Journaux Intimes
FICTOBER PROMPT: Feather
Note: Another short piece for Fictober because how could I resist such a prompt?
Sorry if this sometimes reads like an extended headcanon but maybe it is and I've always enjoyed delving deep into the lives of the three sisters. We didn't see enough of them so there's so much room to speculate and be creative. It was almost tempting to call this the Princess Diaries but I resisted. Couldn't come up with anything more creative so settled with this title, which I'll admit, is a bit pretentious but I'm biased and I like it.
I only wanted to write about Eries at first and then I remembered Marlene's diary and figured that Millerna would probably have a journal of her own as well. And all three sisters would have different styles and this was an intriguing idea to explore. So this ended up focusing on them although there are some not so subtle hints of FolkenxEries because I am who I am.
Eries' part was inspired by a lovely work of art by drkstars-art on Tumblr.
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All three Asturian princesses maintained journals.
Each one was fond of keeping a record of her memories but the manner in which they did so differed as much as their personalities did.
Marlene was the most conventional of her sisters.
She described her life in a distinctly straightforward style, taking comfort in detailing her deepest desires on the page when her position and circumstances prevented her from doing so in real life. She was openly expressive by nature but being a princess of Asturia had its strict rules and she had always been taught to hide how she truly felt in the name of duty. And one of the few ways that she could endure such a burden was by at least writing down all she had been forced to conceal.
She kept her diary in a hidden compartment in her music box, which played one of her favorite songs, "Whisper of the Mermaid." The music always brought her comfort, especially after her marriage, since it reminded her of home and of various happy memories. The music box was her most treasured possession and those who knew her well also knew how much she loved it, particularly because it had been a gift from her mother. This precious item held her most private wishes and dreams, all the things she needed to put into words because she could never have them in life. But as it turned out, Marlene Aston's precious secrets were not as well concealed as she had hoped.
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Millerna was a bit more complex and infinitely more technical.
Her journals were a chaotic mix of her memories and feelings as well as her notes on various topics in the field of medicine. When she first became interested in medicine, she was immediately told that this was not proper for a princess. But prohibition did little to dampen her enthusiasm and she took to taking surreptitious notes in her many journals as often as she could. Sometimes, she would maintain the appearance of a proper princess, recounting her memories in her diary with elegant script. But behind these pages with contrived texts were technical notes on various diseases and conditions as well as their treatment.
The first few pages of her journals were always counterfeit accounts of her daily life, written elegantly and in the dullest manner possible so as to dissuade the casual reader immediately, just in case her journals were found. She had a number of hiding places, all secure as far as she was concerned, and all filled with notes and diagrams and sketches of human anatomy and countless medical implements.
There were times that she did truly document her own thoughts and feelings, that she found comfort in venting her frustrations and expressing her excitement in writing. As was her nature, she defied all structure, hastily scribbling on the margins of organized notes about elaborate treatments for rare conditions and sometimes side-comments on sketches of medical apparatus.
Millerna's diaries, the true versions, were a mass of letters and figures and all manner of symbols, difficult to decipher if one did not know her well. She was both an eager medical student and a passionate princess so most of the time, the simple pages of a notebook or journal could not quite contain all that she thought or felt. But, she was grateful for the measure of freedom writing afforded her, no matter how limited. Her journals were a reflection of who she truly was and not the person she was constantly being pressured to be. And she longed for the day when she would not have to confine all her ideas to countless pages of leather-bound volumes.
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Eries, not surprisingly, was the most adept at keeping her thoughts and feelings secret.
And her journals were a masterpiece of confidentiality.
All of Eries' secrets were carefully guarded and the manner by which she prevented any discovery was extremely elaborate. While she did not have a great many serious secrets of her own, she valued her privacy immensely and was also a confidante to many who entrusted their secrets to her, which she guarded with fierce loyalty and caution.
First, she wrote all her diaries in a code known only to herself and with no key available to help the casual reader to decipher her meaning. Her journals were leather-bound volumes under lock and key and, like Millerna's, safely hidden in secure locations (several in secret compartments in the most obscure sections of the royal library.)
And even if someone managed to understand her code, she still wrote in a cryptic way, describing events vaguely and with allusions to either literary or historical references that only she appreciated. Her writing was never straightforward so as to confuse any reader about what she truly meant. Even matters of the heart were most intricately recorded. And even if it was unlikely that anyone would find and read her journals, she took many precautions, if only to amuse herself when days were dull or exasperating.
There was another unique feature of Eries' diaries that would confound even the most diligent of scholars. When she was younger, she had been fascinated by the ancient language of Atlantis. Theirs was an intricate system of communication with a specific alphabet and syntax. Though resources on this topic were not abundant, the resourceful princess had managed to find a dusty volume on the archaic language and she had studied it carefully for some time. Considering the scarcity of living Atlanteans in Gaea, she decided that it would be extremely unlikely for any of them to stumble upon the diaries of a young princess of Asturia.
She also had a facility with languages so ancient Atlantean did not come as too great a challenge for her. She mastered it in record time and since there was no one with whom to practice, she had to settle for using the language to record her thoughts and feelings. It became an interesting exercise for her and she decided that she would continue to do so for the rest of her life.
Recently, the pages of Eries' journal were filled with denser text than usual. There was too much going on and she was determined to record all of it. The war had ended and Asturia was undergoing a period of transition. Millerna was finally growing into her role as the heir to the throne and Eries had some newer duties to fulfill as the country was being rebuilt.
And there were other developments too, ones that were only revealed in the cryptic pages of Eries' journal. But her secrets were the best kept in the kingdom, and if one happened to stumble upon her most recent journal, one would be at a loss to interpret the meaning of any of text. More than ever, Eries was determined to protect her secrets.
However, there was a crucial clue to the lady's current state that lay safely kept in between her diary's pages.
A single, white feather.