She sat in front of the big mirror inside the royal dressing room. Today, she was dressed in a royal white gown, her pink locks decorated with small white flowers filling the air with their scent. Her short hair was tied up in a small bun also circled by the same flowers. Her hands were gathered on where she felt her knees were, her eyes never leaving her own reflection in the mirror.

Soon enough, it would be time for her to rise to her position as the queen of Aexolia. Before that, her parents had also found her a crown prince, the second prince from the kingdom of Shirian. They had been engaged for three months only, and here she was, preparing for the last minutes before the marriage.

She never said she agreed to this whole arranged marriage idea. She believed in the idea of love, but being born into a royal family, politics would always be above everything else. To make sure the position of the king would be of royal bloodline, they did this. Of course, the prince seemed like a nice person, but he seemed to be lacking interest in her. If anything, he surely had his mind more occupied on the throne, and even though Luda did not take a liking in him, there was nothing she could do. She was also not interested in ruling the kingdom, so she didn’t mind the prince taking over the power, unless he made her people miserable, that was when she would take an action.

“Princess Luda?”

The handmaiden’s voice finally snapped Luda out of her train of thoughts. She turned to see the maid holding her crown. A new crown for the queen.

“The ceremony will begin soon, Princess. Are you ready?”

The princess gave the handmaiden a warm smile before uttering her answer. “Yes.”

Luda stepped out of the room with the handmaiden holding her dress from behind, the crown on her head gleaming under the chandeliers decorating the alley of the palace. While walking through the alley, someone, another maid, suddenly came into her view, a panicked look striking her face.

“Princess!”

Luda stared at the maid in surprise, but managed to ask her what happened.

“Princess! The queen, she has just collapsed!”

The princess’ expression turned into a shocked one. She started walking quickly into the alley the maid just came in, almost leaving the handmaiden holding her dress behind, if not for the maid being fast enough to catch up with the speed of Luda’s walking. Once getting faced with an intricate-looking giant door, she stopped and knocked on it softly.

“This is me, the princess. Open the door.”

The door opened without fail, and she walked into the room immediately, only to find just like what the maid had said before; the queen laying on her royal-looking bed, her face etched with exhaustion. Beside her, the king was watching with worried eyes.

Luda chose to take her place next to her father. Looking at the king, she asked him a question.

“What happened to her?”

“She suddenly fainted. The doctors have examined her, but they did not find anything strange...” His hands holding the queen’s hand started getting tighter. “If anything ever happens to her, I…”

The princess, feeling her heart sinking down, gave her father a hug.

“She will be fine.”

As a result, the princess’ marriage to the prince of Shirian got delayed.

On the same day, a witch had come to the palace. Everyone knew witches were never to be trusted, but here she came, strutting her way into the palace. At first, she was stopped by the guards, but then, she showed a letter, sent by the king using a pigeon.

“I have come here under the command of the king to cure the queen. Now will you please let me in?”

The guards looked at each other unsure, but finally let her in, under one condition.

“One of us will accompany you to meet the king. If anything happens, you have to take the responsibility.”

“Sure.” She smirked before walking ahead of the guard, who was flustered at her action first, but soon followed her.

As she reached the throne room, she knocked softly on the door.

“Your Highness, it is I, Seola.”

The door did not open immediately at first. But then, a voice was heard from the inside.

“Come in,” unmistakably the voice of the king was heard. That was when the door finally opened.

She entered and bowed before the king, throwing sickly sweet smiles at him. “How may I help you with your plight, Your Highness?”

The king sighed first, but went straight to the point after that. “My wife is suddenly ill. She has a high fever and unable to wake up since. Yet, the doctor told me she is fine. I do not have any strange suspicion right now, but if there is any otherworldly power involved in this, do tell me. And do whatever it takes to heal her.”

Seola maintained her smile and bowed again to the king. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Luda held onto her mother’s hand, completely in deep sorrow as she looked at her mother who suddenly looked significantly older. Unshed tears were pooling in her eyes as she kissed her mother’s hand in her hold, hoping it would somehow wake her up, but to no avail.

A knock was heard from the door, and Luda tried blinking the tears in her eyes before the door opened.

She didn’t expect the appearance of the person entering the room though.

“Your Highness,” Seola bowed to Luda and showed a worried expression while looking at the queen. Luda looked like she wasn’t really excited to see the witch in the palace, more so near her mother.

“What are you doing here?” the princess spoke with slightly angry tone. Seola looked at the princess with bold stare, as she showed her the letter the king wrote to her.

“Just look at this, Princess.” She handed the letter with a smirk, and Luda accepted it albeit a little harshly. Once she got to read the content of the letter, her eyes were starting to look flustered.

“I have come here for the queen, to cure her illness to be exact. There was no need to fear anything, because I will not harm her in any way, Princess.”

Despite Seola’s words, Luda still couldn’t show her a friendly look. Seola didn’t mind, as she stretched out a hand to the queen’s head.

“Stop that filthy hand of yours from touching my mother!”

The harsh words coming from the princess stopped the witch in her tracks. She looked at the princess pointedly though, seeming a little smug.

“If I do not try touching her, we will not know what is wrong with her, Princess.”

“She will be fine without your care.”

Soon enough, the door opened again, and this time, it was the king. Seola turned her head to the door, and immediately went into a bowing position. Luda though, stood up from where she had been sitting, her unfriendly look replaced with a surprised one.

“Father!”

“Luda,” he looked at his daughter and then Seola, and then to Luda again. “Let Seola heal your mother.”

“But Father—”

“Look, Darling. The doctors could not detect her illness, therefore isn’t it only right if something else is actually causing this? And I know we are not supposed to have a witch within the palace, but the only one who can find out if anything is wrong with the queen or not right now is her.”

The king pointed at Seola, who shyly looked at the ground, while throwing a triumphant stare at the princess. Luda noticed this, and even though she knew her father was right, she couldn’t let this happen, not when the last time they had a witch in the palace, everything had gone rogue for a while.

“Father, don’t you remember the incident—”

“That is years ago. People can change.”

Despite his words, the king looked nervously at Seola.

“Yes, Your Highness. Such incident will not be repeated again,” the witch reassured.

“Now, it is better for you to go back to your room, Princess, and pray for the queen’s health.”

Again, Luda wanted to protest, but the finality in her father’s expression prevented her from saying much further. Without even waiting for the handmaiden to pick up her gown, she stormed out of the room, into the alley, up the stairs, onto the balcony.

When she reached the balcony, she started crying her eyes out. Only when she was there could she ever let out every pent-up emotion.

She was starting to get sick too, but more because she never had freedom of speech within the palace. She partially hated her parents for that, but they were still her parents, and she loved them. She was worried about them. But they never listened to her worries. Sure, they said a lot of times that they loved her, but she could barely feel it amidst all the events and also incidents happening in the palace. She looked up at the orange sky, thanks to the sun sinking back into the horizon. She wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks and let out a sigh while looking at the view in front of her.

“I wish I could have my own free will.” She stopped for a moment before continuing. “I wish I could be free.”

At that moment, everything seemed to be peaceful, but then the wind started blowing hard. Luda noticed the picking up of the wind, before suddenly everything became static, and then came a strange churning feeling in her stomach.

In front of her, a floating rectangle started to appear, making the view of the sunset look like a painting.

Wait, what?

She blinked her eyes once, twice, thrice. The rectangle was there, and everything in the rectangle started to blur. The sunset view was gone, replaced by mild light emitting from the shape. Was she dreaming? Was she hallucinating? Did the witch put a spell on her?

She hit herself again on the cheek, and let out a soft groan shortly after. It hurt. She pinched her arm, and it hurt. It wasn’t a dream, she supposed. But the rectangle must be there because of a reason, right?

After some time of consideration, she tried to get closer. She held out her hand to the rectangle, and surprisingly, her hand went into it. She removed her hand immediately, still not used to the feeling, and also suspicious about what it might be. She stretched out her hand again, and it still went in. This time, she dared herself to walk into the light, and the more she got close to the light, the more she saw something else in her vision.

And as she was finally engulfed in the light, the scenery around her changed as quick.

She found herself in a room. It wasn’t like rooms she was used to in the palace though. The walls were brown, probably made out of woods, and around her, there were a lot of unfamiliar things to her. She could only recognize what seemed to be a table, which looked too simple to be a table. Based on the things she could identify in the room, she made a conclusion that she was in a storage room.

Then she realized that the light had disappeared, and she didn’t know where she had ended up in.

The door (which looked too simple for it to be one of the doors in the palace) to the room suddenly opened, and through the door, someone, a man with pink hair similar to hers, walked in. He was wearing strange clothes, and when he saw Luda, his small eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

The princess glared at the man, and spoke in the royal tone.

“Who are you? How dare you come into this place!”

A/N:

Pardon me for choosing Seola as the witch, but she did dress up as a witch once in WJSN fanmeeting (was it a fanmeeting…? It was aired in Would You Like btw), which is basically why I chose her for the part haha. And I always thought Luda is so pretty, and she has similar nickname with Kihyun as well (쪼꼬미… which means Tiny… Kihyun’s nickname is shortened to 쪼꼬 though, but the two of them are the tiniest in their respective groups hahaha) and also also they have/had pink hair before… I might end up shipping them by the end of this fic lololol anyway I'd like to know what you guys think about this story for now (of course, I'm kinda used to silent readers too though but comments would be very appreciated). Hope you'll anticipate the next part hahaha ^^