"Little Monster: Part 2" by Sarah ´SRW´ Bevon

Within days, something happened which drove all thoughts of Thera and the children from my head. It was my birthday, and the man that Mother was considering as a husband for me had arrived. He alone was enough to drive thoughts from any girl’s head. For those who have neglected to read our histories of the Royal War, or found them so utterly dull that they fell asleep during the reading, Nyn was our main opposition. The peace that had come was a frail one, maintained because the Nyni was content to have it, not because we wished for it. Now Mother looked to strengthen the treaty through a marriage between me and the Crown Prince, Rilian. Setting eyes on him for the first time, I had no objections. He was young, not yet twenty. He had black hair, and a strip of green cloth ties around his temples whichh accented his green eyes and caused his short cropped hair to stand up in all direction. He smiled and bowed when presented to me. It seemed a genuine enough smile, friendly if a bit gaurded, though I thought perhaps his bow was the tiniest bit mocking. I had heard that blinking at a certain time in the Nyni court meant something different from blinking half a heart beat later, but we had no such subtleties here in Armia. It was impossible to tell if he meant something besides respect and greeting. “Genivive, darling, why don’t you show Rilian around?” Mother suggested. I curtsied and took the arm he offered, glowing. Perhaps he had meant something I had not picked up on, but I wasn’t about to let it detract from my enjoyment of the day and my compainon. We walked through the garden, it being the best place to show a visitor on such a beautiful summer day. Rumours of the Nyni gardens said they were spectacular, beyond Armanian imagination, but Rilian made no comments which implied he was unimpressed. I talked cheerfully, and he answered in a modulated voice when I gave him the chance. I was careful to avoid the round pond where I’d seen Thera a few days before. Rilian had no need to be exposed to her before time, if ever, I reasoned. To my mind, she was one of the unsightlies of court, but that might not stop Rilian being more interested in her than me. I led him through the maze, a tall hedge structure where you could spend hours traversing the miles of paths past beautiful flowers and fountains. We approached a corner when a padded arrow zipped past, striking the hedge. “That the best you can do?” a voice like a flute called, then there was a laugh like windchimes. Rilian and I rounded the corner cautiously, and ran right into Thera. She pushed herself away from Rilian, with whom she had collided, and for a moment stared at us with hunted eyes, as a deer might. She wore her customary light green drees, sleeveless as all those that the higher servants wore were. Slung over her back was a quiver of padded arrows. Her small bow was gripped in one white knuckled hand, the pale of her clenched knuckles nearly matching the white ivory, or perhaps bone, of the little weapon. Then she was away, over the hedge wall and possibly miles away, never once catching her skirt on a branch. If she pricked her finger on one of the rose thorns she gave no sign of it, but considering the ease with which she scaled the whippy branches, I somehow doubted she had. Rather than impress me, this only added to my impression that she was somehow not totally human, but rather some hideous monster mascarading as one of us. At the other end of the straight path we now stood on there was movement, as though someone were running away. “Wait here,” Rilian said, and sprinted away after the figure. I had only ever seen one person run nearly as fast as he did, and she had just bolted in the opposite direction. Where she ran in a flightly manner, like a spirit swept away by a breeze, Rilian’s strides were purposeful and gave the impression of great strength. As he ran I felt a thrill. So handsome, so athletic, so gallant. He was perfect. I found a seat on one of the sun-warmed stone benches and sat down to wait. Minutes past before he returned, draggin his prisoner. The boy struggles wildly, only to be cuffed soundly for it. When they reached me I saw it was Mattie that Rilian held with his arms locked behind his back. Mattie would grow into a big boy, strong and fast as his sister, but for now he was no match for Rilian. Still, he sturggled valiently on. The prince shook him roughly. “Stop it.” Mattie struggled for a moment more before he subsided. He twisted his head around to glare at his captor. “What are you doing here?” Rilian demanded. Mattie replied with sullen silence. “Who are you and what are you doing?” he demanded again. Again, no answer. “Mattie,” I tried, “we aren’t angry. Just tell us what you were doing.” His eyes flickered around before returning to me. There was a soft crunching somewhere above my head, and a rustle of leave. He came me a condescending smile, highly inapporpriate as I was the heir and he was just a serving boy, if one who was nice to look at and who worked well. It was shocking to see him next to Rilian, for they were very alike. Rilian’s hair was black, yes, and Mattie’s blond dyed lighter by the sun, and where Rilian was evenly tanned Mattie had freckled badly. In build they were very similar, however, and when Mattie’s face thinned a bit with age it would be the same shape as Rilian’s. Indeed, he looked as much a prince as Rilian did, and managed the condescending air with ease. “You’ll never understand.” The sound I had heard came again. Rilian looked up, only to be hir squarely between the eyes by a little padded arrow. Then Mattie was away, racing through the maze. I looked up, but only say the last tendrils of blond hair disappearing behind the hedge tops. The bell-like laugh came again as Rilian started running after Mattie. He returned a few minutes later in defeat. He didn’t know his way around the maze, and had soon lost his quarry. He shoved the arrow in his belt and we continued our walk. He brushed aside my few attempts at appologising for Mattie and Thera, saying that there was nothing I could have done about it. I forced myself to talk about lighter topics after that, but he seemed distracted and several time I had to call his attention back to the conversation. By birthday ball two nights later was a grand affair. Hundreds of people filled a multitude of rooms, all dressed in their finest. My gown had taken five seamstresses months to make, and in it I felt like a true queen, not just the heir. I was talking to Alisa when Rilian arrived, creating a still through the vast hall. He was dazzling. It wasn’t his clothes, which while of good cut and material were plain enough, but he himself. He was at his most charming, talking and laughing with everyone, allowing himself to be dragged out onto the floor for dance after dance. At last he broke away from his admirers and joined us. “Hello,” he said plesantly. That was all he got in before Alisa started talking.. He listened gravely as she went on and on, hardly pausing for breath. When she slowed down, he asked “Do you know a boy, perhaps fifteen, with blond hair and blue eyes?” I knew immediately that Mattie had not seen the last of Rilian, and that the prince would hound the serving boy until he got what he wanted or they were both dead. “Of course,” Alisa tittered. “He’s my little brother Mattie. He’s a sweetheart, really.” And she was off again, talking about her family. He didn’t seem to listen to her over much, but thought instead about what she had said. “Where can I find him?” he inturrupted suddenly. “Find who?” Alisa asked, cut off in the middle of an amuzing anecdote about her youngest sister. “Mattie.” Alisa looked startled. “He should be in the nursury wing. He works there, you know.” Rilian nodded his thanks, or perhaps an indication that he did indeed know, and left. I watched him make his way throught the crowd, still smiling and talking but moving quickly through the throng. “I’m going to follow him,” Alisa said, just before he reached the doors. “I want to know what’s going on.” She slid out the doors nearest us. It was nearly lunch the next day when I met Alisa again. She was just bursting to tell me what she’d overheard. It seems she snuck into the nursury and his. A minute or two later, Rilian dragged Mattie in, holding firm to the younger boy’s arm. “What do you want?” Mattie demanded. “Just a little information,” Rilian said. “Tell me about your sister.” “Which one? I have six of them.” “And Rilian, you should have seen his eyes,” Alisa told me. “They got really big.” “The one you were with earlier, the blond one.” “Three of them are blond. And I’ve spent time with all of them today.” “You know how Mattie can be,” Alisa told me. “I was starting to doubt Rilian would ever get any information out of him. But Rilian just looked him up and dwn and didn’t say anything.” “She serves the heir. You must know that,” Mattie muttered. “She’s at the ball, if you care to look for her. Thin, blond, dead beautiful or so they tell me.” “I’ve seen the girl you describe. She isn’t your sister.” “Don’t be ridiculous. You think I wouldn’t know my own sister?” “I think,” Rilian said slowly, putting great emphisis on each word, “that you’re trying to hide something.” “Like?” “Seven sisters.” “Which I really don’t understand,” Alisa said. “I mean, he only has seven sisters. How could Rilian ever imagine that he had seven more than he said?” “Why are you so interested, anyway?” demanded Mattie. “Rilian didn’t say anything. He’s got this look, you know, and he just stared at Mattie.” “They don’t talk about her,” Mattie said at length. “They’d prefer if she didn’t exist.” “Is that all you can tell me?” asked Rilian. “What else is there to tell?” “And then Rilian sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. I love his hair,” Alisa sighed. “Can I meet her? “She decided that, not me. You’ll have to find her. And when you find her, you’ll have to catch her when she runs. And if you catch her when she runs –“ “He didn’t sound like he believed Rilian could do it. But he can, I just know it. Why he’d want to… well, that I’ll never understand.” “ – you’ll have to stop her running again until you’ve convinced her not to. If you can. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to put the children to bed. It’s her night off.” “He left, and Rilian just stood there forever, staring out the window. I couldn’t leave or he’d see me, and my dress was getting horribly rumpled.” “Thank you,” I said. Alisa didn’t totally understand what had passed between the two boys. I hadn’t told her about the maze. Even with my knowledge of the incident, though, I didn’t understand myself. A week later we were sitting on the gold bench above the pond, talking. Alisa had her embroidery hoop out, and was making a beautifully elaborate nature scene, trying to capture what she imagined Nyni gardens must be like. At the edge of the medow, Rilian and Mattie appeared, distinguishable by their lithe builds and contasting hair colours. At some unknown signal that started to race. For a time Mattie kept up, but slowly he dropped back until Rilian crossed what seemed to be their finish line with a large lead. They walked back to their start, and even at a distance I could see Mattie’s chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to gain his breath. Mattie stepped around a tree for a second, and when he reappeared his previously white shirt was pale blue. Again, they raced, but this time is was Mattie who won, although only just. Alisa looked up and saw them walking back towards their start. “What’s she doing?” she demanded of no one in particular. I followed her gaze. She? But that was Mattie and Rilian. Then the figure I’s thought was Mattie looked up and saw us watching. And in the instant before she was gone, up the side of the low garden building, I saw it was Thera, her hair twisted up to hide its length. It was the last I saw of her for weeks, which I was secretly glad of. Mattie, too, I almost never saw, and if I missed seeing him more than I missed his sister, well, I had Rilian for company. The prince, for his part, said nothing about either of them and somehow managed to avoid answering any of my questions about what he had been doing with them without seeming to. He spent a lot of time with Alisa and I, and was attentive to our every needs, particularily those of Alisa. Weeks later, word went around that Rilian had chosen his bride. Though we had been conisdered for each other, and in my opinion had gotten along splendidly, I could tell I didn’t hold his heart. His chosen, they said, was a beautiful blond, though no one could be sure. Perhaps the original rumour had only said beautiful, but the most gorgeous woman in the palace was Alisa, and I had no doubt Rilian was enamoured of her. Before he proposed, though, he apparently wanted his mother to meet her. I was a bit jealous, I admit, but she was my dearest friend, and I was very happy for her. Mother summoned me to the Hall one fine morning. Excited, for I knew Rilian’s mother had arrived the night before, I entered the Hall and curtsied. And stared. My mother was sitting at a small table with the woman who could only be Rilian’s mother. She look amazingly young, considering she must have been at least forty. Her dress, a beautiful thing, was made of floaty gossmar cloth. It drifted around her chair on the slightest breeze, as did her long black hair. What stopped me, though, were her ears. Like Thera’s, they were long and delicately pointed. “This is my darling Genivive,” Mother was saying. I gulped and smiled, a guilty reaction I had managed to avoid since I was little. The woman who smiled back at me could have been Thera’s aunt, so alike were they. I sat in the chair my mother indicated, and accepted the cool punch a silent maid offered. “Genevive, this is Natilie of Nyn, Rilian’s mother.” “I’m pleased to meet ou,” I managed. The herald stepped in to announce Rilian. The Crown Prince followed in after him, not waiting to be introduced. Over a well tailored tunic and breeches, his usual clothes, he wore a long overrobe of the same floaty fabric as his mother’s dress. He stopped not far from us, and bowed, his gray robe billowing. It was not a particularily deep bow, I noticed, more like one a sovrigen would give a high ranking subject, and I wondered if it was some sort of message to his mother. “Hello Mother.” His face was perfectly composed, but I somehow got the impression that he was laughing internally. “What is that ridiculous thing on your head, boy?” she responded. Not the kindly, distant woman I’d expectes, but a sharp aand critical mother, chastising a wayward little boy the way Mera always had her brood of children. “A headband, Mother,” Rilian replied, calm. His mouth twitched, whether in the beginning of a smile or a smirk I wasn’t sure. “I seem to have started a fashion.” Indeed he had. Almost all the young men now wore their hair cut short and tied up with a headband, though only Mattie, when he consented to let his sisters put it up that way, had the slightly rakish air that Rilian had. “For foolishness.” I suddenly realized I’d never seen Rilian without a headband, though he had several, all of different colours and fabrics. “Lord Rickham recommended it, actually. I have found he was quite correct.” Rilian took the last remaining chair as he spoke. He seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen him, leaning back in his chair nonchelantly and flicking the almost-smirk at his mother. “There is a young girl here, one they nearly cast away, who is quite obviously from Nyn.” What made a person from Nyn any different from us, I wondered. “I felt it better to try and fit in.” “Perhaps you have shown some sense for once in your life, boy,” Natilie allowed. “Perhaps. But now take that ridicoulous thing off.” I couldn’t completely stifle my gasp when he did. His ears, like his mother’s and Thera’s, were pointed. “Much better,” said his mother with satisfaction. “Now where are these two young women?” “Which, Mother?” “Why, the girl from Nyn and the one you would marry.” “They are the same,” Rilian said, “and she is already here.” It wasn’t Alisa, I suddenly realized. It was the last girl I would have thought. “But she’s not here,” I protested. “Yes she is,” Rilian said with a knowing smirk. I suddenly saw that I had never seen him smile, only smirk at Alisa, I, or any other member of the court. “She’s up there.” He pointed up into the rafters. And there, perched on the elegantly carved main crossbeam, were Thera and Mattie. “Come down from there, girl,” Mother called. “You’ll get your brother killed.” Thera laughed her beautful chiming laugh, which echoed around the enourmous Hall. “Oh no, he’s perfectly safe.” But she dropped a rope and slid down it quickly, followed a bit more akwardly by Mattie. Natilie was delighted. She immediatley took to Thera’s quick, cheerful ways, which up until then only Mattie, Rilian, and the nursury children had even known she possessed. Thera and Rilian were soon married, and lived happily in Nyn. That is the end of my story, but the scribes say I have yet left one thing unsaid. How did Amathera of Nyn come to be born to Mera and Joseph of Armia? That is a truth Mother only discovered years later. She was not born to them, but to Mera and a lover from Nyn. Normally such matches produced a child who was not quite one, not quite the other, such as Mattie. For some reason, Mera had borne twins, one of Armia, one of Nyn. I daresay if I write any longer the scribes will come and take the quill from my hand. That is of no consequence, for my talke is done, though I believe Thera’s has only just begun. I wish all that read this a happy life and an adventure of their own, with the happy ending that should go with it. Queen Genivive of Armia