Chapter 2 Found

In the deep forest where sound of humans were devoid of, the sound of a weak crying baby was heard. The curious hunter who had been experienced with these strange events in the forest courageously went into the direction of the sound with his bow and arrow pointed to the direction as well.

On the sight he found, he dropped his bow looking stunned and shocked out of his mind. Never in his thirty years of hunting has he ever witness such an unusual and mind blowing scene.

Not knowing what to do and how to go about this, he clumsy but steady went down to pick up his arrow. To distract the huge python who looked like it was protecting the weak creature in between it's rolled body, the hunter tried to throw out one of his hunted meat towards the opposite direction of the snake for it to go towards it but was dumbfounded when the snake uttered the words "sheyah" and turned around to pass the baby to the hunter.

Shocked and half alive, he stretched out his hands and took the fragile baby from it only to find the snake moving into the deepest darkness of the woods. As scared as he had been he held the fragile little one who looked a bit tired from crying and a wounded little at her right shoulder.

With so much care, as if he had the impression of how precious this child was to their world,he carefully held her and starred at her for a while.

Not knowing where his courage came from, he turned around while looking back at where the incident had just happened which looked like nothing happened, and started heading towards his village.

Forshan***

"Have you heard of what happened in the Harshan Palace yesterday?"

The very beautiful and elegant Queen asked her Husband the King of Forshan.

"Tell me" he said shortly as his back was a little tensed indicating something unknown to the Queen.

"They found Queen Yaran dead in the woods after they spread out a search for her and the princess' whereabouts since they went missing after the attack against them".

The frustrated Queen spoke as if she feared she might go through same. Silence was all that the room echoed after she spoke.

"My King"? She tried to move to his direction since he looked too quiet, tensed and somehow unaffected by the news. The king lifted his left had half way indicating to the Queen to leave to her quarters. Although frustrated, she left looking at him worriedly. She knew partly of the past incident about Yaran and her husband king Raymond.

Although she knew about how they were betrothed to each other, she knows not what made them not to end up together so breaking the news to him, she didn't know how affected or unaffected he was.

The cold looking King Raymond looked outside and once he sensed the presence of his Queen departing he allowed his tensed shoulders down as well as the tears in his eyes to freely flow.

King Raymond kept to himself what he felt for Yaran all these years. The woman he had betrayed in the past deserved the best not this,he hated that he caused her pain at that time. "Yaran please forgive me" he uttered and left to write a scroll which looked very important as his sad looking eyes changed to that of one who was determined to do something productive.

***In the village of Forshan****

"The gods have been good to us...oh thank heavens and all the skies for this blessing" the middle aged woman who held a clean and calm looking baby girl in her hands praised and showed gratitude to the gods of Forshan. "She looks like a princess, look at these royal eyes oh... she's perfect." As she kept on praising, her husband who looked so mute after returning with the baby finally spoke.

" I need to have some rest". On saying that he slept on their not so attractive bed and started to think about the name "sheyah".Was that the name the gods wanted for her? Was she really from them? Or someone dropped her there to die but was saved by the god of wisdom. The slave citizens of the Forshans believed in the python god and had a lot of faith it's wisdom.

Upon hearing the stories from their past of how their native land used to make sacrifices with snakes but we're once protected by a python's to a safe cave when they were attacked by a lion, they begun worshipping the python and refered to it as the python god and later ended their snake sacrifices. From what he knew about the god, he thought that, this child must really be from the spirit to help them out in their struggle.

As he kept on thinking he fell asleep to only find himself in a dream.

***Dream***

"sheyah, your people will take care of you", uttered a royal looking lady who carried a baby towards a river near the forest. "Sheyah look, your people await you in Forshan, your grandparents await you there, look, that's one of them, pointing to the direction of the man, as scared as he was, he stood.

"come, take, she's one of your own, take her and protect her till she becomes a Forshan. Take her" .

As he held his hands straight, he opened his eyes only to realize it was a dream.

Waking up, he saw the baby sleeping peacefully close to his wife, who had shelter her in a protective manner. He smiled, knowing that this child was now part of his family, they had lost all their children to the other kingdoms during the great war against their land, they lost not only their land but separated to different parts of the kingdoms when the enemies raided their land after the war on different occasions to choose those they needed as slaves.

They were unfortunate as their children had been taken by the Harshanians while they were taken another by the Forshans. They never had a girl but were ok to have one for the first time. At least they know the gods remembers them.

Pondering about the dream he interpreted it as the god of python giving out the baby but thought of why the god wanted the child to become a Forshan, that would mean, when she's 18, she had to be given out to the Royal palace to serve forever and become married to one of the Forshaian citizens.

Oh was this how the gods wanted to free them from slavery? The man wondered and just looked back at the baby in eyes full of hope and slept again.

***The land of Harshan***

It's been a tough, rough and mournful weeks after the tragic incident that befell their kingdom.

The hope that had been restored for some couple of years was crushed after the incident happened. The people stood at the gates of the royal palace and mourned their wise Queen who was no longer with them.

For the past 2 weeks they kept on coming hoping to hear some good news but none was received about the king's condition or the princess' whereabouts.

The King had been ill after learning of the death of his wife as well as his daughter's unknown location. Everyone had no idea what really caused the sudden illness but assumed it as that of the tragic incident.

"My love, my daughter" the king kept on saying on his bed as his temperature kept rising, the chief physicians had tried all they can giving him the medicine they knew was going to bring him back to his strong self but nothing seems to work.

Full of anguish and hopelessness they turned to the high ranked guard and friend of the king to announce the current state of the king. In dismay, the guard turn to walk into the chamber of Elders to announce the state of their king.

"What are we going to do now?" An elderly person questioned in the chamber as the news about the king's state was announced to them. "We can't let this news go outside the palace". Another Elder spoke.

A sudden cry bursted out from one of the few women sitting in the royal seats. All eyes turned to her as she was being patted by one of the elderly women.

"Be strong Yaharan", the elderly woman said,the woman who looked exactly like the late Queen cried more as she heard those words. As eyes of sympathy and worry reached her, she finally stopped and sobbed quietly.

"I" *sob* "I..I wish all those intruders will be executed today....they have caused us too much pain".

Almost all the elders turned to look at the guard who finally breathed out to release the anger in him before talking as he looked in the eyes of the woman he had been in love with all these years...

Yaharan, the woman who constantly broke his heart till he finally realized how deceptive and scornful she was.

"They refuse to talk on who sent them, therefore I can't order their execution, finally breaking his eyes from hers,he looked back at the council.

"They need to die anyway! Whoever sent them might have asked for their souls in exchange of this calamity they have brought upon us".

Yaharan rose expressing how much passionate she was about this case and how much she wish for nothing but justice. Tension between the two close friend and relative of the weak King and the late Queen, the highest position among the elders rose to cease the tension and begun to speak.

"Execute them immediately!."