Protagonist Bound (13 page)

What can I say, if you don’t have rhythm, you don’t have rhythm. Of course—

Ow!

What was that, like, the fiftieth time he’d stomped on my toes?

“Geez, Daniel. You couldn’t take five minutes away from sword fighting practice at Lord Channing’s to learn how to dance without trampling your partner?”

“No, I suck at dancing because this is my first week at Lord Channing’s,” Daniel replied stiffly. “My book appeared nine days ago. I barely had time to pack, let alone take waltz lessons. What’s your excuse for being such a bad dancer?”

I didn’t retaliate. For one, I was a bad dancer and I knew it. And two, Daniel had just brought up a far more interesting topic of conversation.

So here’s the thing, for royals, protagonist books appeared when they were born because every prince and princess was destined to be the main character of his or her own fairytale. For all other chosen main characters, though (the common protagonists, as it were), books typically came into existence during early childhood.

Every once in a while a common protagonist’s book would emerge in their pre-teen years, like it had for Blue for instance. (Unlike full Legacies who were royal, Half-Legacies that weren’t were not guaranteed to be main characters themselves.) But I had never heard of a protagonist book appearing for someone old enough to be in their second to last year at one of our schools. That was just not a thing.

“Your book just appeared a week and a half ago?” I repeated.

Daniel nodded. “Yeah, and so did my prologue prophecy.”

Whoa, back-up. Now that was intense.

Remember how I told you earlier that, while people in Book know they’ll be main characters when their books appear, there is no telling when the Author will begin writing their fairytales?

So that’s true. But the thing of it is, we
are
aware when she actually does begin to write them.

You see, the first thing the Author pens in a protagonist book is its prologue. We refer to it as a “prologue prophecy” because those vague, succinct, and obnoxiously rhyming lines prophesize what that person’s story will be.

When these prologues appear, we protagonists sort of feel it. A powerful jolt hits our bodies, leaving us with a temporary spiral mark burned into our foreheads and a feeling akin to being struck by lightning. As such, this sensation has been nicknamed the “prologue pang.”

I can’t really explain what one feels like past that, given that I haven’t gotten mine yet. Truth be told, the only one of my friends who has is Jason. His prologue appeared about a year ago. But he never talked about the experience. To this day we still didn’t even know what his prologue says.

In respect of personal privacy the only people with permission to view prologues are the Scribes, our headmasters (Lady Agnue
or Lord Channing), and the students whom they are about. Thus, whenever a new one emerges, a Scribe will magically transport it to the respective school and the headmaster of said academy will read it to the named protagonist privately.

Of course, if protagonists wish, they can tell whomever they want, or invite others to listen in on the reading; it is their prerogative. But this choice depends on the person. Some people like to brag about their prophecies while others (like Jason) prefer to keep it to themselves.

I couldn’t believe that Daniel had gotten both his book
and
his prologue within the last two weeks.

It was weird to put it mildly, and no doubt super overwhelming. Maybe that was why he was being so irritating. It was an understandable reaction. After all, I would’ve probably done the same if my life had changed so dramatically without the slightest warning. I loathed the idea of prologue prophecies, but at least I’d known my entire life to expect one.

Then again, Daniel could’ve been happy about it. He had been a common before this. (One of Book’s many ensemble characters that weren’t assigned by the Author to play any specific, or important role in life. They’re only foreseeable mission was to help make up the masses that lifted up the people—the main characters—who were.)

Now he was a protagonist—one of Lord Channing’s esteemed, chosen “Young Heroes.” His status, his life, had just gotten a serious upgrade. So I supposed this jerky attitude of his could’ve just as easily been a reflection of his newly developed sense of importance.

I realized then that I had been staring off into space and dancing on autopilot for some time. Daniel was still waiting for my response to his massive revelation.

Alas, I honestly didn’t know what to provide for one. Just because the idea of prologue prophecies made me queasy, didn’t mean that was how he felt. Although, either way, I conceded that it was probably a lot for the guy to process and, jerk or not, the right thing to do would be to cut him some slack.

You know, try and empathize.

“Wow,” I finally said. “Um, a lot to handle. I’m sorry, I guess. That sucks.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yeah. It does. I take it you’re not a fan of prologue prophecies either?”

“Why would I be?” I replied. “They turn people into puppets. Look at everyone here. They’ve all totally accepted that they will live their lives like marionettes—dancing around following the instructions of some unknown master without question. It sickens me as much as it disappoints me. Frankly, it’s all I can do not to just—”

I abruptly stopped myself when I realized that I’d been letting an uncensored stream of babble pour out of my mouth.

It was true I did actually feel that way. Nevertheless, I usually wasn’t that forthcoming about my innermost feelings with other people, especially people like Daniel—who I didn’t know well, but knew I didn’t like.

“It sickens you,” Daniel thought aloud in reflection. “But you still participate in it.”

The inherent allegation immediately sucked me the remaining way out of my internal monologue.

“What are you saying?” I asked defensively.

Daniel and I bumped into another couple. They shot us a glare before twirling away to the music like pros. Interruption over, my attention went back to Daniel.

“What I’m saying is that you’re a hypocrite,” Daniel accused bluntly as we picked up the tempo again. “The idea of prologue prophecies, the Author, and all this supposedly ‘sickens’ you; yet, you’re still a part of the show. A good little puppet—dancing along like all the rest of them.”

I began to miss dancing with Chance. At least his insults were less intentional and
far
less personal.

“That’s not true!” I snapped. “I’m not a hypocrite, nor do I willingly go along with all of this. I just haven’t figured out a way to break free of it yet and until I do I’m just . . . trapped.”

Daniel gave me the same cold look he’d given me when we’d first met—like he knew something about me that I didn’t and, whatever it was, he clearly didn’t like it.

“I know what you mean,” was all he said.

The unexpected iciness threw me for a beat. However, in the next three quarters of a second it took for him to spin me, the seriousness in his tone faded away. When I came back around to face him, I found that his cockiness and smirk, both of which I was now growing familiar with, had returned to his face just as suddenly as they’d left.

“It’s too bad,” Daniel went on then. “Based on what I’d heard about you I thought you’d be a bit less submissive.”

“Submissive?”

“Yeah, you know—obedient, weak, unwilling to fight.”

Oh, that is it. Rules be darned; I was not dancing with this guy for another second.

I dropped, rather, pushed his hand away and squared him off.

“Daniel,” I steadied my voice. “You don’t know anything about me. But allow me to enlighten you a little. I am not so obedient that I will keep dancing with someone who insults me. I am not so weak that I won’t stand up for myself. And I am definitely not so unwilling to fight that I won’t drop-kick you in the shin right here if you don’t back off.”

He smirked again.

I hated that smirk. Even though I was feeling, like, lion-status angry, that smirk made me feel like nothing more than a perturbed kitten.

After a long pause, Daniel shrugged.

“All right, Knight; fair enough. Look, I’m sorry okay? Just forget it,” he said.

I opened my mouth to respond but then Daniel raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin, gesturing behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder. Lady Agnue was headed toward us—no doubt on her way to reprimand me for breaking the rules. I turned back to Daniel and he offered me his hand again. I glared at it reluctantly at first, but since I didn’t feel like getting yelled at or sent to after-hours detention, I eventually conceded.

Irritably, I took Daniel’s hand and we resumed our waltz just in time.

Foiled in her attempts to publicly punish me, Lady Agnue stopped short in her beeline, huffed, then walked back the way she’d come as my partner and I danced on.

“Knight,” Daniel said plainly, “it’s clear you don’t like me.”

“Obviously,” I agreed.

“And that’s fine because I don’t like you either.”

I mirrored his smirk. “Yeah. I got that.”

“But since Jason’s my roommate and Blue’s yours, I’m guessing we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. So . . . I propose a sort of truce.”

I raised my eyebrows as I waited for the punch line. But, much to my surprise, it didn’t come. He actually seemed serious.

“Go on,” I said.

“Plain and simple,” Daniel stated. “If you try to be less irritating, I will try to insult you less on your irritating qualities.”

“You think
I’m
irritating. Well, isn’t that the pretzel calling the cracker crunchy,” I scoffed.

Ugh, what a jerk.

Still, he had a point. Blue was my best friend and she and Jason loved hanging out together. So Daniel and I probably were doomed to see a lot of each other.

It would suck to be forced to spend time with him in any capacity, but if we weren’t arguing, his presence might’ve at least been somewhat tolerable. Which meant it really was in both our best interests if I agreed to play nice with the insufferable boy.

For now anyways.

The melody began to change as the orchestra subtly moved into a new song. With a sigh I at last looked up and responded to my partner’s proposal.

“Fine, Daniel,” I said. “A conditional, half-hearted truce it is.”

I gripped his hand a little tighter and locked my eyes with his as our new dance began. “But I give you fair warning. Watch your step.”

The Change

wonder why birds aren’t influenced by what day of the week it is?

I mean, today was Monday. It was my understanding that everyone hated Mondays, at least a little bit. Yet, there they were at ten o’clock in the morning, outside in the blinding sunshine singing like they couldn’t have been happier.

Singing with Nature class was definitely not my favorite subject. Usually I would just lay low and hang around with SJ and her huge animal entourage for the duration of the period, but today we had a quiz.

A quiz in Singing with Nature basically involved going up to the front of the class and belting out a melody of your choice with the intention of calling a specific animal to your side. Of course, for me this typically resulted in no animals responding to my banshee-like voice and me standing in front of the class looking like an idiot.

Why did I have to be the one princess in the history of the universe with less-than-impeccable vocal chords?

Today was the first exam of the semester and we had to call blue birds to our sides. Bonus points if we could get them to harmonize with us. SJ had helped me practice all day the day before but, other than drawing the attention of a couple of crows and a lone deer, the practice was not successful. And, personally, I think the deer just showed up to see what all the racket was about.

Needless to say, I was dreading the performance ahead.

At least our teacher, Madame Whimsey, was really nice about my singing inabilities. Whenever we had tests, she kept a pained, but sympathetic smile on her face for me. And she was compassionate enough to give me extra credit for feeding the birds three times a week. SJ, however, had offered to do the job for me that particular morning so that I could get some extra practice time in before the exam.