Athynae Sarethi: The Making of a Princess, Entries from Athynae's childhood journals Options

[mALX]

I really have to stop thinking like this else I am going to accidentally say something out loud and that will not go well.

ROFL !! Boy, have I been here before!

Get a grip, Thyna, set up or no, you have to win, you always have to win.

Now we will see that red-headed temper fly! Great Write!

[Athynae]

Hey there, hope this finds everyone well and having a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Sorry it has been such a long time since I added anything to Her Highness' journal but the usual RL excuse comes into play...health issues as much as anything but hopefully I am back on track....

Onward with the Princess then, last we saw her she had fed her captors hallucinogenic mushrooms to obtain information....and just a side note, remember in her mind she has been a grown up since she was 4...hope you enjoy this next part, where she goes from here only she knows.



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The sound of tempered steel meeting tempered steel reverberated off the walls of the councilman's study, over and over as I spun out of the other's reach and parried with my own strikes, each met by the other sword. It was taking everything I had to keep the other blade from meeting my flesh, so all else was blocked, no sound in my head but the breathing of my opponent and I and that unfocused focus that expands past your peripheral to the point where you not only see movement but you feel it.

I ducked as the blade went over my head but something was wrong, the sound of the blade was off. Instead of the high whine it was low, more like a swoosh. I rolled onto the floor toward the small table by the door and as I put my foot out to stand I was grabbed from behind, my arms pinned, making the katana useless. Fear scrambled thoughts, running through training sessions that were unconventional, trying to control my breathing… just before I allowed my body to go limp in hopes of gaining my freedom, a voice close to my ear whispered, "Princess be still. Please, you are safe."

Tricks, someone is playing tricks. I went forward with the limp plan as I pretended to faint, a trick I had seen Athlain's sisters use on more than one occasion but had never tried because I was no 'girl'. The feinted faint served no purpose; I wasn't even an inch closer to the floor.

Then I heard Evos crying, talking to Relas, "Please don't die. You're the only one I got. You can't leave me. What will I do?" I tried to turn but my captor wouldn't let me.

I raised my foot and stomped just as the foot I was aiming for slid out of the way, causing me to hurt my heel. "And do not even think about bashing me with your head, Athynae."

"Uncle Seth?" But ? Could it be?

"Yes Princess. Can I let you go now? Are you ok?" I nodded and his arms released me. I scanned the room. The counselor was pinned to the wall with a night black dagger through his chest. My own dagger was sticking in the underside of the bookcase just above his head. Relas was lying on the floor in a pool of blood the size of a small cliff racer and Evos was holding him like a mother would hold an injured child. And then my head started spinning the events into place that had brought us to where we now were.

Uncle Seth stepped toward Evos and I screamed. Screamed? Yes, it was as much a scream as anything else brought on by what could only be described as panic, but I had to stop him. "Uncle Seth NO! He, I mean they, I … please don't hurt him; he didn't hurt me. He's my friend."

"He isn't one of the kidnappers?" Uncle Seth looked dark, deadly.

"Yes, he is, I mean he was, but now he's my friend. They didn't hurt me; they took care of me, well sort of, I mean I kind of took care of them but then we talked and I told them the truth about Mother and they felt bad and decided to help me and so they brought me here to the man that hired them to kidnap her so I could, so I could, I don't know, find out what was going on. How was I to know it was the same stupid councilman that oversaw that farce of a challenge I had with Bugstain? As soon as they moved so he could see me we recognized each other and he must have already had the star in his hand and now I've lost a friend and I am no closer to finding out anything about Mother and if she's safe." The scene was replaying over and over in my head and my heart was beating faster and faster until I looked at Uncle Seth and he had his head cocked to the side, looking at me like I was someone he didn't know, his brow furrowed, assessing.

"What?" then it dawned. "Uncle SETH!!! Mother? Where is she? Is she ok? What happened? Why are you here? How did you know where to find me? WHERE IS MY MOTHER?"

"I don't know Princess. I was sent to find the councilman; I had business to take care of. On my way here I received word that you had run away so of course I felt the need to find you first and in the process of locating you I took care of Trouble and business all at the same time. You have always made it easy for me to appreciate you even when you are doing the wrong thing." He raised an eyebrow and smirked at me.

"How was I doing the wrong thing? Now you wait just a minute! I was abducted! I was just doing what I could to make the best of a bad situation. When Relas and Evos told me they were supposed to be kidnapping Mother instead of me I had to do whatever it took to keep her safe so posing as a Lilliputian Elf who also happened to be Captain of the Guard seemed like a good idea. If that stupid councilman hadn't known me it would have all worked out." I pouted, but I was tired, ok?

Uncle Seth was looking at me with his arms crossed, somewhere between ready to skin my hide and bust a gut laughing. I was not in the same emotional universe; I was still flying from the adrenaline, some unknown fire running through me making my head hurt and my knees weak.

I heard the floor creak and reached for my katana but it wasn't there; a second of panic ended when Seth pointed to where he had slid it just as a man dressed head to toe in black entered the room. "Grandmaster," he said and bowed.

Seth hushed the man with a warning finger. "I must remove the young Mistress from the room; please take care of this mess. The man there," and he pointed at Evos," is not to be harmed. Take him to safe haven until I get the rest of the story."

"Yes Sera." And he bowed again as Seth and I exited the room. When the door clicked shut I felt like I couldn't breathe and my knees gave out under me and I went to the floor.

"Athynae!" Uncle Seth scooped me up like I was 3, before I was a grown up, and cradled me to his chest as he all but ran down the stairs and out the door into the black night. I woke to the crackling of a fire and the smell of something wonderful cooking. My eyes adjusted and it was just Seth and me in what looked like part of an old fort or something. The smell was a piece of meat roasting and it smelled wonderful, I was starving.

I still felt so shaky. It was the strangest feeling, kind of like I was really cold but I wasn't cold. I sat up and looked toward Uncle Seth. He was staring at me; no, he was glaring at me. Why was he so mad at me? I did what I thought was best, I kept myself alive as well as worked my way toward the information I needed to make sure Mother was safe. "Uncle Seth what on Nirn did I do?"

"Do you wish for me to start at the top of the list or the bottom, Princess?" Oh, he was seething. Great, I felt like I had been dropped from a flying cliff racer onto Mother's stone patio and he was mad at me. "For starters why did you neglect to tell me you were injured?"

"Injured? I'm not injured. Why would I tell you something that isn't true?" I think someone had hit him in the head. "I think you are confused." And I reached up to touch my head to emphasize the statement and instead of hair I felt cloth. Oh…but I didn't remember getting hurt. "I don't know Uncle Seth; I don't remember getting hurt. Maybe the man I was fighting when you came in?"

"What? What man?"

"The one I was fighting when you grabbed me and made me drop my katana. Maybe something happened when I was fighting with him." As I spoke I watched the color all but drain from his face. "I was in pure dance mode, I was just following the leader, I don't recall getting struck on the head but I've been touched before in a fight and not remembered how or when because I was so focused on my own moves."

Uncle Seth put his head in his hand briefly and as he raised his head he whispered, "Princess, I did not strike you."

"What? I know you didn't hit me! What are you talking about?"

"Thyna, there was no other man in the room, that was me. I frightened you, came from the shadows and you did as you have been trained to do perfectly, but the injury is not from your sword play with me I assure you."

"Not when I ducked and you swept your blade broad side over my head?" The sound suddenly made sense; he was trying to knock me off balance without hurting me.

"No." And he clenched his jaw until the sides of his neck looked like they were about to explode. "I do not make mistakes with a blade Princess, I did not strike you broad side or otherwise. If I had touched one hair on your head I would have felt it."

A fleeting thought went through my head, a question that I would never know the answer to. Did he mean he would have felt it in his hand or in his heart? "It doesn't matter anyway, Uncle Seth. It is nothing I'm sure. I will remember or not, doesn't matter. What matters now is finding Mother and making sure she is safe."

"She is safe." Man was my head pounding….

"Are you sure?"

"Would I tell you that if she wasn't? I did not say 'I think' she is safe, did I?" He was grinding his teeth; instead of easing his anger somehow I had only made it worse.

"Uncle Seth I'm sorry, whatever I did. Please don't be mad at me."

"I am not mad at you. I am angry that you are injured, I do not know how or why you came to be where you were, but most of all Princess, I was SCARED!" His bellow would have turned the windmill. He had never yelled at me like that, and what's more he said he was scared.

I fought for what was the briefest moment but seemed like eternity before I crawled the short distance to where he sat and climbed into his lap, buried my head in the side of his neck and sobbed "So was I Uncle Seth. Please don't tell, please?" He held me for a moment as tight as I had ever been held.

Uncle Seth laughed then, "Only if you don't Princess, only if you don't." And he rocked me back and forth once or twice before he sat me beside him and said, "Ok, out with it, tell me the rest of the story."

And I proceeded to tell how Relas and Evos had kidnapped me, where they had taken me and how I had convinced them I was a 'little person' by telling them I was a Lilliputian Elf.

"Once again Princess, your ability to think outside the box shows that you will seldom if ever be caught by a conventional trap. Keep going."

"After the effects of the mushrooms wore off I had all the information I needed and could have easily just left them there, but Uncle Seth, they weren't bad people, they had just gotten mixed up with the wrong influences and it was all they had learned to take care of themselves so I made them a deal, if they would help me then I would make sure that they would learn how to do something to earn money to live on that was legal so they could be the one thing they both wanted to be more than anything,- respectable."

Relas, I couldn't believe he was gone. Once all the cards were on the table I was surprised to find out he was very good at math and also a better than fair artist. "Ain't it funny Captain, how life does a body? I mean I figured I'd just be a low life con for all of my days cuz I didn't know how to be different and then you come along pretendin to be some lily pond elf so we won't think you're just a little kid and even though you are just a little kid," a comment that got him whacked with a stick I had picked up. "Ouch," he said and just kept going like it was nothing, "But you are doin very grown up things and I sure wish that I had what you had. Yer Mother must be somethin special for you to be willin to do all this for her."

I still couldn't imagine what it was like for him and Evos growing up. I heard a few of the stories and I could tell by the pain in their eyes when they told them that the stories were true. but they were so extreme that I didn't want to believe them. Evos had little lines on his lips and I asked him why he had gotten a tattoo like that. The answer was beyond horrible. When he was a little kid the magistrate made him stay with this old crone because he kept getting in trouble at the orphanage. He was singing and she told him to hush but he didn't so she sewed his lips together. "And that's why he don't talk much," Relas felt the need to add.

"For a warrior Princess your heart is far too big. If you aren't careful it could get you in trouble." Although his words were right there his eyes were so very far away and somewhere deep inside me I felt like I understood what he meant but I'm not sure.

"But Uncle Seth, I have grown up with everything, and I don't want to take it for granted. I want to be able to give what I can when I can. I still have to be happy with me and being a warrior is what makes me happy. I hate this part of it though, the reality. I've always known that everything isn't always shiny katanas and tight bow strings, but seeing for myself sure changes things inside."

He just nodded and I curled up with that thought.

I woke with every muscle tensed, fists clenched, head pounding and I knew how I had gotten injured. Relas had taken the star that was meant for me. The cut on my head was from his bracer as he reached to push my head down while he was stepping in front of me. I spun behind him and came up throwing my dagger, but before it was half way, there the councilman was slammed into the wall by the force of Uncle Seth's blade and pinned with his toes barely touching the floor as my throw went high. Had it not been for Seth, my blade would have found its way into the councilman somewhere between his chin and his chest. In my dream I saw it all, playing out in slow motion.

I saw the other blade and drew my katana. I had never fought like that; I had never felt like that, and I was totally blind. All that mattered was to continue breathing, countering every strike because as long as his blade met mine and I heard metal on metal, it wasn't touching me. It was like fighting a shadow; all that registered was the glint of the steel as it moved and the vague outline of the body swinging it. How did I not see the person; how did I not know it was Uncle Seth? What if that had been someone else? Someone whose skills did not equal mine? A child who was merely defending a loved one, Rah or Bree or The Sisters?

The tears that I hate so much ran in rivulets. What good was being able to fight like that if I couldn't see who I was fighting? What if I hurt the wrong person? What if I killed the wrong person? Could I fix this? Was it training or did it mean I was not meant to be a warrior?

I glanced to where Uncle Seth had been sleeping and instead of his sleeping form buried in his blankets, he was sitting with arms crossed, staring at me. We sat there for a moment just absorbed in something not communicated with words, and then he spoke, "This is where you begin the final stages of your training, Princess. This is where you learn to hold your emotions. There is no place for feelings in a warrior's heart. You must be two people if this is the path you choose to follow. But the truth is Princess, feeling is the hardest part of life; it hurts more than death."

Stop feeling? Is that what Uncle Seth had done? But I knew, had always known, that he would take care of me. But did that mean he 'cared,' or that it was just an obligation that he had somehow assigned himself? The look in his eyes right now said something very different than what his words had conveyed. He just didn't understand what I was thinking; he had never attempted to kill someone he loved like I had just done without even knowing who it was. Or had he?

[Black Hand]

Whoa.

Still waters run deep, and your break has produced some mighty deep writing here.

SGM!

[minque]

OMG! YOU did it again...I'm thrilled..mighty thrilled....That lil' girl surely shows some deep understanding of things....

Purely amazing!

[treydog]

What I like about this post- besides... A- Everything and B- that it is HERE.....

You manage to wonderfully convey Athynae's confusion during the fight with the stranger, while at the same time allowing the reader to keep up.

At last, she has seen the difference between a formal tournament contest- with rules and limits and referees- and a true fight- where the only rule is to survive.

Her doubts about her chosen path are humanizing and perhaps essential to her sanity.

Then there are all of the undercurrents that come with Sethyas. His own dark choices, his unspoken reasons for "visiting" the Hlaalu councilor, his uncompromising honesty with his Princess.

This is one to savor. My deepest gratitude to you for sharing.

[McBadgere]

I'll be honest, if I tried to speak right now, I'd have a hard time...

Bloody hell this is amazing stuff...

Stunning...

There's the couple of laughs that we come to expect...

But then...Oh, oh my...

A truly incredlible return...

Please, more...

Nice one...

*Applauds and bows reverently*...

[Grits]

What a beautiful update, Athynae. Powerful and delicate at the same time. I loved every word!

[mALX]

Uncle Seth sitting in the chair with his arms folded - that scene had me rolling! Awesome Write!