Ameera vaguely remembered her father telling her to stay put with the ‘nice woman’ after dropping her on the doorstep of La Maison Rouge. It was a nice place, there was a very pretty garden with plenty of flowers for her to dig up, but it was only entertaining for a little while.
She never listened to him, most of what he said went in one ear and out the other, none of it really mattered, after all she could do whatever she wanted and get away with it. She was, in her own personal opinion, amazingly self-sufficient as well. She could take care of herself for the most part without the help of an adult, she was hardly the drama-queen that she could be, should she truly want the attention she so rightly deserved. At some point she’d stolen away with one of the patrons of the house and returned to her father’s villa, without his permission and under the nose of her current caretakers of course. On the way in the door she stopped to admire her handy work—Tiny hand and feet prints scattered all over his walls, carpets, furniture, anything she’d been able to get her hands on. It was her masterpiece, at least at that point and time, and on top of that her older brother had allowed her to play with his hair! Joy!
The dark haired child pulled with all her might, using her own devices that she’d gathered as well as some things she’d found lying around the living room, prying the trapdoor that led to the basement where daddy kept the princess hidden away open. Nodding to herself she sat down on the top step and slowly eased herself down the stairs, one at a time of course. Her body was silly and uncoordinated, and she found it completely useless most of the time. She couldn’t do any REAL damage to anything or anyone, she couldn’t REACH anything, there was this nasty little problem with falling down all the time because her legs couldn’t properly carry her unbalanced baby-weight, oh it was a burden, though as she grew it seemed to get easier. Ameera had found though that she could do this shrill, high-pitched shriek that made both her brother and her father cringe, and for that matter strangers on the street too. She liked to do it all the time.
She’d also discovered that, unlike her father, many other people were very easy to push around when she screamed and couldn’t get her way. She imagined it was the face, she had to admit to herself that she was undeniably adorable. It was too bad daddy didn’t see it that way, what with his comparisons to that wretched woman…
Ameera eased off of the last step fidgeting with the hem of her dress, smoothing it out to the best of her abilities before taking a look around the room. To her surprise the princess was gone, in her place mangled metal and broken glass. Her father was there though, slumped against a wall looking an absolute mess, bits and pieces of the back of his head splattered against it. He was very obviously broken ,and should have been dead, though he wasn’t. She could see the haggard rise and fall of his chest, the shift of his broken ribs underneath the skin.And completely unbothered by this scene she dropped down on all fours and crawled over to join him until he woke up. He’d have to carry her back up the stairs, she always had a hard time getting up them. She’d help him clean up in the mean time, he was a total mess, and she wanted to know where the princess had gone. If she’d woke up he was in no state to see her; it was her duty to make sure he was clean and pretty for her. Quietly, and as careful as possible Ameera started picking shards of glass off of his clothing, occasionally making little noises. She managed somehow to carefully avoid getting cut, though small miracles were all over the place recently.
Something in her lower back started to tingle, and for an instance she thought she saw her daddy vanish, and in his place a pile of garbage, though it was gone as fast as it had appeared. Completely unbothered by this though she continued to pluck away, glancing up at him as he twitched. Again he fizzled out of view, then back in again. And it wasn’t just him she noticed, but the entire room as well. Annoying. She had to clean him up in case the princess came back!
Ameera lifted her head, looking around again as her surroundings fizzled. There was a building in the distance, something she’d seen in daddy’s office in the warehouse. And it wasn’t a pile of garbage sitting in front of her, but a box instead. There were people milling about here and there. It was strange and frightening, the child aware that she was no longer in control of her body as she reached again. A woman was near her, playing with something, swinging something around, dancing. Oh it was a beautiful dance, and the little girl felt that weird tingle again.
The woman stopped, noticing her as she seemed to shift properly into that weird, alternate reality. Sharing a moment with this foreign looking creature, Ameera came to the realization that she was in the presence of the princess, though there was something tickling at the back of her brain, and there was this weird, itchy feeling in her tongue. ‘You.’ She suddenly asked.
Wait no, it wasn’t she, that wasn’t her voice, it was much too old for her, something that obviously couldn’t make that awesome, shrill sound she could make, but all the same it was coming out of her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she continued.
The woman looked just as confused as she felt. How peculiar. The lime-eyed child smiled suddenly, though before she could test this new ability to talk of hers out, however uncontrolled it seemed to be, she was snapped back to reality and faced with her father staring at her oddly.