Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to this feast of literary ingenuity (however, I really don't care for Todd McCaffrey's work, so he doesn't count). However, I rather like to play in it.

They tell me blood runs thick in brothers.
I wonder if that's true.
Does it spill thinner in those whose
Noble blood runs blue?

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IV
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Helana would not lower herself to utter her displeasure, having, like many other Hold-bred women, the firm notion that such ill-mannered displays were far beneath her station in life. However, her mate was not so restrained. Despite his talent in Holding, his equable manner in dealing with all matters of business, and his passion for Fishing, Ranrel was at a loss of how to behave where his wards were concerned. Although they had come under his protection more than a Turn ago and he had fathered a girl who was now sixteen Turns, he still laboured under the misapprehension that children understood measures taken for their own good. In fact, so firmly did he believe this that he had allowed Darrin – D'rin – to stand as Candidate on the Sands, vaguely believing that the boy would refuse Impression out of a well-bred sense of duty.

The Lady Holder of Tillek brooded. It was eminently clear what this delusion had cost them. Although Ranrel had never voiced his disappointment at not fathering a son, the wound had continued to linger painfully in her heart, stifled by ingrained beliefs that silence upon matters such as this had its own recompense. Helana was an able Holder's wife. She had thrown herself into managing the Hold's domestic affairs with quiet zeal at the beginning of their Turns together, and had never once faltered in her duty in that respect. Her first pregnancy had been only months after the couple's espousal, and it had progressed with unheard of ease, producing two healthy girls. No son appeared. It was as though, having been so fruitful in the beginning, her womb had closed. The girls, of which only one survived past infancy, were named Fraya and Drina after their respective grandmothers. No one could have faulted Ranrel's treatment of his surviving daughter. He was not dismissive, but his spoiling of their only child had been the whim of a dutiful sire, not of an indulgent father. It would have been easier to bear, thought Helana savagely, had he not been so obnoxiously proud of his niece. A niece, whose father he had quarrelled with so gravely, at that!

No doubt the girl herself did not remember the occasion where she had first come to her uncle's notice, but the Lady Holder did. Although the weather had been fine, Ranrel had remained in his study, attending to a business proposition with his brother. None of the three brothers had amended their differences since Ranrel's election to Lord Holder, but her husband had been gifted with enough common sense to realise that a fraternal feud was hardly what his sorely neglected lands required. An uneasy truce had been born between the three, although it was somewhat easier between the young Lord Holder and Terentel. The older man tended to bring his young daughter with him whenever he came to talk to his brother, and it had always been clear that he adored her - though Ranrel had never understood why until that particular afternoon.

They were interrupted by a high, insistent voice that had an unmistakeably imperious tone. On investigating, Ranrel had come upon a tiny child of about four Turns who, by means unknown, had managed to mount his own personal runner. The nervous, bony beast moved nary a muscle while his niece hotly denied the runnerman's broad claims that she was too young to ride such a "puriless mount". Her cries of 'I tan!' had been indulged by the swarthy man, but by the time the Lord Holder arrived on the scene he found a much amused crowd watching as she berated the hapless individual in a manner which left him sweating under her remonstrance. Terentel's chuckle behind him recalled him from his astonishment, and although the pair left soon afterwards, Ranrel had never forgotten the scene, which he recounted with some animation to his spouse. As Fraya had done nothing quite so startling, Helana forebore to tell him that their daughter's lessons with Harper Tellon promised to yield a rather lovely little voice. But she was hurt, that he could be so animated about another man's child, and not his own rather quiet offspring.

Then had been the argument, which did not bring any of Terentel's kin back to Tillek for almost nine Turns. Terentel had been returning from the main Gather at Fort Hold, a festival which lasted more than a sevenday, and of which the journey to reach it was of similar duration. It wasn't known why the Holder's placid wagonbeast started, or how the family's dray came to be shattered at the bottom of a cliff's steep incline, but it was mainly assumed that a moment of inattention on the treacherous path had been their downfall... quite literally. The bodies of Terentel and his woman had been found two days later, with their only daughter clearly incoherent with both grief and a severe blow to the head which had left her quite insensible. She would claim, later, that she had no recollection of the accident, or how she came to be with them rather than with her foster-mother. Most accepted the explanation, convinced inwardly that the girl had lost her sense along with her hearing. The dolphins, of whom Ranrel had the greatest respect since Master Dolphineer Readis had come to reside in the Fishcraft Hall at Tillek, had not been able to sense what blocked her hearing, but as Healer Nollis had stated, their abilities were not topographical. Darrin, who had been sent to foster almost two Turns before at Igen, heard of his parents' deaths with surprising equanimity, but his sister's disability disturbed him quite unnecessarily.

Ranrel could only attribute the fervour with which he applied himself to helping the girl communicate to brotherly affection, if somewhat misguided. The child understood directions well enough if you spoke clearly and at a normal pace, and written instruction sufficed if that did not work. He anticipated her arrival at Tillek with the keenness that only an old memory can produce, but the long-limbed, awkward girl who became his ward seemed to bear no resemblance to that spirited child. In fact, she was quieter than his beautiful, petite daughter, who was absorbed in her music and anxiously awaiting his approval for her to apprentice at the Harper Hall. Fraya's burning ambition was only exacerbated when she learned that her awkward cousin had been learning her tuning at the famed Hall for almost three Turns.

It would be unnecessarily cruel to remind the girl daily of what she had lost, and so Fraya was sent to the Harper Hall without further delay, before her father's "unfortunate" niece arrived. She and Sannel had never yet met. However, what Ranrel had not anticipated was Helana's resentment at being required to look after another man's child. He assumed she was glad for the company in the absence of her daughter, and as she never voiced her irritation, he continued to believe it. If Sannel's plain features looked at their most morose after an audience with his mate, he attributed it to the recent loss of her family, and missing the company of her brother. He encouraged her to send letters, but when he asked indulgently after the last letter she had received from Darrin, she would bite her lip and pretend she hadn't heard. He was not to know that when she wrote to her brother, the runners were inevitably occupied with more important tasks. And if he sighted her darning her clothes, he supposed that Helana was helping her to improve on Hold tasks.

Helana knew his misguided thinking, and felt no compunction to correct him. She had struggled to maintain her normal composure in the daily reminder that Darrin, and not one of her own offspring, had been chosen as Ranrel's heir. Her nephew's sister seemed to have no redeeming qualities, being neither beautiful like her own daughter, nor able to gossip about Hold matters. It was all too easy to offer her a chilly reception, and thenceforth to ensure that they spent only the barest amount of time in each other's company by adding to the breach between them. Sannel, whose bewilderment at the recent events in her young life had afforded her the hope that her aunt would be a maternal individual, was quickly relieved of the notion of such a relationship. Helana had very definite qualities in mind for any individual admitted into her confidence, and her awkward niece possessed none of them.

Although she exulted at Darrin's - D'rin's - ineligibility for inheritance, Helana knew some of her mate's anxieties on the matter, and shared them. For as awful as it had been to suffer Darrin as heir, it would be infinitely worse if Blesserel's line replaced their own upon Ranrel's death. The man's insufferable eldest son lived with unfortunate similarities to his sire's dissident youth, and as Blesserel had not mended his ways yet, it was not uncommon for her to believe that neither would his seed. His four other lusty sons were not much better, so this dilemma could - and she was only being pragmatic in examining the possibilities, she told herself - result in a feud that would scar the prosperous Hold and Hall for generations. Blue Drosk had been busy flitting in and out of Tillek for the past Turn as Ranrel sought to disinherit the only near males who could lay claim to the Hold, and although she disliked such nervous, fluttery creatures as firelizards were, she appreciated the necessity.

It wouldn't do, not at all. It was with decisiveness that Helana took up the pen and began to write. When she had sprinkled some of her personal scented sand over the missive to dry the ink, there was a moment of uncertainty as she sought to convince herself of her actions' worth. Her fingers folded the paper slowly - some new variety by the Master Craftsman, no doubt - but the soft blue wax she imprinted with her signet ring left no doubt that it was her own work. She decided that to summon Wendel would draw unnecessary attention to the deed, and so headed towards the runnerstalls with her usual measured pace.

Minutes later, a small, swift runnerbeast was seen, heading south.

I'm so sorry this took so long. Exams are my life at the moment. Thank you all for your continued patience! - the next chapter is already drafted, and I just need to proof-read it. Please leave a comment on how you like this - I know there's no p.o.v with Sannel or Palma this chapter, but I felt this was a necessary bit of background that needed to be told. =P I enjoyed writing it, actually, although I had trouble with getting it to flow.

Much love,
Rachel