The Girl in the Slippers

Chapter One- Araluen

-Chapter One-

Araluen

I WAS BORN into a prestigious family. My father was the leader of our province, the Lord Alpha, and my mother was beautiful and kind, with hair the colour of a winter sunset. The strands were so gold that, my father tells me, a servant once stole some and attempted to sell them at the marketplace for eight hundred hriso coins. Her looks were renowned, however, she wilted like a bloom without sunlight after my birth. By the time I reached by third birthday, she had died.

    My only memory of her is her voice, telling me the most popular fairytale in our land.

    'There once was a girl,' she would begin, her tone soft but clear, and then caress my head, 'whose name was Araluen-'

    'My name?' I interrupted.

    'Yes, the very same. Araluen was a lycan who lived in a pack led by her uncle (at this point I'd scrunch my nose, as packs were believed to be archaic by my generation) and every night she would pray to the moon goddess Selene for a bountiful life. Her friends would mock her for her diligence but she never relented. On her twentieth birthday, Selene decided to give Araluen a gift to reward her faith. That night, at the celebration, she met-'

    'Her mate!'

    'Yes, that's right. His name was Osiris and he was the leader of a revolution. As soon as he laid his eyes on Araluen, lightening erupted in the sky and wind rushed through all corners of the Earth, singing its praise. All plants instantly bloomed and all creatures were roused awake. Every lycan felt their connection and became speechless in awe. The moon goddess gifted each with the powers to manipulate elements and, together with their love, they built our empire. For generations after, every lycan would find their mate after two decades of life and our land always prospered.'

    'Is the King descended from Osiris and Araluen?' I asked immediately after she was finished.

    She hummed in agreement, 'All royals carry the sacred blood and this allows them to sit on the throne of silver.'

    'One day I'll find my mate, right Mama? Like you and Papa!'

    'Of course, my little water lily. Now, Mama must rest. Go to your nanny.'And those were the last words she ever said to me.

    However, as I grew I learned the rest of the story- for that was all it was, a tale of fiction, as every educated person knew that there were no such thing as mates- I realised my mother was only humouring me. It was my fourth grade teacher who informed me of the ending.

    Miss Clark had smiled at me indulgently when I asked her, after hearing an older girl talking about it. 'After generations of peace, it became more and more popular for people to reject the mate bond and live their own lives. They believed that it was against their free will to be assigned a lover. We stopped praying to the moon goddess in our anger. And, in revenge, Selene cut our land off from the world and destroyed all mate bonds. Our race has never received a gift from her since. But Araluen, this is only a story. King Osiris and Queen Araluen were very much in love, but they weren't soul mates. We use this tale as a way to encourage children to not skip morning mass.'

    The memory is vague, but I'm sure I cried after that. It had ruined what I had childishly looked forward to the most- someone who would unconditionally love me. Someone who was guaranteed to love me. What a naive, childish, wonderful dream.

    Before I attended school, I believed that my parents naming me after the first queen meant that I was special. Until I realised I had four other Araluens in my year level (along with two Aras and one Luen) and, in fact, it was the most common girls name in my province. There was nothing extraordinary about being named Araluen, just like how nothing extraordinary had ever happened like in the story of her.