Baskadia

"Hafidh Black, you will be in charge of the princess' security!" This words from the commander changed my life as a soldier forever. It was a mixture of a feeling of ecstacy and an unknown horror; fear of the unknown or perhaps cowardice. It was a huge task coming with a lot of responsibilities. She was the princess; a royalty, a future queen of Dreamwise kingdom.

Her beauty would always sent any man to the charming world of hers. The two perfectly placed blue eyes were like balls of magic that any man that would lock his eyes to them would be more of a zombie or as I saw in a movie "you will be confessed to her." I could not remember that I was in the middle of a military parade. I was woken from my stupor with another command "You shall be by her side every step of her life." This time I managed to respond but only with a nod.

Being a young man is a funny stage of ones life. The duty that was allocated to me was a great one beyond imagination. The king had just died and without a blessing of getting a boy he had loved his only child; Nikita to be the heir to the throne. Most people in the kingdom disagreed with his decision because of a simple reason; Nikita was a woman. The kingdom was Being led by a group of elders from the three clans. It was no secret that the princess' life was in danger. I wondered why such a responsibility would be laid on me of all the mighty soldiers in the kingdom. I was black as some called it. I kept on looking at my skin, it was more of dark brown than black as they called it. My skin tone was sweet beautiful chocolate, God's making it was wonderful just as anyone else. Ali had told me more than once. With no rank in the military. There were so many knights who were just too good for the task. Why me!

Many theories were laid forth to explain the existence of this mysterious kingdom. I could neither agree nor disagree with any. So many people were trying to solve the puzzle. scientists were restless in there laboratories trying to prove their theories. Scholars and historians were burried in books but none of these gave a satisfactory answer. I was that one person who who cared the less about all that. Well not that I was not interested in science, infact I loved science and discoveries particularly industrial chemistry till this time when all men above sixteen years were forced to join the army. They said it was protecting the kingdom. I never understood this. people in the kingdom believed this was the last survivable land on the planet. The people were believed to be the last of the human race. I was also reluctant to believe this. They were just too rigid to know the truth by exploring the outside world. But is this not the human nature? Believing what they think or told rather than what they see. The people who thought that they were the last of the human race are the same people who lived with fear of being attacked from the outside. It was crazy or rather funny.

In the kingdom I was a cowboy taking care of the horses and cleaning up the stables. This was the duty assigned to me. I would try and find sometime and go to a laboratory owned by professor Alian. He was a chemist having several projects and discoveries. He too was in the quest of finding scientific existence of this magical kingdom. I admired his work. The experiments were just like magical work, or maybe science is some magic. I would think sometimes. I wanted to be his laboratory assistant since I had some bit of knowledge in chemistry too. I could be making some discovery of my own. But nature had cheated me I was forced to join the army and everything about chemistry would always be a fanciful dream. I started leaving a regretful life and always cursing the king for forcing us into the military. Was the world created to work like that? First being forced to become a cowboy and then being forced to join the military. Maybe the world was created in such a manner that the most powerful ones would always control the least powerful ones. I had to absorb this and accept my life as it is. If I was from the royal family they would probably assign a therapist to help me accept my life. But as it is I had to be my own therapist.

The princess' life was then my only responsibility and just by the looks I could tell that she could always get herself in trouble and that would make my work unbearable. Throughout her life she never knew the meaning of the words desperate and responsibility in her life for everything was done for her; even taking a shower and dressing. To me desperate was all that could describe my life. I was desperate about almost everything especially my life. This was going to be her new normal. Desperate would be her new vocabulary and it's always connected to responsibility. She was still a child as most people said. But she was my age mate, I was just like two years older than her. She was not mature enough to take up her responsibility: the kingdom. How come I was given a responsibility at my age? I'll understand that soon enough.