Chapter 3
"What in all of Terebinthia is going on up there?" Brilannia muttered under her breath after being awakened by cheerful music and voices above her while holding her aching head in both hands, "It hurts my head to hear it all. Would they just stop the racket?"
"They will not stop it, my dear daughteré," a familiar gruff male voice hit the girl's ears from the other side of the dungeon for her to stand up and walk to the bars of her cell to see the owner of it staring right back at her, "these Narnian barbarians are probably celebrating the fact that they have imprisoned two of the worst criminals ever to sail the Great Eastern Ocean. I have no doubt of that and I am sorry that it gives you a headache, Lanna. It only gives me a sour stomach to listen to something as lively as that when I am in irons."
"I know, fatheré, it distresses me also but I will do all that I can to get both members of the Omenhaif family out of this dreadful place and take back what the 'High King' has taken from me including his own self," the girl answered while staring out at the man from her cell who was in the same irons as she was with a determined look upon her face, "I promise you that. And I will also take care of that centaur who called me obstinate and stubborn and carried me away like a sack of flour. You have my word, fatheré."
"I know that you will keep your word, Lanna," Arnstead responded with an eerie sneer across his scraggy, red – bearded face before concluding what he was going to say when the sound of footsteps were heard coming down the stairs, "just keep your head on straight but remember a little rashness goes a long way like all Omenhaifs are known to have."
The young woman could only nod in response to him not just as a way of silent agreement but also because she did not want the one coming down the dungeon stairs to hear her just in time to catch that one reaching the bottom of the stairs out of the corner of her eye. She slowly turned her head to see that it wasn't just anyone of the Narnian court but none other than the High King himself attired all in royal red and gold standing there just watching her before saying a word at all.
"Well, good morning, Brilannia," he said with a gentle smile while he slowly approached her cell carrying the keys in one hand with the other resting on his sword hilt, "I see that you are awake and quite yourself this morning, hmm?"
"I am awake, yes, your highness, what more do you want?" she slightly snapped while furrowing her eyebrows at him slightly defiant not wanting to seem too happy to see the young man, "are you here to discredit me or is there some other reason why you're down here?"
"Actually, I am not here to discredit you or any of the sort, Lady Omenhaif," the High King replied to put the key in the lock to turn and unlock it while maintaining eye contact with her, "I am actually here to release you from this cell for the entire day until nightfall with a promise that you will not go back to your ship to rally your crew. To that also, I will guarding you wherever you go except on personal business so that you do keep your word, understand?"
"Well, I never, in all my 18 years of life," the teenager said with a heavy sigh to cross her arms over her chest to stare him down, "to give me freedom from this place and then have to keep an eye on me so I do not do a wrong thing. That is just, I don't know, very limiting and it seems like you do not trust me, highness. After all, I am a very trustworthy person so you know."
"Oh, are we going to be that stubborn and obstinate little girl from yesterday, hmm?" he said with a teasing laugh ready to swing the door closed on her before she could even step out of the cell, "We will see about that, missy. A King is of higher rank than a Captain so I would not try to question me or you could risk getting that pretty head of yours taken off. So, are you going to come quietly or will I have use a set of irons to keep us together?"
"Alright, alright, highness, you win that battle," Brilannia let out uncrossing her still iron – locked wrists to hold them out towards the king, "now if you could be so kind, if there is such a word, take these off so at least I feel somewhat free?"
"Yes, I can take those off along with the ones around your ankles," the king answered while fitting a smaller key in the locks and taking them off her wrists before going to the floor to her ankles, "you have to promise me on your honor, if you have any, that you will not run away from my side or I will be forced to do this on one of my wrists and yours to keep you close by me, alright?"
"I promise, on my honor as Brilannia Isabelle Omenhaif, not to run off," the young woman said with another heavy sigh while watching him get back on his feet holding both pairs of her irons in one hand, "I do have my honor in spite of the side that it holds to."
"You have honor indeed, daughteré, just not to their side," her fatheré spoke up which made both the High King and Brilannia look over at him each with a unique look on each face, "your honor is to the Omenhaif family and to no one else, remember that. Only give honor to those who deserve it which is not this boy king who keeps us locked here unfairly."
"I am not keeping you and your daughter locked here unfairly, Arnstead Omenhaif," the royal replied back with a fire in his eyes that Brilannia could clearly see as she stood beside him along with his hand tightening upon his sword hilt, "you both are fairly put here due to what you have done in coming to Narnia without permission just for the sake of not being caught by your own countrymen who are out to bring you back to Terebinthia and have you rightly judged for your deeds done to them. Now, at least I have some kind of honor to allow the lady a little freedom with me as her guard in spite of her criminal past but you are the one to whom justice is primarily served to; she is getting nothing but mercy along with justice of her own accord. I must be off with her but I will be sending my royal brother, King Edmund to justly deal with you as Aslan Himself would have it done so and I do not want any trouble or I will be forced to use my royal sword against you without any hint of mercy."
The man did not say a word of reply or rebuke but instead could only stare the young king with his dark steel grey eyes in fierce anger and hate before the latter left the dungeon with Brilannia behind him at a decent pace not wanting to deal with the man anymore than he had to. Once they had reached the top of the stairs, both young people reached the door from the dungeon that led into the main hallway and once they were out all the relative to the fierce Arnstead Omenhaif could do was stare in both directions at all of the Narnians moving about around her before being led in one direction by the High King.
"Come along, my lady, I'll give you a tour later but for now I need to take you to our healers so they can take care of those ugly scars on your pretty face," he said in a far more gentle voice than how he spoke to her fatheré in the dungeon as he took her by the hand despite her slight recoil, "they will not hurt you despite of who you are. I would rather a prisoner such as yourself be taken care of rightly and not be ignored like you were just another criminal. There is a lot of potential of good in you, Lady Omenhaif and I would hate to jeopardize that by not treating you in the way that a lady should be treated. I've tried this same thing with your father but he just despises any showing of mercy no matter how I put it the man will not take it in the right way. That is why he's not being allowed the freedoms that are being given to you, since there is a much greater potential that my royal siblings and I see in you to change sides from a criminal to a noble lady than Arnstead, understand?"
"If you must understand something, highness, my fatheré has done so much evil in his life not just to others but even to those in his own family that he can't comprehend the idea of kindness or mercy," she responded when they had reached a rather plain door quite a ways down the hallway that they had travelled down and yet she could not bring herself to crying at all, "I am a bit like him in many ways but there is one in which I am not like the man I call fatheré that he does not know and that I have kept secret ever since I figured it out five years ago."
"What is that, Lady Omenhaif? Or do you not trust me enough to mention it?" he returned back before lightly knocking on the door with his left hand from off his sword hilt only to turn to look at her with beautiful deep blue eyes that Brilannia first took notice of at that moment which were filled with a compassionate and kind mercy the girl could not understand, "Is that the reason why you are being so silent?"
"Yes, that is the reason why I have become so silent right now, sire," she answered just to drop her head to look at the floor almost as if to hide tears that were threatening to come from her steel blue eyes, "I don't quite trust thee enough to mention something as dreadful and horrid as what my fatheré has done to me personally or the one thing that would anger him greatly if I told him that is hidden deep inside my very heart and soul. I know that's hard to imagine for someone as hardened as me to have a heart but I do and it's all that I can do to keep the hurt of it being broken to myself anymore. So, please forgive me, my lord for all of this mess that I've caused because I deserve what he's getting yet what I am getting is mercy and kindness that I do not deserve at all."
Before the young king could answer her, the door came open causing her to look up quickly and saw a beautiful woman standing there looking at them only to be silenced as she broke her silence in speaking to the royal beside the daughter of the feared captain. Brilannia couldn't place whether the woman was all human or a nymph but she knew that just by looking at her the girl could tell that she was a delicate wood nymph by the way she was built and carried herself.
"Hello, your majesty, what can I do for thee?" the nymph spoke in a beautiful, melodic voice that rang in Brilannia's ears in a nice way and seemed to soothe her headache from earlier before the former noticed her standing there in a more humble way than her arrogant persona she had the day before, "oh, is this the one who's related to the man who you have in the dungeon?"
"Yes, she is, Alana, this is Brilannia Omenhaif, the daughter of Arnstead Omenhaif," the royal replied after letting go of the girl's hand only to gently place a hand on her shoulder, "I just brought her to you to see if you and the other healers could take care of any possible scars or wounds she may have seen or hidden. Don't worry, she's not armed and will not do you any harm, correct Lady Omenhaif?"
"Rightly said, your highness," the redheaded young woman said with a small smile not feeling like brightening her visage any more due to the way she felt deep in her very heart, "I will not harm a soul here, because I know all of you are not trying to do anything against me. You have my word and honor as a Terebinthian who desires to be loyal to the Narnian crown and not to traitors or treacherous criminals in spite of their relation to me."
Her comment only made Alana and the High King smile one rather prettily and the other in a very handsome way which Brilannia lightly blushed when noticing it out of the corner of her eye. The Narnian took her by the hand and led her into the room away from the royal who had already taken his hand off her shoulder to stand there to wait for her to come back out of the room healed and taken care of rightly. The daughter of the most notorious criminal of the Eastern Ocean felt the gentle touch of Alana's hand in hers and tried her hardest not to cry not having felt that kind of gentleness in all of her young life by someone, let alone one of her enemies yet she knew that the Narnian was going to be a friend not an enemy.
"Sit right there for me, m'lady," Alana said to point over to a low, long table that sat in the middle of the room just for Brilannia to walk over to it and pull herself up onto it with her feet hanging off it, "now, look at me so I can take care of those scars on your face. It will hurt just a little but you'll feel better days from now. That's right, thank you. You need to hold your head up more often, m'lady; it's too pretty to hide by keeping it down or to have your hair always in your face. Are your eyes the same color as your father's or your mother's, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Both, Alana, my fatheré's are a steel grey and my matheré's were a medium blue," she replied feeling tears start to come to her eyes but held them back, "so I have steel blue eyes instead of just steel grey or medium blue not the same blue as the High King's though."
Alana did not have to ask her why she had said what she had said about her mother in the past tense due to the fogging of the girl's eyes and so she did not press her further only to put a gentle hand on the redhead's shoulder before dealing with the wounds. Pouring out a little antiseptic serum from the glass bottle onto a soft rag, the nymph gently dabbed the matching pair of scars on Brilannia's cheeks to see her slightly flinch but soon calmed down when she had finished. She stepped back to look at the captain's daughter to see far more than a hardened, stubborn teenager but a heartbroken, hurting young woman who needed friends more than enemies.
"Much better, m'lady," she stated to put an arm gently around the girl's shoulders without any recoil from her at all, "now, are there any more wounds that need to be taken care of other than these?"
"Actually, Alana, yes there are a few more," Brilannia answered slightly cringing when the Narnian had taken her arm off her shoulders remembering the ones there, "there are two right at my shoulder blades one on each side along with a pair on the inside of my wrists under my shirt cuffs one on each and if you didn't notice when you took my hand one on each palm that are burns."
With that said the young Terebinthian unbuttoned her shirt cuffs and unlaced the laces at her collar before untucking her shirt to pull it off leaving her only to sit there with a fitted sleeveless undershirt on to see the reaction from the Narnian at her looks. Her eyes went to where Alana's went to see what made her wide-eyed; it was the black-widow shaped brand right below her left shoulder and Brilannia could only turn her head away from seeing that dreaded mark made by her fatheré when she turned 13 only 5 years prior to that.
"I am so sorry, Alana for you to see that, I should have warned you," the Terebinthian stammered out to reach her hand across and cover it but cringed in sudden pain when she touched it, "Ouch, I forgot just how much it hurt. Take care of the wounds that I mentioned and forget about this for now. I would very much like it to go away but I don't know if there's any way that it can."
The Narnian refocused upon tending the girl's wrists and palms before dealing with the rather nasty cuts below her shoulder blades; but she had to slightly pull down part of the shirt to get to them only making Brilannia let out an 'Ow' upon contact. After a seemingly long and laborious task of cleaning and binding those wounds, Alana put the teenager's shirt back into place so she was reasonably covered up in the right places before a knock came on the door along with a voice that was familiar as could be to both women.
"Alana, have you finished taking care of Lady Omenhaif yet?" the king's voice was heard from the other side of the door without any tinge of impatience or anger of any sort, "Is she presentable enough for me to come in or do I need to forego shaming her honor?"
"Yes, I have, your majesty and yes she is presentable with no worries of her honor being shamed," the Narnian answered while handing the Terebinthian back her shirt that the latter slid over her head rather stiffly but managed to with little assistance, "I've dealt with all her unseen wounds some a little worse than others but they will heal."
When she had said that, Brilannia saw the door handle begin to turn but did not jump in fear knowing that she was covered and modest only to see the royal step inside and shut it behind him to notice the look on his face change when he saw her. Narnia's High King slowly crossed the distance between the door and the table where Brilannia sat in several long-legged strides only to reach her and come to a stop to look more closely at her. It did not bother the redhead that he stared at her in spite of her unbuttoned cuffs, unlaced collar and untucked shirt; despite being the daughter of a feared criminal pirate captain she still cared not to show off what needed to be kept under clothes due to her own honor reasons unknown to her fatheré.
"Well, m'lady, you have definitely changed in matter of thy appearance," he said with arms crossed over his chest and straightened himself to his full height to still stare at her with his deep blue eyes, "I would definitely prefer that you to dress like one of us but you probably would not want to do so, correct?"
"Well, come to think of it, sire," she slowly answered not doing so too quick looking the boy in the eyes although it was through her untamed hair while buttoning her cuffs and relacing her collar to make herself a bit more presentable, "I would actually in spite of your pre-conceived ideas that I would not want to change my clothes might agree to having these horribly uncomfortable clothes exchanged for something a bit more like those of your court but of a servant mind you not as royally as yourself, no offense."
"None taken, m'lady, none taken," he responded with a smile and a laugh in his throat before leaving Alana, "I can do that for you but you have to promise me that you will not keep the clothes you are wearing in order that you may trade them out when I am not looking, understand?"
"I promise you solely, my lord, I will not do as you have said," Brilannia answered to raise her right hand on the level of her head as a way of sealing her promise not just by words but with actions, "besides I would not do so anyways because I would no longer want to wear or even have anything that reminds me of my fatheré or of my past. For I would ask or even for that matter beg to be one of the servants here in this place not a high one but a lowly one only of service to thee and the other royals here."
"We shall talk of this later, Lady Omenhaif but for now I must take you to where you can have your clothes changed," the royal said before taking her by the hand once she had gotten off the table where she still sat and stood beside him for the taller, more noble one to say farewell to the Narnian who was watching them, "Good-bye, Alana, and thank you for taking care of the lady. We shall see thee later on today. Remember the whole castle is invited to the ball tonight including this one but not her father."
"Good – bye, my lord and lady," she called after them as she watched them leave the room to see Brilannia looking back at her with a small smile on her face and waving, "See the two of you later including thee, Lady Omenhaif."
"Good – bye, Alana, and thank you for your kindness to such a wretched person as I," the redhead called back just before letting the king's hand go to run back to the Narnian and threw her arms around her neck, "I will do anything to do my best to repay you for all that you have done. You have my word on that."
"You are welcome, m'lady and there is no need to repay me for anything," the nymph replied to hold the girl close for the king to notice the lack of recoil from the latter of the two and he could only smile before the two let each other go and split ways, "And I believe that the High King would agree with me in saying that you are not a wretched young woman but a humble and noble – hearted young woman who has an honor unmatched to any of her people of her ancestry that surpasses any deed she has done or will do. Now, go, his majesty is waiting on thee."
"I will be going, Alana," Brilannia called back as she jogged back to the young royal to allow her hand to be retaken again without any type of recoil from him, "See you later, thank you again. I love you as a friend and I truly mean it even as a Terebinthian of my heritage."
"Well, Lady Omenhaif, you are starting to soften up, aren't you?" the King spoke up once they were a good distance from Alana down the hallway towards the servants' quarters before he released her hand and slid his arm in hers, "what's the reason for it or can you tell me yet?"
"You can say that I am, your highness but I can't tell you the reason why just yet," she answered with a small smile to stiffly reach her free hand over and rest it on the royal's arm, "all that I can say regarding it is the fact that I just may be changing my allegiance to Narnia from Terebinthia in spite of still loving my fatheré dearly."
"I understand completely, Brilannia and I could not be happier to have you in true alliance with our humble land of Narnia," he replied for her to see that handsome smile on his face again along with a sparkle in those deep blue eyes, "now, here we are in the servant's quarters so you can get a change of clothes to serve and attend the ball tonight in the castle."
The ginger (red) haired teenager could only smile to look around the large, open room that they had stepped into with servants moving all about not knowing exactly what would entail the events later on but she knew that her heart was beginning to soften towards the Narnians and their royals especially one in particular who stood beside her before she was given over to one of the servants of higher rank to be dressed accordingly and more Narnian not like a Terebinthian pirate and daughter of a notorious criminal.