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Disobeying
Balor
Stepping out into the sun, Balor looked up. Wherefore would Brigid have gone forth from the city? She was forbidden from leaving Wilusa for half a month. That was the punishment Zuvowang had given her… Same as the one Gard had given him. What was he to do? He couldn't just leave Wilusa and yet Procyon had told him to go forth into the Wilderness and bring Brigid back to Wilusa.
Yes, he could. Brigid was his friend, his best friend and more the two of them were arranged to marry when they came of age in eight years. What sort of a future husband was he if he didn't go to rescue his future wife? He had been present for boys older than him receiving many a scolding for not going to the aid of girls they were arranged to marry when they both turned sixteen.
Yes, he had learned from their examples. He would go to aid Brigid, but the only question was where in the Wilderness were she? He supposed the only way to figure that out was to go out into the Wilderness and find her.
And so, he did.
From Wilusa in that place long ago known as the Sinai Peninsula did Balor go forth in the Vast, Unknown Wilderness. Gard may have lived there for more years than could be counted, but even he did not know all of its secrets. It hid its secrets jealously and to one as young as Balor the Wilderness was infinitely more mysterious than it was to one as old as Gard.
Down to a river did Balor go, finding an empty jar by it. Where was Brigid?
Brigid
Looking behind her, Brigid saw her very twin once more, clad in her dress and veil and holding her skirt in one hand. Throwing her skirt to her, Brigid's double asked: "Are you Brigid the Thag Dancer or not?"
Brigid looked over her double, wondering who she was. Was this truly a twin sister of hers she had never seen before? No, no, long-lost twins were the stuff of children's stories! What manner of being was this then? Simply an identical stranger? Someone who had seen her at Gnozzuz? No, that couldn't have been it. She and Balor had been the first Evabon to set foot in Gnozzuz.
As she attached her skirt to the bottom half of her attire, Brigid looked over her double. Was there something about her, something that would have indicated that she was not who she seemed to be?
Standing to her feet, Brigid said: "I am and who are you?"
Brigid's double did not answer. She merely vanished, causing the Little Beauty no small amount of alarm. People did not just vanish. Finally, Brigid heard her double's answer, coming from all around her it seemed. How?
"Who I am is of no concern. You want to be special, don't you? You want to be the darling of the people! Hear 'Hail to the Evabon Princess!'"
"Yes, yes!" Brigid replied, looking around and yet she wondered… Did she? Due to her descent from Zuvowang, she was a princess in her own right, special in her own right, did she really want to trade all that for something else? "I-I don't know."
Her double appearing before her, her red eyes a tad bit lighter than they should have been, Brigid began to feel uneasy. "No need for hesitation, Brigid. I can take you to a place where you can be a Thag Dancer, where you can be hailed as the Evabon Princess."
NOTES
During the period between the previous chapter and this one, I started work on a planning document for an original story featuring the Evabon. It has been attempted twice before and hopefully the third time will be the charm. Wilusa being in what was the Sinai Peninsula is one of those ideas, that itself inspired by Third Earth being intended to be a future version of our own, but with influences from "Planet of the Apes", "Barsoom", "Conan the Barbarian" (with the Americas and Antarctica playing the roles of Atlantis and Lemuria) and "The Once and Future Tarzan", creating a world as unique just as Third Earth is. It has also caused me to realize just why the Evabon, Labinnac and other races I have created seem so primitive in comparison to some canon races. As humanity had been blown back to the Stone Age, some of the races that descended from the survivors probably haven't advanced that high.
Brigid being referred to as a princess in her own right is something, I'll be using to describe Brigid in my story. I just felt that it worked. There will be some differences, such as Evabon lacking immortality, making Gard Balor's father and Zuvowang Brigid's, and really through planning I've been able to come up with the final sobriquets for Gard, Zuvowang and Dalv: Gard the Untamed, Zuvowang the Terrible and Dalv the Invincible with their white counterparts Donalbain, Orsino and Jaques being Donalbain the Magnificent, Orsino the Conqueror and Jaques the Destroyer. Who knows what else I'll transfer over and if Thundera itself will ultimately have a counterpart in my story, though obviously with heavy differences to avoid legal issues.