Hello everyone! I guess all I have to say is that I am completely new at this so please be nice and mature when you read and review my story :-) Oh... and I will try my hardest to respond back to every review that is possible. This story contains spoilers through out the game and has some 'mature audience only' content... so don't say I didn't warn you:-) So read on and please drop me a review to let me know how I'm doing! Thanks!

landis icelilly

Discl: I don't own anything in this story... it would be nice to though :-)

(rev: 9/5/07)

In a dark, dank and certainly smelly sewer was the beautiful and vagrant princess, Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca. She sat in a dimly lit underground hide out on the cold slimy cobblestone steps wondering just exactly how her life had gotten to be this abominable, just like her surroundings. The air underneath the city of Rabanastre was less than pleasant, reminding her of some of the more atrocious tavern bathrooms that she had been quite disturbed to use in the past two years, for fear of catching some nasty disease from them.

Ashe subconsciously crinkled her nose in disgust at the memory. With a shaky hand she ran it roughly through her dirty blonde hair thinking back to a time when it had been an almost platinum blonde from her time spent playing in the palace gardens all day long when she had been younger. The memory made her heart ache and made her wish that she could start her life over again. Start with a fresh new beginning and somehow find a way to prevent everything that had happened from ever happening at all.

Hugging her knees to her chest tightly, she slowly rocked herself back and forth on the chilly stone. Her thoughts were of the past and the current happenings of her life. She recalled a time in her existence when she had not a care in Ivalice, free to anything and everything she wanted. She never thought of herself becoming the mentally and emotionally wounded, dejected, and depressed soul that she found herself to be now.

Ashelia, only one of nine heirs to the Dalmascan throne remembered how her father, King Raminas, and her mother had been overjoyed about the birth of their only daughter to their family. Her father had always, ever since she could remember, told her just how special she was to them even though she didn't think so herself. She was only a girl in a palace that would never see or have to experience the burden of rule to a kingdom, so why was she special? But when she would always ask him 'why?' his answer would constantly be 'just because you are.'

Her father believed that because she was their last borne child and heir to the Dalmascan throne that she need not go through all the lessons and teachings that her older brothers had gone through. They had a much greater contingent at taking over their father's throne than she herself would have. So with that in mind, King Raminas only put her through the minimal teachings that she would need to survive being a member of the royal family… proper etiquette, how to maintain that regal appearance that was ever so demanded of and a bit of self defense just in case of the worst, were just a few to mention.

Ashe let out a sharp sigh at the thought. Some way I'm surviving, ha! Just look at me now.

She was sitting in a nasty, smelly and disgusting sewer underneath her city that she should be looking over and protecting from the dangers that consistently threatened it. But truth be told she wasn't. She couldn't.

Sadly she lowered her head down placing her hands on her face and resting her forehead on the tops of her bent knees.

She felt as though she should be fearful of this truth. Fearful that she will never regain her family's kingdom or her old well being back, which she was, but it didn't scare her as much anymore as it had before. Living in a sewer for two long years, going through everything that she had been through changes a person forever as she was now learning for herself. There had only been one other time she recalled in her existence that she had let fear take hold of her and that day had scared her mentally forever. It was the day her mother had passed away, taking a little part of her heart with her.

It was sometime in the late Dalmascan summer when she had passed. Little Ashe, just about six years old, was heading toward the giant heavy mahogany doors of her parents' bedchamber to visit her ailing mother. Sadly Ashe didn't know that her mother wasn't just sick like she had been explained to, she was dieing from a rare disease that even the healers had no cure for. Her father had requested that the healers not reveal to Ashe her mother's true condition. Ashe was too young to be trying to understand that her mother was going to die and she would never be able to see or feel her mother's touch again.

Gently and quietly Ashe pushed the heavy door open, feeling the stuffy and stale draft coming from behind the doors. It was dark in her mother's chambers; the only light that lit up the room was from the evening sun that was seeping through the thick curtains that covered the grand Rozzarian doors leading to her parents' balcony.

Taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit atmosphere, she strained to hear the raspy labored breathing of her mother from over by the bed. She heard nothing.

Nothing but silence and it made the hair on her tiny arms stand on end. Ashe never liked that feeling when it would occur; something bad always came with it. She was sure of it, especially at that moment. Finally when her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, she made her way soundlessly toward the oversized bed, which she could make out the lifeless frame of a body in it. Upon reaching the side of the bed, Ashe hesitantly lifted her small hand to touch her mothers pale white cheek and was frightened when it was ice cold and clammy to her touch.

Quietly she uttered, "Mommy?" She felt the sudden knot that had formed at the pit of her stomach appear.

Not getting a response from the body laying in front of her, she quickly grabbed her mother's shoulder and gently shook it. She repeated herself.

"Mommy?"

Still, her mother didn't stir.

"MOMMY! Please wake up! Mommy!" she began to scream as she violently shook her mothers lifeless shoulder.

She quickly came to the realization that her mother was no longer among the living and had left her here. Alone.

As she still sat on the icy cold step, she thought how ridiculously alone she had felt at that moment when she found her mother dead. But she soon figured out that she really wasn't alone at all. She still had her eight brothers and her father, which she grew inevitability close to them.

Her brothers would each individually take her, on some days, out to the palace gardens, and teach her little life skills that they felt she needed to know. But mostly all of their teachings were of battle strategy and proper sword wielding techniques, since they had thought she wouldn't really have a use for them in her lifetime, it helped her brothers to work with her and hone their own skills and training at the same time. Her brothers and father both had agreed that if she was to be trained, that it be with a sword and not with any of the smaller weapons. Ashe had protested to this saying that her Mythril Sword was too heavy for her tiny frame to handle. Then she remembered them telling her that she had to build up her muscle and arm strength first then she would be able to exploit her skills with any sword she wanted. Still fighting against their decision of a sword and not a dagger or a pistol, she was rewarded with the answer of, 'any other weapon is not suitable for a lady to use.'

She would always become angered by that remark. She always wanted to learn how to wield the exotic daggers that many of her bedtime storybooks talked about. She was also intrigued by all the different pistols that she had seen her many guards carry as their secondary weapon of choice and wondered why she couldn't learn to manage one too. The sleekness and shininess of the metals that created these weapons always caught her attention and made her think that someday she would have her chance to show them that she was very well capable of handling them on her own, whether it was suitable for a lady or not.

Slowly, Ashe pulled her hand away from her face and rested it on the hilt of one her Platinum Daggers that was concealed within the side of her shin guard. She had two of these daggers invisible to the eyes that had been custom made to her specifications, hidden in each of her shin guards. No one knew of them but her, not even her guardian of the time, Captain Vossler York Azelas.

Grabbing the hilt of the dagger, she drew it out only halfway until she saw the satisfactory gleam it gave off from her meticulous polishing and cleaning routine. It gave her joy knowing that she had rebelled against her brothers and father. It had given her freedom to be herself. She had told them that one day she would learn to utilize these weapons, whether it be from their teachings or of her own accord, but she would do it.

But as if she had somehow knew it all along, it was of her own accord that she had learned and taught herself how to utilize them.

At the time she had just turned sixteen and was feeling the sudden rebellious streak that grew within her blood. She had wanted to expand her abilities to wield other weapons, but knew she couldn't do it alone. She wanted to prove her father and brothers wrong, that she was just as strong as any of them. Maybe just as strong as some of their top ranking guards, but no matter how strong she was, she would still prove them wrong. She later had found a way to do this but as she had already known, it required the help of another person. Finally, thinking to herself why she hadn't thought of it before, she would ask her newly appointed guardian to help her with the task. 'He will be perfect!' She had thought to herself. She spent a few hours in her bedchamber wondering of the best way to approach the guard. She feared that upon being asked he would decline her request, telling her that she was being a silly little child, but was completely shocked and relieved when he kindly had agreed to help her learn.

She remembered that she spent countless nights sneaking out of the palace and into the gardens where no one could see or hear her and the guard train. She learned a great deal from him in almost record speed. Her eagerness to learn and her desire to rebel against her brothers and father is what had fueled her to master anything and everything he taught her and she was grateful to him for it.

A slight smile graced her lips remembering every encounter she had with the guard. Thanks to him she was able to hold her own now and protect herself… or so she had once again thought she could.

Ashe let out another short harsh sigh. "Who the hell am I kidding?!" she said quietly into the thick sewage air.

She started to feel the sting of the salty tears that began to well up into her royal blue eyes. She quickly and violently slammed the dagger's blade back into its hidden sheath with an auditable clack sound. Just as quickly as the tears began to well up, she forced them back causing them to never fall. She hated weakness. She hated being weak. She hated for anyone to see her weak or weakness within her. But worst of all she hated to see weakness in herself. Since her mother, father, all her brothers and Rasler's deaths, she had mentally bared herself from ever being weak and showing her weaknesses which meant she would never allow the tears to fall again. And so far she had at least stayed true to herself on that aspect, but the weakness part… she had failed herself miserably.

'Really, who am I kidding? I can't even protect myself from a drunken solider let alone Vossler.'

That simple fact had been proven brutally true to her that night.