Disclaimer: I'm only playing in Pat's beautiful playground.

Chapter 2: Denna

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My earliest memory of Denna was meteoric. It wasn't anything perfect or overly sweet. It wasn't beautiful, bathed with the rose-shaded brush of my youth. Which isn't to say that my childhood wasn't rose-shaded or delightful. It was. And I remember it fondly as such. But like every blissful beginning, it was filled with darker moments, and this was one of the first.

I reckon I was around four. When you're that young, all you can remember are sporadic moments, standing out among a nondescript sea of blurred-together days. And from this slate grey sea, I remember her face, leaning over me with terror burning through her eyes. Her long dark hair was hanging down, the curls brushing against my face as she shook me.

"Breathe!" she pleaded, hovering over me. "Please, please, please…"

Her terrified face was swimming, flashing in and out of focus through the tightness in my chest. I remember the cold, so deep it was beyond shaking. It was creeping up my limbs, pulling me into sleepy silence. But she was above me, screaming, her voice cutting through me, sharp as knives. I know that it was Mother and the doctor who came running and forced air into my lungs until they could draw breath on their own, but to this day I know it was Denna who saved me. Who kept me alive long enough, until they came. That is how I always knew her. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes after all. They don't need a sword, or manly bravado. They don't need to take on a pig with a folding knife and one boot. A ten-year-old girl can be a hero too, armed only with the power of her heart and anxious words. And from the time I was old enough to remember, Denna was my hero.

We grew up in Renere, the capital of Vintas, which is about as city as a city can get. It was just the four of us — me, Denna, Mother, and Father. Father owned an apothecary, and Mother helped out and watched us, and tended the garden in her spare time. She had rather a green thumb, and a particular liking for tomatoes, which she picked fresh and ate like apples before even leaving the yard.

And when she didn't do that, she sang. Beautifully. Like spring dawning after a frozen winter.

It was a happy childhood. Denna and I spent most of it playing, even though she was six years older and I often had to pause in our reckless sprints so that my broken lungs could breathe. She laughed hard and played rough and didn't care for stares or whispers. She stole Father's old pants and stitched them down until they fit like her own, and then wore them stubbornly with her hair pulled up and her expression set in defiance. She was brave and daring and kind, and her antics made me giggle endlessly.

When she wasn't playing or running around, she taught me. Numbers, letters, and more practical things like cooking and housework. We would wash the dishes at the sink or root around Mother's garden, singing songs or reciting scenes from Daeonica or Felward's Falling. She insisted I was to have a well-rounded education.

"You can't live in the capital and not be a proper young lady," she claimed every so often. Which made me laugh like mad, because she was as far from a "proper young lady" as it was possible to get. I knew it for truth because she ran faster than all the boys on our street, beat them handily at tag, and taught me to climb my first tree. And my second. And then lied boldly about our many bruises.

But Mother and Father humored her. They were sweet, and fair, and kind. They never shouted at us or raised their hands in anger. They believed in talking things through; in logic and understanding. The biggest punishment they could offer us was their disappointment, but when they did show it, it weighed heavy as all the world. We did everything we could to avoid it. There were few things we knew that were worse than disappointing them, but when we inevitably did, the quiet words they bestowed upon us were firm and fair. And when the sting of them faded, they were always there, waiting. Full of love. They were like a safety net, raising us up and letting us be brave.

Mother had the gentlest heart that I have ever known. She was soft-spoken and shy; a true introvert who liked to escape to the imagined worlds of a thousand books and songs. But while she found making friends difficult, the ones she did have were beyond lucky to know her. I didn't meet many of them, for Mother had grown up in Anilin on the outer edge of the Ceald, and it was a terribly long way off. But I had peeked through enough of the letters she stored in the drawer beside her bed to know they loved her dearly.

Mother was the youngest of nine siblings, most of them girls, and while Grandfather was a respected tailor and made enough for them to get by on, she grew up in a time when opportunities were scarce. Especially for girls. Even more so than today.

Grandfather and Grandmother had raised and educated her to the best of their abilities. The children of rigid Yllish sheep farmers, they had left their dying homeland in search of greener pastures, finally settling in Anilin, where they fought hard to carve out futures for their children. But while they had love aplenty, they had only two sons and not talents enough for seven dowries. My uncle Allard, who was the oldest, married a respectable Cealdish girl and took over the family business. My other uncle Tanner, who had no such prospects, left to join the church, Tehlu hold him. But even with the dowry from Allard's wife to sustain them, the family still struggled. And there were no such avenues open for the girls.

Mother, who was a talented singer and musician, often played her rebec on street corners for pennies to bring home. But female performers were seldom wanted back then without a respectable family or patron behind them… and there were few places of any import who sought out the services of a tailor's daughter, no matter how sweet her voice. With her options limited, she resigned herself to a future as a serving girl. She had tracked down a reputable inn that would be happy to have her once she turned of age. They even promised to let her play once a span and keep half the earnings.

But shortly after she turned fifteen, everything changed.

There was a call from the Lackless Palace in North Renere — a call so grand and majestic that it reached to all the four corners. Aculeus Lackless, fifth in the line of royal succession of Vintas and a great patron of the arts, was seeking new musicians and performers to keep on at the city estate. Talented young musicians, singers, poets, and performers from across the four corners were welcome to come, stay, and try their luck for a revered spot in the palace's Arts Consortium. And both men and women were welcome, for Aculeus had two young daughters and wished to build the kind of world his girls would be proud to inherit — especially Netalia, who would succeed him and carry on the Lackless name. The only requirement was one of age — no more than thirty, and no younger than fifteen. They were looking for neither old, unpliable hearts nor children.

It was as if Tehlu himself had smiled down upon Mother and offered her this opportunity — a fact seemingly driven home by the local Tehlan priest making the announcement in their church, and then seeking out Grandfather directly to make the recommendation.

Renere was so far from Anilin, it might as well have been a world away. Mother would have to leave behind everything and everyone she knew. But still, it was as good an opportunity as she was ever likely to get. So after much consideration and many tearful goodbyes, she left Anilin behind, armed only with her rebec, three dresses made of Grandfather's finest fabrics, and all the money they could afford to spare. And Grandmother's wedding ring — a beautiful work of knotted silver topped with a pale blue smokestone.

"It's held together with binding knots," Grandmother told her gently as she hugged her goodbye. "So that we'll always be connected."

And then Mother was off, alone on the road to Renere.

There are countless stories that could be told of the next year of her life. Stories of her travels and of her time in the Lackless court. I could weave them into song and accompany it on the half-harp Kvothe made me dream of… but, really, who'd want to hear them? And at any rate, they aren't relevant to the memory that I spend most of my time trying to forget. Except, perhaps, to say that if it had all gone differently, I wouldn't know this sadness I carry always in my heart.

I wouldn't be. So I wouldn't know anything at all.

In the end, all that needs to be said of Mother's time in court is that it wasn't for her. Oh, she tried. She sang and played her rebec with entirely the right level of talent and decorum. She was brilliant — as good as they got. And for all that, she was modest and polite and perfectly well-mannered. If all she needed was skill, she would have been the best court musician there was. But the competition was fierce, and the palace was full of gossip and people both catty and harsh. There was no true friendship to be found there, no authenticity. She told me later that it was an act, the court, with everyone simply playing their parts. A show, even when the curtain was down. And she wasn't meant to live on that sort of stage forever.

I cannot imagine how difficult it was for Mother, with her sweet disposition and gentle heart, to live in that darkness after the shiny surface of the court broke to pieces to reveal the cruel currents underneath. She hated it. Hated every breath and every moment. But there was nowhere else for her to go. Returning to Anilin alone was an impossible journey. She didn't speak of it, and what she has told me about meeting Father has only ever been a sweet story of love. But looking back through the lens of my own darkness, perhaps meeting the young man at the apothecary saved more than simply her happiness. At least for a time.

Tehlu knows what she had been shopping for.

But it didn't take long for Mother and Father to fall in love. In eight span, they were married. In twelve, she was with child. And in another six months, Denna was born. Six years later, I joined her. Mother has often said that those were the happiest times of her life.

She raised us with love and kindness and songs. I picked them up as easily as breathing, but Denna was always hopeless.

"Just like your father," Mother told her often, laughing gently at her attempts.

And Denna truly was. It wasn't just that they both couldn't carry a tune to save their lives — and merciful Tehlu, they couldn't. When they tried to sing, they scared off the feral cats in the entire neighborhood. I know, because I've seen them run. Though to their credit, both Denna and Father refused to be shamed into silence. Father was brave — brave enough to sing knowing he was terrible, or to smile at a girl who walked into the apothecary he was minding for his father wearing a rebec, a sad smile, and a suit of clothes well above his station, and ask her to accompany him to the park to split some bread, cheese, and fruit wine.

And Denna had inherited his boldness, his reckless sense of adventure, and his easy smile. She wanted to take everything the world was willing to give, and fight for what it wasn't. To live in the moment. And most of all, she wanted to know love — real love. Like Lady Netalia Lackless, who had run off with a trouper some years after Mother left the court, throwing the entire Lackless family into such scandal that they abandoned their city palace in favor of their estate in the northern farrel. They had not been seen in Renere for years, though rumors of Netalia's actions still swirled endlessly.

"So romantic!" Denna gushed, whenever the topic was brought up.

It was summer, nearly ten years after it had happened, and we were shelling peas in the small yard behind our house. She was waving her hands around in such exuberance that more peas were landing on the grass than in her bucket. "I want to fall in love just like that. A love so strong that I run off and Mother and Father have to disown me."

"You wouldn't!" I told her, aghast. In truth, it was impossible to take her seriously when she painted these scenarios with her vividly wild imagination, but even the idea of her running off like that sent a cold chill through me. Even though it was ridiculous, because Denna was a people pleaser and loved our parents more than anything — except maybe me — and the thought of her running off on us wasn't conceivable.

"Besides, Mother and Father would never disown you," I added, dropping my peas carefully into my own bucket. "You'd have to make him give up the trouper life and work in Father's apothecary instead."

"I suppose you're right," she said with a laugh, reaching down to root around for her lost peas. "I can't be responsible for that sort of travesty. Imagine! I'll have to settle for a city boy after all."

When she was 17 and I was 11, Denna did exactly that. She fell in love. With a boy from the city.

But, because it was Denna, he wasn't simply a 'boy from the city,' he was a boy from the higher city.

Trenton, whom she sweetly called Trent, was a noble's son from the royal court of King Roderic Calanthis himself, and to this day, I cannot imagine how she met him. Certainly, the stories she has spun of him gallantly saving her from an out-of-control horse cart as she strolled along King's Court Road seem rather unlikely. But I am looking back through the lens of perspective, after all.

For six span after she met him, I didn't see Denna very often. She would cook with me in the mornings, humming songs terribly out of tune, rush through her chores, and then skip off into the blooming spring with a dazzling lightness, often not returning until well past dinner.

Constantly leaving me to sulk.

"Denna isn't a child anymore," Mother told me gently toward the beginning of summer, as we set on a swinging seat overlooking the garden. She was sorting fledgling tomato plants while I read glumly through a reference book detailing currency conversion. "She loves you, but as you get older, your world grows bigger. And your relationships widen too. Meeting new people is part of growing up, little magpie."

"Denna's not meeting new people," I complained, pouting. "She's only ever meeting Trent." I rolled my eyes. "He's only one person, not many."

Mother offered me a kind smile. "Trent is new and exciting, but you'll always be her favorite. And in the meantime, you have me. Is spending some time with your mother so terribly boring that you would trade me away so fast?"

"No…" I said, feeling entirely backed into a corner. I tugged anxiously at my hair, pulling the short strands down to my shoulders. "Of course not…"

"Good." She smiled. "Then help me plant these tomatoes, and then perhaps I'll let you try a hand at my rebec."

This improved my mood considerably, and when Denna came home that night, Mother sang Violet Bide while I accompanied her on the rebec to the best of my abilities, the bow slightly clumsy in my small fingers. I made more than a few mistakes, but we had a lovely time all the same. Father and Denna both clapped appreciatively when it was over, Denna wiping tears from her cheeks.

My wonderful little family… delightfully sweet and kind, forever frozen in this moment, unaware of the approaching darkness… If only I could lock them away like that forever. But tonight my heart speaks only the truth. I will walk right to the cracked and brittle edges of this memory. Right out onto the ice until it shatters beneath my feet. I can already see the darkness looming, gathering beyond the glowing windows of our small house, lit by warm firelight and warmed with gentle laughs. It is all gone already, so it shouldn't hurt as much the second time around.

It shouldn't hurt as much.

Perhaps if I say it enough I'll believe it, before I plunge into the deep.