Chapter 17 Finding Food for a Human

I hit the ground with a loud bang as I cracked my skull on the ground. Everyone in the vicinity reacted all at once, the queen has collapsed!!! Is she going to be ok? Was her injuries so severe from her fall down the Anti-G Force Free falling Elevator? Did the trauma of seeing the Kings fury get to her ?" the crowd murmured. "Nobody touch her!!! Helios rushed over to assess his queen checking to see if she was injured. Her face, pale as a sheet, was drained of blood. Her hands were a purple clammy color. Seeing no physical injuries he scooped up his queen and shouted, everyone follow me we have business to discuss," racing toward the royals private doctor hired specifically for the High Queen.

Helios burst through the doors to the infirmary shouting, "my Queen has collapsed she needs help. The most famous doctor of Kosea his best friend sprinted around the corner as he beckoned Helios to follow him to the Queens suite and pointed to a special bed set up for the Queens comfort. Helios place her in what looked like a giant bean bag chair/bed fuzzy and white similar to their first mating bed. Helios thanked him in his mind for providing a bed suited for his queen.

The Doctor checked her vitals feeling for her pulse. "Her pulse was weak, fluttering lighter than a butterflies wings. Her hands were turning different shades of violet. He then proceeded to draw some blood samples from the her. Helios paced back and forth in the corner of the room biting his knuckles waiting for the doctors response. Thirty minutes later the doctor strode up to Helios and flicked him in the forehead as he chastised the King, "she is malnourished. When was the last time you fed her? Her blood sugar hit near death levels today. She collapsed from hunger."

"Humans are supposed to eat three times a day. They are not like us who can go thirty days before we eat our next meal. Her energy depletes every few hours if she doesn't eat. She will collapse every time. You need to learn to take better care of your queen or she will end up dead under your watch. Ihloi told you that human females would be a handful. That means you have to feed them three times a day everyday. Helios looked ashamed as he approached his queen and whispered to her, "I am so sorry for not taking better care of you. I should have been paying more attention to your well-being.

Elnath looking around for the King's approval, approached the queen next as she looked down on the her sleeping figure. "The poor dear she's so young. She is the youngest Queen in the history of Kosea. She still needs a mother to look after her. I am a baker, we make excellent food. It might not be as good as the food at the castle but with the right ingredients I can whip up a meal for the little darling when she awakens. Helios's face lit up with gratitude as he thanked Elnath for her offer.

Helios motioned for everyone to gather as he spoke up, "I gathered you all here because of today's incident. My queen needs protectors. I can't always be there for her every minute of everyday. We witnessed that when I was working and she snuck out of the castle on her own. My queen is a human female. She cannot do magic so that means she can't even perform the most simplest of daily tasks. That is where all of you will come in. I need you to watch over her when I can't be there.

Under normal circumstances her protectors would have been chosen from the royal guard. But seeing as she has accepted you three as friends of the queen, you and your families will be chosen by me to be her protectors. I fully accept my Queens judgment. You will be compensated of course and you will have to relocate closer to the castle. She is a handful and will need looking after hand and foot. I trust you guys are up for the challenge at hand?" Helios asked as he looked around the room.

Everyone glanced at the most beautiful Queen Kosea has ever seen as she stirred in her sleep, and without hesitation everyone replied, "Yes Sire" as it resonated through the room. Helios stepped forward and placed his palm on each of their foreheads, a bright light flashed and the Protectors Mark a blue star appeared on each of their foreheads. While a female can choose who she wants for friends and lovers, only a male can choose the Queen's protectors. Everyone in the room took a knee as each one of them took an oath to protect the Queen with their life. Should they fail in their duties they shall take their own life as punishment. An hour later the Queen began to stir grasping her stomach and crying. Everyone gathered around the her. Helios leaned over her clasping her hand in his.

I gained consciousness as my stomach churned begging for something to eat. Tears slid down my face, I was so hungry my tummy hurt. Looking around the room, a bunch of faces were staring at me. Helios appeared at my side looking apologetic as he leaned over me. Groaning I sat up my head throbbing from where it smacked the ground. "What happened? Where am I? The bright lights are hurting my head. The Head Doctor dimmed the lights in the room for me. My head felt much better after the lights were dimmed. An older lady came up to me with kindness in her eyes.

"Hello dear, my name is Elnath. Your at the royal Doctors office set up specifically to take care of the High Queen, and the Royals of Kosea. I am sorry my children chased after you and frightened you. I want to make it up to you by cooking you something delicious. I will be here to watch over you and cook all your future meals. Your King was chastised already for not taking care of your well being." Elnath smiled patting my hand. I gave a small smile back to her as drool started leaking from my mouth. An older man who I assumed was the husband to Elnath walked up to me and bowed his head, in a low voice so as not to cause pain to my head he spoke,

"my Queen my name is Arthruea ( are through a ah), my family and I have been chosen to protect you. Arthruea approached me with something in his hand, he held it up, and with a husky voice said, "Whenever you need our help we will be there to save you. All you have to do is ring this bell no matter where you are we will be able to hear you and it will summon us and we will appear, he walked up to me and clipped a tiny gold bell to the bracelet on my wrist that Helios got me. It was like a cute little charm addition to my bracelet. I gave it a shake listening to the clear lovely tinkling sound it made. "Thank you it's so beautiful."

"Ok everyone before anymore introductions we should probably get my Queen something to eat. The reason she's in here is because she hasn't eaten," Helios chuckled as he tapped my nose and kissed my forehead. At the mention of something to eat my stomach growled echoing through the doctors office. Everyone in the room burst out laughing as Helios scooped me into his arms and we all followed Elnath to the bakery. As Helios carried me I couldn't help but stop to think, besides my little adventure today I don't think I've actually walked on my own two feet since coming to Kosea . I can get used to being carried around by my mate, I thought snuggling into Helios's arms.

Helios looked down at his Queen as a thought flickered across her mind. He grinned when he heard that his queen loved to be carried by him. She didn't weigh a thing in his arms. He could carry her all day for a year and not get tired. She snuggled into him and he leaned down to kiss her lips, a blush forming across the tops of her cheeks. Everyone stared at the lovely couple kissing with envy in their eyes.

Elnath led the way with everyone following close behind her. Everyone stopped in front of the column of light that almost sent me to my death, one by one I watched as they disappeared into the light. I clutched Helios robes, my hands trembling, remembering the falling sensation my backside still stinging from where I landed. Helios held me tight letting me know he wouldn't let me fall as we were sucked into the light again. My eyes were clenched shut upon reaching the third level my hand wrinkling Helios's robes in a death grip as I hid my face in Helios's chest.

Helios chuckled whispering in my ear, "it's alright Chelsey, we made it." I opened my eyes and sure enough we were back on level three. Elnath leading the group toward her bakery. We neared the storefront and I saw the words Kosea Pastry and Tea written on the front in giant White letters. Upon entering the bakery my nose twitched taking in the smells as my stomach began to growl in protest. Pots and pans clattered in the back, as Elnath went to prepare the first dish. I looked to my left and saw Arthruea lighting a Dutch oven style stove as the warm sound of a fire began to crackle.

The sound of the fire was nostalgic bringing back memories from earth. It was the first time I witnessed a fire burning in a hearth in Kosea. The bakery had a homely feel to it, one that I craved and envied so desperately to have. I wonder if Helios could build a fireplace like this in his or should I say our sleeping chambers. I made a mental checklist of things to that I wanted to ask him one day. Helios walked up to the bar counter and sat me down on one of the stools. Before he could sit down I grabbed a hold of his robes begging to let me wear his cloak feigning I was cold.

Helios placed the cloak around me clasping it in place. It was huge on me. It covered me completely draping to the floor. You could say I was wearing a blanket. Helios laughed aloud as he tousled my hair and sat down on the stool next to me. With in a few minutes Elnath was back with the first course. She placed a platter in front me that held what looked like raw fish heads and octopi tentacles laid on a salad. I grimaced as I poked at the food, not wanting to seem rude, I forced myself to pick up my fork trying to hold back retching sounds in my throat.

My queen stared at the dish in front of her for a few minutes but seemed like she just couldn't bring herself to eat it. I poked around inside her head latching onto her thoughts. "I'm a human, I can't eat fish heads that still have bones in them or raw food. My meat has to be cooked and I don't like fish." Disappointment was clear on her face as she tried to be polite and picked up her fork. Helios placed his hand over mine that held fork stopping her from trying to force herself to eat it.

Turning to Elnath, Helios admonished, "my queen can not eat this. She is a human. Her meat has to be cooked. And she doesn't like fish. I stared in horror at Helios as he told Elnath blatantly that I didn't like what she had prepared. How did he know I didn't like fish? Did my face really look that bad when I saw the platter?

"Not to worry dearie we all have something we don't like to eat. She patted my hand as she took away the dish and placed it on that table for the kids to eat. She went back to the kitchen to prep another dish. Elnath came back with a covered dish with steam emitting from the sides. She removed the cover and sat the steaming dish in front of me. I saw giant one foot hairy tarantula, that had twelve legs and eyes on both ends staringat me like it wanted to kill me. Terrified I jumped up knocking over the bar stool and tripping over the cloak I hid behind Helios. All heads turning toward the clatter of the stool.

"Awww it's a giant spider!!! It's going to bite me!!! Helios kill it!!! Without holding back the retching sounds came. I couldn't hide them as I turned away from the giant spider creature from Hell.

Elnath quickly covered the dish and took it away also giving it to the kids to eat. "Hmm it seems this one terrified her" she thought. She doesn't seem to like the specialty dishes of Kosea. What do humans like to eat? She's going to starve at this rate if she refuses all the food of Kosea. Helios poked through her mind again searching for her desired meal. She must only eat the food of earth. It's a good thing Ihloi and the team gathered all of Earth's resources otherwise my queen will go hungry if she doesn't like the dishes of Kosea.

My stomach grumbled even louder as time went on. The food of Kosea was just too weird and scary. Will I ever find food that I can actually eat? I racked my brain for something that sounded good. I finally landed on smoked kielbasa sausage mixed with a fried potato hash a little bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder and that should do the trick I thought. Too bad Earth was destroyed. I don't think Kosea even has pigs to be able to make sausages or even potatoes. I looked to Helios and asked, "is it possible to have smoked sausages and potato hash," not getting my hopes up as I looked toward Helios.

Helios smiles as he stepped outside to inform one of the guards to head down to level one where all the resources taken from Earth was being stored. "Please fetched me a pink animal with a snout and find a brown lumpy vegetable called a potato. My queen wishes to eat smoked sausages and potato hash. An hour later the guard returned with the ingredients handing them over to Elnath. His queen rubbed her hands together as a heavenly smile spread across her face.

"You have animals from earth here?" "When did you bring them here?" His queen asked excitedly. "We were on Earth for two weeks gathering resources. Our original mission was to preserve as much of Earth as we could before it was obliterated. We obtained every kind of plant life and animal species we could find on Earth. Ihloi put a team together and searched far and wide all over Earth gathering everything. My mission was to find a mate. I refused every female in Kosea and other cities here so my last chance was to search Earth before it was destroyed. And that is when I found you. America was the last continent we searched. I looked high and low and no female on Earth could ever compare to you my Queen," Helios cooed as he picked me up and placed me in his lap rubbing his chin on top of my head.

"You mean everything to me. You are my heart's desire. Everything we gathered from Earth belongs to you. Whatever you wish to use, can be utilized how you see fit. We will continue to grow and reproduce offspring from what we gathered so you will never run out of supplies. Helios wrapped his arms around me letting me lean against his chest he kissed the top of my head, as Elnath came back with a piping hot tray of smoked sausages and potato hash cooked with Helios's instructions picked from my brain.

My mouth watered as drool dripped from my chin. I grabbed my fork and stabbed the sausage. Not waiting for it to cool down I took a huge bite doing the dragon breath to cool it off. Everyone in the room laughed as they sighed with relief having been able to make something the queen liked. She was so adorable the way she ate. Helios seeing that I was burning my mouth with each bite took my fork as he cute the sausages into tiny bite size pieces and blew on them to cool off before feeding me the meat. After I ate two sausages and a pile of potato's I was stuffed. I couldn't eat another bite.

Elnath looked over worried as she asked "Are you sure your not still hungry dearie? I made extra just incase. You didn't eat much. Don't hold back you can eat as much as you want."

"I'm ok I'm full. My stomach is small. I can't eat a lot." I said smiling up at Elnath. "Thank you for the meal. It was delicious," I beamed as I tried to fight off a food coma. I leaned back into Helios's arms fully satisfied now that my tummy was full and that I wasn't going to die of hunger any longer. I'm going to have to thank Ihloi for gathering the resources of Earth later I thought.