The Talamute Prince
Chapter 3

Patrick walks with me to the front bowl and helps me up. I sit opposite of his mother, facing backward which gives me full view of the others. I watch him walk back to the last bowl and take a seat across from the other extravagantly dress woman. She must be Clara the one who stayed behind with their parents during their ventures in replaceing me. I wonder if she is also going to try to manipulate me as the rest of his siblings did. I glance back to the enchanting lady sitting across from me now.

"I promise I won't bite my child." She speaks with a hint of arrogance in her voice. I can sense a sort of real emotions coming from her and it's refreshing.

"How is this thing floating? How does it move, there's no wheels?" She appears stern and disapproving of my curiosity. My heart is beating from my chest at the thought of having to be here with her. She doesn't seem to be the least bit amused by my inquisitive nature.

"It runs off a magnetic repulsion system built into the bottom. They are designed to make our lives a bit easier given our duties around the city." She says still staring at me as though I was sent from the very bowels of their hell to take her son from her.

"Everything here is so strange to me. Please forgive my curiosity as it may take more than a few weeks to become accustomed to it all." I don't really care if she approves of it or not, but it seemed the proper thing to say in this odd situation. The strange transport starts to slowly move forward still surrounded by well-armed guards prepared for who knows what. They said they are very well protected from intruders. Perhaps their own people wish them dead. I sit still as I feel the queen looking at me. My thoughts however, wonder as far as they can to escape from this reality.

"It's understandable. I hear your planet is primitive in comparison." Her words hit me exactly as they are intended to, as an insult.

"That is yet to be seen. In a civilization it isn't the technology that matters it's the behavior of its masses that sets civilizations apart." I look at her with a matching disdain in my expression. I won't play the role she expects me to. I won't suck up to the people who basically trapped me and made me their prisoner or worse.

"I suppose you're correct to a point. After all, we did go through quite a bit to get you here. Although your own mother treated you as an object." She gets straight to it daggers sharpened and ready to rip apart what she must see as a fragile being sitting before her.

"A larger group of your people stood behind such deceit. My mother acted alone." A strange satisfaction comes over her face.

"I do love your spirit." She seems to relax a bit. The bowls come up a small hill to a different area with people surrounding a path cheering at the sight of us. I brush off the strange conversation that just took place with a smile. She looks to the side smiles and gently waves. "Tell me Laoonica, what do you think of my only son?" I glance at her for a moment.

"I married him." I turn back to the crowds smiling and waving. I can see the path up ahead seems to go into a secluded area with no people. I spot an oddly taller man to the back of one side. He is dressed in a brown robe and doesn't seem interested in getting to close. I don't think anyone else noticed him, so I brush it off. If they aren't alerted by his presence neither should I be.

"Yes, but what do you think of him? I married his father even though I absolutely hated the man, but it was my duty to do so." She says. She hasn't looked away from her people. I on the other hand stare at her for a moment in silence. I'm still so angry and confused by all of this that I hadn't thought about how I felt about her son. Just the fact I can't control the chaos powers that dwell deep inside waiting to be released.

"Duty I understand. However, I don't see how one stays with someone they don't love simply because one is expected to. I was always told that love, true love was my only option." I respond as I try to control my answers and limit my emotions. Any display of my powers might hint to a lack of control and I didn't want to send her or her people into a panicked state. I turn back to catch only a blur of brown moving through the crowd then vanishing. I wonder who he is and why he stands out so much to me but nobody else seems to notice him at all.

"Your situation is very different from my own I will give you that. Why do you avoid my question? I simply wish to know what you think of him." Her expression softens. The people are behind us now as she directs her gaze to mine.

"Truthfully?" I pause glancing at him. "I don't know what to think of him. He hasn't given me much truth to build an opinion on."

"I'm sure you feel betrayed. If roles were reversed, I'd be unsure of what to think. My people, including my son, and myself tricked you. We lied to you and have been your entire life. We've monitored you through the correspondence with your mother. She orchestrated every detail of the plan. Up to the point you married my son and found out the truth." I tilt my head to the side trying to read her.

"You raised your son to be able to handle me, to know how to cool my temper, and to read my emotions. You taught him from the minute you found out about me how to seduce and manipulate me. That is what I know and governs how I feel at this point. I'm adjusting to the situation I now replace myself in, but I highly doubt that the offer for me to leave on a shuttle by myself was actually a possibility." The look on her face confirms my thoughts.

"Yes, we did raise our son to handle you. In a way he had no more choice then you did." I grind my teeth at her words. If he left or disobeyed, he wouldn't have wiped out an entire planet. He had every choice to not go through with his actions. Her avoidance of my last statement solidifies my thought of being a prisoner and not a guest.

"You more than simply tricked me. It will take time to overcome that. In the meantime, it will give him the chance to prove he is censer." I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. She is brutal.

"I expect you to be more then angry at him. I know I would be." I glance back to him remembering the day I found out everything was staged.

"Yes, in fact I threw fire balls at his head when I found out the truth." She laughs a bit.

"I'm sure he deserved every bit of it. I must say I envy that power. There are more than a few times I wish I could have done the same to his father. After some time though I learned to tolerate him, even care for him. He did what he could to keep me happy even in my fits of anger. He gave me four beautiful children and as he lay dying, I think I might have even loved him. After so many years together he loved me, and then for him to leave me I was heartbroken." I think back to the day Patrick and I called them up to let them know we were getting married. She did seem saddened by the state of the man next to her.

"I'm sure that spending a lifetime together and children would form some bonds between the two of you, but I am nowhere near ready to forgive your son." I'm being as honest as I can without bringing fear to her about my powers.

"A woman is entitled to be angry with a man, as is she entitled to hold her anger until he can resolve the cause for it." She says to me.

"My father use to tell me that a woman is neither early nor late in her path to forgiveness. She is simply timely in her ability to withstand more a man must bring down on her shoulders. He seemed to think men were burdensome to a woman's mind." She laughs again.

"He must have been a wise man indeed. I'm sorry that you had to suffer that lose during your journey here. Wave my dear and smile, it is the easiest part of being queen." She smiles and gives a slow gentle wave. I smile and copy her motion. We have come upon another cluster of people standing by the path to wherever it was we were heading. I scan for the odd man from before, but he isn't there.

"I was never shown what love was. My mother only did what was necessary to insure she stayed at her status in society. She never really even said I love you to my father the more I think about it." I say through the smile.

"I see you have that down to an art already. They did teach you to hide your emotions very well. I can imagine being kept away from people has left you a bit unexposed to the nature of man, to the nature of emotions." She is still waving and smiling as the crowd cheers loudly.

"Emotions weren't a privilege I could explore. The slightest bit of anger toward something is enough to cause my powers to activate and destroy all around me. My father taught me how to control them very well indeed." I'm not sure if I just gave myself away. There he is again, the man in the brown cloak. I wish I could see his face.

" As a queen it is important to appear as though you have it all under control. Do you think you can ever forgive my son, or my people?" She didn't catch on to the fact I can't control my powers, but her question sends me deep into my thoughts.

"I suppose with time I can to learn to accept what has happened. I'm just a bit overwhelmed by everything now." Our eyes meet for a second as we head up a hill to what looks like a speech platform.

"Did he say he loved you?" I stop waving and look at her confused. "It isn't something that comes easy to him. He grew up watching the uneasy exchanges of emotion between his father and myself. When he says such things, he means it, I can promise you that. It was the one thing he had the most issues with being brought up to try to be with you. He always wanted the kind of love he read about in those useless books." I look even more confused as I'm not sure what to say at this point. My mind went back to the first time he had said that he loved me. He had said he thought he was falling in love with me at first and then when he admitted it in the elevator. He said that he wasn't the kind of man who just gave up on what he wanted.

"Yes, more than once." Now she stops waving and looks at me surprised. I look back past her at Patrick sitting in the back of the line waving and smiling.

"He said it more than once even after you knew the truth." She didn't look so stern when she asks, more worried, I think.

"Yes." I answer. She just looks at me then back over her shoulder. She turns slowly back to me and raises her gloved hand to her eye and back down.

"He loves you then and I can only ask that if you do not intend to return his love at least fake it. He is my only son and his happiness means the world to me." She says then smiles and waves again as we start on a slight incline. I stare at Patrick this time he looks forward at me and giving a slight smile. What if I couldn't fake it? He has hurt me so much.