36 TO THE FOLKLORES SHE MISSED OR NOT MISSED TO LISTEN ABOUT...

It is very disappointing to have no response from your readers...to the silent ones.

No votes, no GTs, no comments...how do you think it motivates the author in writing a story that gets no response as to how it's going?

Will try to keep up with the updates...my expand r starting from next week, no breaks in between so bear with me...

And please be vocal if this story is not making it, I could take it down and focus on other works instead...

Thank you!

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The Princess stirred in her unconscious state, coming back to the state of her sense, and it was only then she felt that something was scanning her face, her vision not yet clear.

"Do not move!"

The voice made her halt. She was about to attack whatever that was sniffing her skin.

"It will bite...and believe me it stings."

She tilted her neck in the direction of the voice, without really moving from her position, and was taken aback to find him, only a few meters away.

Did he follow after her again?

Even when she had asked him to? More like threatened him not to...

"Do not tire your head out now thinking that I have followed you to here...it was quite the opposite actually, to be honest."

Ruqui let out. The Princess narrowed her eyes at him. She remained still in her position, underneath the creature, which she did not know what it was called.

"I m not a fool to enter a forbidden forest."

He started and Ambrosia could not help but think if he was calling her out as a fool for entering the forest on her will.

"I must have unconsciously tripped inside, upon running to save my life.

I heard the horses and the footsteps and in the darkness, I had no idea where I had run into..."

The horses and the footsteps...that was the only part that got the Primcess's attention.

Ruqui went on talking but her ears had turned deaf to him because it made her think if her mother had sent the forces to get her.

Did it mean that the Queen knew that she would be here?

The very thought made her not care about the present situation and only mind about to escape as fast as she could from here before they took the risk too and got here.

She got up and the creature bit her straight on her neck and she was quick to pull out her sword and cut off its head.

It led out a heinous noise before falling onto the ground. Ruqui yelled at the Princess standing up from his sitting position and so did she.

"What did you do?!"

It looked like a bird, with wings, but not any ordinary bird. A unique creature with the biggest beak she had ever seen.

Now its head lay on the ground, split from its body. The blood which was bluish and greenish was all over the mud and on her sword.

"I told you to not move...it stings, does it not?"

Ruqui implored as the Princess's face contoured in as if experiencing a sudden jolt of pain.

She rubbed the skin of her neck where it had bit her. And pushed the sword back inside the shell after wiping off the creature's blood with her bare hands. It felt slimy and sticky.

"Slaying anything inside the forest is forbidden too."

Ruqui said, eyeing the then-dead creature on the ground. Ambrosia looked at him.

She had no clue about that piece of information and she glanced at him questionably.

"The creatures of the same bloodline might come after us anytime now...we must leave this place."

He let out and Ambrosia narrowed her eyes at him.

"What?"

"You would be thankful to me later on Princess...but this time ain't for questioning. We must leave. "

Saying that he looked around and then started climbing a tree. Ambrosia eyed him weirdly, walking up to where he was.

"What are you doing?"

"Not leaving any trace or they would follow us...you know how to levitate in the air, I do not. All I know is climbing trees..."

He answered to her as he kept hiking up the big tree. Ambrosia remained still watching him go up effortlessly as if he had been very much accustomed to climbing high trees even before.

Only when she heard the noises. She turned around to see from where it was coming.

"Get along Princess...they are here...quick!"

He shouted it down to her, stopping for a second as she stood there unmoving. She roamed her eyes all over the place, being in the middle of the tall trees and the shrubs.

She felt the ground shaking. Something was coming...more like a herd of it. And upon catching a glimpse of it, behind the shrubs, she flew up right away and perched on the adjacent tree.

Ruqui was amazed by her skill. She was so quick in climbing up. To someone, weak in their vision would think she flew up.

But all she did was levitate up in the air, jump high, and use her hands and legs so fast, climbing the same height as he was in within seconds.

"Only ten of those...could have easily slayed them all in no time."

She concluded, looking down at the ground as ten of those similar-looking bird-like creatures surrounded its dead one.

"That's why I got you to leave and be up here..."

Ruqui murmured out and it made the Princess side-eye him. Both perched up in two different trees, adjacent to each other.

"Why?"

"Killing is forbidden here, Princess...it comes with a consequence."

He answered to her. She did not look away from him, wondering where must have he learned of that information.

"Where have you come to know about it?"

The question caught Ruqui off guard. He had more knowledge about the forest than he could think of any mortal in his village.

He had assumed the people from the capitol knew it all. His father had told him about it in stories before they had left the capitol for the wetlands.

It was strange how his father knew so much about a forest that nobody knew anything about...the creatures, the trees, and more...

As he grew up pondering about it, he could clearly put the pieces together then. It was because his father had stepped inside the forest.

"The folklores...you have not heard?"

Ambrosia did not know which lore she had missed but she thought that she knew all of it...