Chapter 4: Thunders!
Queen Iselda didn't spend one more second in that ranch house and took off to her palace, and yes, she brought the boy too. The boy still hadn't told any names or anything Iselda could discern, but she felt a bond with him. Also, she wanted to investigate this matter further in her library. When they reached the palace, Queen Iselda hurriedly gave orders to the servants and guards to take care of the child. She got quite pissed anytime she needed to call out to a boy without a name. As expected from a queen whose servants' names were always remembered. The Queen didn't even take time to change her clothes. She stepped two floors down to the basement of her palace and strolled to her enormous library. She was known to be a good romance reader, not a researcher, but she would give her best to change that statement.

The library looked pretty dusty. Queen Iselda wasn't fond of descending four floors from her chambers every time she craved to read some books. She just commanded one of her servants, most probably the pink-dressed servant, to fetch them from downstairs. That’s why the library looked like it belonged to some battlefield. Most books were on the ground, and the shelved ones were eaten by some kind of bugs. The scene was disturbing enough, but the most troublesome part wasn’t the scenery; it was finding what Queen Iselda needed.

Queen Iselda glanced around to decide which hell she wanted to choose. She strolled inside the library to see the whole damage. Apparently, the back right side of the library was tolerable enough to start her research with. She flipped some of the book covers to find something, anything, about Naturalist Tunnels and its people. They were long gone, slain by their own, and left to their fate. Nobody saw any after that genocide of events. However, maybe this kid escaped successfully, maybe the farmer girl was also a Naturalist trying to blend in with Crystalized people. There were so many maybes whenever it came to the farmer girl. Queen Iselda needed to further investigate the girl, not for her own desire, but for her queendom. She added this to her mental task list and moved on to the next book.

None of the books were related to Naturalist Tunnels. Queen Iselda spent her entire three days finding something useful, but no chance. She stayed on the dusty marble floor of the library, still in the same clothes, and barely eating. The pink-dressed servant, again dressed in a pink flannel, finally found her queen in a miserable state. She was leaning on one of the shelves, thumping her head. Her eyes looked dead, having lost all their sparkle. Her dress was such a mess from all the dust that it almost turned grey.

"Queen Iselda," the pink-dressed servant said softly, touching Iselda’s shoulder caringly. "You mustn't tire yourself out like this. It is draining on you and your body. Come on, I prepared a grand breakfast for you. Rice omelette with greeneries. Your favorite." She made a hand gesture to signal Queen Iselda to follow her. With one last thump at the shelves, the Queen gave up on her research and followed the servant. She was indeed very hungry. Starved. And she needed a change of scenery other than dusty book covers.

When they reached the kitchen, Iselda saw that the little boy was eating his rice omelette eagerly, his eyes shining and swaying a little bit to a non-existing tune. The Queen approached the boy with an exasperated sigh, sitting on the chair next to him. The boy looked alerted and suddenly stopped swaying. He deliberately avoided eye contact with the Queen. Iselda nudged his shoulder in a playful way and said, "And I’ve been looking through all of the messy books in that disgusting library for this little guy, and here he is," she opened her palms, showing all the food, "eating and having fun." She rolled her eyes.

The boy cleared his throat, coughed a bit, and in a little voice said, "I’m sorry," still looking at his plate. “Will stop bothering you."

He tried to step down from the chair, but Iselda took his arm a little harshly. "Sorry, sorry," she mumbled. "I wasn’t trying to shoo you off. But how can you understand and talk in my language?" she accused. "Ah..." she drummed her fingers on the table. "You were foreign to me three days ago, but now you can understand what I am saying," again accusingly.

The boy again looked scared and tried to run away. "I... I am... sorry."

At the same time, the pink-dressed servant came with another rice omelette, this time for the Queen. "Your very presence scares him off, My Queen. You must be patient with kids," she smiled at Iselda.

The pink-dressed servant, softly and in a motherly manner, crouched in front of the boy. "Did you nourish well, Elli? Does Queen Iselda scare you?" The boy nodded.

Queen Iselda’s mouth felt open. "He has told you, his name?" She clasped her hands together. "I tried my best to talk to him and all I got was some unknown words. And you," pointing her finger to the servant, "you get everything by doing what exactly?" She slumped to her chair, looking like a kid herself. "Thunders, blah blah, and she gets Elli," she mumbled to herself, doing childish hand gestures while speaking.

The pink-dressed servant laughed warmly. When she locked eyes with Elli, she said, "Queen Iselda was excited to talk to you. But I became your friend before her, so she is very jealous." The boy snickered. With the corner of her eye, Iselda watched her servant do magic as she tried to take notes from the show she was watching.

"So..." Iselda began. "What is your full name?"

The boy finally dared to look at Iselda’s brown eyes. "Elliot."

"That is not a Naturalist name though. How so?"

"De’Marken," the boy continued.

"That is also not a Naturalist name."

"Hmmm... Danny?" the boy asked.

Iselda shook her head slowly. "Not even close."

"What is a Naturaly name then?"

Iselda couldn't hide the surprise in her eyes. "Umm... okay... do you know what... forget it." She clasped her hands again. "You are Elliot."

The boy beamed. "Yes!"

"Great."

"And De’Marken."

Iselda scowled. "What is that? You want a second name, Elli?"

Elliot nodded. "That is Nature's name given to me."

"Oh, so you are a Naturalist," Iselda clicked her tongue. "Good, I wasn’t wrong about that at least," she said, half to herself.

Elliot pointed his chubby finger at her. "What is your Nature name?"

"Just Iselda," replied the Queen softly.

"Pretty." Elli again looked at his plate as if it had grown horns.

"So..." finally Iselda started. "The house you were in? The woman living there? Where is she? Who is she, Elliot?"

Without looking up, Elliot replied, "Laima. S-she…saved me. I don’t know where she is or…who she is. Just Laima."

"Okay, okay. What about the thunder? The sound we heard in the house. What is it?"

"Thunder... is a thing. Clouds do that sometimes. I heard someone controls it. They are scary. Big, big..." he exaggeratedly opened his arms. "This big, no, no, no, bigger. They hurt people, in the stories."

"But you seemed to like the sound of it when we were in the house. Didn’t that scare you?"

"I... I... don’t know."

The pink-dressed servant touched the Queen’s shoulders and shook her head to say no further questions.

Iselda eyed Elliot suspiciously but understood why this needed to stop. She slowly stood up and bid farewell to both Elliot and the servant. She was exhausted and in need of sleep. When she saw her fluffy and neat bed, she almost cried. First, she needed to change her dirty clothes and take a bath. But, who cares, not Iselda. They seemed redundant right now. So, she jumped into the bed, hugging the comforter close to her chest, and took a deep breath.

When the roots of drowsiness rocked her to sleep, the White Morning Glory in its ruby vase woke. Fresh, newly picked, and same as the first day.