Glass bottle

A Story by D.Y.Petkova

"500 or under" Challenge

She’d messed up again. Angelique was not sure how she always ended in the strangest places. The other students simply set their clothes on fire or grew beards, but not her. Her Teleportation made even the tiniest mistake deadly… or incredible. Her teachers told her she should be more careful, that she should try to stay safe. “The only daughter of the King” they would murmur “ should act like a Princess, not a country child with no manners or responsibility.” But they did not understand �" she was responsible. She knew what she needed to do and learn. It was not her fault than while her friends had low Telepathy or Telekinesis, she had the strongest Teleportation the School had ever seen.

One of her Professors tried to lock her powers but her Father heard about it and… well, she’d never seen the old man again. He hadn’t meant anything, just trying to help her. But who would defy the Kind, or tell him his daughter needs special care. He said she was better and stronger than the other children. She knew she was, but his orders did not help �" “ My daughter will learn how the rest of the kingdom lives. She will understand what our people need and how to be a good Queen.” Angelique usually agreed, but her tutors simply did not know how to help her with her powers without angering her father. So they tried to teach her control, quietly, of course, and she tried to use what she learned in every single lesson.

Neither of this mattered right now, because she had obviously made the greatest mess she could �" she was in a glass bottle, floating in an endless sea. The clouds above her head promised storms and the dark water was like nothing she had even read before. But all of her attention was on the bird. It was a bright spot in an ocean of gray and blue, a gold coin on a dusty floor. It was flying in circles around the bottle and studying her with a focus such a simple creature should not possess. Finally, it clicked on the glass with its beak. Angelique was staring at it with wonder. It just was so lovely and bright, the gold and blue of its plumage shining in the pale beams of the hidden sun.

The bird clicked once, twice, and then it caught the neck of the bottle, shifted it a bit, and rose from the water. It was so small compared to the bottle, that it shouldn’t have had the strength to lift it, but it did it. It was flying. She was flying ! All thoughts of the kingdom, her father and her studies disappeared from her head as the creature took her in an unknown direction, where she would surely experience the most amazing adventures.