I sat down on my bed, in my own rooms again, at last, feeling curiously empty. I had been dreading this moment ever since I woke up in Tronjheim – the moment when I met my mother again.
The last time that I had spoken to her properly – as a daughter to her mother – we'd been arguing. But then, there was nothing especially odd about that, was there? I laughed bitterly. No, my mother and I had always argued, much as my mother and father had always argued, but there was one difference between my father and I.
My mother would never have refused to acknowledge my father as family.
Oh no, she loved him.
I sighed, standing and restlessly walking around the room, picking up books and then putting them down again, still...unsettled by what had happened.
I had walked in there, ready to be treated as I always had been, and dreading it. I mean, I had gone missing, and they had found Fäo – I winced, still finding it painful to think of him – my guards slain. I hadn't wanted her to just treat me as an ambassador, but I hadn't been expecting her to...well, to accept me again.
I wasn't sure I was ready for us to be family again.
70 years is a very long time, after all. When I first left I hadn't expected us to be estranged for so long, but as the years passed, and she was still as distant as ever, well, I began to think of her as family less and less, until she was just a vague and distant figure that I had never really known, residing under the title of 'queen'.
I became more of an ambassador and less and less of a princess...or a daughter, and she became more of a queen and less of a mother.
I could still vaguely remember my father. I could still remember his voice and his laughter, but as time passed his face became more and more difficult to recall. His death was the catalyst, I think. My mother was broken by grief, and I was still too young to understand.
That was when she started to become distant. I never understood it when I was growing up, never understood why her work and her duty became more important to her than I was.
But I understand it now.
Oh yes, I thought grimly. I understand it now.
You see, I had far, far too much of my father in me.
And that was the one thing that my mother could not bear.
This is the first part of three one-shots, all set on the night when Arya returns to Ellesmera.
