Serenity falling down

by Katherine2701

Set against the back drop of the Clone Wars, this historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a universe mortally divided and a people forever changed. Above all, it is the story of the beautiful, ruthless Melusine Rivers and the dashing Clone Captain Walsh of Nightingale Squad. AU, OCs, told through really long chapters making up episodes. Enjoy!

Serenity falling down ...

Episode 1: Origins of a stranger:

A/N:

Hi, Katherine2701 here with another fanfic that has been gathering dust bunnies in my crazy, little mind. Now, this chapter was a stumbling of jumbled thoughts - and if at times it seems to be abstract that was because a) I was seriously low on coffee and b) I currently have no Beta hint, hint. The dress in this scene is based on the dress worn by Rose in Titanic, the one which she wore when the boat went down and Jack died needlessly because Rose is a selfish bimbo if anyone wants to know. Also, yes I paraphrased Jane Austen's begining to Pride and Prejudice in the first part - which we have been studying in my English A-level classes and presents a poignant role in both her novel and in a way mine. Chapters will be forthcoming when I can and please comment if you have any ideas/scenes/motiffs you want to be featured. Thanks and hope you all have the most super, fantastic, awesome, splendid day.

Blub:

Set against the back drop of the Clone Wars, this historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a universe mortally divided and a people forever changes. Above all, it is the story of the beautiful, ruthless Melusine "Serenity" Rivers and the dashing Clone Captain Walsh of Nightingale Squad.

Chapter 1:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good family and feminine graces, must be in need of a husband. However little known the feelings or views of such a woman may be on the matter, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of those who see her, that she is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their eligiable sons.

Melusine "Serenity" Rivers was not classically beautiful, but men seldolm realised this when caught by her charm as many were. In her face was the delicate balance of her mother's tender Nabooian aristocratic features blended gently with her father's Herian sharp counternance and it was a capturing mixture; like steel clothed by a silk scabbard. Her eyes were a dark shade of ebony, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - a prized hue as evidence of her aritocratic background and envied by others who were forced to work in the glaring heat for coin.

Seated with her Master, Alana Osse of house Dorne, in the cool shade of a time worn tree near the mediation grounds of the Jedi Temple on Corrasant, that bright afternoon so long ago, she made a pretty picture. A normal Padawan of the Jedi order would be sporting an attire of monastic value, loose fitting to award freedom of movement and generally devoid of luxury or quality to symbolise the vows made by such individuals with simple shades of brown and black if need be. However, this Padawan was to conform to these ideals due to her duties of becoming a ambassador on the inner planets - where such clothing would not invite the companionship of some of the more ... fussy and traditional of politicians. Instead she wore cloths of suppasing quality of her bretherine, paid for by the wealthy sponsors she had accumilated during the first years of her training who admired her for both her quiet bearing and seductive charm that had been estalled into her as soon as she got over her prude and conservative nature typical of the blue-blood classes. Her gown was newly imported from the high-class shopping planet of Atlanta, a made of multi-layered silk georgette. The bodice has one layer of a pale lilac and under this is the lace bodice inset with a few scattered pearl beads. There are two sash layers which also go underneath the bodice georgette and across the front of the bodice inset. The top one is a light lavender, and the next one down is a darker shade of lavender. The fabric appears to be delicate silk taffeta and is "bunched" slightly. Beneath these and over the skirt layers are two more sashes of pale pink and darker rose. These run around the back of the gown, where they are pulled up into a slight inverted "V." Then the sash ends hang down the back. There are five skirt layers. The uppermost is of the same pale lilac georgette as the bodice. Then there is a "sandwich" layer of the same fabric, only the edge has been dyed pale rose. Only the first two inches of the fabric is dyed, yet it looks as if the entire layer was rose georgette. At the back of the dress, this skirt layer starts to form part of the train, with the pink just vanishing into the lilac gorgeously. The next two skirt layers, which are not divided down the center, are of the pale lilac again, and the final layer is of an even lighter lilac. This undermost layer acts as the skirt lining. A hat of pale pink lace summer was fixed upon her head and contrasted richly her lush locks of chocolate hair, fixing the idea of an regal socialite with wealth and influence to those who chose to look upon her. A pair of flat-heeled white slippers finished the look of one who was used to power and prospeity, and knew exactly what she wanted. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest waist in Corrosant society born through intense physical effort and sacrafice, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair lying flat against her back with slight curling along the strands and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly dark eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her Master's gentle admonitions - often followed by stern dicipline if she did not conform - but her eyes were her own to titlate the fancy of her admirers.

The late afternoon sun slanted down in the well-maintained garden, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green and brown from other varied species that stood tall in the world of order and place. Melusine was a heiress born on Hera, a properous planet near the rim frequented by many of the rich and powerful. It was for that precise reason that Melusine Rivers and Master Alana Dorne were idiling in the shade of the tallest tree in the gardern that late afternoon. They had just recieved word on initation to the young Padawan by Melusine's parents to a Garden Party hosted at the estate belonging to the Rivers, which had been brought by her father in response to his marrying such a lady of good breeding and manners. The ship which would transport her to the social event would be arriving when the sun rotated again and the two were trying and failing to figure out if the young lady should attend the event or not. It was well known on Corosant that Hera was often besieged by many a enemy insurgent and the Master - not willing to risk her student's safety and future - thought of the dangers if her Padawan were to attend. Melusine, on the other hand, was not so concerned.

"I know you don't care about the prospect of being stuck in such a hostile situation," she said in her native Sarainan accented basic, which was softer then pure velvet and almost like an invitaton for bed when she spoke. "But what about your training? Aren't you kinda set on getting an eduation, and how will you do such a thing if you're stuck in a prison camp somewhere? You'll never get finished at this rate if you keep loligagging!"

"Oh, I'm a quick learner as you know my dear!" answered Melusine in a careless manner, with a voice bathed like honey over a whore's tits in seductive insinuations. It was more cultured and natural then her Master, but still had traces of failings that would expect in a begininer. "And if my charming mother has allowed her black sheep of a daughter to attend the social event of the season; then I must consider that she is still trying to join some rich bore in matriomony with me. A rather droll affair, I expect you'll be more pleased with the shindig being thrown with Monsieur De'Pri von Holstein. I expect you to have already chosen the percised way he'll tear the clothes off your body in a wirlwind fashion, and then the percised way to manipulate him into adapting the 'secret' Maova Treaty to include that clause that the Council's hounding you for?" she added, smirking at the coy blush appearing on her Master's face.

"Why my dear Melusine, I never knew you were so crude, my lovely! But still the issue stands that you'll be in danger if you go!" she retorted in a half-hearted mocking fashion.

"Don't call me that name, its been "Serenity" ever since my ordaining into the Temple. And why would I ever be in danger?"

"The war, goose! The war's going to start any day, and you don't suppose any of us would want you in Hera with a war going on, do you?"

"You know there isn't going to be any war," said Serenity, bored. "It's all just talk. Why, Duke Milos Revenche and his father told Pa just last week that the commissioners in Hera would come to — to — an — amicable agreement with Mr. Damion Blair about the Rebellion. And anyway, the Rebels are too scared to fight. There won't be any war, and I'm tired of hearing about it."

"Not going to be any war!" cried Alana indignantly, as though she had been personally insulted by the comment with all seductive air being lost in the fury of the moment. "Why, honey, of course there's going to be a war. The Rebels may be scared of us, but after the way General Beauregard shelled them out of Renee Sumter the day before yesterday, they'll have to fight or stand branded as cowards before the whole world. Why, the Rebels —"

Melusine, also known as Serenity, made a mouth of bored impatience.

"If you say 'war' just once more, I'll go in the Temple to my quarters and shut the door. I've never gotten so tired of any one word in my life as 'war,' unless it's 'army.' Pa talks war morning, noon and night, in his letters and all the gentlemen who come to see the council about it shout about Renee Sumter and Workers' Rights and Daimen Blair till I get so bored I could scream! And that's all the boys talk about, too, that and of their connections to the Herian troops. There hasn't been any fun at any party this spring because the boys can't talk about anything else. I'm mighty glad father waited till after the party before launching into negotiations or it would have ruined the remainder of the season's parties, too. If you say 'war' again, I'll go in the Temple."

She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she or her main interests were not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. Master Alana Dorne was as usual so charmed and enchanted by this display, as Melusine/Serenity intended her to be, that she hastened to appoligise to her for boring her with such a topic. War was men's buisness, not ladies, and it was expected of Melusine/Serenity to maintain this attitude as evidence of her feminity that she was employed for.

Having maneuvered away from the boring subject of war, she moved on to more feminine subjects such as the dresses she was having brought to Hera, the guests of the party and which men were best to be used to the women's advantage at the moment. The usual smalltalk of what they self-named themselves to be 'Companions'. They were not whores nor call girls, sluts, washerwomen, hookers, streetworkers or harlots. They are not even allowed to be wives. They were high-quality courtesans, selling their skills nor their volumptious bodies. They create words of beauty, out of their talented tongues and suptle hints of sexual rewards not on the table for discussion. What 'Companions' do in their own time is up to them for all beings require pleasure, but it is never sold, rather given as gifts. Alana Dorne had learned this art from her own master Lilyana Darwei, and she from her own. It was a heavily protected secret, for no one in the temple would openly permit such suggestive manipulation from members who were sworn to lives of chasity and spiritual exchange, yet it existed for there will always be greater use in the promise of sex then there would be in spiritual enlightenment. The 'Companions' were well taught in languages, art, dancing, music, manners, logic, history, politics and theatre. Making love however, was the most hardest of lessons. Every 'Companion' would be sent secretly to brothels to study the art in the sacred secrecy. They learned tricks of whores, how to make men think themselves to be better then any other man for they could make a woman react a way that for a moment they lose themselves, and seem like just for a moment they are bedding a goddess underneath their sweating bodies. Men who achieved the honour of bedding such a woman were the most virtuous and honnorable of men. Above all, they were, talented enough to make maidens blush with joy. But never visited again, that was the unwritten code. There were no regular paramores. Only pleasure, never love.

They talked lightly till the sun stooped below the horizon and the night grew long and full of shadows. Then stood, said their goodbyes and headed their seperate ways with only their shadows to dog their footsteps. For the night is dark and full of terrors, as they were about to find out.

Chapter 2:

When Master Alana left Serenity standing on the docks of Corrosant after dropping her off the next morning, abiet reluctantly, she was immegiantly exposed to the whispers and drunken ravings of sailors just off their ships and dying for a proper ale, bed and woman or women to fuck with. The ship was docked in the harbor, waiting for final checks to be iniated before she was allowed aboard, forcing her to walk to a nearby stack of crates in order to wait till the order came for all-aboard. Her face felt stiff from pain and her mouth actually hurt from having stretched it, unwillingly, in smiles to prevent her master from learing her secret hurt. She sat down wearily, with her heart swelled up with misery, until it felt too large for her bosom. It beat with odd little jerks; her hands were cold, and a feeling of disaster oppressed her. There were pain and bewilderment in her face, the bewilderment of a pampered child who has always had her own way for the asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the unpleasantness of life.

The rebels would wage war on Hera and her father would be forced to do his duty on the battlefield and most likely die, leaving no heir. Oh, there had been an heir once, little Jamei Rivers, but he was dead for a long time now. Born and lived only for a moment before his little life was smoothered out due to defects probabily caused by interbreeding in his mother's line. The twin brother of Serenity, but he had died while she had lived on to her father's dismay. His only male heir lost in childbirth and his only consilation was a worthless girl just like the rest of his brood. But he was her father, and without him her family would be lost. And so she was frightened of his loss.

Oh, it couldn't be true! The Jedi Masters were mistaken. They were playing one of their jokes on her. War couldn't, could't be happening to Hera. Nobody could fight Herian forces, not with a thousand men with good armour too. Serenity recalled with contempt the image of a small band of badly outfitted rebels with no training to speak of, being cut down by knights in armour that sang and shone in the light. And no one would support them if they did get into power, father was a good landlord to his serfs and always fair with his dealings. Never cut a deal nor sneaked their produce away from them. An honourable man, who had grown up admist the hammering of swords from soliders in the battle camps far from home and known the difficulties of life that the poor were faced with. And the people of Hera were hard and enduring against such folly as the rebels. No, Hera would not fall to rebellion and strife, because - oh, she couldn't be mistaken! - because the Gods would favour them as they always had! She was a River and no one in their right mind would dare to cross a River without paying a hefty toll - she knew it!

Serenity heard Jayne's gentle tread on the stone floor of the docklands and she hastily tried to rearrange her face in more placid lines. It would never do for Jayne to suspect that anything was wrong. Jayne felt that she owed her mistress, body and soul, her life and sanity. The girl had been plucked from a brothel in East Minai by Serenity once she pleased her own master enough to be awarded a maid to help her dress and prepare for her tasks as a Companion. She was a quaint girl, small and young with kindly eyes of a firmly whipped and broken puppy. She was shining black, a mix of East Minai stock from her tavern wench of a mothes and whoever fucked her one night too many, and devoted every last drop of blood to her mistress who had saved her from the life of a low-class prostitute. Her code of conduct was expepliary, a result of being raised by one of the daintiest, cold, high-nosed Brothel madam east of the East Minai's Tiber river and spared neither her whores nor her companions their just punishment for any infringement of decorum. Like a delicate bird, she obeyed without hesistation or shame. To tell Jayne of her discomfort would be cruel and as malicious as she could be for Jayne was no passable liar and the guilt of whatever secret she were told would eat at her soul until she dropped dead if she were to conceal her mistresses' sadness from Master Alana, who had always looked so kindly on her then any other had done in the dark years of her life. Even then, Serenity thought privately, they may cut her open and find it branded on her heart.

"Milady? I brought you a shawl, there's an east wind coming!" She spoke in small, mouselike whisper yet Serenity's ears were trained to pick up anything. No Companion survives long without scoping out the enviroment of which she lives and breathes in. The way the air breathes, the amount of people in an area - armed and civilians - or possible exit points. She had been brought up with this training, unique from the normal Jedi training of others. Instead of intensive lightsaber and force tricks, she was taught how to poison chalices without notice, hide knives and firearms where no one would think to look and how to smile and take it coming when the blood of enemies gets into your rather expensive outfit. It was true it was cold, but Serenity was used to it. Master Alana forced her to bathe her hands in ice for an hour in order to get her notes right on the mulitude of instruments she had been taught to play. Frostbite was no stranger to her, a bitter collegue perhaps but not a true adversery. But if she said a blunt no to the wrap, it was sure that Jayne would break down in tears. Terribly embarising for one of such high class as Melusine-Serenity Rivers, who prided herself on her withdrawn yet poised aura befit of bawling ex-whores, to put no finer point on it. She smoothed unconciously the skirt of her gown with one of her hands. Her black hair, which was normally loose and curling, was pulled back to flow as instructed down the back like a banner stream floating gently in the light breezes which blew quitely across the dockland. The gown's bodice was white, fading gradulaly like pannels of ice down a brook into a sea-blue at the waist, reaching a slightly darker hue at around knee-lenght And yet this was no simple dye manfucatured by some clever dressmaker, but several layers of soft silk, fur and wool. At the point when the colour faded, white felted wool lay over a talantedly thin layer of blue dyed silk to give the effect of colour drain, along with silver threads of lace to give a aristrocratic and fine air to the ensamble. A cover of white fur pelts served as drooping sleeves, elegantly attached to the silk with fine thread and a careful eye to detail, which was a present from the Pantoran governmovent for her work in removing an extremist leader of a primitive anti-government sector from power by use of a seductive honey trap and a lot of scandalised bees. It was a warm, comforting reminder that she was already far closer to the mantle of Companion then last time she had visited the planet of her birth, and that soon she would even rival Master Alana in the province of diplomatic interactions. She took the shawl without a word, before flicking her eyes towards the ship that would take her home.

Home.

The thought was enough to keep Serenity warm, for soon she would reach the safest place she knew. It's a place no one can destroy, no one can ruin and no one can hurt. Immortal, a legacy worth fighting for. No one wages war on Hera, not while Serenity still had blood in her veins and a weapon by her side. Protective instincts primed, she looked to her side to see the ship. Years of peace and prosperity had produced some of the most luxorious starships in recent history in the inner core. The ship was sleek, strong but unarmed. Why devote a battleship to a padawan on a diplomatic task when you hand it over to the army to use to stop crime in the galaxy? It would do, after all a ships a ship and if it isn't a bucket of bolts, they it'll fly. Hopefully, anyway.

"Padawan Rivers? We're boarding now!" one of the sailors yelled while shifting cargo into the hold. His harsh and defined accent made the words sound uneducated and far less then pleasent but Serenity didn't care. Waiting wasn't one of her strong suits, rather being a woman of action then of idleness. She liked her blood, bath and bed warm, preferably, and standing still never seemed to fulfil these desires. She was still a virgin of course, that would be lost later when she passed the Jedi Trials in what her tutor called the 'Misana' stage of her training. The lucky man who recieves a Companion's Misana would of course be killed once the deed was done to keep the secret of the Companion's life a secret, also done by the newly passed Jedi in whatever style she deemed fit, but it was said that a Misana is closest thing to heaven found anywhere on the earthly realm. But Serenity was young, not young enough not to know the pain of her moon's blood but still too young for such a trial, and so she was kept an innocent in that respects but there's other ways to warm a bed before such a thing occured that wasn't technically breaking the Companion's code. A pleasurable activity to keep one warm and staited, and one Serenity knew all too well.

She stepped forth into the light, relishing the last glows of sunlight as her maidservant drapped the wrap across her shoulders, and walked into the ship to commence what was to be in her mind, just another trip home to see the folks and take in the air of Hera. If only she knew then that she had just embarked on the defining course of action that would change her life forever.

Chapter 3:

Solana Rivers was thirty-two years old, and, according to the standards of her day, she was a middle-aged woman, one who had borne six children and buried one. She was a tall woman, standing a head higher than her fiery little husband, but she moved with such quiet grace in her swaying hoops that the height attracted no attention to itself. Her neck, rising from the black taffeta sheath of her basque, was creamy-skinned, rounded and slender, and it seemed always tilted slightly backward by the weight of her luxuriant hair in its net at the back of her head. From her Nabooian mother had come her slanting dark eyes, shadowed by inky lashes, and her black hair; and from her father, a high-ranking solider in the Naboo army, she had her long straight nose and her square-cut jaw that was softened by the gentle curving of her cheeks. But only from life could Solana's face have acquired its look of pride that had no haughtiness, its graciousness, its melancholy and its utter lack of humor.

She would have been a strikingly beautiful woman had there been any glow in her eyes, any responsive warmth in her smile or any spontaneity in her voice that fell with gentle melody on the ears of her family and her servants. She spoke in the soft slurring voice of Hera, a liquid of vowels, kind to consonants and with the barest trace of Naboo accent. It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at the Big House, where her husband's blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded.

As far back as Melusine could remember, her mother had always been the same, her voice soft and sweet whether in praising or in reproving, her manner efficient and unruffled despite the daily emergencies of Alister's turbulent household, her spirit always calm and her back unbowed, even in the death of her valuable baby son. Serenity had never seen her mother's back touch the back of any chair on which she sat. Nor had she ever seen her sit down without a bit of needlework in her hands, except at mealtime, while attending the sick or while working at the bookkeeping of the plantation which provided the main source of income for the family unit. It was delicate embroidery if company were present, but at other times her hands were occupied with Alister's ruffled shirts, the girls' dresses or garments for the servents. Melusine could not imagine her mother's hands without her gold thimble or her rustling figure unaccompanied by the small servant girl whose sole function in life was to remove basting threads and carry the rosewood sewing box from room to room, as Solana moved about the house superintending the cooking, the cleaning and the wholesale clothes-making for the plantation.

She had never seen her mother stirred from her austere placidity, nor her personal appointments anything but perfect, no matter what the hour of day or night. When Solana was dressing for a ball or for guests or even to go to Cornista for Court Day, it frequently required two hours, two maids and her personal lady's maid to turn her out to her own satisfaction; but her swift toilets in times of emergency were amazing. Sometimes when Serenity tiptoed at night to kiss her tall mother's cheek, she looked up at the mouth with its too short, too tender upper lip, a mouth too easily hurt by the world, and wondered if it had ever curved in silly girlish giggling or whispered secrets through long nights to intimate girl friends. But no, that wasn't possible. Her mother had always been just as she was, a pillar of strength, a fount of wisdom, the one person who knew the answers to everything.

But Melusine was wrong, for, years before, Solana Tam of Naboo had giggled as inexplicably as any fifteen-year-old in that charming urban city and whispered the long nights through with friends, exchanging confidences, telling all secrets but one. That was the year when Alister Rivers, eight years older than she, came into her life — the year, too, when youth and her black-eyed cousin, Philippe McAlly, went out of it. For when Philippe, with his snapping eyes and his wild ways, left Naboo forever, he took with him the glow that was in Solana's heart and left for the bandy-legged little Herian man who married her only a gentle shell.

But that was enough for Alister, overwhelmed at his unbelievable luck in actually marrying her. And if anything was gone from her, he never missed it. Shrewd man that he was, he knew that it was no less than a miracle that he, an Herian man with nothing of wealth to recommend him except his familie's long history of stubborn farming of Hera since the its first colonisation, should win the daughter of one of the wealthiest and proudest families on Naboo.

Alister's family was famed and respected in Hera, for their stubborness had helped the community survive countless hardships like barren winters, mutated wolfs or plagues of unknown diseases. But this fame counted for nothing in the eyes of the Tams, and so Alister Rivers began his attempt to woo the Tams into allowing his marriage to the elusive Solana, who had stired his attention and love for her from a far. The whole love at first sight thing worked its mojo and suddenly he was head over heals with this mysterious griefstriken beauty who he desired above anything else to make happy again.

Allister Rivers, in the time before his marriage, was a romantic at heart - though ever practical in the field. For nine months he stayed, trusting the workings of the planatation to his younger brother Stuart - later killed in a hunting 'accident' according to local gossip or rather murdered by some young tart he had seduced and abandoned and her lover Susana according to the colony's gossip (who later was put up by young Allister in her own home following the birth of his brother's bastard daughter Juliana and recruited as Lady Solana's private maid). He grew, in his own opinion, to be a man of Naboo and of Hera. He adopted its ideas and customs for his own from poker and horse racing, red-hot politics and the code of mannerisms, the rights of landowners and damnation to all under-classes, slavery and King Colino, contempt for blue-blooded trash and exaggerated courtesy to women. He even learned to chew tobacco. There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had been born with one.

But Allister remained Allister. His habits of living and his ideas changed, but his manners he would not change, even had he been able to change them. He admired the drawling elegance of the wealthy wheat and cotton planters, who took tea with the rivers often, mounted on thoroughbred horses and followed by the carriages of their equally elegant ladies and the wagons of their slaves. But Allister could never attain elegance. Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears, but his own brisk brogue clung to his tongue. He liked the casual grace with which they conducted affairs of importance, risking a fortune, a plantation or a slave on the turn of a card and writing off their losses with careless good humor and no more ado than when they scattered pennies to pickaninnies. But Allister had known poverty and dissolution from any bad winters which had meant that his family had been forced to rely on handouts for many a month till the new harvest came in, and he could never learn to lose money with good humor or good grace. They were a pleasant race, these blue-bloods, with their soft-voiced, quick rages and their charming inconsistencies, and Allister liked them. But there was a brisk and restless vitality about the young Herianman, fresh from a country where winds blew wet and chill, where misty swamps held no fevers, that set him apart from these indolent gentlefolk of semi-tropical weather and malarial marshes.

From them he learned what he found useful, and the rest he dismissed. He found poker the most useful of all Nabooian customs, poker and a steady head for whisky; and it was his natural aptitude for cards and amber liquor that brought to Allister the respect he needed to marry his wife, his dearest and most prized friend and comfort. The head of the Tam family in which she paid her allegiance was well known for his taste for fine rum and flagrent gambing, Ser Androv Tam, which had unfortunetly lost him a favourited slave who it was whispered was also his lover to some circles. Though he tried to offer to buy him back at twice his value, the man who had won him obstainately refused, for it was excelerating to be in possession of a man who could ruin the cream of the Tam crop. It was Allister who had intervened, bargining the River owned land on Hera for Ser Androv's slave, of which he succeeded in the little saloon in Naboo using tricks and bluffs taught on his time in Naboo. "Never mix cards and whisky unless you were weaned on Herian whisky," Gerald told the loser gravely that same evening, as he was handed the deed to the slave in question. After a brief spell of conversation and drink in celebration following the slaves' restoration to his master's estate, they came to the subject of Solana Tam and agreed to a meeting in the family estate. As soon as they met, Allister Rivers became enamoured with the quiet beauty who had recently became sorrowful following Philippe's death in a common barroom brawl. She also became friendly with the kindly man, not love of course due to the loss of her heart forever to Philippe's death, and agreeded to marry him out of desperation to avoid another's suit who was four times as old as Mr Rivers. And so, Solana, no longer Tam, turned her back on Naboo, never to see it again, and with her middle-aged husband and twenty house maids journeyed towards Hera. She never seemed to regret this decision to marry such a besotted little man, and if she ever privately did no one ever knew about it.

Chapter 4:

When she departed from her father's house forever, she had left a home whose lines were as beautiful and flowing as a woman's body, as a ship in full sail; a pale pink stucco house built in the typical Nabooian colonial style, set high from the ground in a dainty manner, approached by swirling stairs, banistered with wrought iron as delicate as lace; a dim, rich house, gracious but aloof. She had left not only that graceful dwelling but also the entire civilization that was behind the building of it, and she found herself in a world that was as strange and different as if she had crossed the realms of time. For the rugged Herian landscape was ruled by hardy people. High up on the plateau at the foot of the Blue Amori Mountains, she saw rolling red hills wherever she looked, with huge outcroppings of the underlying granite and gaunt pines towering somberly everywhere. It all seemed wild and untamed to her Nabooian-coast-bred eyes accustomed to the quiet jungle beauty of the sea islands draped in their gray moss and tangled green, the white stretches of beach hot beneath a semitropic sun, the long flat vistas of sandy land studded with palmetto and palm.

This was a section of the galaxy that knew the chill of winter, as well as the heat of summer, and there was a vigor and energy in the people that was strange to her. They were a kindly people, courteous, generous, filled with abounding good nature, but sturdy, virile, easy to anger. The people of Naboo which she had left might pride themselves on taking all their affairs, even their duels and their feuds, with a careless air but these Herian people had a streak of violence in them. There is Naboo, life had mellowed — here it was young and lusty and new. All the people Ellen had known on Naboo might have been cast from the same mold, so similar were their view points and traditions, but here was a variety of people. Hera's settlers were coming in from many different planets, but families like Allister's had been there for hundreds of generations and so the influx of those with restless and pioneering blood quickening their veins was met with quiet curiosity and rampent gossip. And, quickening all of the affairs of the plannet, was the high tide of prosperity then rolling over the galaxy. All of the universe was crying out for Corono cotton, and the new land of the outter rim, unworn and fertile, produced it abundantly. Corono cotton was the heartbeat of the plannet, the planting and the picking were the diastole and systole of the red earth. Wealth came out of the curving furrows, and arrogance came too — arrogance built on green bushes and the acres of fleecy white. If cotton could make them rich in one generation, how much richer they would be in the next! This certainty of the morrow gave zest and enthusiasm to life, and the Herian people enjoyed life with a heartiness that Ellen could never understand. They had money enough and slaves enough to give them time to play, and they liked to play. They seemed never too busy to drop work for a fish fry, a hunt or a horse race, and scarcely a week went by without its barbecue or ball.

Solana never would, or could, quite become one of them — she had left too much of herself in Naboo with Phillippe — but she respected them and, in time, learned to admire the frankness and forthrightness of these people, who had few reticences and who valued a man for what he was. She became the best-loved neighbor in the land. She was a thrifty and kind mistress, a good mother and a devoted wife. The heartbreak and selflessness that she devoted to the service of her child, her household and the man who had taken her out of Naboo and its memories and had never asked any questions.

He had become a gentleman at last, little, hard-headed, blustering Allister with his charming, blue-blooded wife. Allisters was on excellent terms with all his neighbors in the wildlands of Hera, except the McKayas (whose land adjoined his on the right and were staunching religious to the point of dreariness) and the LeFlays (whose meagre acres adjoined on the left and were poor as dirt and as many as there are grains of sand on a beach). Mr Rivers often made offers to buy such lands at twice the price they were worth, but the McKayas hated dealing with 'sinful' families such as the Rivers and LeFlays hated uppity "rich folks" and so were not helpful in this respect. With all the rest of the inhabitants of Hera, Allister was on terms of amity and some intimacy. The families all smiled when the small figure on the big black stallion galloped up their driveways, smiled and signaled for tall glasses in which a piant of Bourbon had been poured over a teaspoon of salt and a sprig of crushed rosemerry. Allister was likable, and the neighbors learned in time what the children, slaves and dogs discovered at first sight, that a kind heart, a ready and sympathetic ear and an open pocketbook lurked just behind his bawling voice and his truculent manner inherited from his dignified father. His arrival was always amid a bedlam of hounds barking and small slave children shouting as they raced to meet him, quarreling for the privilege of holding his horse and squirming and grinning under his good-natured insults. The true-blooded children clamored to sit on his knee and be trotted, while he denounced to their elders the infamy of Socialist politicians; the daughters of his friends took him into their confidence about their love affairs, and the youths of the neighborhood, fearful of confessing debts of honor upon the carpets of their fathers, found him a friend in need. The planters' ladies were the last to capitulate after his return to Hera after so many years away but, when Mrs. Hamilton, "a great lady and with a rare gift for silence," as Allister characterized her, told her husband one evening, after Allister's horse had pounded down the driveway. "He has a rough tongue, but he has become quite a gentleman compared to the boy he was," Gerald had definitely arrived.

The next year after settling down as man and wife, their first children were born and they named the girl Melusine Evelynia Rivers, after Allister's great-grandmother, and the boy Jamei Rivers, after Solana's great-grandmother. The girl child became more healthy and vigorous than a girl baby had any right to be, according to society's opinion, but the male child passed away moments after birth due to heart defects. The couple mourned and cheered together in the events and of course Allister was disappointed, for he had wanted a son and heir, but he nevertheless was pleased enough over his small black-haired daughter to serve rum to every slave at Hera and to get roaringly drunk himself to forget the loss of his much wanted heir. When Melusine was a year old and little Jamei was laid to rest under the twisted cedars in the burying ground a hundred yards from the house, Solana's third child, named Lorelie Rivers, was born, and in due time came Maegory and Daene Rivers respectively.

From the day when Solana first came to the Grand House in Hera, the place had been transformed. If she was only fifteen years old, she was nevertheless ready for the responsibilities of the mistress of a great estate. Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, of hundreds of planatary origins, and they were trained with that in view. The house had been built according to no architectural plan whatever, with extra rooms added where and when it seemed convenient, but, with Solana's care and attention, it gained a charm that made up for its lack of design. The avenue of cedars leading from the main road to the house — that avenue of cedars without which no Herian planter's home could be complete — had a cool dark shadiness that gave a brighter tinge, by contrast, to the green of the other trees. The wistaria tumbling over the verandas showed bright against the whitewashed brick, and it joined with the pink crepe myrtle bushes by the door and the white-blossomed magnolias in the yard to disguise some of the awkward lines of the house.

In spring time and summer, the Bermuda grass and clover on the lawn became emerald, so enticing an emerald that it presented an irresistible temptation to the flocks of turkeys and white geese that were supposed to roam only the regions in the rear of the house. The elders of the flocks continually led stealthy advances into the front yard, lured on by the green of the grass and the luscious promise of the cape jessamine buds and the zinnia beds. Against their depredations, a small slave sentinel was stationed on the front porch. Armed with a ragged towel, the little scarecrow boy sitting on the steps was part of the picture of Hera — and an unhappy one, for he was forbidden to chunk the fowls and could only flap the towel at them and shoo them. Solana set dozens of little local slave boys to this task, the first position of responsibility a male slave had at the Grand Estate of the Rivers. After they had passed their tenth year, they were sent to old Eldari, the plantation cobbler, to learn his trade, or to Amos the wheelwright and carpenter, or Pilea the cow man, or Cuffee the mule boy. If they showed no aptitude for any of these trades, they became field hands and, in the opinion of the slaves, they had lost their claim to any social standing at all.

Solana's life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.

She had been reared in the tradition of great ladies, which had taught her how to carry her burden and still retain her charm, and she intended that her three daughters should be great ladies. With her younger daughters, she had success, for Lorelie was so anxious to be attractive she lent an attentive and obedient ear to her mother's teachings, and Maegory was shy and easily led. But Melusine, child of Allister and the inheritor of the DNA genetic makeup allowing her to become force sensitive, found the road to her mother's designs impossible since becoming a Padawan making her the black sheep of the crop.

"You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate," Solana told her daughter once she had arrived in Hera on the ship and settled into her old room. "You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls. And definately not girls wearing such low cuts as that!" But her eldest daughter simply sighed and ignored the comment. At sixteen, thanks to Master Alana tutoring, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate. She had the easily stirred passions of her Herian father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother's unselfish and forbearing nature. Solana never fully realized that it was only a veneer, for Melusine always showed her best face to her mother, concealing her escapades, curbing her temper and appearing as sweet-natured as she could in Solana's presence, for her mother could shame her to tears with a reproachful glance but at times it showed and she was instantly reproached without mercy. But appearances were enough, for the appearances of ladyhood won her popularity and that was all she wanted. Allister bragged that she was the belle of the galaxy, and with some truth, for she had received proposals from nearly all the young men in every plannet she walked on even though she was a Padawan swore to 'eternal chasity'. She loved her mother, despite her words suggesting otherwise, for she regarded her as something holy and apart from all the rest of humankind. When she was a child on visit to Hera, she had confused her mother with some sort of water goddess or divine being, and now that she was older she saw no reason for changing her opinion. To her, Solana represented the utter security that only a mother can give. She knew that her mother was the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom — a great lady. Melusine wanted very much to be like her mother. The only difficulty was that by being just and truthful and tender and unselfish, one missed most of the joys of life, and certainly many 'unwanted' beaux. And life was too short to miss such pleasant things. Some day when she was ordained into the Jedi ranks and old, some day when she had time for it, she intended to be like Solana. But, until then she was Melusine, and defininately not able to put up with her constant nagging . . . especially when it came to the cuts on her dresses!

Chapter 5:

The social event of the season was being held in the Grand Pavilion at the bottom of the River estate, and was the highlight of every year with vistiations from the Duke Milos Revenche and his beautiful wife. Even before it came into view, Melusine saw a haze of smoke hanging lazily in the tops of the tall trees and smelled the mingled savory odors of burning hickory logs and roasting pork and mutton. The barbecue pits, which had been slowly burning since last night, would now be long troughs of rose-red embers, with the meats turning on spits above them and the juices trickling down and hissing into the coals. Melusine knew that the fragrance carried on the faint breeze came from the grove of great oaks in the rear of the big house. Allister always held his barbecues there, on the gentle slope leading down to the rose garden, a pleasant shady place and a far pleasanter place, for instance, than that used by the more daintier of ladies who hosted other smaller events who declared that the smells remained in the house for days, so their guests always sweltered on a flat unshaded spot a quarter of a mile from the house. But Allister Rivers, famed throughout the state for his hospitality, really knew how to give a barbecue.

The long trestled picnic tables, covered with the finest of the Rivers' linen, always stood under the thickest shade, with backless benches on either side; and chairs, hassocks and cushions from the house were scattered about the glade for those who did not fancy the benches. At a distance great enough to keep the smoke away from the guests were the long pits where the meats cooked and the huge iron wash-pots from which the succulent odors of barbecue sauce and Brunswick stew floated. Mr. Rivers always had at least a dozen well trained servants busy running back and forth with trays to serve the guests. Over behind the barns there was always another barbecue pit, where the house servants and the coachmen and maids of the guests had their own feast of hoecakes and yams and chitterlings, that dish of hog entrails so dear to many of the slaves' hearts, and, in season, watermelons enough to satiate. As the smell of crisp fresh pork came to her, Melusine wrinkled her nose appreciatively, hoping that by the time it was cooked she would feel some appetite. As it was she was so full of food and so tightly laced that she feared every moment she was going to belch. That would be fatal, as only old men and very old ladies could belch without fear of social disapproval.

They topped the rise and the white house reared its perfect symmetry before her, tall of columns, wide of verandas, flat of roof, beautiful as a woman is beautiful who is so sure of her charm that she can be generous and gracious to all. Melusine loved the Pavilion even more than Tara, for it had a stately beauty, a mellowed dignity that Gerald's house did not possess. The wide curving driveway was full of saddle horses and carriages and guests alighting and calling greetings to friends. Grinning slaves, excited as always at a party, were leading the animals to the barnyard to be unharnessed and unsaddled for the day. Swarms of children, black and white, ran yelling about the newly green lawn, playing hopscotch and tag and boasting how much they were going to eat. The wide hall which ran from front to back of the house was swarming with people, and as the Rivers' carriage drew up at the front steps (her mother had declared that it had been too far to walk even though Melusine prided herself on her stamina), Melusine saw girls in crinolines, bright as butterflies, going up and coming down the stairs from the second floor, arms about each other's waists, stopping to lean over the delicate handrail of the banisters, laughing and calling to young men in the hall below them. Through the open windows, she caught glimpses of the older women seated in the drawing room, sedate in dark silks as they sat fanning themselves and talking of babies and sicknesses and who had married whom and why. The butler, Tomlin, was hurrying through the halls, a silver tray in his hands, bowing and grinning, as he offered tall glasses to young men in fawn and gray trousers and fine ruffled linen shirts.

On the porch steps stood her father, silver-haired, erect, radiating the quiet charm and hospitality that was as warm and never failing as the sun of Herian summer. Father came down the steps to offer his arm to his black-sheep of a daughter. As she descended from the carriage, she saw Daene smirk and knew that she must have picked out a hansome man she had thought to be her new beaux in the crowd. Hoping to catch a man before the bloom goes off the rose! she thought contemptuously, as she stepped to the ground and smiled her thanks to papa. Melusine's eyes were searching the crowd for a friendly, if not more sensiblle, companion then this flocks of hens. There were cries of greeting from a dozen voices and many cousins and old aquainance moved toward her. The Munroi girls rushed up to exclaim over her dress, and she was speedily the center of a circle of voices that rose higher and higher in efforts to be heard above the din. Anything but this flock of hens and cocks! She tried not to be obvious as she looked about and peered down the lawn for help.

As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the orchards and the small pond, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the shade, a nice-looking boy with a riot of soft brown curls on his white forehead and eyes as deep brown, as clean and as gentle as a collie dog's. He was well turned out in mustard-colored trousers and black coat and his pleated shirt was topped by the widest and most fashionable of black cravats. A faint blush was creeping over his face as she turned for he was timid with girls. Like most shy men he greatly admired airy, vivacious, always-at-ease girls like Melsuine. But he would do as a distraction from the dullness of this annoying party. "Why Charlie Dapelsmith, you handsome old thing, you! I'll bet you came all the way down here from Atlanta just to break my poor heart!" she spoke over the ruckas as she moved quickly to seperate herself from the flock. He was very devilish, which would be quite the high point of the evening if she could convince him into giving into her charms!

Charlie almost stuttered with excitement, looking into the dancing brown eyes. This was the way girls talked to other boys but never to him. He never knew why but girls always treated him like a younger brother and were very kind, but never bothered to tease him. He had always wanted girls to flirt and frolic with him as they did with boys much less handsome and less endowed with this world's goods than he. But on the few occasions when this had happened he could never think of anything to say and he suffered agonies of embarrassment at his dumbness. Then he lay awake at night thinking of all the charming gallantries he might have employed; but he rarely got a second chance, for the girls left him alone after a trial or two. He had always yearned to be loved by some beautiful, dashing creature full of fire and mischief.

And here was this mysterious beauty teasing him about breaking her heart!

He tried to think of something to say and couldn't, and silently he blessed her because she kept up a steady chatter which relieved him of any necessity for conversation. It was too good to be true. She stepped closer as others began to disperse to find other things to preoccupy their time, before speaking again. "You look very hansome today, did you do it all to inspire my attention?" came the incredible words from red lips with a dimple on each side; and briskly black lashes swept demurely over brown eyes. Tapping him lightly on the arm with her folded fan, she leaned in closer. "Or perhaps it was to inspire someone elses?"

"No, my lady. For though I did dress to the requirements of the situation, I never knew it would inspire the attentions of an angelic creature whose name is as mysterious as her intentions!" he looked eagre, like a puppy begging for a meagre cut of the best butcher's steak. Stopping for a moment, imitating a certain hesitation she had seen so often by love struck girls, she leaned lower in and spoke words which would be scandalous for any common girl. "Meet me by the bench near the apple tree in the middle of the orchard soon, and let for once these strict rules of etiquette not restict us for I am certain that you have inspired me to desire you sir and I am caught by you and your words of affection!" She didn't look up as she walked away, seemingly shy and as demure as the rest of the hens but inside she was smirking at the look of excitement and lust she was sure was set into his face. She walked in a diverted path towards the orchard, so as not to seem too obvious, and once she came under the canopy of the trees, she felt more exilerated from what she was about to do. She wouldn't sleep with him, no way would he be worth that, but there are other things a young virgin could do to pass the time in a man's presence. Finally spotting the apple tree, Melusine approached it and assumed a position most suitable for a young lady meeting a man without a companion. The barbecue had reached its peak and the warm air was full of laughter and talk rumbing through from the party just outside the thicket of trees concealing her, the click of silver on porcelain and the rich heavy smells of roasting meats and redolent gravies. Occasionally when the slight breeze veered, puffs of smoke from the long barbecue pits floated over the crowd and were greeted with squeals of mock dismay from the ladies and violent flappings of palmetto fans could be heard.

"My quiet Angel, I thought you would be mocking me when you ask for me! And now you are before me, and ... I desire you and I can't stop. Oh Gods I can't stop!" He walked up to her like he was in a dream, as there straight in front of him, was his delightful little Angel. He clutched her cheek, so rosy and shy, and was dared on by her lack of resistance. "My lady - I - I have decided that if we did go to war with the rebels that I would join up with the cavalry!" Serenity could think of nothing to say and so merely looked at him, wondering why men were such fools as to think women interested in such matters and why he wasn't tearing her clothes off as she thought he might. He took her expression to mean stunned apporbation and in a rapture that she had neither laughed, screamed nor fainted, as he had always imagined young girls did under such circumstances. "I love you! You are the most — the most —" and he found his tongue for the first time in his life. "The most beautiful girl I've ever known and the sweetest and the kindest, and you have the dearest ways and I love you with all my heart. I cannot hope that you could love anyone like me but, my dear lady, if you can give me any encouragement as I hope you do, I will do anything in the world to make you love me. I will —". Charlie stopped, for he couldn't think of anything difficult enough of accomplishment to really prove to Scarlett the depth of his feeling, so he said simply: "I want to marry you."

Melusine came back to earth with a jerk, at the sound of the word "marry." She blauched with confusion, for this was not how it was meant to be. He should be fucking her right now, exillerated at the prospect of such a forbidden act so close to the elders of society, yet instead he choses to prepose? She looked into the pleading brown eyes and she saw none of the beauty of a shy boy's first love, of the adoration of an ideal come true or the wild happiness and tenderness that were sweeping through him like a flame. Melusine was used to men asking her to marry them, men much more attractive than Charlie, and men who had more finesse than to propose at a barbecue when she had more important matters on her mind such as fucking her into a coma. She only saw a boy of twenty, red as a beet and looking very silly. She wished that she could tell him how silly he looked. But automatically, the words Master had taught her to say in such emergencies rose to her lips and casting down her eyes, from force of long habit, she murmured: "Mr. Daplesmith, I am not unaware of the honor you have bestowed on me in wanting me to become your wife, but this is all so sudden that I do not know what to say." That was a neat way of smoothing a man's vanity and yet keeping him on the string, and Charlie rose to it as though such bait were new and he the first to swallow it and quickly Melusine had to divert this conversation back to reality of sexual pleasure. "I would marry you of course, had it not have been for my situation for you see I am intended for another man. When I saw you tonight, I saw my heart's delight and I would be glad to have a moment in your arms but I cannot marry you for my intended cannot be refused nor denied. Will you not lay with me, just once, so before I attend upon the altar I can at least know a man as worthy and as hansome as you are?"

He took the bait of course, as any man might at the greatest compliment, and they lay together passionately. Of course, she told him to leave her intact, but apart from that no boundries existed. She was divested of her clothes, a satin-red wrapper low in cut and as seductive as possible, and kissed in every possible place known. Her lips, her cheeks, her nose, even the private places of her body had been caressed and enpassioned by this man who had been turned into an animal in this woman's presence. A goddess had bewitched him, and he pleasured every part of her to the best of his ability to the point of no return. When at last, the pleasure had erupted, she had to keep him smoothered against her own mouth so as the others would not hear them and come to see the show. A fix of passion, that was what this was, not a love affair just a transaction that was so very annoying to make.

When they had finished, and he lay in a deep, tired sleep of which he would later wake of course but not for a long while yet, she crept out of his embrace and replaced her belongings so as to look presenable. No need for mother to send out search parties, since by then every last forkful of pork and chicken and mutton had been eaten, and the ladies would all be retired in the pavilions to stay content and lazy as the sun was at its height. The man had no name for his dark-haired Angel, no identifying markers to suppose who she was and which family did she belong to. She was safe to leave, content with the service provided and eager to rejoin the party before anyone noticed she had gone. When she arrived back, the party was quiet and content. The laughter and talking became less animated and groups here and there fell silent. All were waiting for their hostess to signal the end of the morning's festivities. Palmetto fans were wagging more slowly, and several gentlemen were nodding from the heat and overloaded stomachs. The barbecue was over and all were content to take their ease while sun was at its height. Taking up a position out of sight, Melsuine started a conversation with an elderly woman she was distantly related to and seemed to enact an air that she had been there all along for the guests seemed a placid, peaceful lot. Only the young men retained the restless energy which had filled the whole throng a short while before. Moving from group to group, drawling in their soft voices, they were as handsome as blooded stallions and as dangerous. The languor of midday had taken hold of the gathering, but underneath lurked tempers that could rise to killing heights in a second and flare out as quickly. Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways and only a little tamed. Conversation was dying out when, in the lull, everyone in the grove heard Allister's voice raised in furious accents. Standing some little distance away from the barbecue tables, he was at the peak of an argument with a LeFlay man of little standing. "Pray for a peaceable settlement with the upstarts after we've fired on the rascals at Fort Renee Sumter? Peaceable? We should show by arms that our cause and traditions cannot be insulted and that she is not submissive to their demands!"

"Oh, my God!" thought Melsuine, "He's done it! Now, we'll all sit here till midnight."

In an instant, the calm had fled from the lounging throng and something electric went snapping through the air. The men sprang from benches and chairs, arms in wide gestures, voices clashing for the right to be heard above other voices. There had been no talk of politics or impending war all during the morning, because of Mr. Rivers' request that the ladies should not be bored. But now Allister, himself, had bawled the words "Fort Renee Sumter," and every man present forgot his host's earlier admonition.

"Of course we'll fight —" "Rebel thieves —" "We could lick them in a month —" "Why, one army man can lick twenty rebels —" "Teach them a lesson they won't soon forget —" "Peaceably? They won't let us go in peace —" "No, look how Mr. Damion insulted our Commissioners!" "Yes, kept them hanging around for weeks — swearing he'd have Renee Sumter evacuated!" "They want war; we'll make them sick of war —" And above all the voices, Allister's boomed. All Melsuine could hear was "Peoples' rights, by God!" shouted over and over. Allister was having an excellent time, but not his daughter.

Secession, war — these words long since had become acutely boring to Melsuine from much repetition, but now she hated the sound of them, for they meant that the men would stand there for hours haranguing one another and she would have no chance to creep away after so there wouldn't be any awkardness with Charlie, who had worked with her family with financial matters and would disgrace her if word got out what had happened. Of course there would be no war and the men all knew it. They just loved to talk and hear themselves talk. In annoyance, Melsuine fled to the outside of the Pavilion near the ladies' relieving room where an unending hum of low voices, rising and falling, punctuated with squeaks of laughter and, "Now, you didn't, really!" and "What did he say then?" could be heard from the women inside. On the beds and couches of the facility, the girls were resting, their dresses off, their stays loosed, their hair flowing down their backs. Afternoon naps were a custom of the Herian landowners and never were they so necessary as on the all-day parties, beginning early in the morning and culminating in a ball. For half an hour, the girls would chatter and laugh, and then servants would pull the shutters and in the warm half-gloom the talk would die to whispers and finally expire in silence broken only by soft regular breathing.

She stopped for a moment, her heart hammering over the excitement of the day so hard that it seemed about to burst through her basque. She tried to draw deep breaths but she had pulled the lacings were too tight. If she should faint and they should find her here on the lawn, what would they think? Oh, they'd think everything. Herian girls were so jealous! For once in her life, she wished that she carried smelling salts, like the other girls, but she had never even owned a vinaigrette. She had always been so proud of never feeling giddy. She simply could not let herself faint now!

Gradually the sickening feeling began to depart. In a minute, she'd feel all right and then she'd slip quietly into the room, unloose her stays and creep in and lay herself on one of the beds beside the sleeping girls. She tried to quiet her heart and fix her face into more composed lines, for she knew she must look like a crazy woman. If any of the girls were awake, they'd know something was wrong. And no one must ever, ever know that anything had happened.

Through the wide bay window on the lawn she could see the men still lounging in their chairs under the trees and in the shade of the arbor after apparently finishing their talk on war. How she envied them! How wonderful to be a man and never have to undergo the secrecy she has to pass through. As she stood watching them, hot eyed and dizzy, she heard the rapid pounding of a horse's hooves on the front drive, the scattering of gravel and the sound of an excited voice calling a question to one of the slaves. The gravel flew again and across her vision a man on horseback galloped over the green lawn toward the lazy group under the trees.

Some late-come guest, but why did he ride his horse across the turf that was Solana's pride and joy? She could not recognize him, but as he flung himself from the saddle and clutched her father' arm, she could see that there was excitement in every line of him. The crowd swarmed about him, tall glasses and palmetto fans abandoned on tables and on the ground. In spite of the distance, she could hear the hubbub of voices, questioning, calling, feel the fever-pitch tenseness of the men. Then above the confused sounds Allister Rivers' voice rose, in an exultant shout "Yee-aay-ee!" as if he were on the hunting field. And she heard for the first time, without knowing it, the yell of the battlefield. As she watched, the four Tarlieons followed by the Fontaena boys broke from the group and began hurrying toward the stable, yelling as they ran, "Jeems! You, Jeems! Saddle the horses!" As the shouts merged together violently, questioning, interrupting, Scarlett felt herself go cold with fear and terror. What was going on? Are the rebels launching an attack? They can't be, but if the are then this is where the first attack would happen wouldn't it? If she could only be transferred by magic back to Corrosant and to safety. If she could only be with Alana, just to see her, to hold onto her skirt, to cry and pour out the fear she felt in her lap. If she had to listen to another word, she'd rush in and get the whole mess sorted out. She pressed her hands hard against her skirts, so they would not rustle and started to back out as stealthily as an animal. Home, she thought, as she sped down the lawn, past the still shouting people, I must go home.

She never made it.