CHAPTER 3 — KINGDOM OF ESTELLEA
CHARACTERS ― Riana Aera Morian, MJ (ASTRO), Cha Eunwoo (ASTRO), Moonbin (ASTRO), Rocky (ASTRO), Jung Jia Valentia Neolas, Kim Minhyung Noah, Kim Royoung Daniel, Aretha Anthia Morian, Elexis Violeta Doukas, Zen Alberto
GENRE ― fantasy, nct!prince, nct!royalty, nct!as!vampires, nct!as!wolves
WORDS ― 3152
WARNINGS/AUTHOR’S NOTE ― Mention of Blood and Stab Wound.
SUMMARY ― Aera finds herself in a surrounding where she isn’t too familiar.
Aera falls in a thud as soon as the portal opens – with her basically rolling out with a loud groan coming out from her.
“Argh..” Aera let out a groan with a mixture of a sigh. She thanked the gods that she was literally being transported to a bush rather than a concrete floor – since she is feeling a sharp pain somewhere below her body.
Slowly opening her eyes, the bright skies greeted her which explained why her sight was quite bright even if her eyes were closed.
As she tried to sit up, she was met by a sharp pain on her hip. Aera looked down and let out a sharp gasp – to see a knife basically stuck onto her own flesh.
“That explains the pain.” She muttered to herself, gulping her own lump on her throat. She wasn’t afraid of the pain, she was afraid of the redness she is seeing now – which is her own blood basically trickling down the stabbed wound.
“Freaking—
She cursed herself after taking the small knife out of her – now feeling the tremendous pain, throwing it aside as she tried to get her breathing to a normal speed.
‘It hurts to move,’
Aera tore out a part of her inner shirt – to make a bandage for the meantime for her wound. After finishing the small problem, Aera now fully looked around. She couldn’t tell if she was in Aerina.
She didn’t even know if she was in Wonderland or not.
But all she knows is that she is somehow in a garden, a back garden – seeing a small statue surrounded by bushes leading to a path. Aera slowly stood up though it hurt.
Sighing, Aera took a step at a time while clutching onto her wounded part as she ventures out.
‘It looks like nobody's around..?’ Aera looked around again, trying to see if there is anyone around but after seeing every corner, there is literally no one.
Shrugging slightly, she followed the path and that’s when she was met by a short garden maze.
But her eyes followed to the front as her gaze met up. Though it was foggy, she could tell that she had stepped foot in a castle. Aera looked behind, and her eyes went slightly wide to see more fog appearing to where she was previously.
Aera quickly went ahead without looking back, and now her sight turned hazy the more she stepped forward – causing her to let out small coughs.
“Why does it turn foggy all of a sudden?” Aera commented, as she was swatting around the air. Now she thinks the surroundings were playing with her – it turns foggy purposely.
The more she walked ahead, the more her sight turned hazy.
Just as she took a step forward, she felt a tip of sharp blade right behind her back – which caused her to stand frozen. All of a sudden, the haze that was surrounding her started to disappear slowly.
Now revealing where she is standing.
In front of her, she could see the inside castle through the huge clear window.
Now she didn’t dare to look behind – not knowing what or whom is literally pointed at her. But she knows there is someone.
“Didn’t know someone had the guts to enter here, usually they would be killed instantly if trespassers come by.” Whoever this person is, he is sure is taunting Aera just by how his voice sounded.
Aera slowly held up both of her hands - though she felt a sharp pain on her wounded hip which caused both of her hands to gripped onto the wound, that’s when she felt the sharp blade again at her back.
“Okay, okay! Relax! I’m hurt!” Aera groaned annoyingly, at the same time turning back slowly while gripping onto her hip.
As soon as she turned around, she met with the man who was somehow taunting her.
It wasn’t just one. There were two.
One of them gasps with his eyes widening the more he stares at Aera, “Oh my god, Binnie…”
Aera looks at the both of them – judging how they were dressed. She could see an emblem on their collars, now she knows she is literally in a kingdom. But she couldn’t tell which kingdom it was.
She couldn’t even remember the previous kingdoms in Wonderland.
‘I’m so dead.’
She could only gulp in fear while one of her hands was gripping onto her wound.
As she was staring into these two men hardened, she could feel her stance becoming nauseous. Aera could guess it’s either because of her getting weaker or because of the wound.
“I..” Just as she was trying to let out a word, she could feel her body collapse.
And before her vision turns into darkness, she could see one of the figures catching her – feeling herself in someone’s arms before she fully passed out.
“Thank you for the breakfast, I’ll get going now.” Jia thanked the royal housemaids as soon as she finished her breakfast, as always, before excusing herself as she grabbed her book. This was her usual routine.
Breakfast, have a walk around the castle, read the book by the back-garden, lunch, horse-riding, reading again, dinner, and head to bed.
This has been going on for nearly a month since she just graduated from royal school.
She had been granted the green light by her father – by writing through letters if she could switch school to a public one, which was to her Uncle Doyoung’s school named School of Neo.
She wanted to go since most of her cousins enrolled there, and knowing soon all of her own siblings will be enrolling there too.
Just as she had her usual walkabouts, Jia heard rushed footsteps coming from the back.
“Jia!” A familiar knowing voice called, and as she turned behind, she saw two familiar faces.
“Minhyung! Royoung!” Jia called, waving towards the two boys who were running towards her. Minhyung and Royoung are Queen Anthia and Prince Doyoung’s sons, they are the first born and they are twins.
“What are you doing here? Is Auntie Anthia here?”
Minhyung smiled slightly, “No. We are here with our father.”
Jia’s face fell slightly, “Oh…”
“Don’t be sad, Jia. You’ll see her soon, she’s just busy for now. Right, Min?” Royoung turned towards his twin who was nodding. The twins knew that Jia had looked up to the twins’ mother as a mother figure ever since Queen Aera left.
“Right.” Minhyung nodded, “Anyway, did anything happen yesterday?”
Jia frowned slightly towards his question. “What do you mean?”
Minhyung glanced towards his twin – Royoung frowning down towards his cousin.
“Yesterday, in Aerina, the stars in the skies.. They were being.. Odd..” Royoung said slowly, head tilted slightly. Jia’s eyes widen slowly, now she gets his question.
“Oh!” Jia exclaimed. “In Neo too! I mean, yesterday, the stars were playing hide and seek too!” She explains, causing Minhyung and Royoung to look at each other.
“And I assume the barrier too..?” Minhyung looks at Jia with a slight wince, seeing her nodding.
Royoung clicked his tongue in confusion, “..But nothing bad happened yesterday, so why did the barrier appear?”
“That’s the thing, Ro.” Minhyung turned towards his twin. “..It means something happened. Don’t you listen to your history lessons’ in Dad’s school?” Minhyung looks at him in disbelief.
“..The barrier only appears when dark magic is involved. That was what the barrier is for. Protection from dark magic that Queen Aera had done before… she left.” Minhyung explains softly at the end, his eyes falling towards Jia who’s eyes were downcast.
“I miss her.” Jia muttered – she wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable in front of her cousins. In fact, they had seen the Jung siblings break down in Aerina’s tradition of celebrating Queen Aera’s birthday.
“We all do, Jia.” Minhyung ruffled the young one’s hair, while Royoung had his arm on her shoulders’ – pushing her slightly into his arms, as he hugged her.
The twins had heard stories about Queen Aera – most of the stories were heroic, but most were quite funny regarding her everyday lives in the palace. Which is why she is loved by many, especially by King Jaehyun.
The twins accompany Jia on her walkabouts as they go to the main floor – that’s when she sees Yoel running towards their way.
“Jia! Jia!” Yoel yelled out, with Jia basically frowning towards the older one. “You know if the royal housemaids caught you running—
“Father is back! C’mon!” Yoel didn’t waste any time to grab Jia’s hand, as they ran off from the twins – which they decided to run after the Jung siblings.
“You sure it’s her? What if it’s the Ice Warlock doing—
“We’ll know if it’s his doing, MJ.”
“And besides, no one can duplicate a human’s blood. Look, and I don’t think it’s the Ice Warlock this time.”
“Eunwoo’s right. And look at her finger….”
“..She is really pretty not gonna—
“MJ!!!”
Aera frowns at the voices that didn’t even bother to whisper. It was as if they were having a full conversation, not minding she was there. She could feel her eyes fluttering, her vision starting to focus as well as seeing faces basically looking down at her.
Once her vision has turned focused, Aera out of nowhere sat up which caused some of the unrecognisable faces to shriek while taking a step back.
Her eyes went downcast, seeing that she had fully changed into a white pyjamas-dress. Pyjamas in a dress. Aera frowned slightly, kind of little concerned about the fact that men had changed for her.
“Don’t worry, we had a female housemaid changed for you.” One of them states her worries, causing Aera to widen her eyes slightly.
“You can read minds?” Aera speaks quietly, the others kind of look towards each other.
“Well, we’re not vampires.” Another spoke, “..We are Estelleans. We are fairies, each one of us has powers and mind reading is one of them.”
‘Estelle… Which century is this?’
“Century sounds old, your majesty. First thing first, allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Myungjun, in short, MJ.” He introduced himself first, flashing a wide smile.
“I’m Rocky, or you can call me Minhyuk. This is Eunwoo,” He pointed towards the prince-like looking one.
“..And this is Moonbin..” Eunwoo pointed towards an individual at the back who was leaning against the door – Aera could only look towards them, kind of in awe.
She quietly had her feet landed on the cold floor, she tried to stand up but her stance was wobbly causing some of the guys to go towards her – the first to reach her was Eunwoo since he was nearer to her.
“I’m afraid you have to lie down for now, your majesty. Your wound is kind of deep.” Eunwoo warned, eyes deeply gazed onto hers. Aera sighed softly as she was being sat on the bed.
“...How were you stabbed anway? How did you get into that situation in the first place?” MJ asked casually, earning a few disbelief looks from his own members. They were giving him the look of respect since he is literally speaking to the Queen of Wonderland.
Aera looks at him with a small smile – before sighing. “..By the Dark-Elf. I was stabbed by the Dark-Elf in my museum.”
Moonbin’s eyes widened, his eyes meeting his other members.
“W-wait, you’re saying the Dark-Elf was on Earth?” Rocky questioned in awe, which Aera nodded. “In-fact he disguised himself as Jaehyun – which got my attention.”
Eunwoo was now staring at Aera with full of concern – before he turned towards MJ who was already looking worried then turning towards Moonbin and Rocky who were standing at the back, mirroring the look of MJ.
“I think you need to inform the rest.” MJ turned towards Rocky and Moonbin who gave a nod towards the older one – before bowing towards Aera as they excused themselves.
Aera watched them leave. “Where are they going?”
“Writing to Neo, Athenian and—
“So I am in Wonderland!” Aera exclaims happily, earning a shocking look from Eunwoo as he chuckled to see how elated she is.
“Yes, your maj–
“Call me, Aera.” She turned towards MJ. “All of you, call me Aera. We are way past the titles, after you saved me.” Her gaze turned towards Eunwoo who looked like he was in a daze.
Now he knows why everyone loves Aera – it’s her personality.
“For the meantime, you can’t move.” MJ winced as he looked at her hips. “So maybe we could tell you stories of what happened in Wonderland while you are here till you fully recover?”
“We know you would want to return to Aerina as soon as possible.” Eunwoo continued with a small smile, which Aera nodded with a wide smile.
“Something went wrong with the constellations last night. Has been fixed by God Leon. Apologies from the Athenian household, written by the twins, Prince Jonah and Prince Joel.” Anthia read from the neat-handwriting that was from the Athenian household.
“I wonder what happened.” Anthia muttered to herself as she folded the paper, looking towards the bright sky. The Queen of Aerina was sitting on her usual desk – going on her royal routine which was checking on the reports.
She checks on each update from different parts of Wonderland – seeing if Aerina needed to support some parts but so far, there was none thanks to King Jaehyun who had been travelling around Wonderland for the past few months by sea.
Anthia puts away the documents and letters neatly as a sign that she had concluded her day when her eyes travelled towards various moving picture frames.
There were pictures of the big family of Neo and Aerina together, pictures of her own children with Aurelia and Aera’s children, and lastly pictures of herself and her two younger sisters. Anthia could feel herself smiling as she went through the pictures, with memories behind them.
The last picture, was a moving picture of Aera basically laughing, standing at the back-garden of Aerina. She was wearing a simple dress – she wasn’t in her Scarlet Witch form.
Anthia grabbed the picture frame of Aera, analysing her face that looked too happy in the future – it made Anthia smile naturally.
‘I hope you are happy out there, Aera.’
Sighing shakily, Anthia quickly put down the picture frame as she stood up from her office chair – Anthia quickly got out of the office room, to already see a familiar figure waiting for her down the hallway.
“Everything good?”
Anthia’s voice made the figure turn towards her way – seeing a small smile as she bowed towards Anthia.
“Yes, I called one of the general’s in Neo Kingdom. They said everything is back to normal.” Violeta reassured with a smile, walking beside Anthia as they headed down the stairs.
“It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?” Anthia turned towards Violeta. “The stars are fading, and it reappears again. Not to mention the barriers activated itself..?”
Violeta sighs a little loudly, “.... To think about it, Wonderland has always been weird so I can’t say much about the stars. The Athenians are the ones responsible for that.” Violeta paused, as her steps started to slow down.
“As for the barriers,” As Violeta trailed off, this caused Anthia to turn towards the General with a small frown.
Anthia started to work with Violeta ever since Aera left Wonderland – and now she understands why Aera trusted Violeta so much, even Aera had put her life in Violeta’s hands when she needed saving.
“...Jaehyun said it only activates when dark magic is involved.” Violeta whispered slightly, not wanting the housemaids that were walking passed by them to hear their conversation.
“I heard even Morian’s barrier has opened too, father called me just now.” Anthia informed quietly, which Violeta nodded. Now this made both of them frown deeply.
“..But, nothing bad happened yesterday.. So why...?” Anthia continued, while Violeta stood in front of the Queen.
“Maybe someone or something wanted to break into the castle, but failed to do whatever they were trying.” Violeta guessed, which Anthia shook her head while sighing through her nose. She was frustrated because it has been a while since this happened.
The last time it happened, she received direct news from Jia, one of Jaehyun and Aera’s children. It was revealed that the Ice Warlock was trying to enter Aerina but failed due to Aera’s protection barrier.
“It can’t be the Ice Warlock,” Anthia said in disbelief and Violeta was about to reply when rushed footsteps were heard – seeing a very familiar figure walking towards them.
“Zen, you look like you were being chased by maidens.” Violeta teased, wiggling her brows towards the Queen – seeing Anthia shaking her head to Violeta’s forever teasing towards Zen who was glaring towards the General.
“What is it, Zen?” Anthia looked towards Zen who was gripping onto a letter a little too hard. Zen’s composure straightens, he looks a little too nervous to say the next words.
“It’s from Athenian.” Zen said – Anthia gesturing Zen to continue his words. “They said that Queen Aera is in Wonderland.”
Anthia froze on the spot, while Violeta was looking towards the letter – she didn’t even ask Zen for the letter as she snatched it away from his grip. Her eyes moved left and right in a speed where no one had seen her read before.
There was a smile coming from Violeta as she turned towards Anthia, “Anthia, Aera is back! She’s finally back!”
Anthia’s eyes fluttered in tears, as she broke out into a smile. “..Where is she now? H-How..?”
“That’s the thing, your majesty.” Zen quietly said before pulling another letter out towards the two ladies which Anthia quickly got ahold of.
Just like Violeta, she reads at a fast pace, causing her to gasp – a worried frown was shown on her face.
“What? What happened?” Violeta questioned at the same peering onto the letter – a look of concern formed slowly as she reads the letter.
I received a letter from the Athenian Kingdom that the Gods and Goddes of Constellations were supposed to transport Queen Aera to Athenian, but they made a mistake on transporting the Queen to Estellea.
Queen Aera is in Estellea castle right now under Prince Eunwoo, Prince Rocky, Prince Moonbin and Prince MJ’s care.
I have examined the wound from Queen Aera’s and it was from the Dark Elf.
Prince Eunwoo has also told me that Queen Aera has been attacked by the Dark-Elf on Earth, which was impossible. As we have lived in Wonderland for centuries, we only know a powerful being could travel to Earth.
Perhaps our greatest fear has come true?
If it is, we have to get ready, your majesty.
Do visit Estellea to see Queen Aera as she is waiting for you.
Yours Sincerely,
Prince Jinwoo, JINJIN of Estellea Kingdom
𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 (𝐜.𝟐) ⤄ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 (𝐜.𝟒)
her wonderland : for infinity [the 3rd adventure]
