Finley Cai Aies Hall March 28th, 20XX

There is a winged lady in my kitchen.

I stood frozen as I stared at her from the safety of the wall that blocked me from her view.

She only appeared to be a few years younger than me and was beautiful in a healthy sort of way rather than a girlish one. The stranger stood stock still in a militant position and leveraged an odd gaze toward me.

For a rather idiotic moment, I wondered if she was a figurine that came with the new condo, but I quickly dismissed the thought; one because I had already lived here for two months and had never purchased such a thing, and two because it moved.

My briefcase made a thud as it dropped and betrayed my presence in my house. She turned towards me and her eyes scanned me over twice before her gaze locked onto the pendant around my neck.

“You are Finley.”

Rather than a question, it was a statement, and it put me on guard.

Could she possibly be a psycho that had somehow found out about me and wanted to use me to get into the company?

I internally groaned at the possibility. I’d already had a long day at school and an even longer one at work, so this was really the last thing I needed. Trying to resolve this as quickly as possible, I straightened my posture and raised my voice a bit, trying to intimidate her enough that she would leave.

“Yes? Did you need anything from me so urgently that you felt the need to break into my house?”

She ignored my angry tone and continued to look over me with a faint sign of genuine worry on her face.

“ Where are your wings?”

Her voice was pleasantly pitched and on the higher end of the range, which contrasted her stiff expression and behaviour. Such a pleasant voice was entirely unsuited to the absurdity that was coming out of her mouth.

“My….Wings?”

She circled me a few times trying to find my ‘wings’ and continued to do so until I panicked and pushed her away by her shoulders. Holding her still, I asked in as calm of a voice as I could.

“ Look, kid, I’m not sure who you are or why you’re here, but can you at least tell me how you got in here?”

She seemed to remember something and suddenly jumped backward by a few feet and then dropped onto a single knee and her right-wing seamlessly bent into her back, almost like an arm would fall to one’s side. The impressive show of technology made me wonder for half a second if they were real, but I quickly dismissed the thought and instead wondered how it would be possible with modern-day technology.

“Greetings your highness. My name is Cambridge, it’s an honour to finally see you again”

I stiffened my spine to stop myself from bowing in response and could only look at her with a bewildered expression, wondering how she could so determinedly stay in character. Even her costume was abnormal. They’d made it of an otherworldly material that shimmered as she walked, but up close didn’t have a single sequin on it.

“You already know my name, so I’ll skip my self-introduction. How did you get into my house?”

“You left your window open”

“And I suppose you flew into an apartment that is twenty stories off the ground?”

She nodded but quickly switched to a spoken response.

“ Yes.”

She shifted back and forth in her boots that didn’t seem to have soles or laces, in fact, they were more like socks than boots but still somehow seemed incredibly sturdy. She drew my attention back from the shoes to her folder,

“ It says here that I’m supposed to bring you back with me”

I dismissed the threatening statement she had just made and wondered what to do with the intruder. She was too young for me to call the police on her and I didn’t know where her parents were, but I doubted they were any good if they’d let her break into someone’s home so late in the evening.

Regardless of outside influences, I was reluctant to call the police because having such a thing on her record would hinder her in the future, but perhaps calling child protective services would be the next step.

I also had to find out who let her into the building and into my house. They would seriously have to be reprimanded.

It was from this point that I had trouble processing what was happening. She lost patience and started towards me in a vaguely threatening manner that seemed so out of place on her slight form.

“You must forgive me your highness but your time here has confused your memory. At first, I was unsure, but now I’m sure I have to bring you back with me.”

With every step she took forward, I took one back until I was against the wall. Her hand reached into the pouch attached to her belt and pulled something out, presumably a weapon.

“Please hold still, I’ve heard it can be rather painful the first time.”

I doubted being stabbed would hurt any less the fifth time than it had the first, but I wasn’t willing to find out with my body. I panicked and held out a hand before she could use whatever was in her pouch on me.

“Wait! Let’s calm down a moment. I promise I’ll hear you out, but there’s no need to get violent here. What did you want? Did you want me to sign you to Volui? I can do that! Okay? I’ll arrange an audition and get you in, okay? You’ve impressed me enough!”

She gave me an apologetic and pitying smile as she took in the pathetic display I was aware I was putting on and pulled out a fist full of what looked like sparkling sand.

“I truly beg your forgiveness in the future, your highness.”

She threw the sparkling dust into my face, but nothing even remotely magical happened. I collapsed to the floor, fully aware of how pathetic I probably looked, and crawled away as I tried to clear it from my eyes and mouth. She grabbed me by the collar with a surprising amount of strength and quickly pulled out another handful,

“I suppose a royal would need a higher dose.”

I had a lot of thoughts as I slowly lost consciousness and tried to claw the golden sparkles out of my eyes but the very last of them was;

What an awful way to start the weekend.