PHM: HEYLA!!! Oh, my goodness! It has been so long! I'm ashamed….-hides face behind computer- I'm sorry I kept you guys waiting so long. I had a rough week. –Sigh- I've been so full of muse now that I had to write! So, here ya go!
Loor: I told you Yami, that the pounding would work eventually!
Nomara: Heh. I helped to ya know….
PHM: -.-
Loor: -laughs madly- I'll do the disclaimer. Pearhead doesn't own any of Mercedes Lackey's characters or places, etc…but she does own Mina and Mina's entire family and some other charries you'll meet later.
PHM: Thanks….ok! Go read before I beat all my muses into pulp!
-3 muses look around a bit before disappearing behind a shadow-door made by Yami-
PHM: Girls! I have cake!
3 muses: Cake!?
PHM: Knew it would work! –evil laugh-
/blah…blah...\- indicates memory
Blah, blah, blah-indicates thoughts
Chapter Three: Dying Hopes and Final Plots
Kieran Fallon sat upon his golden throne looking down upon a happy town and his extremely obedient family. Actually, he sat upon a hard, cold, wooden chair in a small room that grew smaller by the moment staring down at one of his many servants, his son Sethal. The young boy lay on one knee with his head bowed and his cold, dark eyes staring at the hard ground like he had been taught. Sethal had come with a new plan apparently to kill his demon possessed Gifted daughter, Mina.
It had been two years since the girl's sister had died. She had lived when Kieran thought she would go insane and he could kill her off easily. Instead, she grew stronger from the experience and turned on him.
She used her Gift on him and it had grown tremendously.
Mina had been so irate, so disconcerted, that her Talent of Fetching knocked him out cold when she used a cooking flat (frying pan) to smack him over his head. He still had the bump. He had known she had a Gift, knew she would be different. There was always one in every generation of Holderkin from the moment that Talia freak had left. Kieran's own best friend had left Kieran with his own demented family to go to some stupid Collegium to become a damned Herald. Kieran could remember the moment his friend told him like the back of his hand.
/It had been about a decade since Herald Talia had been Chosen by a Companion, and now it seemed another had come to Choose a Holderkin. The White form of a horse slipped between the rows of houses, springing up randomly in between shadows of trees. Holderkin mothers and fathers didn't seem to notice, but all the children did.
The horse was beautiful, its pelt a smooth and flawless white shine. The sun hit it just that way to glow even more. The bells of its hooves hitting the ground rang throughout the city of Dayton. And those stunning blue eyes, seeming to melt everything that it stared at. It was so stunning…so magnificent.
Kieran wanted it to Choose him.
He saw the horse come towards him, his friend Jonathen staring at it from beside him. Slowly though, Jon walked forward, his arms outstretched as if he walked in a trance. Kieran's brows furrowed in thought as he wondered what had come over his friend. "Jon! What do you think you are doing, friend?" Kieran asked his friend as the horse came closer to both of them. Jon had met it half way and his arms wrapped around the white neck of the Companion and Jon did not answer him. "Jon!" Kieran yelled once more and to no effect.
Jon was crying now and Kieran couldn't take it. His friend had been Chosen when his life wasn't near as bad as Kieran's. Jon didn't have a Father like his, he actually had a very nice Father whom, shall Kieran say, loved Jon. And Jon wasn't expected to grow up to be a ruler or Dayton. No. His life was to be –would have been- normal. Bastard.
Kieran fled from his friend who only now decided to look up at Kieran. He doesn't care about me. Why should I about him? Bastard left me! He left me! It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair!!
Revenge on all the people with Gifts would satisfy some of Kieran's anger…but now he knew that he would never be Chosen. What a damn shame. Bastards they all are!! Bastards!!!
As Kieran finally returned to his home, his maid told him that he had had a visitor. The visitor had left a note. Slowly, Kieran lifted the letter seal and began to read:
Kieran, friend,
Edial Chose me this afternoon. I've been Chosen. Can you believe it?! All our wishes have come true. Everything we worked for! I can go to Haven and have you brought here. Maybe you have some weird Gift to.
Edial says I have mostly a Far-Speaking and MindSpeech talent but I have a little of the Fetching Gift as well. I really cannot believe it.
I love you, friend, and I'll be back as soon as I can.
Jon
Kieran had fallen to his knees and had not even remembered doing so. The note lay crumpled in his hands and he screamed at everything in the house. The maid had left, as she was to do when Kieran came home, so no one heard his screams of betrayal and agony. "HOW COULD YOU JON?!?! HOW COULD YOU?!?!" The words were never answered.\
Kieran had there and then claimed revenge on any and all Fetching and MindSpeakers. He had not suspected his own daughter to apparently contain both Gifts. He had known she had been different from the moment so long ago…when he used to care for her. When she used to be his daughter.
/"Daddy! Daddy!" A young girl of four began to yell towards Kieran. The girl, whom Kieran dearly called his own, Mina, was without a doubt her Father's most favorite and precious child. He loved the others yes, and he loved his first-borne son, but somehow Mina could bring out the best in him and he in her. That and she always was so obedient and willing to help him out. And despite everything she did, had done, and would do, Kieran knew he would always love her.
He held out his arms to catch her mid-jump. They both laughed as he set her down into his lap which bounced a bit as she sat.
"What is it, dearling?" Kieran asked, smiling down at his youngest daughter.
"Daddy! Milky says she's pregnant!" The girl seemed so excited. Her cow, Milky, was supposed to be sterile, how could she be pregnant?
"How do you know that, Mina?" Kieran asked tentatively, his voice a bit more stern and his eyes a bit colder. His leg had stopped bouncing.
"She told me!" Mina exclaimed, not noticing anything wrong with that.
Kieran stood mortified as she stared down at his loving daughter. Her growing blonde hair gleamed in the sunlight that fled through the open window. She looked so happy…so excited. He couldn't do anything. No.
Yes, she had a Gift and she had to be destroyed no matter what. She had some sort of MindSpeech and perhaps something else he didn't know of..
He suddenly figured it out why he loved Mina so much. She reminded him of Jon. She had to be destroyed now.\
"Sir?" The words shook Kieran from his rapport, bringing a sneer to his crimson lips and a beating against the chairs armrest.
"What?" He snarled at the boy. Sethal could be so disobedient. Not like his daughter…not like Mina…Don't go there…
"I was saying, sir," Sethal's voice was a bit shaky now. Fear could do so much to a person. "That we have devised a new course of action, sir, to kill the girl, sir," The boy seemed terribly frightened now, which made the fear sucking demon Kieran laugh under his breath at him. Kieran paid a bit more attention to the boy now, while still appearing to sneer at him. Masks could do so much now that they had become second nature.
"Explanation?" Kieran sneered again, anger rising like heat in the pit of his stomach. The boy should've explained it from the get go. Stupid fool.
"Well, sir, it would be something like this, you see. We—"
/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\
It was a calm day. The wind blew silently from the east, blowing up some latly fallen leaves. Trees laughed as they talked to each other about the gossip of the world. Deer and boar slept soundly in their homes until it would be time to get up and search for food. Mina was up. She had been up for awhile now, thinking and cleaning. It seemed that was all she did. But, today, today would be better. Today was her tenth birthday.
Mina had survived two years living by herself with no one else. She was surprised, actually. A couple times she had come extremely close to joining her sister in death, but the animals had stopped her. Not to mention the repeated whacks from a cooking flat that she someone gave her. Perhaps it was Cira and her sister was looking after her. Who knows…?
Today though, Mina would bake a cake. There wasn't a lot of frosting to go around in the town and Mina knew how to get it. She had been saving up her money for this day. Soon she would be free to go and live life wherever she wanted to. Until then…after another three years…she would be free.
Mina set out to find the icing and some more ingredients she could use. The man whom she got along best with as a dealer/seller had the icing waiting for her when she showed up. She simply placed the money on the counter and took the icing home. Then she began.
Mina could smell the rising of the cake mixing and she tried not to eat the icing that sat in front of her. Her mouth watered as the cake was almost done. Her fingers, by then, were thick with icing that needed to be licked. Soon though, the cake was done and ready to be eaten.
But Cira wasn't here. An empty hole filled her heart that Mina felt would never be closed ever again. No one would love her like that ever again.
:That's not true…: It was that voice again. It had been coming more frequent recently. It was a comfort of some sort…Mina liked it.
"Cira? Is that you?" Mina asked as she looked up at the hard ceiling of her house. No one answered. The girl sighed and began to eat her cake. The sun would set soon, the blues and purples and oranges and pinks would settle against her window and cast friendly shadows into her house. It would be beautiful this Mid-Winters Eve.
Suddenly though, a knock came on her door and Mina jumped with surprise. She actually shrieked and a pan flew into the air as though a spirit held it in its hands. Clutching her chest and breathing deeply in and out, she began to get up. Who could it be….who could it be….? Mina couldn't think of one single person who would come say Happy Birthing Day to her.
"Mina! Let me in now, child!" Oh, no. It was him. It was him! Why was he here? No! No! No! Yet, Mina's hand slipped against the cold wood of the door knob obeying the voice instantly as it had been taught. Damn him! Damn his training! Mina couldn't help it. Her hand opened the door, letting the bitter cold into her house and the steam from the cooking out, as her Father stepped in.
He looked angry. Angry and happy. It was an odd combination that Mina feared even more then his rage. The pan floated just above her head though so her Father could see it. It had been funny when Cira's spirit had knocked him out.
"Get out of my house." Mina commanded to him and the men who know entered her house and grabbed a few of her possessions.
"What did you say?" He simpered down at her, his evil smile licking those dark eyes and crimson lips. His hair fell just that way that Mina knew meant business.
"I said what do you want," She replied, changing her mind on what she was going to say.
He tsked at her and laughed a bit, grabbing her arm and covering her eyes. She couldn't see! What was he doing! The clanging of a pan could be heard behind her.
"Demon child, you have lived to long for your own good. I cannot kill you, though I wish to see you die a horrible and painful death. So, this is the next best option." He smiled again and uncovered her eyes. Before them sat the gates out of the Holding. Gates that Mina knew meant exile or trading. Both were the same, right?
"What are you doing? Why are we here?" She asked nervousness and anxiety shaking her voice. Mina looked up at those cold eyes. He was pleased with what was to come.
"Take her out." He simply stated those words and backed off. His guardsmen grabbed every inch of her body with their thick and calloused hands and picked her up. She couldn't kick, couldn't run away, she would only scream. She had gotten good at screaming and now the whole town could instantly be woken up and taken to the streets.
Everyone had come to watch as the guardsmen threw Mina out of the slightly open gates and out into the world with only a pack, and a bow an arrow.
PHM: Done! Done! I think it could have been longer….but it would've got repetitive….-sigh-
Nomara: It was good….
Loor: Oh, it's almost here! I can't wait!! P-
-Yami and Nomara cover her mouth before they all get beat up again for attacking their Mistress-
PHM: I gotta eat! I'm starving!!! Come on guys!
-All three look at her suspiciously and follow very far behind-
PHM: Oh! Review please!!! Thanks!
