Kingdom of Arzialla by Marilyn Arias (story reading txt) 📕

poop rainbows and butterflies,” she said sarcastically.
“Oh, shut up,” I told her, taking that she heard about Anna.
“You know I’m kidding,” she said with a side smile. “And plus, she said ‘thank you’.”
“What?”
She combed her short, messy hair back with her fingers. “I helped her get back home.”
“What? How?” I said loudly.
“Shush, stupid! The guards will―”
We started hearing footsteps get closer so Kehlia flapped her little butterfly wings and rushed behind me. A guard came up to the bars of my cell and looked around, finding the moonlight the only thing lighting up the cell with only me sitting in a corner.
“Everything alright, General?” the guard asked me.
“Yep. Peachy,” I yawned. “Just had a dream…”
“Well, quiet down,” he told me, walking off. When he disappeared from sight, Kehlia flew over to the bars and watched him vanish down the hall.
“Are you stupid?” she whispered, fluttering to my shoulder. “You got to keep it down or you’ll for sure lose your head.”
I sighed. “Anyways, how?”
“I met her cousin. I’m not much of a snitch, plus I liked her style, so I talked to her and she told me she lost her beloved cousin probably in Arzialla. I looked for her high and low and found her outside your window,” she explained.
“Huh…” I thought. And then I remembered her telling me that her cousin was playing with a pentacle before she fell into it. “Did she make a portal to get back home?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?” she asked me.
“Lucky guess,” I joked. “Nah, Anna told me how she accidentally got here.”
“Aaah…” she said, understanding.
“So how is it out there?”
“Hm?” she asked.
“The village. How is it?”
“Oh, it’s getting better. People are getting treated by nurses and doctors. They’re burying the dead bodies tomorrow, I think ,” she informed me. “And they’re starting to rebuild houses and everything.”

“And the Thomoire soldiers?”
“They’re heading home tomorrow,” she said, leaning her chin onto her palms.
“Hm…” I nodded.
“She liked you,” Kehlia blurted out.
I looked at her confused. “What?”
“When Jenny, her cousin, made the portal, Anna was worried about you.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I think your charming powers were too strong for her.”
I silently laughed, “What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what I mean? You’re Mr. Pretty Boy General Zelimir Callaghan. A natural flirt!” she joked. “You even make the other men either get jealous of you or turn gay for you.”
“What?” I jumped.
“I’m trying to prove a point here. I’m wasn’t serious about that,” she rolled her eyes.
“Then what are you saying?” I raised one eyebrow at her.
She shrugged her shoulders. “All I got to say is that you have a talent for making everybody look up to you and admire you.”
“Hmm…” I pursed my lips to the side in thought.
She stared up and down at me before saying, “So… I’ve been wondering…”
“Hm?” I looked at her in question.
“Why did you try to save her, knowing that it’s forbidden to let a human see Arzialla and live to tell about it?”
I sighed. “That question has been echoing in my mind the entire time too…”
“Ever thought of love at first sight?” she asked.
I scoffed. “You know I don’t believe in that.”
Love at first sight is not possible for me…
“Why? It’s possible.”
I shook my head. “I just think it’s ridiculous how a person could just meet another and think ‘that’s the girl I’m going to spend the rest of my life with’.”
“Why?”
I paused to think about how to explain it but I couldn’t find the words for it. “Because…”
“Because why?”
“Are you asking because you’re really curious or are you just trying to be annoying?”
“Hmm, a little bit of both,” she giggled.
I rolled my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. "Besides, I'm more than ten years older than her."
"So? It doesn't mean anything. Within, like, fifteen years you both will be of the same age."
"I’m not even sure if that’s true. In human years, it’d probably be longer," I said. "And even if that’s true, while I stay in my mid-twenties for a while, she will continue to grow."
"So? Still doesn't mean anything," she teased.
I gave out a yawn.
“Tired?” she asked me.
“Yeah, but I’ve got enough energy to waste,” I chuckled. I started thinking about the conversation that Anna and I had about the law. “Kehlia, you’ve lived a longer life than me. Tell me, why can't elves get along with humans?”
She looked at me like I offended her. “Are you calling me old?”
“No. I was just…”
“I’m kidding! Geez, do you have any sense of humor?” she asked laughing. “But, no. I’m not that old.”
Pixies have lived across this world for as long as the oldest elf in Arzialla can remember, helping nature survive and doing mischievous deeds to villagers once in a while. They barely age, so if you see a wrinkled, shriveled up, old pixie, you’d know she’s very wise. Even young pixies like Kehlia are extremely intelligent. Kehlia is one that knows fluent sarcasm however and loves to play pranks on friends. She loves styles where it involves dark clothes and having her hair black and short with a messy, layered style to it.
Just like elves, pixies have unique markings around their face. The difference between us and them is that if they’re old enough, they’d have markings around their body that are visible all the time, which can also leave behind a trail of pixie dust wherever they fly. Kehlia is old enough to have markings only down to the nape of her neck however, so she has a long ways to go before she grows beautiful markings all throughout her tiny body.
“But seriously,” she said interrupting my trail of thoughts. “Do you think there’s a possibility that it’s because you like her? Even just an itty bitty tinsy bitsy bit?”
I rolled my eyes and yawned. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
"Well, think about it. Within like fifteen years you two will be the same age," she pointed out.
"I’m not even sure about that. And even so, like I said, she'll continue to grow old while I remain in my mid-twenties for a while." Elves age but we have this strange gene that humans don't have that allows us to stop time, allowing us to stay as young as twenty to twenty-five for, perhaps, about a century and then afterwards we continue to age as a regular being.
"Since when does age matter in love, though?" Kehlia questioned. She's so stubborn... But I can't ever stay annoyed at her.
I decided to ignore the question like I didn't hear it.
Silence took over for a while before Kehlia broke it. "So you gave her your knowledge?"
"Yeah..." I sighed. "Why you ask?"
"You do know that gave her abilities and characteristics of an elf, right?"
"Before, no. I thought it was going to be like giving your memories to a child or to any other elf."
"It's kind of obvious since she's a human and humans have different genes from us."
"So what will happen now little Miss I-know-everything," I chuckled.
She rolled her eyes with a smile. "Her sense of hearing and sight will be enhanced and much more sensitive. I suppose you can say that her eyes are now her typical mood rings too. Her ears will gradually become pointed. She'll have an amazing talent. Her face and body will be extraordinarily beautiful, even though she looks adorable as of now. And she'll live a longer life."
Acton’s words echoed in my head again. She’s going to be a beautiful young lady…

“Is that so…” I muttered.

Kehlia’s eyebrows came together, wondering what I was thinking. “You okay?”
I blinked. “Yeah, just in thought.”
“If I may ask, about what?”
I glanced at her. I was about to share Acton’s nonsense but I was unsure about what she’d think. “Was there ever an elf that was able to foretell the future?”
Kehlia gave thought about it. “W-well, yes. A long time ago, though. That gift is only genetic. Not anybody could be born to have a psychic mind and see the future. How come?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I’ve been wondering about this for a while.”
“Hm…” she didn’t seem to believe me but she let it go.
I gave out a sigh and she giggled. “Tired?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Well, go to sleep then,” she suggested, flying up into the air.
“It’s hard… It’s so uncomfortable sleeping here,” I told her.
“Hm…” she said in thought. “Hold on. Wait here, I’ll be back.”
“Not like I’ll be somewhere else,” I said, but she already flew out the window before I even finished my sentence.

She came back in about fifteen minutes with a bottle the size of my fingers, full of liquid. She had trouble carrying it since it seemed to be a bit too heavy for her but she managed to fly into the cell with it.
“Here, drink up,” she told me, relieved to get it out of her hands when I took it from her.
"May I ask what it is? Lord knows, it could be something that'll make me throw up," she has given me potions before that’d make me constipated and possibly throw up before.
She was still out of breath. "Oh, quit whining. We were in a party and I was hyper. You know that. Besides, you’re going to die any day soon so why make you suffer?"
I shrugged as I took my first sips of it. It tasted bitter-sweet with the smell of chamomile. I began to feel a bit drowsy. "All I know is you're one evil pixie, whether you're hyper or not."
"Oh, shut up," she muttered as she fluttered onto my shoulder. "I'm not that terrible in times like this. Just drink the potion and, if it helps, I'll sing you to sleep."
Like elves, pixies have their own personal gift. The only difference is that elves have more of a super-natural power and pixies have talents. Kehlia is one of the most talented singers, but the only thing that makes her incredibly different from all the other pixies is that she can control your mood and feelings with her voice.
I still doubted her however. "You sure you won't prank me? You don't have a pen and ink out the window waiting to be scribbled all over my face? A small pile of crap to smear around my hair? A bug to sleep in my clothes?"
"If I nearly spilled that potion that you’re holding now, imagine if I tried to carry a bottle of ink. I'd leave a trail for the guards to catch me and behead me. Poop is disgusting and you know I can't stand the smell of it. And where the heck am I going to find a beetle or a spider in the snow?"
She does have a point there. Even with doubt still in me, I drank the rest of the potion in one gulp and hoped for the best that she's not acting and will keep her word.
"Come on, lie down," she told me, patting the pile of hay. I lied down and my eyes began to feel exhausted, heavy. Kehlia's singing voice whispered in my ear, tenderly and softly, so no one but I could hear. I feel her voice calming every part of me, physically and mentally. Soon, everything started to get fuzzy and unclear, until I could no longer stay awake.
I woke up to a couple of guards harshly yelling at me and whipping my back with leather whips. They’re voices were muffled, like water was trapped in my ears, enabling me to hear clearly. They