Disclaimer: Everything you recognize and don't recognize belongs to David and Leigh Eddings. They are geniuses and I would kill myself before saying I owned anything that belonged to them.
"Father, why do I have to go? Beldaran is so much more . . . . . well, so much more everything!" Polgara shouted. Belgarath, however, stood firm.
"Aldur told me that I have to send one of my daughters to marry Riva, and I'm deciding to send you. After all, he did have a dream about his future wife, and when he described her to me, it matched you perfectly: dark-haired, one lock of white hair above your left eye, tall, um, beautiful. Well, that's his opinion. I'm not saying I agree."
"Oh, shut up. I'm not going. You can't make me."
Belgarath felt her gathering her Will, and quickly gathered his own. "Now, don't do anything stupid, Pol," he said nervously, knowing that, when she lost her temper, she became a danger to all around her.
"My daughter, why art thou so unwilling?" came Aldur's voice. Both of them jumped. His voice was there, but he was not.
"Master, I don't want to marry Riva! You know I don't like being confined to a single place! Why can't Beldaran go? Why me?" Now she was whining, which was very unbecoming of her, and caused Belgarath to want to smack her.
"That," Aldur said, "is a question which man hath been asking for centuries. It is thy destiny that thou wilt travel to the Isle of the Winds and be joined in marriage with Riva Iron-grip, son of Cherek Bear-shoulders."
Polgara still refused to relent. "I'm sorry, Master, but I will not and cannot go to Riva. Who'll look after Father and make sure he doesn't lose his way on the way to the bathroom?"
"That was unkindly said, my daughter," Aldur chided as Belgarath opened his mouth to protest.
"Sorry," Polgara mumbled.
It was at that moment that Beldaran strolled into the room. "Hello, Father. Hello, Pol. Do we have company? I heard voices."
"Greetings to you, little sister," Aldur said to her.
"Oh, hello, Aldur. How are you?" Her tone was conversational, as if "Aldur" was "Pol" or "Uncle".
"I am well, thank thee. And thyself?"
"As well as can be expected. I would offer you some tea, but I can't quite make out where you are."
Aldur chuckled and materialized in their midst. "That would be kind of thee, little sister."
Beldaran went into the kitchen to get Aldur some tea, and Polgara returned to her arguing. "Master, don't make me do this," she pleaded. "I don't want to become one of those idiots they write about in fairy tales: ditzy princesses who simply sit on their thrones admiring their reflections! I want to have more of a purpose in life than to bear children! I want to be somebody! Not just be a name that people hear about and say, 'Oh, yeah, that's the queen, isn't it? Well how is she, since she never comes out to her public?'"
"Pol, you'll only be that if you choose to be. Not all queens and princess sit down admiring their reflections all day. Some of them get up and do stuff," Belgarath commented.
"I don't care. I still don't want to go," she retorted.
Aldur sighed resignedly. "If thou dost not accept that which is thy destiny, then the destinies of all others shall be altered along with thine, and the world will come to ruin. It hath been foretold."
Polgara crossed her arms. "So you're basically saying that if I don't marry this guy I've never met, the whole world will get really messed up? I know about Torak and your Orb and how there's going to be an Age of Prophecy soon and everything, but what does all that have to do with me? I mean, how could my not marrying Riva possibly affect all of history?" She paused, thinking. Then she looked at Aldur, a look of curiousity on her face. "What will happen if I do refuse? Specifics, please."
"That, my daughter, is something I pray we shall never find out," Aldur replied, folding his hands in his lap.
Then Beldaran stormed in, completely forgetting about the tea she had gone out to make. Her face was reddish and contorted in what looked like anger. "Pol, why are you being so difficult? It's one thing to say no to Father, but to defy Aldur? Now that's just asking for it. You are going to go to the Isle of the Winds, and you will marry Riva Iron-grip, no ifs, ands, or buts about it."
Polgara was shocked at her sister's apparent insensitivity. "But, Beldaran!" she exclaimed quietly. "I can't believe you! You, of all people, should be on my side! One of the reasons I don't want to go is because I don't want to leave you! Don't you feel the same way?"
Beldaran sighed. "Oh, Pol, of course I don't want you to go! I'll miss you horribly, you know that!"
"Then why aren't you siding with me?" Polgara asked her, her eyes filling with tears as the person she thought she could depend on turned against her.
"Because I don't want you to get hurt. The Gods have an idea of what will happen in the future, so they know what to and what not to protect you from. But that's only if everything goes as planned. If something goes wrong, and the Gods get confused, not even they can tell what will happen next. It would leave you and the rest of the world in a very vulnerable position. Please, Pol. If for no one else, do it for yourself. If not even for yourself, then for me. Please?"
Polgara looked down so her father and Aldur wouldn't see the tears that started to trickle down her cheeks. "Well, it looks like you've backed me into a wall," she said. "Congratulations. I'm going." She stalked off.
"Pol, wait!" Beldaran called, holding out a hand to her sister.
"What?" she snapped, whipping her head around angrily. Tears still streamed down her face. "What do you want? You've won! There's nothing I really have anymore that would make me want to stay, anyway. Everyone I've ever loved has just betrayed me."
"Now you're being melodramatic, Pol. You and I both know that's not true," Belgarath said.
"Then, for Aldur's sake, let me be melodramatic, for once in my life! I've always had to be tough! When I discovered that my mother had died when I was born, I was hurting, but I was tough! When you weren't there to comfort me, I was tough! Well, now it's my turn to be the weak one, okay? Is that just all fine and good with you? Because if it's not, then too bad!" she yelled, and ran out of the room.
Belgarath sat there in shock as he felt all the guilt and pain he had tried to leave behind come crashing down on his head like an anvil. He was speechless, and his eyes filled with tears that he immediately tried to choke back.
"I'm sorry about her choice of words, Aldur," Beldaran apologized for her sister after Polgara was gone.
"'Tis not thy fault, little sister. Polgara hath always been an outspoken girl, and she hath not always said what she should have." He turned to Belgarath. "But thou hast done a fine job in raising her, my son. She will be a great Queen."
"I didn't raise her," Belgarath whispered. "She raised herself."
Beldaran got up and went off to find her sister, whose sobs were audible even from her perch at the Tree.
"Strange, what an influence Beldaran has on Pol," Belgarath remarked, trying desperately to change the subject.
"They art sisters, and yet they art more than that. The bond between them is something even I cannot comprehend. Beldaran hath been Polgara's only human friend. I regret to reopen this old wound again, but after Poledra's death, Beldaran was also Polgara's only crutch," Aldur replied.
Belgarath felt the lump in his throat rising, and tried even more desperately to restrain the tears that threatened to spill out of his eyes. "Is their bond at all like the one I shared with--" He choked back a sob. "With Poledra?"
"Oh, deeper, my son. Much deeper. The bond between thee and Poledra was one that was of pure love and the desire to be with each other for eternity. That bond which thy daughters share is one that defies all explanation. Love is a part of it, yes, but only a part. The rest is a mixture of things I cannot define."
Belgarath sat pondering this for several hours, during which Aldur made a silent and unnoticed departure.
Meanwhile, Beldaran was trying to console her sister, but Polgara refused to hear of it.
"Polgara, please! Listen to me! I would give anything to have you stay here for the rest of your life and mine, but the risk is too great! I don't want to hinge the fate of the world on my own personal desires!" she pleaded.
"I am being forced to go to someplace I've never been before, marry a man I've never met before, and rule a country I've only ever heard of! Please tell me that you wouldn't feel the same way I do if you were in my place!" She climbed down from the Tree and sat on the ground. "I'm scared, Beldaran. I'm scared. I'm only sixteen! I don't want to go! Please don't make me go. I'm begging you. You know you can make me do whatever you want me to do. Please, tell me I don't have to go."
As her sister dissolved into tears, Beldaran walked over and took her in her arms. "I would have been ecstatic to marry, but it would have broken my heart to have to leave you. Pol, I love you more than I love anyone else, more than anyone else could ever love you, but something tells me you have to do this. Don't back down on me." She allowed the tears she had been keeping inside to flow freely, and hugged Polgara tightly.
"I love you, too, Beldaran," Polgara whispered, and hugged her sister fiercely in return.
The two sisters sat there, holding each other for what seemed like hours. Finally, an hour or so after sunset, Belgarath came out looking for them.
"Beldaran! Pol!" he called. When he reached the Tree, the girls were both asleep. He translocated them to what used to be his and Poledra's bed, so as not to separate them.
Then he looked up at the massive tree in front of him. Walking up to it, he patted its trunk affectionately. Then he turned around, stood for a moment, and collapsed, sobbing. Polgara's words about being tough echoed in his head over and over again. All the grief he had felt at losing Poledra and the guilt he had felt at not being there for his children's birth returned, and he couldn't bear it.
