I am a Side Character, right?

| 11 | On the Right Track

I woke up in the forest. Alone and sitting against the trunk of a massive tree. Using the tree trunk, I stood up. Remembering the pain that had sent me into unconsciousness, I checked the damage- or lack there-of. The stab wound, same as last time, had already healed. My skin was smooth, and my corset had a familiar hole in it. It was in the same spot, the edges of fabric coated in my own blood. I had serious déjà vu. Only this time it was followed by extreme irritation and a need of wanting to wring a certain princess's neck. 

Just when I had let bygones be bygones and tried to forgive her. She stabbed me again!

I mumbled to myself as I poked my fresh skin through the new hole in my corset. "I am so going to kill her when I see her again."

"I'd like to see you try." Isadora said as she stepped out from behind a tree. I could see her better now, out of the darkness of the cave and my tear-blurry despair. A sword attached to her hip above the black pants that hugged her thighs. Leather harnesses were wrapped around her left leg and hugged her stomach with buckles of gold. A dark red corset stitched up with loose black string. 

She looked amazing and I looked like something out of a horror story. 

My mind became a flurry of inappropriate and violent images of what to do to that corset of hers after she had stabbed me through mine. I shook them out, shaking my head with them. She must have brought me here to threaten me to help stop her brother from killing the mother dragon. 

I opened my mouth to tell her that threatening me wouldn't work. She stepped forward before I could, "I'm not going to threaten you, Fenway." 

She closed the distance between us in seconds, wrapping her arm around my back and pulling me toward her. This was becoming a pattern I wasn't too sure I liked. Isadora leaned in and whispered into my ear, "I prefer coercion."

I moved my head away but with being this close, I could not help but look at her in the eyes. 

I hated how she always knew what I was going to say before I said it. Prefers coercion. I rolled my eyes. More like prefers to put a knife in your stomach when she doesn't get her way. I tried to push her away from me but was unsuccessful. 

"You can't coerce me. I don't like you- why are you smiling?"

"You're cute when you're lying." She said while laughing at me. I tried hard not to think that Isadora is, in fact, very attractive. Or that I am, undoubtedly, very attracted to her. I would not think about the fact that I had thought about not washing the hand that Isadora kissed the night of the dance until after she had stabbed me. Amongst other embarrassing things. But that did not negate the fact that she was a homicidal psychopath who tried to kill me. Twice now. 

"Ha," I laughed back, "I'm not lying. I don't like you."

"I did apologize for trying to kill you. The letter I sent you." She was referring to the letter I burned the second it touched my fingers because feeding it to Dera might have poisoned him. She really thought that letter counted as an apology. I could almost faint with how annoying the royal siblings were. If you try and kill someone, you should at least have the courtesy of apologizing in person. 

I pursed my lips, unwilling to answer. 

Isadora's head tilted. "How should I apologize then? Teach me, Fenway."

I released a frustrated breath. Still unwilling to answer her, she thought to herself instead. Perhaps prostrating yourself and screaming that you were in the wrong. Or even better, have your entire royal-pain-in-the-behind family kneel in front of the Queen and admit their wrongs. 

If we were lovers, it would be different, she could- I stopped my thoughts short. I quickly shook off the thought. However, when I looked at Isadora, I saw her eyes were twinkling suspiciously.