Ok, so, even less of an excuse for not updating for SO long except that I got caught up in school and had no time because English class takes up SO much time right now, for no good reason. Also, I accidentally wrote two chapters (don't ask how) so the one will come as soon as I feel like it. Mwahaha. Quick replies to reveiws you don't remember from months ago:
Salma-Sol - I didn't want the Ashkyla-Kady thing to come off as worshipful. Sorry. And yeah, I love diary entries. When i put things in first person, they end up like diary entries. You'll see next chapter. It's bad.
EvenSong - I totally agree with you, long hair is fabulous, I refuse to cut mine even though it's thick and dark a curly and dry and evil, but I love it. And thank you for the honest comment! I started this all way more than a year ago, and the plot keeps changing in my head because whenever I get bored I develop my story, and it tends to change in my head each time I think about it.
And, now, get ready for a few melo-dramatic paragraphs! (I would insert a 'what happened last chapter' except that it's more fun to make you go back and read it yourself!)
She woke up suddenly. It was less of a waking up with a start as one moment being asleep and the next awake. She felt utterly refreshed, but wondered exactly how long it had taken her to rejuvenate. She looked over to her window. The sun was sort of half way up in the sky, around 9:00.
Kari was sleeping in the sun, looking too adorable for words. Ashkyla smiled and resisted the urge to pick her kitten up, knowing that the feisty cat certainly wouldn't at all appreciate it.
"Lara." She said to herself, out of the blue, wrapping her arms around herself. She shook away her fear at the thought of a whole new future and looked decisively out the window. "Lara." She repeated.
The sound of a tentative knock roused her from the rather too dramatic moment and she swung around to see a swatch of brown curls come tumbling into the room ahead of her visitor.
"Oh, good you're up." Winny came all the way into the room, holding a basket and pretending not to notice Ashkyla's embarrassment. "I'm going to the market to buy some things. You will have the house to yourself for a bit, and I just wanted to make sure that you were alright before I left."
"I'm fine, Winny. Thank you so much for checking on me. Is there anything I can do for you while you are gone?" The princess said quickly.
Winny looked surprised. "Well, I suppose it would be nice if you could water my herbs for me?" She said tentatively, continuing only at Ashkyla's smile. "The watering can is next to the back door and you can just use some of the water left over from when we cut your hair. There is a small, fenced off area in the back, and if you could just water the first row, that would be lovely."
Ashkyla got out of the bed, stretching a bit, and walked with Winny to the front door before bidding her goodbye.
"Right then, watering can." The princess said with gusto. Then she broadened her accent and deepened her voice slightly, trying to imitate a commoner. "Roight thain, woitering kin." She said thickly then frowned at herself. They would think her the village idiot, sounding like that.
Kari woke up at Ashkyla's rather loud statement and wandered into the hallway where she found the girl looking rather annoyed and making odd garbled noises as she waved her hands around.
For a moment Kari thought that she was choking, then realized she was trying to make words. Every few syllables the tone or the accent would change, getting steadily farther and farther away from a recognizable language, at least any sort of human language. Kari wondered if she was trying to speak snail.
Ashkyla was beginning to admit to herself that she would never get it properly when a loud feline screech surprised her so much that she jumped. She turned toward the cat, who was looking rather smug at her princess's reaction. Ashkyla felt as if she should be angry, but picked Kari up anyway. She rubbed her kitten between the ears and felt reassured by the vibrating purr she received.
"I don't need an accent, really, do I? Many commoners are educated, and I… I could have grown up in a noble's home. No, that would be too easy to disprove. Perhaps my father was a tutor. Or my uncle. Or my neighbor. No, I've got it, my best friend's father, who ran a little school for the children in our area. He taught aristocrats and perfected all of our lingual abilities so that, as he often said, 'We could convince someone with one word that we were as good as any nobility'." Ashkyla shifted her cat in her arms and went in search of the back door. "You know, Winny was right, that really was fun." Kari purred.
The house was relatively small and it was rather easy for Ashkyla to find the back door. But it was a bit harder for her to find the watering can. The only thing she saw was a large metal thing that looked like a tea kettle gone wrong. But, as there was nothing else out there except dirt she picked it up and walked back into the house.
The thing, or rather, she supposed, the watering can was rather heavy. And once she had dipped it into the basin water it became even heavier and slippery and she couldn't keep her grasp on the thing steady. Every move she gave made caused even more water to slosh over the side.
Soon she was half soaked, hugging the tin monstrosity and stumbling, almost doubled over, through the house. Ashkyla, at one point, had to desperately grab the long spout-y thing at the front and found that it made a good handle. That solved one mystery, although the holes at the end still confused her.
Once she got outside, she put the watering can down and tried to figure out what was the herb garden. There were two small, fenced off areas. One was a bit bigger than the other and had what might have been the beginnings of lettuce in one row and lots of little green sprouts in the others. So that was probably the vegetable garden. The other one had smaller sprouts, not all of which were green.
Ashkyla picked the watering can up again by the long handle and headed toward the smaller enclosure, stepping into it before finding herself faced with another problem. She had no idea how to get the water out. It seemed to come out itself from the large hole at the top, but Ashkyla had no clue as to how to pour it.
After trying a number of positions she ended up awkwardly bracing the bottom of it with one hand while tipping the long handle forward until water poured out from the top onto the herbs below.
And so, when Kady came back and heard splashing coming from the back, she headed around the corner and found Ashkyla standing on a sprig of Thyme holding onto the spout of a large watering can whilst pouring water out the top of the thing and pretty much drowning the mint.
Kady was momentarily speechless, wondering if the Princess had gone crazy, and found herself running forward, hoping to stop the girl before she reached the basil.
"Ash- Lara! Stop! What are you doing?" Kady's sudden appearance startled Ashkyla so much that she lost her grip on her adopted handle and the entire contents of the can poured down onto her feet. She jumped again, this time because she was still barefoot and was beginning to doubt the possibility of clean feet ever again.
"Look what you made me do!" She waved her hand at the dirty puddle forming around her toes then took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, you startled me. It's just that I had finally gotten the hang of things and-" She turned, slightly irritated, toward Kady who was trying and failing to contain her giggles.
"You were holding the watering can backwards." Kady gasped out. She looked as if she was in a much better mood than she had been… whenever it was when she had gone to the palace.
Ashkyla stepped carefully out of the pool of water and out of the garden, jokingly shoving the empty can towards her friend. "If you're such an expert, why don't you water the garden?"
Kady began walking back to the house and began to demonstrate correct watering technique. "Well, you were holding it backwards. This part is the handle. What you were holding is the spout. You're supposed to pour the water through it. That's why there are holes." She said slowly, as if talking to a simpleton.
Ashkyla snorted, for the first time in her life. Her eyes widened in shock and she practically clapped a hand over her mouth. Then she calmed herself, realizing that common people snorted all the time. She had even heard her mother snort once. She caught up with Kady, who was pretending not to notice, and attempted to restart their conversation.
"Well, if you had never seen a watering can before I bet that you'd do the same thing."
"Why were you using it anyway? It looks like you had a sudden urge to turn the garden into a lake. And where is my aunt?"
"Your Aunt went to the market and I volunteered to help with something, so she asked me to water her herb garden. And I didn't mean to do anything to the plants, it's just that I've never used a watering can before, I'm not used to it." In fact, Ashkyla's hands were bright red from the combination of cold water and rough metal and beginning to smart.
"Well I suppose we can cross gardener off your list of possible careers." Kady said jokingly as she swung into the kitchen and filled the watering can again. "You see, the hole at the top is for filling the can with water and if you tilt it like so," She tilted the watering can so that water poured back into the basin, "water will come out, in manageable quantities, from the spout." She handed the watering can back to the princess. "Now you try."
Ashkyla gave another, tentative, snort and poured the water correctly, if a bit wobbly, into the basin then headed back outside. "Well, now that our mini crisis has been solved, what did you learn at the palace?"
It was Kady's turn to be embarrassed. She berated herself for the feeling and followed Ashkyla back outside. "I think I'll wait until Aunt Winny comes back. I don't feel like telling it twice, really."
"So it's not urgent?" Ashkyla asked hopefully. Kady realized, with a sudden plunge in her stomach, that she hadn't found out if they thought the princess was dead or not. And all she really did have was a long-winded lie from the King and a soldier's life story.
Kady sighed. "No."