Nadine R. Valencia
The dark room was piled completely, from top to bottom, with books. Shelves lined the walls, each piled with at least three rows of books on every surface, if not more. It was like someone had taken an entire library and crammed it into the unassuming, ill-furnished guest room which the shut-in girl had ended up choosing for her own - leaving the three main bedrooms in the hands of her friends. And, when the shelves ran out of space, the books seemed to flow seamlessly over, piled into orderly stacks that almost completely concealed the walls of the already dismal room from view. Post-it notes were hung regularly across every open space, each marked with at least half a dozen unintelligible, scribbled notations on how the books were organized. As it was, perhaps the only person who could have located a book amidst the chaos made by perfect, simultaneous hextuple order was the room's owner herself.
There was very little open space in the gloomy, dust-filled room. The miniscule area that wasn't taken up by the bookshelves or miscellaneous stacks of literature was instead occupied with assorted furniture. Against the left wall, enclosed on almost all sides by towers of knowledge and paper, sat a small writing desk, wired into which sat an old, well-used computer that served as the ordinary girl's eyes into the outside world, a system which allowed her to see much more, and with more confidence, than her own twin azure orbs, which were ill-suited to much but reading books. But aside from this purpose and the other occasional utility, the computer was left largely untouched, its capacity as an entertainment tool, for the most part, ignored in favor of either the literature stacked all around it, or of the large, ornate wooden box that occupied the rest of the desk, and the antique chess set contained within it. Across from this, in the back right corner, was a small, circular table, with two comfortable-looking, well-cushioned chairs - the one facing the back wall was an armchair, while the one in the very corner facing outward was a basket seat piled with countless cushions, pillows, and blankets, and the degree of tilt in which made it look more like a nest of some sort than a seat - positioned one on either side of it. Behind these things was a cabinet that looked quite out of place, for visible through its glass doors was a full tea set, and atop it were several implements including a wicker box containing tea packets and various other accessories, as well as a small, old-looking microwave. Next to this cabinet, almost concealed behind it, was a dispenser with a jug of water perched atop it, ready to flow at a moment's notice. In the back left corner, meanwhile, was a small, humble-looking black piano with worn yellow keys, chipped and battered by time, but nonetheless serving its purpose to perfection.
Placed around a third of the way along the back wall on the left side was a small dresser, the garments it contained all sorted, folded, and ordered by its somewhat obsessive owner. Then, in the very center of the back wall, placed directly beneath a single window through which the moonlight shone brightly down, and facing outward towards the door, was a bed. Its sheets were plain, made of a soft, fuzzy-looking gray material, and accompanied by matching blankets, as well as similar pillowcases on the two rather puffy pillows that served as the simple, frameless bed's furnishings. But, although the light of the midnight moon shone down upon this bed, it was not in it that the room's owner was to be found. Rather, one would have to look in the dark corner, only barely visible in the half-lit, dusty air, were it not for the small night-light by which she made out the words on the page beneath her gaze. The girl looked tiny compared to all of the blankets and pillows surrounding her where she half sat, half lay, curled up within the basket chair in the corner, clumsily half-clad in an oversized navy blue pajama top which she wore more like a nightgown than anything else, the top few buttons undone, allowing it to sag down slightly past her shoulders, so as to let the cool, nightime air keep her from overheating beneath her covering of blankets, while the long sleeves, which otherwise probably would have covered her arms, were rolled back to her wrists, her small, soft hands poking out from amidst their oversized folds. The garment was long enough to cover her undergarments from view, but didn't extend much further, leaving her long, slender legs exposed to the chill darkness, another means of keeping cool. Her dark hair was splayed out about her like an unkempt halo, while her tired blue eyes were already beginning to droop as they ran across the page before her eyes.
Despite her attempts to grasp the meaning of the sentences before her, Nadine Valencia could not bring herself to take in a single word of the passage beneath her gaze. Her mind was tired, and her thoughts were already beginning to wander away from the passage. Yet always, no matter how much she thought about it... her mind always returned to the same thing: the small, blue-green ring that was now coiled gently around the pointer finger of her left hand, its unfamiliar, cold feeling attracting her thoughts again and again, just as its mysterious nature came to her mind constantly. She had been perusing the same paragraph for the past two hours now, at least, and yet, she couldn't pay attention. The excitement and anxiety within her was much too strong to simply be mastered so easily.
This ring... what exactly was it? Alchemists? Homunculi? Transmutation of living creatures? The alteration of a Human's nature to create a beast that defied all comprehension, all laws of physics and reason? These things spun wildly about through her thoughts, even as her eyes began to flutter slowly closed, and she slowly relaxed her grip on her book, allowing it to fall shut to the floor as she spread loosely out upon her cushions. But, above them all, she wondered about one thing, and one thing only.
A hero... a servant that would protect her... She didn't know whether or not it was possible, or whether or not it was even true and not just some elaborate joke by the others, a ploy to raise her spirits. But... even so, as she slowly lapsed into slumber, she somehow felt... safe. And, as those cerulean orbs shut at last, and her body became still save for the slow rising and falling of her chest in peaceful slumber, Nadine did something somewhat unusual: she hugged her left hand gently against her heart, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Normally, for her, sleep was an ordeal just as waking was, for the fears that filled her waking life were made manifest in dreams, and often times she found it impossible to rest, instead finding herself waking and staring blankly at the ceiling, or perhaps out the window of her room and into the bright moon that hung gigantic in the starry skies beyond. But tonight... tonight was different. For, little did she know it, but the servant who would keep her safe was already right by her side, even as she lay slumbering beneath the moonlight, like a sleeping angel in her heavenly nest. And that night, as Nadine slept... she dreamed not of darkness, of fears, and of failures, but of a strange, comforting light. She found herself floating - perhaps she was flying, or perhaps she was sinking beneath the surface of a tranquil lake - gazing up at a gentle radiance that streamed down to shower her. The ring on her hand seemed to have expanded, forming a winding mantle that had wrapped itself around her, supporting her where she hung aloft, and keeping her from falling. And yet, she didn't feel at all afraid of the warmth that encompassed her. Rather, the encircling, protective shape seemed to her a somehow familiar thing, a comforting, gentle embrace that kept her from falling out of the light, that protected her from the fears waiting to invade her dreams. For perhaps the first time in recent memory, Nadine felt at ease. She felt... safe.
She dreamed of the ring, wondering even as she slept if the promise had been true, if there really existed a servant who would absolutely, without a doubt, always be there to protect her. And yet, although she did not know it, in some manner, that servant was already protecting her, even at that moment, for the ring of the snake adorning her finger was shining ever brightly in the moonlight, as though its reflected radiance would banish all the darkness from its master's sleep. But these matters did not concern the young girl at this moment, for right now, she was at last at peace, in a state of blissful slumber that so often evaded her. Rolling over with a quiet sigh, she smiled, unconsciously hugging the ring that now served as her protective talisman tightly against her chest, warding away the nightmares that otherwise haunted her rest as, for once, she dreamed deeply, without fear nor sorrow, blissfully unaware of what was transpiring even at that very instant while she lay weary in her nest, not daring to even fancy at the extraordinary events that were about to unfold, nor to guess at the plot of the storybook into which she had at long last been cast, the hero...
A sudden, dull thud reached Nadine's ears as though from a distance. And, although fatigue still clouded her thoughts, she found her tired blue eyes opening almost immediately at the sudden noise. Nadine was, to begin with, a very easily startled or frightened person. This fact was not helped in this particular case by the fact that her senses aside from sight - prompting her to wear her usual glasses - were quite keen, and by the consequent realization that the sound had come from only a few feet to the side of the chair in which she'd fallen asleep. Her opened eyes widened as her tired mind began to process the meaning behind this inexplicable sound. She was just about to rise up to investigate the noise when another, more frightening one reached her ears. A faint shuffling about, and something that sounded like a quiet exhalation of breath. She covered her mouth to stifle the gasp that tried to escape her. That sound... it couldn't be... was there someone in her room? The sound of a body rising up from the floor seemed to indicate that, and yet, turned on her side as she was, facing away from the intruder, she couldn't be sure of who it was. But, several things immediately became apparent to the young girl. Firstly, judging by the angle of the moonlight faintly streaming through the window and into the dark room, it was still very late at night. Secondly, whoever was inside her room couldn't have entered through either the door or the window, for both were rather large, thick, and heavy, and had a tendency to give loud squeaks upon being opened. She would have awakened instantly if the intruder had attempted to slip in through either of these methods. But, then, how had they gotten in? She didn't know of any large vents or other such means of entering the room. It was like a locked room mystery. The only answer she could think of was that whoever was in her room now had been hiding there all along, and yet, where could the intruder have been lurking that she had not noticed? And, in any case, it would have been impossible for any of the other girls to have concealed themselves in her room between the time she'd seen them last and when she'd entered her room. Then, whoever it was in her room really was an intruder. The fatigue clouding her mind faded in an instant as she realized the situation she was in. She was alone, in the very corner of her room, with an unknown person standing between herself and all of the exits. A thousand terrible possibilities flashed through her mind in quick succession. Who was it? A murderer? A thief? A stalker, or worse, a rapist? Terror began to fill her thoughts, and, out of fright, she did something that she realized only too late was quite foolish indeed.
"Who's there!?" She cried, shooting up to a seated posture and turning to face the intruder, trying to make out the identity of the individual she could only see in silhouette on the far side of the room. And yet, her glasses seemed to have fallen off of her as she slept. The darkness of the room combined with her blurred vision made it difficult enough to discern the appearance of the unknown figure standing across from her. The blinding shafts of moonlight streaming through the window, forming an almost tangible curtain between the frightened girl amidst the blankets and the mysterious person who now met her gaze. Frantically, Nadine searched about her for her glasses, hastily sliding them onto her face as she drew back, terrified by the knowledge that, standing so close to her, vulnerable as she was, was a hostile being, who, judging by its large size, was very likely male. She was bad enough at dealing with men during the daytime when she was accompanied by her friends, let alone when she was trapped by herself, half clothed in her own bedroom in the middle of the night.
Donning her spectacles, Nadine found her vision clearing up just in time to see the figure in the shadows turn towards her and take a step forward. The young man who had been shrouded in darkness was now bathed suddenly in the light of the full moon as he stood, towering high over where she sat cowering amidst the blankets and cushions of her chair. His unkempt hair was stark white, and gleamed like so many diamonds as the moonlight shone through it. His expression was a cocky, carefree, almost bored one, a dull, sardonic expression of fatigue and distaste. He seemed less to be looking at her than he was simply noticing her, as though he didn't really care that the girl in whose room he now stood had awakened, and was gazing with barely contained fright up at him. His skin showed itself pale in the moonlight, and, although it seemed well-kept enough, there were signs of wear upon him, even upon his face, further increasing the tired appearance the young man held. But, most notable of all these things were his eyes, which held such a radiant emerald hue that Nadine found her own sapphire orbs affixed by his gaze, even after he averted it from her, focusing instead on a book he held casually in his hand.
"Who... who are you?" She gasped quietly. The fear that shown in her face was painted equally in her voice. And yet, for whatever reason, she somehow felt it beginning to lessen. She couldn't place it, but there was something familiar about this boy, a mysterious sense of connection that, combined with the dismissive manner in which he was acting, not really seeming to care about what she did, made it difficult to feel threatened by him. For a moment, the young man remained silent. Then... he spoke, and all of Nadine's questions were immediately answered. And yet, even though she suddenly came to realize all too clearly who it was she was talking to, it was so sudden, so unexpected, so unbelievable, that Nadine found herself stunned into momentary silence as she slowly, shakily raised her hand before her eyes, looking down with awe and disbelief upon the gleaming blue-green of the ring that shown faintly in the moonlight. It couldn't be... it just couldn't be true...!
"Good morning... Uh... I guess you're supposed to be my new... what's that word... ah... mistress, and stuff. Nice to meet you, I'm going to stay with your for eternity now, yeah, I think you know the rest and whatever else there is to say."
But it was. How else could she explain the boy's mysterious, silent, and, more importantly, impossible entrance to her room while she slept? How else could she explain that he was here, and yet wasn't harming her? How else could she explain that he even knew at all about the ring she now wore? Nadine was a superstitious girl, and believed easily in the supernatural, or the fantastic. Consequently, realizing these things, she found it surprisingly easy to accept the boy's word for the truth. Since she lived in the world of storybooks to begin with, why couldn't storybooks come to life in her own world?
"You..." Nadine murmured, realization passing over her countenance as fear turned to wonder and disbelief. The boy said something else, but, at the moment, Nadine was too stunned to register what had been said, or to respond. This... this was unbelievable. This situation should have just been a fantasy, a story in one of the many books that filled her room. And yet, it was real... wasn't it?
"You can't be the ring... can you? I'm not dreaming... right?" Nadine murmured uncertainly, looking with equal parts confusion, shock, awe, and unease up at the boy who stood towering over her, silhouetted by the light of the full moon. It didn't seem real, and yet, it most certainly was. This boy was standing over her right now, and had just called her his mistress... then, did that mean that the rings really were magic? Was this boy really the spirit promised her in the note? Was this really... her servant? She didn't know. And yet, for whatever reason, she found that, to her surprise... she believed.