Tuesday, December 21, 476 H.E.

Lower portions of Corus

Nibel kicked his left leg up and towards the right, forcing Aknil to drop roll over his head and pop up on the other side and put his arms behind his cousins back as he used the momentum from his kick to flip himself backwards and in spiral. He landed on his feet them both pages performed of series of kicks and flips until they were side by side performing back flips and barrel rolls to the crowds applause. With a final flip the tall, dark Bazhirs landed on their knees arms out encouraging the crowds.

Aranna and Jalisa clapped and 'whooped' along with the best of them and laughed as both boys continued their impromptu performance with more acrobatics, juggling and a player act. The two pages finished with their favorite juggling routine and bowed to the crowds applause before making their way to them through the crowd putting hands on children's heads and passing a few coppers to the more desperate looking youths.

"you know once you retire I think you could become the two highest paid court jesters in Tortall" Jalisa said clapping them both on their backs as they headed again down the street.

"What and miss all the fun we have with our dear Lady Kel?" Aknil did his best to sound horrified as he pulled on the thick winter clothing we held for them.

"That would be terrible!" joked Nibel "I would pine without our kind and gentle lady to lovingly guide us into knighthood"

"Oh yes we have our fair Lady to thank for a few of those tricks, that extra 'love giving' sessions last week really put us in to the next level of entertainment"

All four of them busted up laughing at the idea. The Lady Kel's new idea of training this December was to face your fears in every way possible, while keeping you as busy a possible. Most of the pages would have rather camped in the freezing temperatures and the 4 feet of snow that had accumulated recently then faced their fears as only she would have them do. Afraid of illness? Go learn from Sir Neal about how to halt the raging epidemic of illness in the Lower City. Afraid of the Dark? Enjoy the midnight training sessions in the oldest apparently haunted part of the castle. Afraid of losing those you love? Enjoy spending time making plans for when those around you die. Spiders? Up in the attic. Blood? The butchers shop. Getting Hurt? The Kings Own murderous new 4th company's training regime with Sir Warren of DiamondPeak where you have a near 100% chance of having at least 3 trips to the Own's healers. You fear it The Lady Kel made you face it all week there was no escaping your fate.

The pages had been in a near constant depression because of the training but no one had quit. The Lady Kel was surprisingly kind to those who 'tapped out' they merely went out on a rider's two week training camp out in the snow. Those who struck through it got the week off and except for serving and a few training sessions, they were allowed to take liberty. They were able to go into Corus, attend midwinter festivities and if your family was in town, spend time with them. For many of the Pages it had been their best midwinter ever. For Aranna however, her first midwinter as a page was filled with devastating disappointments.

The Lady Kel had called them all into her office before 'hell week' as they had come to call it and told them that 'no, they were not going to be able to go home or any amount of time to say goodbye to their rapidly ailing father'. The four of them were devastated and not even the news of their new brothers Durham and Duncan and the wonderful portraits they received that had even the four of them painted in next to their parents stopped the despair Aranna felt in the pit of her stomach.

Her friends did their best to counteract the depression that fell on her. The twins regularly did their circus acts both in private and in front of large crowds so she could watch. Jalisa used her snide sarcastic jokes and abusive personality to torture all of them in order to make her laugh. Darien even added few jokes when things got too serious. Derrick with assistance from Jarred both tried to involve her with all the practical jokes they attempted to come up with only succeeding one, which involved food in the wall hangings. Of course the Lady Kel found out and had everyone cataloguing every bit of food they had used, who cooked it, who purchased it, who ordered it, where the money came from and how to make it.

When her friend were busy and when ever she was up, which was most of the time no she spent throwing herself into fighting, regularly attending the fight sessions and taking on multiple opponents at once not holding back in anyway. She broke her arm in one difficult match with the biggest and oldest squire of the year Richard of Wendar. She herself broke the limbs, noses and fingers of several pages and squires like the Linley brother and sister, Copperlake's heir, WinterBrook and Eastdell. Other times she spent flying until she could barely flap her wings, finding the most dangerous places to fly. Going on the steepest of drives towards cobblestone roads and only to pull up so low her chest feathers scraped against the smoothed stone anything to get that rush of feeling that a deep depression prevented. The only thing that made her pull up was the shining light of being a knight and she held to that dream as the drowning does a piece of wood.


Saturday, February 19, 477 H.E.

The Harbor

Rajmuat in the Copper Isles

The dawns earliest light barely crested the horizon, casting eerie shadows upon the people assembled at the docks. Tall, slim men with gangly limbs dressed in their finest stood poised on the docks on either side next to small flames wielding long slender bows and lit arrow fitted to the string. Bask on the beach the only sound was the distant sound of pounding waves on the rocks outside the harbor while the group dressed in black huddled together for warmth and comfort. A small group was set further apart from the main, mostly short with a few caretakers and the closest friends stood watching as a small slight woman dressed in a Tortallian style dress and veil pushed a small boat from the shore into the ocean. A small push of wind blew the boat into the middle of the harbor and eons seemed to pass in silence before she raised her arm and numbly let it drop to her side.

Twenty flaming arrows released as one and landed on the boat imbedding into the wood with a heavy thunk. For an instant id did nothing, a gust of wind seemed to blow on the flames. Then the oil and tinder ignited engulfing the small vessel with a wush. One of the infants let out a small cry before instantly being hushed. The main part of the group high on the shore left shortly after the boat was fully engulfed in flame, moving quietly heading back to the warmth and breakfast at the gray palace.

It was only when the flames were almost dead when the children of the family headed back to the palace, the little ones hands were becoming chilled in those of their elders. However their mother waited, holding fast to the rocks closest to the smoldering boat ignoring the cold and wind buffeting her dress for hours as her husbands body burned into ash and the fire died. As twenty crow warriors went to retrieve the boat in little crafts of their own, conversing only in quiet crow noises. As the ashes were gathered and carefully taken to a small platform. As the ashes were evenly divided into 14 parts and put into special capsules. As all the ashes were taken up to the palace. As the crows all left in search of their home nests.

Aly stood at that spot as the sun raised higher and higher into the sky. The winds picked up and clouds formed overhead threatening a storm. The sun reached its peak and began to fall again into the horizon when she turned from the sea and regretfully returned to place that once held all she loved.


Friday, March 11, 477 H.E.

37Th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen

Page Wing of the Royal Palace

Kel looked the small package in front of her, it was tiny the size of her children at birth but with none of the joy. She stared at it with dread in the pit of her stomach, not daring to touch it to confirm its reality, and wanting to put off what she had to do for as long as possible but knowing that she could not.

There was a knock at the door and she bid them to enter. Four pale pages stood before her wearing the colorful uniforms of the pages that did little to hide how stiff they were and the thick tension in the air. All their hair looked unkempt with deep circles under their eyes. Aranna's broken arm and cut up face attested to her recent destructive behavior. Newal's untidy uniform, ashen face and stiff shoulder set attributed to the number of fights he had gotten into recently, and the amount of time he spent training. Both the twins were hunched in on them selves but separate standing with their brother between them seeming just as introspective as they had been for the last 3 months. Hands shaking and their eyes set to the ground they all knew what they had been called in here for and were merely waiting for her to say it aloud.

Kel stood and swiftly cut open the package and set the four envelopes on the desk each bearing the name of one of the pages in front of them. Four sets of eyes locked on to the packages in front of them

"This package came in this afternoon from the Copper Isles" Kel took a deep breath "I am sorry but I am afraid that your father has passed away, these were left to each of you"

Junila took a shuddering breath and hesitantly reached her arm out to her bag then quickly grabbed it and bolted from the room. They other two girls followed suit and left Newal standing fist and eyes clenched. For a long while Kel watched him knowing when a boy needed his space, then she began to move around her desk maternal instinct demanding she comfort a boy in his time of need. His red tear-filled eyes snapped open wildly and grabbed the package and left her office before she had time to move more then a few steps. She returned to her seat and sat down heavily staring at the letter from the pages mother that informed her in detached tones of the death of her husband and of his wishes for his children and instructions for her if she would allow those wishes to become reality.


The return to her room seemed a million times longer and more difficult. Her feet were led bricks she could hardly even shuffle across the floors or up the stairs. Her legs were wobbly like they would not support her. Her body felt like one massive ache and her left hand seemed to burn from the envelope that she could hardly grip. She felt faint lost and could hardly focus on what she saw, she passed things in the passages but could not register what they were, what they said or respond. Her throat was clenched and she could barely breathe. When Aranna finally reached her room and opened her door she found her mind was completely blank.

Nothing surfaced in her mind as far as thought or what to she just leaned against her door staring at the wall in front of her. The fire that had been a constant companion to her through the cold Tortallian winter shed no warmth that her numb skin could feel. The muffled noises of the castle around her that she had gotten used to seemed non-existent. The world around her faded and all she could focus on was a spot on the white wall in front of her that was no different then any other.

A soft knock on her door whether a second later or an age made her surface from her stare and she wiped the few tears that had slid down her cheeks away before answering the door. Her brother stood on the other side. His face and eyes were red, his hair stood up at odd places. His pages uniform was torn and ruffled as if her had been tearing at it.

They stared at each other for a long while before she blinked and they were wrapped in each others embrace weeping like they hadn't since their Father had first gotten injured. Two other sets of arms wrapped around them as the twins made joined in. Some how the door was closed and they moved into her room crying and hiccuping on to the bed.


When the sun rose again Aranna's eyes were burning. They had watched the golden light fade from her room as the sun set, then return gray and pale.

"Do you remember that time that Ma had to go to the Yamani Isles so it was just us and Da, right after Myles was born?" She whispered to Newal trying not to wake the twins.

The ghost of a smile pasted across his lips "He took us to the market and we brought so many shiny things that the room glowed with even one candle"

"And we accidentally dropped Lokian into puddle of mud"

He chuckled quietly "we took him to Da where he dropped him into a rain bucket"

"Lokian had been crying when we gave him to Da but stopped when Da dropped him."

"Da just laughed but Lokian messed his diaper." They faded into silence remembering the fond memory

"What about that time we decided to hide from Ma after the triplets were born and she could not find us anywhere?"

Newal laughed more earnestly "Da found us stuck in a barrel with fish down on the docks and rolled us all the way back to Ma"

"He acted like we were a delivery for the celebration we were having that night."

"Yeah that was great. Do you remember how he used to play Bull dogs with us?"

"Oh Yes we would try to ride him and he would bring us down and tickle us and blow on our stomachs"

"Ma made us stop when we got too big"

"But Da still let us play when she was not around."

They traded stories back and forth all day, the twins joining in when they woke up. They laughed and cried and held to each other throughout the day eating the small amount of food that she had stashed away ignoring the soft knocks that sounded on the door at times. When they fell asleep that night Aranna felt closer to her siblings then she had since before they left and just a tiny bit better about loosing her father.


At some point on Sunday a soft knock at the door drew Dunia out of the comfortable nest of her siblings and to open the door. Jet was standing outside with large plate of the most delicious smelling thing she had smelled since she got to Tortall.

"Jet, wow thank you," she said as she took it from the other page.

"I have a lilac and puce colored toad in my left trouser pocket" He said in a surprisingly deep but smooth voice before he turned around and walked away. She blinked at the first words he had ever said to her before laughing so hard her siblings looked at her in wonder.