Chapter Twenty-five: Flowers

"Be careful Soraya." Papa calls out to me as I ran, collecting the colored leaves before they hit the ground.

"Okay!" I smiled back, catching one more before taking my seat next to Papa and added the new leaves to the pile on the table.

"What are you planning on doing with these?" Papa had an amused look as he took a sip of tea.

"I had an idea that I wanted to try."

I hold a hand over the pile with the other hovering around the crystal necklace that laid next to it. I have been trying to use magic without having to directly touch my medium, but it hasn't worked as I planned.

The leaves half-heartedly fluttered in the weak wind from my magic.

Papa had challenged me; saying that it would better if I could use magic if I happen to not have a magic crystal on me but it has been rough to practice.

"You have improved." Papa patted me on the head.

"Really?" I couldn't help but be disappointed in the weak wind since I had intended to create a small whirlwind.

"Most humans are unable to use magic without touching their mediums."

Papa pushes a plate of sweets towards me.

"So, it is quite amazing."

"Oh." I quickly pick up a sweet to cover my lips that twitched at his words.

"Princess!" Nadia and Aidan wave as they approached, bowing to Papa. "Your Majesty."

"Good afternoon!" I happily greeted them as they joined us at the table.

"Afternoon." Nadia smiles while Aidan pulls a plate to him and digs in.

"How was your trip?"

The twins had gone out a few days ago on patrol with the knights.

"It was fine." Aidan said around a mouth full of food before swallowing quickly as Papa glanced at him. "We flew around and checked on our surroundings: nothing fun to report... Although- we did get something for you Princess."

Aidan picks up a bag that rested against his chair leg.

"Please close your eyes."

I do as he asked, placing my cup back down on the table.

"Aaandd now you can open them!"

I open my eyes to a large bundle of flowers in front of my face. The strange looking flowers seemed to shine in different colors and had a glow that could be seen even in the afternoon sun.

"Magic flowers?" Papa asks as I took them.

"Pretty. They are very pretty. Thank you Aidan! Nadia!"  I rubbed the petals of a flower unable to take my eyes away from how they changed from the pressure of my thumb.

"I knew you would like them!" Aidan looked proud of himself as he nudged his twin.

"What are magic flowers Papa?" I asked, looking up for a moment.

"Simply put- their flowers made of magic. Usually places full of dense magic will have them growing. The stronger the color and glow, the purer the magic is. There are a few places around here that they grow but I haven't seen such vibrant colors like that for some time."

"Obviously I've done well." Aidan's smile could barely be contained.

I kept rubbing the flower, seeing the glow starting to attach itself to my fingers.

"Soraya?" Papa's voice felt far away as I leaned in to sniff the flowers.

"Princess?"

The smell of the flowers seemed to remind me of something. I breathed in deeply, trying to place the scent.

I lifted my head as I started to feel like the world was spinning and saw Papa's face swimming in front of me before everything went dark.

"Soraya!!!!" I reach out to grab her as she swayed in her seat before going limp in my arms.

"Princess!!" The beastkin twins jump up in surprise, no doubt that the same look on their faces was on mine.

"Dr. Strom!" I snap my fingers as the surroundings change from the outdoors to Soraya's room.

I carefully lay her down and started to pull the flowers from Soraya's grasp when Strom finally arrived.

"What happ-" He starts to ask before freezing. "Wait! Do not take the flowers away!" He says in a panic, grabbing onto my hand.

"These are what caused her to faint." I could barely contain my voice. "And you are saying that we need to keep them near her?"

"Yes." Dr. Strom takes her pulse, listening to that for a few seconds before lifting one of her eye lids. "If we take them all at once, she could go into a withdraw."

"Withdraw?"

"There are rare cases of humans who come into contact with magic flowers can become over simulated with a high concentration of magic stored inside the flowers and overdose- usually causing them to faint; however,if we take them away to quickly she could... die."

"So what must we do?"

"We need to slowly remove them one at a time." Dr. Strom sighs. "But this will be hard for her, until she wakes: the princess will be in a dangerous state. We can not use any magic around her at all."

"I beg for forgiveness, your Majesty." Aidan gets on his knees as he withdraws his sword and holds it out to me. "I have harmed the princess with my carelessness."

"Please punish me as well." Nadia kneels at her brother's side. "I failed to make sure that the princess would be safe."

Dr. Strom pauses and looks at me. "Your Majesty- there is no way they could of known that this would happen. I have only ever heard of cases like this; that's how rare this is."

I stared at the two beastkin for a moment, as I gathered my thoughts.

"There will be no punishment. I also failed Soraya." I say after holding in a deep sigh. "We all will learn from this."

"I have never seen magic flowers like this before..." Dr. Strom murmurs under his breath. "Sir Aidan, where did you find these flowers?"

"In the west..."

I closed my eyes as realization hits me. The flowers were near the human kingdom. The hero. The pieces were falling, but I did not like the picture that is forming.

Hello everyone! Sorry for not posting a story for over a month! 😅

Things have been rough here at home. I had to go down to Miami for two weeks due to a family emergency and forgot my computer while finding out that my phone doesn't like saving this chapter (so had to rewrite it once more). Then when I did come back home I was only back for a few days before I had to go to work for another 2 weeks.😮‍💨

Man when I say that I got a years worth of work done in 18 days... I'm not joking.🙃

I did take a few days to relax a little before sitting down to write this chapter which is why its a bit late (12:52 am where I'm at right now) since I wanted to post the chapter today (technically yesterday🤷‍♀️).

Unfortunately, this month is also gonna be rough so I have no idea when I'll be able to write the next chapter (at least til next month of course).

I'll try to post once this month, but I make no guarantees.🥲

On a fun note: I do love seeing  that you all have been commenting on my chapters! Definitely been laughing at some of the comments, since it shows me that you all are invested in my story so I would like to thank all of you!🥰🥰

Love you all and Thanks for reading!!!😘