Dear all – Here is the situation. It is really rather simple: I found this story I'd abandoned from about a year ago (the terrible writing shows) while procrastinating work and decided to continue. End of. Will hopefully continue this now until the end. Happy reading. Stars x
NB: Between starting this fanfic and reaching this point, 'Bitterblue' came, and picked holes in my plotline. Some are really obvious, such as Skye clearly not being gay here, and some are more minor, such as the fact that if you calculate timelines, there would technically be Dellians in Monsea by the time this is supposed to be set. Not being Kristen Cashore, I didn't know any of what she had in mind when I wrote this, so I apologize for any (and all) inaccuracies that may have resulted. They are totally not intentional, and I promise that they annoy me more than they annoy you... :(
Panther/Maylin was sitting on the roof of Ror's castle, one leg dangling off the steeply sloping battlements, her foot literally hanging a clear 70 feet above the sea, with nothing in between the two apart from air. It had taken her a full hour of wandering sleeplessly around the corridors to finally spot this place from a window, and from there it had been a relatively simple matter to climb out of the window and onto the roof, using the ivy that grew all over the place here as a firm handhold. She was utterly blocked from the view of anyone below her by the slanted roof on which she sat, and she faced out to sea – only someone with a Grace for noticing people's presence or someone on the water would have been able to spot her.
She didn't want to go back to her room. Her room had four walls with white and gold wall-paint, glass windows, (now hidden by rich velvet drapes) and everything in it, from the four-poster bed to the silver soap-holder, must have cost more than she'd ever owned in her life. Well, in her life past the age of six, she corrected herself. It was a strange thought, that she'd been richer at 6 than she had at 16. Even stranger that she was now expected to accept this richness, and not think twice about ordering around servants who'd lived better than her for most of their lives. The girl 'Panther' from the mountains of Monsea couldn't reconcile herself with Princess Maylin of the red velvet drapes and silver soap-holders.
It was only a matter of hours since Po had made his announcement and all hell had broken loose in the dining room. Viper, Boar, Robin and Key had all been arrested by Ror's guards, Key teetering on the edge of tears so that her lower lip trembled, but she'd stuck her chin out in such a brave way that Lynette, Silvern's wife, had practically begged her father-in-law to see reason, and stop Key from spending a night in the cells. Ror however had been determined, and so while Key was not placed in the dungeons with the other three, she had 5 guards outside her room, and, due to the nature of her grace, her room had neither a window to climb out of nor a fire-place whose chimney to scurry up.
Viper, Boar and Robin meanwhile had been dragged away to the dungeons, and even Panther/Maylin had not been allowed to see them. 'Divided loyalties' was how Ror had put it. Panther/Maylin thought that 'divided' was putting it rather lightly. 'Torn up beyond comprehension' would have been more like it.
Ravens had been dispatched far and wide – Queen Bitterblue of Monsea would know soon enough who had been hiding in her mountains; Lady Katsa, currently in Sunder, would be rushing back by tomorrow morning. All Council members had been informed, and only the Kings of Wester, Sunder and the Middluns had not been told. Ror wanted to temper their reaction a little more carefully.
It had been almost 2am before the talking had started to slow in the hall – explanations, stories, information and anything anyone didn't understand had been talked over and through, and it was only when Silvern quite literally fell asleep in his chair that Ror dispatched them all to their beds. Maylin had been shown to a different room to the one she'd been placed in upon arrival, this time much grander, and she'd immediately decided that she didn't like it one jot. It was designed for the Maylin of 10 years ago, not this rough little mess of today.
Tomorrow the real issues would begin – Maylin would need dresses, servants, rooms, horses, tutors, and every other frivolity of court life. She would need to be introduced to everyone who was anyone on Leinid, and most importantly, she would need to get to know her sister and Father all over again.
Suddenly she was exhausted. She looked down at the waves crashing 70 feet below her, and realised abruptly that this was mad. It was nearly 3:30 in the morning. She needed bed.
She grasped the edge of the roof with both hands and swung down, dangling over the sea by her fingertips for a second or so before her feet found the window ledge below her. From there it was easy to drop from ledge to ledge, going lower and lower until she found the window that she'd climbed out of in the first place. It was still open. She went in.
A blur of corridors and several wrong turns took her back to her room, where she slipped past the guards outside the door using her Grace (oh, stupid Ror, she though, then mentally reprimanded herself, remembering that he was her Grandfather now), stripped off her gown (now thoroughly ruined) and finally fell into bed. Despite all her predictions to the contrary, she was asleep within seconds.