I sat on the couch, my legs bouncing up and down as I tried to calm my jumping nerves. I couldn't understand how mother had found me so fast- we could go days, weeks without seeing one another. For her to have taken only four days was unheard of.

I watched the clock religiously, the tick, tick, tick melodic in it's doom. I was just about ready to smash it and stop the infernal noise when a light knock sounded on the door, and I glanced at my watch. The clock on the wall was two minutes slow.

Padding over to the door in my socks, I took a deep breath and steeled myself for a lecture before swinging it open to let her in. She entered without a word, her strawberry blonde hair swinging around her angelic face.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing here, young lady?"

I sighed. "Seraph-"

"Do you know how worried I've been? How worried the others have been? We have been searching high and low for you ever since we'd realized you'd gone missing."

I sat back down on the couch, elbows resting on my knees and my head bowed. "I just...I needed to get away from everything."

"Get away from everything? Get away from what? You don't do anything, Luciana-"

"Exactly!" I exploded, looking up. "I never did anything while I was stuck with you people. I didn't know anything! Do you want to know how long it took me to figure out what a street light was? Or how to work something as simple as an elevator?"

She looked slightly taken aback at my out burst. "What do you need to know those things for, anyway?"

"Imagine me, as Queen, getting hit by a car because I didn't know what the blinking orange hand meant. Or not being able to work an elevator. Don't you think that would be just a tad bit pathetic, Seraph?"

She pursed her lips, refusing to answer. "You are just lucky your mother hasn't found out about this."

All expression dropped from my face. "What?"

"You're incredibly lucky," She repeated. "You're lucky that she doesn't know you're gone yet."

"So she...?" I swallowed. "She didn't send you, than?"

Seraph's face softened, and she sat down beside me on the couch. "Oh, sweetheart," She murmured. "No, she hasn't noticed you're gone. I'm sorry."

I shook my head, shifting away from her. "I don't want your sympathy, Seraph." I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Where we come from, it's a foreign thing. You've never learned that."

She sighed, looking at me sadly. "Just like you've never learned what it's like to accept compassion. It's not a bad thing, you know."

I didn't look at her. "To me it is."

We sat for awhile in silence. The clock continued to tick away, filling the silence. It lined up with the beating in my chest. And the pounding in my skull.

"I will not let your mother know where you are," she said finally. "I'll give you until the end of this year. But after those four months, I expect you to come home and resume your duties."

Now I did look at her. "And if I don't?"

She couldn't meet my gaze. "Just don't let it come to that. Okay?"

Slowly, I nodded. "Okay."

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It's short, I know, but I've had really bad writer's block recently and this story is not coming easily. I'm going to post as often as possible, I promise.