The first time Elise saw Loriel through the crystal ball, Loriel was reading a book in the library. The twelve-year-old boy looked so intelligent and imposing for his age. Elise rested her chin on her two hands and observed the boy.

He was so handsome with a serious expression. His blue eyes looked so pale, almost like silver, and his hair was messy and had the color of ash.

Elise heard his family name was Ashborn. It suited him really well, she thought.

“His name is Loriel Ashborn. Your mother and his mother are best friends. They vowed to match their children in marriage if they have a daughter and a son,” her grandmother explained. “As it happened, you are the only daughter in our family, and he is the only son of his family.”

Elise was an only child. Years later she found out that her mother died when giving birth to her. Her family hid this knowledge from her throughout her life because they didn’t want her to feel guilty.

However, she found out anyway because the court ladies gossiped. Her mother had always been a weak woman and pregnancy took its toll on her health.

So, there were no more children born to her family. She was the only daughter. Now, it would fall on her shoulder, the responsibility to fulfill her late mother’s wish to marry into the Ashborn.

Elise observed the quiet boy who was reading his book seriously and smiled sheepishly. She wouldn’t mind marrying this boy in the future.

After that day, Elise often snuck inside her grandmother’s chamber to get her divination crystal just to watch Loriel and see how was his day. As days went by, she grew to be more attached to him, even though he couldn’t see her or even realized that she sometimes was watching him.

Elise often felt sad when she saw how lonely he was. All his older siblings hated him and they always tried to make him feel unwanted. Elise often wished she could be there to console him.

“What are you doing, Elise?”

“Aahhh!!!” Elise jolted in surprise when she heard her grandmother’s voice calling her from behind.

She was now a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. Her beauty was known throughout all Myreen. To people outside of her kingdom, her beauty became some sort of a myth since nobody had ever seen her.

You see, her grandparents hated their neighboring kingdoms for waging wars for decades and decided to hide Myreen from the naked eye. Their family was a really powerful wizard family and hiding their entire kingdom was not a difficult thing to do.

By the time Elise was born, her kingdom had been hidden for almost one century.

Elise had never traveled outside of Myreen since her family despised their neighbors. So, she could only rely on Loriel to take her to see places.

Yes, after eleven years of watching Loriel grow up, Elise felt like she grew up together with him. She considered him her childhood friend. She couldn’t wait to meet him in person and share so many things they experienced in life together.

Her father said she would be allowed to leave Myreen on the day she got married to Loriel. Now, at the age of seventeen, Elise already knew what marriage was and what did husband and wife mean.

She couldn’t wait to marry Loriel!

She couldn’t wait to be his wife…

He was the love of her life…

As Elise got stuck in Myreen, Loriel started traveling after he turned twenty. And so.. Elise could see the world through him.

Loriel seemed to dislike the life in Summerian royal palace and chose to wander around and going on adventures. Elise couldn’t blame him though. His older sisters intentionally made life so hard for him back at the palace.

Oh, all the beautiful places he visited made Elise happy and excited. When he saw a beautiful lake, a new town, an interesting performance, Elise saw them too.

This made the frequency of her sneaking into her grandmother’s chamber increased. She couldn’t wait to see what he was up to. And Elise would sometimes help him without his knowledge.

Like, one day… he was stranded in the desert for three days and couldn’t find water to drink. Elise didn’t have the heart to see his horse looked parched and almost dying.

So, she sprinkled some water into the crystal. And sure enough… suddenly the desert where Loriel was stranded was washed by rain, enough for him to collect water for him and his horse to survive.

Actually, Elise was not supposed to do that. So, today, when her grandmother caught her sneaking again and called her out, Elise was so shocked and looked guilty.

Did her grandmother see what she just did?

It looked like it… since her grandmother’s expression had turned sour.

“You are not allowed to enter my chamber again,” her grandmother roared. “I have warned you enough times. A witch shouldn’t mess up with the world order. You can only watch, but you must not intervene.”

Elise bit her lip and tears welled up in her eyes. How could she let Loriel die of thirst?

He was her future husband. Elise couldn’t let him suffer.

.

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>>>>>

This scene, where Elise sprinkled water to the crystal ball and rain came to where Loriel was, is actually inspired by a scene from a children’s movie I watched when I was a child, around 30 years ago.

Because I was really young back then, and I don’t remember the story or the title, I can’t find the movie again after I grow up. But I do remember that one scene.

A little girl was watching a boy from a crystal ball and she sprinkled water to the crystal ball. Somehow, the boy felt the water touched his face and he wiped it. The setting reminded me of the Snow Queen or Hansel and Gretel story, but they are definitely not the story I was looking for.

If you happened to know which movie I was talking about, I would love to know the title, please…

Anyway… I hope you like this chapter. Sorry, the snusnu part is interrupted by Elise’s thought. We’ll continue in the . XD