I think this is chapter 3...I not sure, so sorry if it's not.... I like
this chapter.... and ya'll the journey went by really fast and I'm sorry if
you don't like that but the journey is boring and I want everything to
happen in tortal not on the way there. so thanks for bearing with me
through the boring parts, it gets better now!! I like this part....hehe
tooddles~
Chapter 3
Tortal
The next morning we woke up at dawn and packed up all of our supplies. We went to the common room and got rolls and cheese from a sleepy servent in the process of cleaning mugs. We walked out to the stables balancing our haversacks and eating at the same time. The stable boy jumped up eagerly and saddled our horses. I tossed him a coin for his speed and Will and I climbed up on our horses and continued on our way.
"So how far is Tortal from here?" I asked Will.
"I'm pretty sure that we will be there by the afternoon."
"Great, then I guess we should find that tavern, the Dancing Dove was it?"
"Yeah, well let's get going." Will urged his horse into a gentle trot and I followed his example.
Around midday they reached the outskirts of the city. A tall wall seemed to wrap itself around the huge city. When they finally reached the gates the 2 gaurds ushered them in, not even questioning them.
"I bet that if they knew who we were they wouldn't have just waved us in like that." I said, grinning at Will.
"Yeah, seriously." a voice at my horse's shoulder agreed.
I looked down startled. A man was standing, looking up at me through a curtain of blonde hair, he had startling green eyes.
"Hey, you must be Jay's cousin." I said, passing a look with Will, who grinned at me.
"We figured you'd find us," Will commented dryly.
"Well, you figured right! I'm Jeff, I'm in the same business as my cousin Jay is, he asked me to keep an eye on you while you were here, and me and my friends will do just that! Now, first line of business, we want you two to go to the palace as royalty, which you are of course, but you don't look like royalty in those clothes now do you? So to the tailer's right now, you will be appearing at the castle tomorrow morning. Jay some how convinced you're father that you two are doing the right thing, so he hasn't sent people to come and drag you out of here....yet. He wrote me a letter saying that if you two put one foot, one toe out of line he would come himself and take you home. Jay also convinced you're father to send a peace treaty, and a letter which I have, that states that under the Goddess herself that the letter concerning the envoy never made it out of our country and that we have his dead body and the unopened letter to prove it. He claimes in the letter that he sent his own two children to represent his "trust" of Tortal." At this last part Jeff snorted, and I laughed.
"Ah, here's the tailer's." Jeff said, motioning to a small building close to the looming castle walls.
He lead the way inside. The inside of the house was considerable better looking than the outside. A plump older woman and a young woman greeted them.
"Hello you two, you look exactly alike, has anyone ever told you that?" The plump woman asked.
"Well...yeah, we're twins." Will said, giving the woman a strange look.
"Of course ye are! Jeff put their horses in the stables, and bring their things, they are staying here, correct? Not at that old tavern of yours!" She said.
"Yes, mother, no they are staying here tonight." Jeff walked out of the door trying to reserve what dignity he had left.
Will caught my eye and I grinned at him.
"Oh my goodness, how rude of me! I'm Besty and this is my daughter Alanna, named after the knight of course. Let's get you two in a bath, and then I'll find some fancy clothes for you to go to the castle of course." Besty said.
"oh, er, I'm Isa and this is Will. And, I would really enjoy a bath!" I said looking grateful.
"Good, good." Besty said, "Alanna, show them their baths and rooms."
Alanna ushered them silently through a door down a small corrider to two bedrooms across from each other, each with a screened area and a bath full of hot water. I thanked her, closed the door, yanked off my clothes and jumped into the bath, covering my body in soap washing everything from the hair on my head to my toes, scrubbing off all of the dirt out of my hair.
Finally I dragged myself out of the bath and wrapped the robes waiting for me. I rubbed my strawberry hair, and it immediatly became ringlety. I walked out from behind the screen to find Alanna waiting for me, standing in front of the bed, which had 15 elegant dresses waiting to be tried on.
"Hi, here's some underclothing for you to wear." She handed me soft under garments, and I went back behind the screen and hastly but on all of the stuff, adjusting the top slightly smaller. It was kind of low, but I figured it was for all types of dresses. I walked back out into the room, and Alanna began explaining the dresses, handing me the first one which was a deep blue, it wasn't silk but it was extremely soft. The front had light blue laces starting at the waist and going up to the top of the dress. It was very pretty. I slipped it on and laced up the front tying it in a small bow.
"I see you know how to deal with the latest fashions, many people have no idea how to even put on the under garments, much less the dress itself." Alanna said, smiling.
"Even though dresses have never been one of my favorite passtimes to learn about my mother made sure that I always kept up with the latest fashions, she'd consider it an embarassment if I didn't." I said, shrugging.
"Well, I think that was very wise of your mother. So, how do you like this dress? We picked the right size. You're small waist will make many women despise you, and men like you." She stated matter of factly.
"No, no one would despise me because of how I look, I look to much like my brother." I said, unlacing the dress.
"You look like you're brother would if he was a girl, which isn't a bad thing, that's a very good thing. You both have lovely eyelashes, I envy them." Alanna said, handing me a deep green dress, which matched perfectly with my eyes, it seemed to be the most elegant dress on the bed and I fell in love with it immediatly. It had small little saphires on the hem at the top and at the very bottom of the dress which touched the floor slightly. This dress was laced in the back instead of the front and it was silk. A ball gown. The sleeves were long and small saphires formed a vine winding itself from the end of each sleeve around the neck and back. The delicate leaves made it look quite real.
"When will I need THIS?" I asked as Alanna laced up the back and tied it. I twirled around. The dress fit me perfectly, flowing over my hips and spreading out wonderfully.
"It's wonderful." I breathed.
"Well, they will probably have a ball for you two, if they accept the treaty, and it will be a winter ball of course. So you will need an appropriate dress. It looks quite lovely, if I do say so myself." Alanna said happily.
I tried on the rest of the clothes and then Alanna and I put them all into a trunk that Jeff had provided, along with more under garments. We left out two dresses, a pale yellow one with roses and the bottom and a simple light blue dress with pink flowers on the bottom hem, which was very light and comfortable. I slipped on the blue dress and walked across the hall to Will's room and tapped on the door. Will opened it and looked at me, his eyes widening.
"Wow, you're wearing a dress! Why?"
"Shut up, Will! I wore dresses at home.....occasionally..."
"Ha! Yeah! More like never!" he said, grinning widely at me.
"You seem to have forgotten how hard I can punch!" I said hitting him hard in the shoulder.
"Oww!! You jerk! I'll get you back when you least expect it!"
"Yeah...right....Jeff invited us to eat dinner with him at his tavern. He said to meet us outside now. Let's go." I said, pulling Will out of his room.
We walked outside into the failing light and found Jeff leaning against the side of the house, he motioned us silently, and we followed him down the road leading to the castle. A little ways down they came to a tavern with a sign sticking out labeled the Dancing Dove.
"My second home!" Jeff sighed.
"It looks...ah...great.." Will said, looking at me he whispered, "It's exactly like Jay's tavern."
I grinned, "hey, that's a good thing, right?"
"Puh, not really."
"oh, well." I yanked Will in.
When we walked in behind Jeff the tavern went completely silent.
"Hey! New allies, everyone! Friend of my 'dear' cousin Jay." Jeff said, everyone laughed.
"A friend of yours is a friend of ours! Have a beer kids!" Someone shouted from the back.
I laughed. Will and I were ushered over to a long table, and Jeff sat at the end. Will went to one side and I went to the other, sitting down. A tall guy with curly dark blond hair sat down next to me, he shook the hair out of his deep blue eyes and smiled at me.
"Hey, I'm Darian."
"Hi, I'm Isabel, but please just call me Isa."
He looked at me, laughter in his eyes, "Just call me Dar. I hate my name."
"Really? I kind of like that name, honestly." I said, smiling.
He couldn't answer me because plates were put in front of us, and I of course began stuffing myself with the delicious food. I was suddenly interupted by something hitting me hard in the head. I looked around for the thing that hit me in the head. I found a spoon on the bench and picked it up, looking around. Will was sitting a little down the table from me, looking way to innocent. I memorized where he was and threw the spoon hard, not even looking, I grabbed my spoon and start eating the soup again.
"Did I just see that?" Dar asked, looking amazed.
I didn't answer him immediatly but stuck out my hand, to catch the spoon Will had just thrown back at me.
"He caught it, did he? Well, I'll just fake him out this time." I said, half to myself, half to Dar.
I pretended to throw the spoon and Will put up his hand to catch it, then I really threw the spoon, hitting him accuratly in the head. The force knocked Will off the bench, he lay there for a minute and the room went silent, he then started laughing uncontrolably. I grinned and walked over to him helping him up. He said threats to me inbetween laughs.
"Isa, hhehehehe, you'll, haha, pppaayyy...hehehehe, for this!! HAhaha."
I looked at him and shook my head laughing. We sat back down and resumed eating acting like nothing had happened. People just stared at us for a minute, bewildered and then suddenly talk errupted again. Though Dar was still staring at me. After about 1 minute of staring I finally turned to him.
"What?" I asked.
"Where did you learn to aim like that?" He asked curiously.
"Uhhh...er...my parents are over protective and they made us take lessons starting when we were 5 so that we could defend ourselves any way possible. And then of course Will and always fight each other, jokingly of course, but we're really close, we tell each other everything. People say that we have the same personality, and think alike. I guess we do because when ever I sneak around the pal- I mean our place Will and I always meet up in some secret place, even if we don't mean to... I guess we're just like that." I said, finishing it kind of sadly, I couldn't believe I almost let palace slip but we figured it be best if we didn't tell people who we were, not until tomorrow, at least.
Dar gave me a curious look.
"Yeah, my parents made me learn to defend myself too, but hey it might come useful one day." He shrugged.
"Hey, Dar, you might not want to flirt with this one 'til you find out more about her." Jeff said, winking at me.
I raised my eyebrows, giving him a 'ShutUP!' look. He took the hint and turned quickly to the person next to him, talking. I looked at Will and he nodded at flicked his head towards the door. I waved to Jeff and said goodbye to Dar.
"Well we gotta go, see you around Dar." I said, walking out the door with Will right behind me.
We walked down the dark street, our trained eyes looking in every shadow. I felt a prickling in my neck. I looked at Will, he nodded and I casually took out my two hidden daggers, which I always carried around. Hiding them in the folds in my dress, I pressed the blue stones embedded in them and felt the vines embedded around their hilts, which I always did before a fight.
When a could arm snaked around my neck I was prepared, so was Will.
Chapter 3
Tortal
The next morning we woke up at dawn and packed up all of our supplies. We went to the common room and got rolls and cheese from a sleepy servent in the process of cleaning mugs. We walked out to the stables balancing our haversacks and eating at the same time. The stable boy jumped up eagerly and saddled our horses. I tossed him a coin for his speed and Will and I climbed up on our horses and continued on our way.
"So how far is Tortal from here?" I asked Will.
"I'm pretty sure that we will be there by the afternoon."
"Great, then I guess we should find that tavern, the Dancing Dove was it?"
"Yeah, well let's get going." Will urged his horse into a gentle trot and I followed his example.
Around midday they reached the outskirts of the city. A tall wall seemed to wrap itself around the huge city. When they finally reached the gates the 2 gaurds ushered them in, not even questioning them.
"I bet that if they knew who we were they wouldn't have just waved us in like that." I said, grinning at Will.
"Yeah, seriously." a voice at my horse's shoulder agreed.
I looked down startled. A man was standing, looking up at me through a curtain of blonde hair, he had startling green eyes.
"Hey, you must be Jay's cousin." I said, passing a look with Will, who grinned at me.
"We figured you'd find us," Will commented dryly.
"Well, you figured right! I'm Jeff, I'm in the same business as my cousin Jay is, he asked me to keep an eye on you while you were here, and me and my friends will do just that! Now, first line of business, we want you two to go to the palace as royalty, which you are of course, but you don't look like royalty in those clothes now do you? So to the tailer's right now, you will be appearing at the castle tomorrow morning. Jay some how convinced you're father that you two are doing the right thing, so he hasn't sent people to come and drag you out of here....yet. He wrote me a letter saying that if you two put one foot, one toe out of line he would come himself and take you home. Jay also convinced you're father to send a peace treaty, and a letter which I have, that states that under the Goddess herself that the letter concerning the envoy never made it out of our country and that we have his dead body and the unopened letter to prove it. He claimes in the letter that he sent his own two children to represent his "trust" of Tortal." At this last part Jeff snorted, and I laughed.
"Ah, here's the tailer's." Jeff said, motioning to a small building close to the looming castle walls.
He lead the way inside. The inside of the house was considerable better looking than the outside. A plump older woman and a young woman greeted them.
"Hello you two, you look exactly alike, has anyone ever told you that?" The plump woman asked.
"Well...yeah, we're twins." Will said, giving the woman a strange look.
"Of course ye are! Jeff put their horses in the stables, and bring their things, they are staying here, correct? Not at that old tavern of yours!" She said.
"Yes, mother, no they are staying here tonight." Jeff walked out of the door trying to reserve what dignity he had left.
Will caught my eye and I grinned at him.
"Oh my goodness, how rude of me! I'm Besty and this is my daughter Alanna, named after the knight of course. Let's get you two in a bath, and then I'll find some fancy clothes for you to go to the castle of course." Besty said.
"oh, er, I'm Isa and this is Will. And, I would really enjoy a bath!" I said looking grateful.
"Good, good." Besty said, "Alanna, show them their baths and rooms."
Alanna ushered them silently through a door down a small corrider to two bedrooms across from each other, each with a screened area and a bath full of hot water. I thanked her, closed the door, yanked off my clothes and jumped into the bath, covering my body in soap washing everything from the hair on my head to my toes, scrubbing off all of the dirt out of my hair.
Finally I dragged myself out of the bath and wrapped the robes waiting for me. I rubbed my strawberry hair, and it immediatly became ringlety. I walked out from behind the screen to find Alanna waiting for me, standing in front of the bed, which had 15 elegant dresses waiting to be tried on.
"Hi, here's some underclothing for you to wear." She handed me soft under garments, and I went back behind the screen and hastly but on all of the stuff, adjusting the top slightly smaller. It was kind of low, but I figured it was for all types of dresses. I walked back out into the room, and Alanna began explaining the dresses, handing me the first one which was a deep blue, it wasn't silk but it was extremely soft. The front had light blue laces starting at the waist and going up to the top of the dress. It was very pretty. I slipped it on and laced up the front tying it in a small bow.
"I see you know how to deal with the latest fashions, many people have no idea how to even put on the under garments, much less the dress itself." Alanna said, smiling.
"Even though dresses have never been one of my favorite passtimes to learn about my mother made sure that I always kept up with the latest fashions, she'd consider it an embarassment if I didn't." I said, shrugging.
"Well, I think that was very wise of your mother. So, how do you like this dress? We picked the right size. You're small waist will make many women despise you, and men like you." She stated matter of factly.
"No, no one would despise me because of how I look, I look to much like my brother." I said, unlacing the dress.
"You look like you're brother would if he was a girl, which isn't a bad thing, that's a very good thing. You both have lovely eyelashes, I envy them." Alanna said, handing me a deep green dress, which matched perfectly with my eyes, it seemed to be the most elegant dress on the bed and I fell in love with it immediatly. It had small little saphires on the hem at the top and at the very bottom of the dress which touched the floor slightly. This dress was laced in the back instead of the front and it was silk. A ball gown. The sleeves were long and small saphires formed a vine winding itself from the end of each sleeve around the neck and back. The delicate leaves made it look quite real.
"When will I need THIS?" I asked as Alanna laced up the back and tied it. I twirled around. The dress fit me perfectly, flowing over my hips and spreading out wonderfully.
"It's wonderful." I breathed.
"Well, they will probably have a ball for you two, if they accept the treaty, and it will be a winter ball of course. So you will need an appropriate dress. It looks quite lovely, if I do say so myself." Alanna said happily.
I tried on the rest of the clothes and then Alanna and I put them all into a trunk that Jeff had provided, along with more under garments. We left out two dresses, a pale yellow one with roses and the bottom and a simple light blue dress with pink flowers on the bottom hem, which was very light and comfortable. I slipped on the blue dress and walked across the hall to Will's room and tapped on the door. Will opened it and looked at me, his eyes widening.
"Wow, you're wearing a dress! Why?"
"Shut up, Will! I wore dresses at home.....occasionally..."
"Ha! Yeah! More like never!" he said, grinning widely at me.
"You seem to have forgotten how hard I can punch!" I said hitting him hard in the shoulder.
"Oww!! You jerk! I'll get you back when you least expect it!"
"Yeah...right....Jeff invited us to eat dinner with him at his tavern. He said to meet us outside now. Let's go." I said, pulling Will out of his room.
We walked outside into the failing light and found Jeff leaning against the side of the house, he motioned us silently, and we followed him down the road leading to the castle. A little ways down they came to a tavern with a sign sticking out labeled the Dancing Dove.
"My second home!" Jeff sighed.
"It looks...ah...great.." Will said, looking at me he whispered, "It's exactly like Jay's tavern."
I grinned, "hey, that's a good thing, right?"
"Puh, not really."
"oh, well." I yanked Will in.
When we walked in behind Jeff the tavern went completely silent.
"Hey! New allies, everyone! Friend of my 'dear' cousin Jay." Jeff said, everyone laughed.
"A friend of yours is a friend of ours! Have a beer kids!" Someone shouted from the back.
I laughed. Will and I were ushered over to a long table, and Jeff sat at the end. Will went to one side and I went to the other, sitting down. A tall guy with curly dark blond hair sat down next to me, he shook the hair out of his deep blue eyes and smiled at me.
"Hey, I'm Darian."
"Hi, I'm Isabel, but please just call me Isa."
He looked at me, laughter in his eyes, "Just call me Dar. I hate my name."
"Really? I kind of like that name, honestly." I said, smiling.
He couldn't answer me because plates were put in front of us, and I of course began stuffing myself with the delicious food. I was suddenly interupted by something hitting me hard in the head. I looked around for the thing that hit me in the head. I found a spoon on the bench and picked it up, looking around. Will was sitting a little down the table from me, looking way to innocent. I memorized where he was and threw the spoon hard, not even looking, I grabbed my spoon and start eating the soup again.
"Did I just see that?" Dar asked, looking amazed.
I didn't answer him immediatly but stuck out my hand, to catch the spoon Will had just thrown back at me.
"He caught it, did he? Well, I'll just fake him out this time." I said, half to myself, half to Dar.
I pretended to throw the spoon and Will put up his hand to catch it, then I really threw the spoon, hitting him accuratly in the head. The force knocked Will off the bench, he lay there for a minute and the room went silent, he then started laughing uncontrolably. I grinned and walked over to him helping him up. He said threats to me inbetween laughs.
"Isa, hhehehehe, you'll, haha, pppaayyy...hehehehe, for this!! HAhaha."
I looked at him and shook my head laughing. We sat back down and resumed eating acting like nothing had happened. People just stared at us for a minute, bewildered and then suddenly talk errupted again. Though Dar was still staring at me. After about 1 minute of staring I finally turned to him.
"What?" I asked.
"Where did you learn to aim like that?" He asked curiously.
"Uhhh...er...my parents are over protective and they made us take lessons starting when we were 5 so that we could defend ourselves any way possible. And then of course Will and always fight each other, jokingly of course, but we're really close, we tell each other everything. People say that we have the same personality, and think alike. I guess we do because when ever I sneak around the pal- I mean our place Will and I always meet up in some secret place, even if we don't mean to... I guess we're just like that." I said, finishing it kind of sadly, I couldn't believe I almost let palace slip but we figured it be best if we didn't tell people who we were, not until tomorrow, at least.
Dar gave me a curious look.
"Yeah, my parents made me learn to defend myself too, but hey it might come useful one day." He shrugged.
"Hey, Dar, you might not want to flirt with this one 'til you find out more about her." Jeff said, winking at me.
I raised my eyebrows, giving him a 'ShutUP!' look. He took the hint and turned quickly to the person next to him, talking. I looked at Will and he nodded at flicked his head towards the door. I waved to Jeff and said goodbye to Dar.
"Well we gotta go, see you around Dar." I said, walking out the door with Will right behind me.
We walked down the dark street, our trained eyes looking in every shadow. I felt a prickling in my neck. I looked at Will, he nodded and I casually took out my two hidden daggers, which I always carried around. Hiding them in the folds in my dress, I pressed the blue stones embedded in them and felt the vines embedded around their hilts, which I always did before a fight.
When a could arm snaked around my neck I was prepared, so was Will.