Evanlyn
Le Comte De Saint-Nicholas
Sometimes Cassandra worried about how easily her friends called her Evanlyn. Will, she knew, was more comfortable with the name she had met him under than the title she was born with. Horace was better, but sometimes there was still a slight hesitation, difficult to notice if you weren't looking for it. First appearances were important in how you see people, and her first appearance to them had been Evanlyn.
Had been a lie.
When she had first used the name, she had been frightened. Completely and absolutely terrified. Her entire escort had been slaughtered in front of her, she had barely escaped, and, wandering the hills of Celtica she had seized on the first pseudonym she could think of. Then she got embroiled with Will and Horace, destroying Morgarath's bridge, being enslaved by Erak. Ragnak's Vallasvow had hung around her neck like a hangman's noose, waiting for her to slip, and fall off of the block. And so she had stayed as Evanlyn, too caught up in her own dangers and fears to reflect on it. And by the time she reached home again, it had stuck.
But before it became her standard codename, before she even needed to hide her identity, Evanlyn had been a person. Evanlyn had been her maid, but more than that. Her companion, her confidant, her first real friend.
Cassandra could remember her so clearly. Her hair was long and curled, vivid red like bright flame, and had cascaded down her back freely. She had been young, and innocent, full of fire of youth; joy and love and life.
She had laughed a lot.
Sometimes she wondered if anyone else actually remembered Evanlyn. She had told Horace and Will and Gilan when she had met them. They had had rather more pressing issues to think on. Cassandra's father Duncan had known Evanlyn slightly, better than the others, at least. It was he who had started suggesting she use the name on foreign missions.
Every now and again, she was struck by sadness, real true sorrow for her childhood friend. A sadness mixed with guilt, as she knew that if Evanlyn hadn't known Cassandra, she would still be alive today. She wouldn't have been brutally hacked to death by a band of Wargals because she couldn't run fast enough. Because she stumbled. Because she chose to serve her future queen and friend.
And Cassandra had repaid that trust, that loyalty. After Evanlyn was dead, Cassandra had taken her name and in doing so, robbed the poor, honest girl lying in a Celtic ditch somewhere, of her identity, of everything she was and had been. Evanlyn was nothing now. Just a device for Cassandra to use.
God forgive me Cassandra would pray as the thoughts and memories bombarded her. Evanlyn, forgive me.
She was one of the most powerful people in the kingdom. She was first in line to the throne. It was ironic that she spend so much of her time under the name of a servant.
Cassandra wondered if any of her friends understood what it was like. To live your days in the shoes of another. To have every time someone addresses you as an unintended barb, a reference to the day she lost her innocence, and her first friend lost her life. To have it kill you slowly and agonisingly, like a smooth Genovesan poison.
Sometimes she woke, screaming, in the middle of the night as in nightmares Evanlyn plagued her again and again. Cassandra would watch, helpless, as the young girl was pulled off her horse into the brawling, heaving band of Wargals, her eyes wide with terror, screaming for Cassandra to flee. Again. And again. And again.
Sometimes she feels that the nightmares are her penance for what she took from the real Evanlyn. And then the guilt racks her like physical blows, and all she can do is shake and sob wretchedly until it fades.
Halt's pseudonym, used time and again, was based on the Gallic pronunciation of his real name. Cassandra's was the name of a dead friend. And she was frightened, just a little, that one day Evanlyn might be more of her name than Cassandra.
Cassandra was determined not to be like everyone else. Not to forget who Evanlyn really was. But though she saw her flame-red hair twirling over and over in her dreams, she could not for the life of her remember the colour of her eyes.
That was a little angsty piece I wrote because I was never comfortable with how quickly and easily Cassandra assumed Evanlyn's name, or how unperturbed she seems by the fact that the name her best friends call her by isn't actually hers. Or by the fact that during his speech at her wedding, even then Will began to say 'Evanlyn' and had to correct himself. I can't understand how this doesn't bother her.