Duke suddenly felt like Sharlae lying was a huge possibility!

He knew her personality and it could be very possible! She must already see…That I like Perdita and…

The fact that he already knew that Sharlae liked him made him get a headache.

…Was it really that simple?

That Sharlae demanded Perdita to leave just because he obviously liked her?

If Sharlae lied to him though, how was he to search for Perdita?

Sharlae…It seems she would not let him near Perdita, yet…

As he flew, he looked around, knowing that the planet was huge because he had been searching for his Phoenix for many years and still could not find her…Perdita could be just as hard to find!

What could he do if Sharlae did not bring Perdita back?

 

He wasn’t going to beg her, as he was sure that she will blackmail him with something she wants for him to get what he wants…He was not going to lower himself to that to her, especially if she is lying to him, no…He will just have to secretly search for Perdita instead. He hoped though, very much, that he’d be able to find her soon.

She was obviously not in Immortal Realm, so her time may be short, and he didn’t want to miss his chance of spending his time with her.

Live had been long, so long that he was excited for the idea of being with someone. Someone that will smile at him like that again…Someone that made him, and his dragon, feel something, someone that made him want to touch another, teach another and make them happy…

 

 

With the Dragon King’s return to Nature’s Call Clan, Sharlae immediately asked where he had gone, as it had been hours since he had left.

“Never mind that, tell that girl…Perdita, to return!” Duke ordered, secretly wondering what Sharlae’s response was.

He intensely stared at her to see her reaction.

He wanted to know if it really was possible that the one that was lying…Was her!

Sharlae frowned and wondered what was going on, why hadn’t he gotten over her already!?

“Now!”

Clenching her fists, Sharlae nodded and then quickly flew away.

What was she going to do!?

Flying to the link, that would take her to her enemy, Sharlae continued to think of a plan that would stop the Dragon King from wanting the presence of his Phoenix and found herself smiling.

That was it, she had to make Perdita unavailable!

What could she come up with!?

 

Stopping and going to the ground, Sharlae paced the area, not caring of the few people around.

Perdita was only fifteen, so it wasn’t like I could say that she was married…Sharlae thought.

What if I told Perdita to state that she was betrothed?

That she was now going back to her home, because of her age, because she was being filial?

Pacing faster, Sharlae wanted a perfect reason, one that didn’t leave any holes for the Dragon King to think it was okay to see her.

It would be good too if she got the Dragon King to dislike Perdita as well. She would much prefer the Dragon King to hate her instead, but dislike seemed a more realistic goal…

…What to do?

 

She couldn’t let her man touch Perdita, then he would know that she was the Phoenix.

So…It was probably better to not let them meet at all…

But what kind of story could she create that would be plausible?

…Could I just say that she disappeared, but she can state where she ‘was’? As long as she doesn’t state where she really was, then it wouldn’t matter if the Dragon King wanted to look for her.

Seeing that Ceptily was the country that the undeserving Phoenix was in, she could state any of the others?

‘I think she’s still looking for your Phoenix, perhaps she found a lead that led her away from Questro and Dura.’

Rolling her eyes, Sharlae was not happy with that idea at all, it still opened the fact that the undeserving Phoenix could be in Ceptily…

Yet, how could she make it out as though she had no idea what was going on and that the undeserving Phoenix was a real nasty piece of work on top of that?

Sharlae continued to pace and figure out a solution to her problem…

 

 

Perdita was feeling freedom once again.

She had felt it being young in the Nature’s Call Clan, but as she grew older, she started to fell suffocated…Now, now she was seeing what it was like to do what she wished to do!

What was she going to do though!?

The thought of not going into the capital to live was still there, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t at least go there every now and again on an outing, which would be nice.

No, she wanted to find a nice home, away from everyone, especially people who would treat her badly.

But where would that be?

 

Seeing people that weren’t half naked here, because of the weather, she wondered if she would stand out by not having the right attire.

It was strange that she could walk for six hours and come to a noticeably colder area…

She wasn’t the only one with shorts on but there were more people wearing winter weather clothing and it felt strange to her. She was used to wolves and their heat, as well as her own.

In fact, she felt quite at ease with the wolves but…Now that she thought about it…

It wasn’t all that much colder here than in Nature’s Call Clan, it was because she had stayed with wolves! Wolves must be creatures that felt the extra warmth, just like hers did!

Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier!?

Letting out a small laugh to her silliness, Perdita breathed out a deep breath and closed her eyes.

…This was nice.

 

It was strangely ironic that her creature was out, but her master wasn’t exactly one to be too nasty to her.

There was no torture, well unless you add the order and laughter in her head. There was no plucking, stealing of her blood and forced sex. There was no testing, nor that of hitting her until she cried…What she has had to do so far was to get away from the Dragon King…

Thinking of the Dragon King now, Perdita frowned.

Looking down, holding her bag tighter to her, she felt insecure.

She wanted the best for him, so she understood why Sharlae was like she was…It was obvious now…

 

Telling her that he won’t love her and that she was nothing, Perdita could see that Sharlae liked the Dragon King.

She didn’t blame her really, the Dragon King was quite a man.

The idea though, of someone else being with him, did give her pain, but she did not think that she had any right to interfere.

What she felt, which was strange to her though, was that she just had this possessiveness about him.

She questioned this feeling, as she really didn’t know the man, but inwardly she felt that he was hers. She felt that just as much as he was hers, she was his as well.

It didn’t make much sense, which was why she could only try to force the feeling back and not get attached to it too much.

 

Knowing now that the Dragon King had spent so much effort on her, perhaps it was time for him to be with someone.

With that thought, Perdita bit her lips and nodded.

She will exert her strength now to become someone that the Dragon King would be proud off!

If she can go back to being the Alpha that she was born to be, rise up to the Immortal Realm and show him that she was now strong enough, perhaps she may deserve him then.

If…If he was with someone, then…Perhaps she will wait for him to be ready.

The idea of him being with another, even after she fixes herself up, and she will, made her upset. What if she took too long?

What if she was not as good as the partner he would be with?

 

Swallowing her insecurities, Perdita smiled slightly and tried not to think about it.

The future was still so far away…So far that Perdita was astonished that she was looking that far ahead!

Never…Never had she looked that far ahead in any of her life’s!

Perhaps, she thought, that man means more to me than I thought…

She knew that he had not been with anyone for a long time, which did make her feel good in a way, but sad in another. She knew what it was like to be lonely and she didn’t want him to be lonely forever, as she did honestly wish for his happiness.

If he happens to be happy when she is stronger in the future than…

So what if she did fix herself, it wasn’t all for the Dragon King anyway…She needed to do it for her as well!

Now, with a more determined smiled, Perdita kept traveling north.

 

To make a home, was her first plan. A home that she wanted to stay in for more than just weeks or months, but perhaps years.

A home she can relax in and feel comfortable in.

Then, she was going to make sure that she had what she needed and find out how to get what she needed, like that of books to teach her how to reach Immortal Realm and food, clothes…

She had even thought of taking up a few hobbies, just to try them out. Of course, she needed money for that, but she was sure that if she plucked one of her feathers out or cried, she’d be able to get something for it.

But…Was that such a good plan though?

What if people found out who she was and tried to take her?

What if, just selling one feather led this freedom to end and she was going to lead another tragic life?

 

Knowing that she had very little money on her, Perdita was worried about how she was going to live.

She didn’t want to work, she had done enough of that, but the only thing she had was really her feathers, blood and tears…

It really was a predicament!

Nonetheless, this predicament didn’t deter her away from her new goal, her excitement…

She will live a life, a real life!

Yes, this was her plan, to seclude herself, grow in herself and be able to become independent.

And it felt extremely good to have a plan, a plan that she had come up with all on her own…

So good!

 

***

 

Ten years had passed, and Perdita had a very different enslavement then all the rest.

There had even been a time when she fought to free herself, feeling the connection between them completely weaken.

For so long, Perdita had fought to free herself from her master but…She had lost in the end and…

Well, there were times when her head would really hurt, making her faint to the pain afterwards…

It seems that her master had hated her for doing that and at random times would suddenly make her feel so much pain that she would nearly scream. Perdita had nearly pulled out her hair many times and found it so unbearable that for two days afterwards she had stayed in her nest, unable to move…

 

But…Perdita had finally started her life and after a while of enduring through the astronomical pain, she was able to continue living once again.

In this time, she had made her home in the middle of the arctic and unlivable area, and so she had not had to worry about people intruding upon her nest.

Whenever she had gone to the capital to get items, she has gained courage each and every time and people no longer worried her.

Her courage had slowly come to her as she realized that nothing bad happened each time that she went out. Well, not as bad as rape, testing and plucking.

Once she had someone steal what she had bought but she got it back from the help of the officers that handle that type of thing, making her trusting issues better instead of worse.

 

The first time that she gained some courage, was when she finally found a way to get money!

She had not been able to do anything for so long, that she really was scrummaging through trash to get her feed, when she had enough and decided to reach for the skies…

And that she did!

With the freedom that she had now, even though at the time she was homeless and hungry, she had come up with an idea of not giving away her feathers, tears or blood as they were. Instead, she came up with an idea of putting a few tears into some water, stating that the water was a healing water.

It had rained, leaving a small water hole and she had put a few tears in and that was it…She sold a few cups of water and got some money!

This idea had not worked well at the start, as it was a small water hole that didn’t even have a fountain to it. But that seemed to have helped with getting people to drink it because it was obvious that the water would disappear.

Perdita would laugh at them in her head when they only had a drink because what if it was true and they were too late to try it later, because when the waterhole was dried up then they would have obviously missed out!

 

When the third person gave it a go, they had come back and let people know and then, within the week, people were swarming the dried-up water hole, complaining and hoping to get some of the ‘healing water’…

The miraculous events that had happened because of this certain water were bringing over story tellers. Parrots were seen flying around and even an old storyteller, that had a tortoise creature, had come to add this story to his collection. This old man was known throughout all of Ceptily and many people preferred his stories to a few others as he seemed to add to the suspense just because he told the story slowly.

 

The whole idea of healing water was new in Ceptily. Once in Questro, it had been done but that had not lasted long, but here, in the wide opened spaces of the country, people started to stop by this one place that never used to hold anything of interest.

There wasn’t any food growing around, a main road was close by and then behind it were trees leading into a bush land…

It held no inns, no entertainment and the closest person living around the area was a good half hour walk away…

Suddenly, with the ‘healing water’, this land became desired and ended up becoming a populated place in the future. …All because people knew that the ‘healing water’ that once was here, had indeed worked!

 

The third person that had helped spread the word of the healing water was indeed someone that had problems. They were already sixty years old and could not break through the last barrier to get into the Mental Mind Realm. Having been stuck for so long, they had been a wanderer for the last few years, taking in all the different type of leaves from other countries. His skin looked so old that people thought him as one that would die at any time. But with his caterpillar creature in a fat, cocoon stage, it seems the ‘healing water’ helped his creature turn into the butterfly that was needed to go into the Mental Mind Realm. It was purely by having nothing to lose, that this man gave the ‘healing water’ a go and found that his skin changed almost straight away! His mind took a day to change from that of a hungry, green eater, to that of a butterfly that was relatively common. But…There weren’t many butterflies left now and so his relatively common butterfly, that he could now show off, was awed upon by many who saw it.

Being so excited, he had told everyone that he had passed when fluttering around!

 

 

Perdita had long left the water hole with her money, so she had no idea that people had set houses up to live there, to do what she had done, thinking that when the water hole returns, they would be able to sell ‘healing water’, just like that of a dirty, homeless girl did!

Perdita did not repeat her ‘healing water’ episode until she had a feed and got some better clothes for herself.

After she was ready again, to get more money to then set up her nest, for when she found where to have it, she did it different this time and supplied bottles of healing water to a medical place.

They had tried it out and one of them had heard of the ‘healing water’ before and so they had bought the healing water, giving Perdita enough money to last at least two years!

It was…So exciting!

Seeing that she had gone from poor, hungry and homeless, to independent and finding a solution on her own. So…She was very happy with herself!

 

She had tried sewing, but she was not very good at it.

She had tried to knit, draw, paint, play sports and…For the most part, she wasn’t very good at it…

If she practiced a bit more in her music, she felt she could become better, especially with the flute…But everything else seemed to be something that she didn’t have a talent for.

But now that she had actually tried these things, Perdita felt like she had absolutely no regrets and even smiled about it. She was happy.

Happy that she couldn’t sew because, after so long, and seeing others do it, she can now say that she’s actually tried it!

It had taken her more then two lives to try these things and finally, it was known to her what it was like!

She liked music very much though, and it was also one more reason that she would visit towns and the capital of Ceptily…To see musicals.

Most of the musicals were of people with bird creatures but there was a very interesting piece once that she could not forget. It was of quite a number of people with all different creatures and she would have never thought they could all made such a sound together!

The low growl of the tigers, the low hoots of owls, then the bats that continuously played in the background…It was something that Perdita would try to remember often, making her smile.