The next two days went by in a fantastic blur for the young princess. She was able to spend a lot of time with her parents, to their joy, so that she could get to know them and they could get to know her better. She was also able to spend time with the other royal "kids," even though all except Keiran were older that she was. However, though she did not understand it, Garion intimidated her somewhat. So she found much solace in her budding friendship with his sister.
* * *
The next day, three days after April's arrival, Garion was in a dataroom going over the latest news reports from the New Republic's capital, Coruscant, when a knock sounded on the locked door. "Come in," he called out, hitting a key on a nearby pad to unlock it.
The door slid open soundlessly and April walked in. Garion turned to look at her, then frowned as he realized something. She's not supposed to bother me, and she knows it, because some of this is highly sensitive information, he said silently. But when he saw the meek, shy expression on the young princess' face, he let his face relax. I don't want to hurt the poor girl by a mere look. "What is it?" he prodded gently.
"Well, uh, your Highness—"
"April, remember, you're royalty too," he interjected kindly. "It isn't formal within itself, unless the situation warrants it." Man, that was formal. Why on earth did I word it like that?
"Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot. Um, I guess I'm still getting used to it. Uh, anyway, I've noticed that Violet has been really mopey ever since she came back from that trip yesterday, and she won't talk to me or anyone else about it." Gosh, why does this guy intimidate me like he does? This is so weird…I rarely ever feel like this with other people…
Garion frowned, knowing that she had never done anything like that before. Something must really be bothering her for her to act like that, and it must be readily apparent for April to notice through her grief and all the excitement going on around here, what with her meeting her real parents and all. Sheesh, I feel like a total idiot for not noticing it earlier. "Thanks for telling me, April. I'll go see if I can talk to her."
April nodded once, curtsied slightly, and left the room. I'm going to have to ask her parents if they can retrain her in royal manners. She keeps treating me and everyone else except Violet and my sister like they were much higher in station than she is, even though that is definitely not the case. Shrugging and pushing the matter out of his mind, he shut down the computers and headed up the winding staircase to the floor where they all were staying for the battle preparation period, since they had decided the day before to have the official headquarters in Yavinia for now. I wonder how much longer we have before we have to leave for war, he thought sadly. He recalled April's age and what she had just gone through, and shook his head. She shouldn't have had to get involved.
Once he got there, he made his way through the ornate hallway to Violet's room and knocked softly on her door.
"Who is it?" the question came, a bit muffled.
"It's me, Garion," he answered.
There was a short pause. Garion opened his mouth to repeat himself when Violet called back, "Come in, then."
Garion touched the button on the right side to open the door. It revealed a large, ornately decorated room with an oak four-poster bed. Violet's characteristic violet-colored drapes, bed cover, and bed canopy were all in there. Even the flowers were violet-colored. The large picture windows on the back wall all had window seats and looked out at the west toward the sea, the water sparkling in the afternoon light.
But the room was a mess. Expensive clothes lay everywhere where they had been carelessly dropped. The drapes hung crookedly on the windows, as if someone had tossed them around. Two trays of untouched food sat on the oak armoire by the unmade bed. Its comforter and sheets lay haphazardly on it, as if someone had tossed and turned for hours. And Violet herself was a mess as well, at least what Garion could see of her. She lay on her side facing the west wall, blond hair tangled and clothes wrinkled, her back to him.
Garion frowned. Why haven't the servants been here to take care of her room? he wondered silently. This is very uncharacteristic of them… he trailed off as he realized something. Has she not let anyone in besides April and me? This is odd…
He walked over toward her and sat down at the end of the bed next to her. "What's wrong?" he asked gently.
Violet did not reply for a moment. An occasional hiccup, accompanied by a sniffle, broke the silence. "Everything," she whispered, almost too quietly for him to hear.
He knew better than to prod her, so he held his tongue and waited for her to continue, if she felt like it.
Violet slowly, almost lethargically, sat up, her unkempt hair falling elegantly around her shoulders. Almost as slowly she stood up and walked over to one of the windows, sat down, and gazed out at the sea.
Garion could see the side of her face now. Little lines traced their way down her cheek where tears had run through her makeup.
When she sat down, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, still not looking at Garion. After a moment she took a deep breath and began to speak. "It all began about five years ago, when I met this guy named Goku." She paused and turned to look at him. "Wait a minute. You've probably heard about that story. My parents did not put it in a good light, did they?"
Garion shook his head.
She shrugged carelessly. "Oh, well. Anyway, it was about three years ago that his brother came to Earth, and he first tried to persuade Goku to return with him to continue pillaging planets. Goku, being the good guy that he is, refused. Raditz—his brother—saw Gohan—Goku's son—and kidnapped him. Goku, along with a Namek, Piccolo, pursued him and later fought him. Both Goku and his brother died during the battle.
"However, the war had not been won yet. Raditz had managed to alert other saiyans—two, to be exact—to the existence of the dragonballs."
"Uh, Violet…what on earth are dragonballs?" Garion interrupted, confused.
She proceeded to explain them to him.
"Okay," he said after she had finished, still slightly puzzled.
Violet continued her story as if there had been no interruption. "Piccolo decided to train Gohan in the time they had before the two saiyans arrived. Even though he was just a kid, he had displayed extraordinary powers during the battle. That's where I found them after I'd arrived on the mainland for a visit. I found out what had happened and told them I would find out when exactly they would arrived using our technology.
"I informed them later of the date they would reach the earth and hoped to be there with them. However, when that day came I found myself forced to remain in Yavinia, as my parents had gone out on a trip."
"I remember that—you seemed rather perturbed about the whole situation, as I recall."
"I was very annoyed, but I couldn't exactly tell my parents why. So I hooked up my satellite observer's data feed into my dataroom and watched the battle from there. That was the first time I saw…him."
"Who?" Garion asked with a quizzical glance.
"Vegeta—one of the two saiyans. Anyway, there was a pitched battle, in which four of the Earth fighters and one of the saiyans were killed. Goku and Vegeta fought to the point that each barely escaped with their lives.
"A year later—last year, in fact—the whole Namek expedition began. Since the dragonballs on earth no longer existed, they had to go to that planet in order to use their set of dragonballs. It would take me way too long to explain," Violet told him when he opened his mouth to ask a question.
He nodded for her to continue.
"I couldn't go with them, of course, so I stayed here and tried to keep myself busy in their absence. When they returned, Goku was not with them—but apparently he was not dead, either. They never really got a chance to explain all that to me, though. Vegeta was with them, however. Apparently he had sided with them in the battle against Frieza—a foe even worse than Vegeta had been. He was the one who forced Goku into becoming a super saiyan, which didn't surprise me.
"So, during the next eight months I proceeded to help Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta in their training, since I needed to work on my own skills as well. Vegeta proved to be a worthy opponent of me, as long as I wasn't in my super saiyan stage. He kept pressing me to get him to achieve that level, but I refused. Eventually I got to know him as a person rather than just as an opponent."
Violet paused at this point, since tears were welling up in her eyes once again.
Garion asked the question whose answer he most feared. "Did you fall in love with him?"
She glanced over at him, startled. When she failed to see any malice in his gaze, she said, "Yes." That was all she could get out before the tears cascaded down her cheeks.
The prince placed a hand on her shoulder in a comforting way before he inquired, "Does he love you back?"
Wordlessly she nodded.
There go my chances, then, he thought. So…if they're in love, why does she feel so much grief? Taking a deep breath, he asked, "Why all the tears, then?"
"My parents would never allow me to marry him. They've been set dead against my involvement with his kind from the start, and if they knew I wanted to marry one…oh, I don't know what they would do." With that said, the sorrow-filled princess buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Unconsciously Garion drew her close and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned against his chest and cried. He simply held her as he waited for the storm to pass.
A few minutes later it finally subsided. "I'm sorry, Violet," he said with deep sincerity, even though he knew that if she was allowed to marry that man, she would be lost to him forever.
She lifted her head to look up at him, and in his eyes she saw something that bothered her. He loves me, doesn't he? Then why is he being so nice when I tell him I love another? Does he really care about me that much? Wow… "Thanks, Garion. That means a lot to me, really."
He wiped one of her tears away. "That trip you came back from yesterday—you went to see him, didn't you?"
"Yes—I had to see him one last time."
"Did you know he loved you before or after this trip?"
The princess glanced up at him with one eyebrow raised. "After, but…what brought that question on?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Garion. Well, when he told me that he loved me, that was bad enough. But when I told him that it wouldn't work between us, well, that was the hardest thing I've ever done."
Garion was startled. "You've already told him that it won't work?"
"Yes. I thought it would be better that way—I need to devote everything I've got to the war ahead of us, and I know what my parents would say if I told them about him now. Since they have to concentrate on the war, I know I can't take away any of their time—or mine—in trying to make them see reason. It would be a total waste of my energy as well as theirs. Maybe if Gitran had never been born, things would be different…but that kind of wishful thinking does me no good. What's done is done.
"I must admit it's nice to have that off my shoulders, though. If you'll excuse me, Garion," she said, her tone suddenly cool, "I need to wash up and allow the servants to tend to my room."
"Of course, Princess," he replied, moving away from her and getting off the bed. "I have things to attend to as well." He left without another word.
A thought hit Violet. Did he leave what he was doing just to come see me? I don't deserve that kind of treatment—not with how I've been behaving over the last twenty-four hours, at least. She sighed and rose from the bed, walking over toward her armoire. She decided against a dress immediately and chose a light blue blouse and khaki pants instead. Once she had changed she allowed the maid inside, who began attending to her bed right away.
Violet walked into her expansive bathroom and washed all traces of her long cry away, then reapplied her makeup, fixed up her hair, and left the suite. She asked a servant to bring a car around for her, which then took her to the shipyards. For some reason I need to get as far away from Garion as possible.
* * *
Meanwhile, April decided to find out more about the fleet and its components, feeling rather out of place wandering aimlessly around the palace grounds after talking to Garion about Violet. She would have gone to find Tyria but the older princess was out with her father, Cass, and his father looking at the shipyards. "Pardon me," she said politely to the first servant she came across. He bowed respectfully when he realized she was addressing him. "Can you tell me where the head of the fleet is?"
The groundskeeper frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, I don't understand your question, your Highness."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized hastily.
"You don't need to apologize, your Highness."
April winced. "Must you tack that form of address on the end of every sentence you speak?"
"You don't like it, Princess? Or is it just uncomfortable?"
"Sort of, yes. I guess I'm just not used to it yet."
Her statement, along with its dejected tone, made the man aware of just how much the young princess of Byrista had gone through in coming there. "If you would like to learn more about the workings of the fleet and its individual ships, I think the library in the palace would have some books about it."
"There's a library here?" April asked as her eyes lit up.
"Of course, Princess! I can escort you there, if you'd like."
"Don't you have work to do here that I am keeping you from even now, though?" she asked with a worried note in her voice.
"Princess, I can tell you are fairly new to all of this," he told her frankly.
"Is it that obvious?"
"I think you did say something to that effect a moment ago, Princess."
She chuckled shyly. "I guess I did at that, didn't I?"
"Would it be all right if I told you some things on the way?"
"Please do!" she replied fervently.
He chuckled.
April hesitated. "But I need your name first…I'd feel odd just calling you 'servant' or something like that."
"It's Devon, Princess."
"I think I like being called 'Princess' better than I do being called 'your Highness,' to be honest with you, Devon. Maybe I'll get used to it in time, but for now, that will do."
"Do you mind me being blunt at all, Princess?"
"Not a bit. I might eventually, but for now, I need to learn a lot of stuff in a short amount of time, and it's not going to happen if people step lightly around issues just to avoid hurting my feelings."
As they began walking Devon decided that he liked this young red-haired Byristan princess. She had a spark of innocence to her that was refreshing, yet she carried a burden of sorrow on her young shoulders. "The first thing you should know is that all the servants, whether they are at your palace over in Byrista or here in Reilar, are here to serve you no matter what their original task may be. We help you out and then, once we are finished, return to whatever we had been working on earlier.
"Secondly, people are going to bow to you and call you 'your Highness' or 'Princess' whether you like it or not, since that is your rank. Someday you will be called 'your Majesty' when you take your place as Queen of Byrista."
"I'm glad that's a ways off. It's taking me long enough to get used to just being a princess! I don't know the first thing about being the ruler of a palace, let alone a whole country."
"Don't worry about it. Your parents will be around for a little while after you become queen."
"Huh?" April's expression was clearly bewildered.
"Oh—you're not aware of the rules of succession here on the Islands, are you, Princess?"
She shook her head, still confused.
"The crown prince or princess does not have to wait until their parents die for them to rule—he or she is crowned the December after he or she is married."
"Wait a sec—so…let's say that the king died before the next in line was married. Would he or she then receive the crown?"
"No, Princess. The queen would rule until the next in line was married. The only way a crown prince or princess would receive the crown before he or she was married would be if both of his or her parents died beforehand."
"Okay…I think I get it. So it's not the firstborn son who gets the crown? It's simply the firstborn child?"
"Yes, your Highness."
April was so enthralled by the method of succession in the Islands that she did not notice the use of "your Highness" rather than her preferred "Princess." "I like that idea. So Violet is going to become queen someday."
"Yes."
"And whoever she marries will become king."
Devon nodded, wondering where April was going with this.
"Does the one who was crown prince or princess have more power than the one who married into the title of king or queen? Or is the king simply more powerful?"
"Neither, Princess. The king and queen hold equal power. Neither one is more powerful than the other."
"The Islands' way of succession is so much more sensible than the way the rest of the world uses. I wonder why someone didn't come up with this earlier?"
"I'm sure other people have, Princess. But in the world you're used to men are believed to be better—for lack of a better word—than women. Here, that's not the case. Everyone's treated equally: there is no discrimination based on gender."
"I'm going to like this place, I think." April fell silent when suddenly a familiar face floated up from where she had pushed it into the back of her mind.
"Is something the matter, Princess?" Devon asked, concerned. "Are you all right?"
She snapped out of her daze with a slight start. "Yes… I'm fine, thanks. Just reminiscing, that's all."
They had entered the building by this time, thus Devon did not have a chance to question the princess further on the subject since she pestered him with questions about the different ornaments and tapestries on the way to the library. They arrived there ten minutes later. "Thank you, Devon," she told him.
"It was my pleasure, Princess." He bowed and left the room.
Wow, April thought in awe as her eyes took in the large room, the servant completely forgotten. The ceiling of the library sat twenty feet above her, and the walls that extended up to it were completely covered in books. I've never seen this many books in one room in my entire life! I wouldn't be able to read this many books in a lifetime! I hope Byrista's royal library is this good. As if in a trance she walked about the room, content to simply gaze at all of the novels and books of history and every other subject imaginable. A moment later she spotted a thin book called The Farlae Codex. Next to it was a thick book filled with handwritten notes called The Farlae Codex: Making Sense of the Prophecies.
"Prophecies?" April wondered aloud. Her curiosity aroused, she took the Codex off the shelf and began leafing through its pages. Random phrases leapt out at her. "Unless the Four build light to combat the Darkness, the galaxy will fall." "The Young Warrior will arise to the throne with the Jedi Child at his side." The statement that startled her the most was "A Sailor called Nova will have a guardian called the Protector and a cat as a companion."
"So that's what Violet was talking about when she told me that it had been foretold. These are really prophecies… how strange… Hm, I bet that this one isn't the only one that's come true." April frowned when she spotted an asterisk at the end of the sentence. Coming across a handwritten notation at the bottom of the page, she read "Reference in Making Sense of the Prophecies," along with the page number of the reference.
She took the other book down and leafed through it until she came to the mentioned page. Reaching it, she read, "This has come true in the case of the lost Winslow princess April. This revelation has brought much joy to her parents, since its fulfillment means she is coming home soon."
"So that's how they knew," April thought aloud with a sense of awe.
"That's how they knew what?" a voice intruded on her not-so quiet thoughts.
The young princess turned toward the source of the voice and spotted Garion standing in the doorway. She hesitated, then forced herself to overcome the odd discomfort she felt every time she was near the man. "I was reading about the prophecy of my becoming a Sailor and all that came with it."
"You mean no one has told you about the prophecies?" the Alendran crown prince asked her incredulously.
April shook her head. "I had no idea they existed. I mean, Violet hinted at their existence when she told me that my being a Sailor had been foretold in legend, but I had no idea what she meant at the time." She frowned as a thought came to her. "How did this Codex thingy come about, anyway?"
Garion walked into the library and sat down near where she was standing in an overstuffed chair. "Over two hundred years ago, in the year 67—"
"Huh?" she interrupted, sitting down. "What do you mean, 'year 67'?"
He glanced over at her quizzically. "How much do you know of our history, April?"
"Very little, I'm afraid. All I know is that what the rest of the world calls "Star Wars" really happened, and that some admiral has made some big force and is threatening the New Republic with it, and that we have to help."
Both of his eyebrows shot up. "You're kidding—that's it?"
"That's it."
"We've sorely neglected you in your education, then, April. Back to your original question, though—as I'm sure I've utterly confused you by my earlier statement—what we go by in years holds the Battle of Endor as year zero, sort of. So the year 67 means that it was 67 years after the Battle of Endor, or AE for short."
"In other words, it's how long the New Republic's been around…or, rather, how long the Empire has been pretty much defeated for."
"Right." Garion stood, walked over to one of the shelves, and selected a book. Returning to his chair, he blew on it once to get rid of the thin coat of dust, then handed it over to April. "This is a concise history of our four countries, from the year 32, when Luke, Mara, and the others arrived in-system, until about ten years ago or so. For the more recent history, you can probably find a few ebooks on it—you know, books found entirely on datapads."
"Uh…what do you mean by 'arrived in-system'? What—why—did they come here?"
Garion chuckled. "April, I think that you're going to need more than an old book to teach you everything there is to know about the history of these islands. Since you'll be queen someday, you need to know these things. Why don't we set aside some time each day to study history?"
"I think it's a great idea," she replied with a grateful smile. "Since I'm not totally used to being a princess yet, the idea of becoming queen is a completely different ball park. Can we study the war preparations too? I want to know about all the ships and everything that's being done to prepare for this war—and I want to know all the latest reports about Gitran, too."
"Whoa, little lady—one thing at a time! Why don't we get started on history right now, since I've finished up the intelligence report overviews, and after we've worked on that for a while get into the current events then?"
"Sounds good to me."
For the next two hours Garion taught the eager crown princess by starting at the beginning of their history and went on from there. He told her about the Leaving, about how Luke and Mara and many other Jedi had felt a mysterious pull of the Force to leave everything they knew and to travel into the Unknown Regions. For fifteen standard months they traveled the stars, one hundred families, all human and either Jedi or non-Jedi, in the Star Destroyer Morning Star. Then, one day, they arrived in the solar system, cloaked as usual, and discovered Earth.
"But didn't we on Earth see them come in? I mean, they can't have the cloaking shield on while in hyperspace, can they?"
Garion shook his head. "I think I'd better add astronavigation to our curriculum, April. Don't you remember that you have to reenter realspace out of any gravity mass shadows projected by large bodies of matter? Back then Earth's technology was primitive, and no satellites were in orbit that could have spotted them way out by Pluto."
"Oh," she replied quietly, her face downcast.
The older prince placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "April, I know you've been through a lot in the past few weeks, and I also know that there's no way I can know how bad it is for you. I realize that you don't know much about us, just like we actually don't know all that much about you. I freely admit you are as much a mystery to us as we are to you. The only things we know about you have been prophesied, and those are few. I guess what I'm trying to say is we are trying to understand your specific needs during this time, and we're not always right." Garion shook his head. "Sometimes I try to say certain things, but the words just don't come out quite right."
"It's all right, Garion—the words might have been odd, but your meaning came across clearly." When she looked up at him he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked gently.
She sniffed. "I miss Daran—my boyfriend. I miss my friends and family. I hate the fact that I had to be uprooted from all I knew and transplanted into this alien place. Even though it's on Earth, it feels like Mars to me."
"Mars doesn't feel like this," he replied before he could stop himself.
"You've been there?" she queried, startled, but glad for the change of subject. Remembering home always hurts so badly.
"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "We started a mining colony there a while back. Don't worry, we used camouflage cloaking devices there so they can't see us."
"So that's how you get the resources you need for the ships."
He nodded. "From Mars and from the asteroid belt. I think Yavinia started a colony on Pluto, too, when we ran out of certain transparisteel and durasteel ingredients a few years back."
"Wow—you sure have quite the operation going here."
"We have quite the operation going here," he repeated, stressing the we. Clearing his throat, Garion added, "We should be getting back to history—we only have a little over an hour until dinner."
"Right." Thus April's education continued. Garion picked up where he left off, explaining that the group remained in-system because all of a sudden everything went wrong so that they could not leave the system even if they had wanted to…but they did not want to leave, since the compulsion to travel had suddenly left all of them. The group landed on some untamed islands they found in the Pacific and assessed the damages. The natives, who had seen them arrive, asked them to rule over them since, at first, they thought they were some sort of superior beings coming to them from the gods in the sky.
"Even after Luke and the others explained to them that they were not celestial messengers, their obvious wisdom made the natives unwilling to back down from their offer. Thus Yavinia was formed. Then, a few years later, your ancestor, Kento Winslow, the head of one of the more prominent families that had come on the Journey, and Kalan Westland, my ancestor, and a Jedi Knight, talked to Luke about carving Yavinia up into three smaller countries—the largest retaining the name Yavinia, and the other two to be called Byrista and Alendre respectively."
Garion continued, telling her of the decision made a few years later when the issue of passing the crown from current ruler to heir came up.
"That was the thing about passing it on after the first born had married and the ceremony being on the first of December, right?" April interrupted.
"How do you know that?"
"One of the groundskeepers here was kind enough to tell me about it as he escorted me here, since I didn't know where the library was."
"They're all like that, April—all of the people who work here are good, solid, loyal citizens of Yavinia, and they just plain like us royal people for some reason or another," he said, ending his statement with a wink.
She grinned at him. "So…where were we?"
After the succession issue was resolved, things ran normally as the years went by. Then the year 67 came along. Jedi trainees and Knights suddenly had a barrage of visions whenever they went into meditative trances. Once they came out of the trance, however, all they could remember was that they had some sort of vision—but could not really remember what was in it—and one statement. This continued on for about three and a half years, until autumn of the year 70, and they stopped as suddenly as they had come.
"All of the statements had been written down, of course, and they comprise that thin book you're holding, April."
She glanced down at The Farlae Codex. "These are all separate prophecies?"
Garion nodded.
"How…how do we know if they've been fulfilled or not? And those weird names…how do we know who they're talking about?"
"Usually we don't. It seems that they only make sense when they're supposed to."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, officially, we're not exactly sure. My personal opinion is that the light and dark sides of the Force aren't just parts of a whole energy field binding us together, but they are two separate -- yet similar -- entities with some level of awareness. The light side of the Force guides us, just as the dark side is guiding Gitran. I think he might have his own set of prophecies, given to him by the dark side."
April's eyes were wide open. "Whoa…if that's true…wow. So, a person can be guided by either side of the Force even if he/she is not a Jedi?"
"Yes."
She glanced at a nearby clock. "Wow…I can't believe how much time has passed! We've been at this for a long time… hey, can I take this book, and its counterpart?" she asked, indicating the Codex.
"Sure—if you can make any more sense out of it, so much the better." He stood and turned toward the door. "I'll see you at dinner, then?"
"Of course. And we'll do this again tomorrow, right? Except maybe we'll talk more about Gitran and astronavigation than history."
"Sure," he replied with a smile, then left the room.
April smiled as she shook her head at herself. I don't know why I felt intimidated by him earlier—though he's about the same age as Violet (which makes him about seven or eight years older than I am) he's not that bad of a guy. If my brother hadn't died, I hope he would have been just like Garion. Still smiling, she looked down at the book again and resumed her reading, her attention diverted enough that she missed the gentle bell-like sound chiming in the back of her mind at her realization.