[20th day of Winter]
[507.a.v.]
[507.a.v.]
Amelia woke up early in the morning, much earlier than she did normally. It wasn’t because she was in a rush to go anywhere, or she had something important to do. The young girl had the day off at the soothing waters where she had been working to help her mother and herself with a few more mizas in the pot. So then why did she wake up this early? That was a question her mother asked herself every morning as she watched her. Amelia had changed quite a bit, she had bought makeup from the money she earned at the soothing waters. And unlike Ophelia, her daughter didn’t choose something calm and natural. Amelia layered her face with bright makeup that looked off if you knew her age, but once she put it on, there was no trace of the 14 year old, and who turned 15 today. Amelia’s mother watched without a word, how Amelia carefully filled in her eyebrows, lined her eyes with a black wing and filled her lips a strawberry red. She wore a mask, but nobody could quite understand why. And before the older woman knew it, Amelia was out of the door.
So why had Amelia, the kind and loving child changed so much? Why hadn’t she showed up to the Order, to become a knight like she had dreamed for so long. The nightmare of the squire haunted her. Just the idea of becoming a squire, and having to see that man every day was horrifying. Even now as the thought passed over the girls mind, she could remember the awful scent he was surrounded with, her stomach twisted remembering the way she was touched and how his kiss felt against her. But what hurt her most, was the fact he had said that Xander, the man she was o amazed with, was the one who sent him. Sure, he had lied, but Amelia didn’t know that. She didn’t know the squire was kicked out. To her, the whole image of Syliras as a pure, kind and safe place had vanished. Now Amelia thought of it as a fallen, dirty and evil place that manipulated others. She began seeing the downfalls of the city as a whole, and by now she had just gotten sick of it all. The place was just not for her. Her hearth screamed to be free and go away from this place as soon as she could, as far as her eyes could see. Here she felt like thrown in a dungeon, like she was a slave and couldn’t leave even if she wanted to.
Deep in thoughts, not really having a thing to bother or entertain herself with, she kept on walking. Twitching her nose as she felt the bothersome smell of the place hit her, those knights in that horrible armor. Unimportant people just like her, crowding the ways and pushing her around. Everyone was grumbling to themselves about how this place either reeked or how someone had just stepped on their feet. And she couldn’t agree more, but it made her wonder, why do people stay here? They weren’t like her, they were grown men and women who potentially had bout the money and skills to travel, to leave the city that didn’t really seem to bring happiness. Then why had they been so bound to this place? This question kept repeating itself in her head, until she left the city.
Once she passed the gate, she stayed there. Amelia was lost of what she wanted to do and why she had come outside. She loved nature, she never ever denied it, and the bronze woods were her favorite place in the world, but ever since that day…she avoided going into the woods alone, she avoided leaving the gates. She felt safe only if she was within a chime of waling, from the gate. Even the hotrsprings, the place she washed off all of her shame…even that place she visited only if she was with a group of people, never staying long enough to be alone there. Slow and careful steps toke her to the outer wall, where she sat down, and rested her back against the cold wall. The wall that was a prison you weren’t chained to, but still couldn’t leave. Another horrible flashback in her head, she could see the image of that man, so clearly…too clearly. She tried to shake it off, by observing the people who were coming and going. The people weren’t the ones to rest, she saw men who went out hunting and squires that headed out to patrolling and training. Her black eyes were dead and she just stared.
It was no less than four, or even five bells, that Amelia didn’t move. Some of the people were already returning from whatever their tasks were during the early morning, but Amelia just sat there. Still empty, still a shell…but thinking. She had been wanting to go see her father ever since he had been gone, but now..now she wanted it more than anything, but her mother would never let her go on her own, and she wouldn’t come.
But all of her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a cheerful voice ”Sister! Amelia! I’ve been looking all over for you!” the voice was so familiar, she lifted her gaze up to the woman and saw none other than her friend, Tia. The konti used her own native tongue with the young Cross at all possible cases, and she couldn’t really complain as she had a brief gasp of the tongue. ”hello, sister” more formal and a lot shorter than the words Tia spoke, but Amelia’s knowledge was of the formal kind and her vocabulary was not good enough for long, poetic sentences. ”I’ve been looking all over for you! It’s your date of birth, right? You are 15 years old now! Congratulations!” The scaled woman said as she dropped to the ground and hugged Amelia. She answered, but she didn’t say a thing as most of the sentence was a blur. Tia seemed to sense the girls confusion and with a light laughter she repeated in common ” I’ve been looking all over for you! It’s your date of birth, right? You are 15 years old now! Congratulations!” and Amelia just nodded, repeating the sentence in her head, the way it sounded in kontinese.
The two girls now sat there, side by side and observed the people passing ”I have a gift for you””you shouldn’t have…you know I don’t need anything””I know, but I thought you might like this one…” the speech of the konti was confident and got Amelia curios, she looked at the girl with an arched eyebrow, showing at least some emotion…what had become unusual in the past seasons. The girl with the webbed fingers pulled out a small pouch and handed it to Amelia.
Without much hesitation or even attempts to analyze the possible content, she opened it to revile…a deck of tarot. Her porcelain mask was broken, it fell to the ground as a bright smile crossed her face and she threw her pale arms around Tia, no words were spoken, they weren’t needed. They just sat there, on the cold ground while Amelia listed through the cards. ”you know what they say, a fresh deck tells no lies””What do you mean? Do cards eventually lie?””Playing cards always do, but Tarot, they eventually start picking up things from either their holder…or from just someone in the past…so the readings done with a new deck, is always clearer….” these words were like a bell to Amelia’s ears….she instantly shuffled her newly received deck, but she was interrupted by Tia ”Are you sure you want to do that?” Amelia stopped her shuffle and looked up at the konti ”when you read to yourself, you can make a lot of mistakes…are you willing to take that risk? You haven’t been fine for the past seasons…I’m worried you might make the most common mistakes” Amelia stayed shut, stopping to shuffle her deck and set it in her lap.
”But I have done a reading on myself before, you told me to do it before” ”But that was different, that was to memorize cards and layouts…to tell little things worth one card…I know you Amelia, I don’t know what had happened to you…but what you want to find out, is not something you will use one card for…and your lack of visible emotion, I know what it means…it means your emotions are a mess in your heart…””and what does that change?””you will make mistakes, the most popular mistakes of a fortune teller when reading to yourself…you will try to find the meaning behind the reading, the one you want to see not the one it actually shows, ignoring the actual lines…you will over complex it, and you are highly emotional now, a mess” Tia had no idea how right she was, or maybe she did know? It was unclear, but Amelia stopped ”then what should I do?””save it, save your special reading to when you are calm…and think straight, okay?” The Cross just nodded and rested her head on the konti’s shoulder. If she would need to practice her readings, she would do it whit the help of the konti, like she had done it before and like she had done it for so many times before.
Time passed for the two, noting of significance happening as the cards were tucked away in their pouch and the idea of self-reading passed just as easily as the travellers who left Syliras. They didn’t talk, they didn’t need to. A few bells latter, they finally decided to go back to their little homes, the rooms they had within the citadel. Tia, she liked this city even though she loved her home, Mura. But Amelia, for her, this city was nothing but a punishment, she didn’t see even one good thing in it anymore and she just wished to leave.
When the two parted their ways, Amelia toke another loop around the area where she lived, not that it was good for her. There was no fresh air, you couldn’t see the stars. If her nose hadn’t gotten used to the stench, well, you would have probably seen what she ate this morning. Not that with the living she and her mother had they ate all that much. A disgusting life, that was what she thought of it. She wanted away.
Finally, the pale girl entered her home, there her mother didn’t wait a chime before pulling the girls into a hug and wishing her a happy birthday. Out of common sense, Amelia hugged back and thanked her mother, but only because she knew she had to. A fake smile finding its way on her face as she continued listening to the long speech the older woman had prepared, but it broke as she mentioned a gift. ”mother no! We don’t have the miza for gifts! Whatever it is, please take it back, I’m sure who ever sold it to you will take it back fi you explain””but you can’t take back a living being” and that made the girl freeze. Did she get her a pet? They don’t have room for it, she didn’t hear anything either…some kind of hamster?
”tell me you are joking””No, I have seen you, you changed, you are so much like your father and you need freedom and need different ways of life…so…I bought you a horse, a leopard-breed, you can practice ridding till the end of this season, how to take care of her, and them…you can leave to that city…I arranged people who will help you” at this point, Ophelia didn’t know the men would not really help and it would all end up a lot different than planned, but the idea itself was so pure at hearth, that it caused Amelia to melt and with a few tears in her eyes hug her mother, this time truly. ”so, lets go see her?””tomorrow mother, tomorrow”
