.'

'Don't let your eyes roll into your head,' I say and roll mine too.

'I think we should herd the children to their respective homes,' I say. 'It is almost night.'

'Don't you worry about that, Thira, I shall do that. Thira, you know you're the Åra Koe and shouldn't be doing these.'

'But I want to.' I stand up.

'Okay, let's call it a night now, children. Time to go home.'

The children start to stand up. 'Thanks, Åra Koe,' they all chorus.

Three guards step forward. 'Leave that to us, Åra Koe,' they say.

I sigh. I'd forgotten about the ubiquitous royal guards.

'Okay.' I know there is no point arguing with them. I watch as they walk the children home.

Then I notice that Nachi and the triplets are the only children left. The four agemates are busy giggling among themselves.

'You children are not going with them?' O'Deeka asks.

'Our brother is coming to get us,' says Peim.

'Or our Miya,' Seim adds and shrugs.

'That's why we are waiting.' Teym smiles at O'Deeka.

O'Deeka blinks in surprise and I smile at this. O'Deeka is not used to the triplets way of answering people, unlike me, I've known them since they were born. Because I'm betrothed to their brother so we are practically in-laws.

'There you are.'

I look up and smile on seeing Scakuus.

'Scakuus!' the three children rush to him and he group-hugs them.

'Where is Miya?' Teym asks.

'Yes, she was supposed to come.' Seim furrows her eyebrows.

'We are glad to see you, anyways' Peim says and blinks her golden eyes at him.

'She's with Piya, they have gone to the adult's council meeting.' Scakuus straightens up and smiles at me and I smile back.

'Hi, Åri Koe, Deeka,' he says to Nachi and the other girl.

'Hi, Scakuus.' Nachi smiles back. 'I grew a tooth yesterday.

'You did?'

'Yes!' the little boy opens his mouth wide to show off the one-inch long tooth that had joined the seven already present.

'Nice,' Scakuus says to the boy.

'We have to go now, triplets, say goodbye to Åra Koe.'

'Bye bye. Thanks for today's story,' Teym says.

'And the treats!' says Peim.

'Come tomorrow,' Seim adds, grinning.

'Okay. Bye.' I reply.

'Bye bye,' O'Deeka and Nachi say, the latter waving.

Scakuus kisses me on the cheek and whispers something to me. I smile, blushing. He then leaves with his siblings.

'What did he say?' O'Deeka wants to know, mischief written all over her face.

'Nothing you should know,' I say still blushing. 'Let's get going.'

We start to walk towards home talking on the way and get joined by my elder brother, Teisan.

Little Nachi jumps on him and his brother frowns his deep purple eyes in disapproval at the boy's behaviour.

'Dedi Koye,' O'Deeka says in greeting and Teisan's frown deepens. The title he hates more than Åri Koe is Dedi Koye which meant 'young chief'.

Teisan is only four hands minus three now; three older than me, but soon he will be four hands minus two and old enough to become the chief. Then he'd be renamed Koye, Koye Teisan, till the Koe, their father, retired or died at which he'd become Koe. So being called the young chief now is a constant reminder of the responsibilities he had ahead of him and he didn't like it one bit.

'O'Deeka...' he starts to say, probably going to give her a speech on how she's close to his sister enough to call him his real name when suddenly a piercing alarm starts to wail all around. Everywhere becomes bathed in neon red lights that pulsate to the shrill wailing of the alarm.

Everybody starts to panick, guards rush out of everywhere and start to herd people towards a safe place; the Underground.

Guards starts to come towards us but Teisan holds them back. He hands O'Deeka to them and tells them to take her to the Underground while he takes us to the Royal Underground Pod.

I knows I'm supposed to be scared but strangely, what I feel is excitement. It was an invasion; the alarms go off whenever an alien body enters their planet. Normally, it should go off with blue light as soon as the alien body is spotted in it's orbit but it going off as red means danger.

The alarms have gone off as blue and white before twice in my lifetime and the aliens turned out to be friendly. It is a rare occasion for the alarms to go off as red. It has only done so once in Piya's lifetime, not long after he became Koe; Teisan was a year below Nachi's age then and I was being expected.

A child starts to wail in the distance. The poor boy is stranded in between two sitting rocks and had been missed by the guards.

No guard is coming that way again, they are all headed towards the underground to place the people there. If no one helps him he'd be in grave danger.

'Thirada, you have you get to the Royal Underground Pod on your own, I must take him to the general underground,' Teisan says.

I get gripped by fear at that. 'No, Tei, I'm scared.'

Nachi hugs his brother's legs and starts to cry. 'Don't go!'

'I have to, I have to get him to the underground or find a guard who can.'

'Can't we take him with us?'

'No, the Royal Pod systems will reject him because he's not royal.' Teisan grabs hold of my shoulders. 'Sister, you can do this, the Intruders can be anywhere and I'm trusting you to get our little brother safely to the pod.'

I nod, knowing I have to be brave. 'Okay, Teisan, please be careful.'

'I will.' He plants a kiss on my forehead and bends down to do the same to Nachi. Then he pushes us forward and goes towards the baby.

I continue forward and bring out my navigation system to make sure I don't get lost to the pod. The Royal Underground Pod is a little long distance from the castle but I've only been there once, because there has not really been any cause for the people to be evacuated.

We walk on for a few more minutes in fearful silence then I start to hear sounds. Alien sounds if what my super-high senses pick up is accurate. And pretty near!

I quickly pull Nachi into the nearest hiding -a floating warehouse and we crouch and keep quiet.

Two aliens who look every inch like anybody on our planet come into view. They are dressed in strange, bulky attires with a lot of contraptions attached to it. One has a glass bowl covering his head and I wonder how he's respirating.

'Damian, we have to go back now, mayday from the ship. Some of the aliens are attacking back.'

The glass bowl disappears from the man's face. 'What, but we only just got here-' he sniffs at the air '-are you sure this air is breathable?'

The woman sighs. 'The chart confirmed it and as you can see. We have to go back, where is your radio? Apparently, those damn aliens are not backward like we assumed, they're attacking back with some way-over-our-head hi tech stuff.'

'We don't even have anything yet—'

'We have to go now! Two men down and they're planning to take off.'

'It took us three years to finally get to come here and we're all gon' blow it up because some damn motherfucking babaliens are attacking? Launch the fucking missiles at them!' The glass bowl man is now yelling at a sort of communication device.

'Oh, okay.' He finally says and turns to glare around, apparently not satisfied with the order he had received. 'Come back here my ass, we aren't gonna build that kind of ship again in ten fucking years!'

'Don't be so sure. This one is just Mission Abort.' The woman is already turning back.

Suddenly the man's roaming eyes land on the warehouse. Nachi gasps in fear and I quickly cover his mouth.

Damn!

But it's too late, the man has heard the sound.

'There's someone there,' he tells his partner, striding quickly to the warehouse.

I look around in panic but know there's no exit. The floating warehouses do not have any. I know there is no way the man will not catch us. He is now on the floating steps, almost unto us! My eyes land on the large crates in the corner and I firm my quivering lips, knowing there's just one thing I can do.

The man slams the door open and sees a young girl shaking on the floor. He laughs and calls to his partner.

'Elaine, you won't believe what I found. It's a fucking alien!'

His partner arrives. 'Woah,' she says, staring at the girl. 'In the flesh. Let's take her and hurry back to the ship or we're gonna be left behind.'

'Do you have those numbing agents with you? Pass them.'

The woman passes him a loaded vial and starts to speak into her communication device. 'Captain, prepare vault for an alien, we got one, looks normal, the size of a fifteen year old. Captain, do you copy?'

The man injects the fluid into the my neck and my vision starts to go hazy instantly. It's so painful. I start to moan.

The man laughs. 'Elaine, look at 'em violet eyes, are they real or contacts?'

The woman replies but the voice is distant to me, everything is now a blur and I can't feel myself. My vision starts to go dark at the edges till the darkness covers everything and I try to resist it but couldn't.

I go unconscious.

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Update after sooo long! 😁

Just two chapters to go and I hope to wrap up this story! Yippee! 😇😇

Click that adorable star, pretty please! 🥺

Thanks!