N is for Nemesis
As much as she hated Gwaren, she knew where she stood in its hierarchy.
It was just her and Mama in the palace in Gwaren, especially in that last year- there were few nobles in the town to begin with, and even fewer with the teyrn always away and the teyrna abed, dying. She spent most of her time with Mother Sophie, or her tutor, or Mama's chambermaids; she was the lady of the house, in fact if not in name, and did as she wished.
In Denerim, she doesn't fit in at all. There are so many people in the palace here, so many nobles and their simpering wives, quarrelsome sons and empty-headed daughters all fighting for the favor of the king, and every single one of them would love to see her fall.
The girls, especially, whisper as she passes.
She is the crown prince's betrothed, and someday she will be queen. For now, though, she is a common-born girl (even if Father is the king's most trusted advisor and a noble, now, it doesn't change the fact that her grandfathers were a farmer-turned-outlaw and a cabinetmaker) with a spotty chin who plays with swords.
(She is too busy with the training dummy to notice that everyone else has stopped, and only when the weaponsmaster clears his throat does she turn around.
King Maric stands in the doorway of the salle; she cannot curtsey well with a blade in her hand and so she kneels.
"Your Majesty."
"You're your father's daughter in truth, my girl." He laughs, and motions her to her feet. "Show me that strike again.")
She is gangly, awkward, unladylike, indelicate; Anora has heard all the words so many times, and so many others less polite and spoken more quietly. Only some of them are true. She's grown out of her dresses twice in the last year, and as she descends the stairs to the dining room she pulls at her sleeves- too short, again. She'll have to ask Father to send for the tailors in the morning.
Cailan is waiting at the door to escort her in to dinner, scrubbed pink and shining after his earlier misadventure with the inkwell (she told him not to turn it over, just to add a little water instead, but he was quite insistent). He holds out his hand to her, grinning, and they start into the room-
-and she stumbles over someone's outstretched foot, and falls flat on her face between the two long tables.
The room goes silent as Cailan crouches next to her. She's lost a slipper beneath the bench, and when she sits up the blood runs from her nose to stain the front of her gown. There is someone laughing, to her right, but when she turns her head to look her eyes blur with tears.
"Stupid commoner," a voice hisses, just loud enough, "can't even walk properly."
She feels suddenly, terribly nauseous, shakes Cailan's hand off her shoulder and goes running, barefoot, all the way back to her rooms.
When Father finds her, she is sitting in her bedroom in her undershift, pinching her nose with one hand and prodding at the fire with the cast-iron poker. The dress burns merrily. She doesn't look up.
"Anora, are you all right?"
She doesn't answer, but when he sits down beside her she sets the poker on the hearth and rests her head on his shoulder