The next part from my story (see my previous post for part one):
She would return to this pool every day the seasons allowed for the next fourteen years, never finding another Mer but never losing her curiosity. She trained herself to hold her breath for longer and longer periods of time, so that she could dive a little bit deeper into the pool, but her efforts proved fruitless.
One such day, however, as a bald, limping Din Freber tried and failed once again to shoot down the Vespers flying overhead, she remained under the waters surface for nearly two minutes, and as she turned her head toward the top to swim up, her heart nearly stopped, for a man was there before her, swimming furiously down to her. Her eyes went wide, but she hardly noticed the pain in them as water assaulted her pupils because the man wrapped her in his arms and paddled hastily toward the surface.
Exhilarated, she turned to the man, whose black hair was pressed flat against his round scalp, and said, Are you one of the Mer?
But the man, gasping for breath, swam to the muddy shore and pulled himself up, revealing a bare pair of muscular legs beneath a small pair of shorts that clung to his skin like glue. Ania frowned, then clumsily covered her naked breasts with her hands and tried to sink as low in the water as possible while still keeping her head above the surface. Who are you? she demanded. Have you come to spy on me?
Spy on you? the man said incredulously. I thought you were drowning; I jumped in to save you.
I did not need saving, she retorted. Now tell me who you are.
He replied that his name was Kenton Dago, and only then seemed to realize who she was. Youre Princess Ania, he stated.
Who is Kenton Dago? she asked, mostly to force herself not to blush. In all her time, no one save for Leenie (who had consented to her swimming alone for several years now) and some of the castle staff ever seemed to recognize her. Katrine was the public Princess Ania had served her lone purpose by being adopted, and had often gone days or even weeks without a single word or glimpse from the King or Queen.
I will not lie to a princess, Kenton Dago said. Im a captain for the Revival.
Despite being relatively sheltered, Ania of course knew of the rebel group known as the Revival that had given the King more trouble than he cared to admit in recent years. Why are you telling me this? she asked. I will call for my guards, and theyll arrest you.
Kenton Dago smiled, and only then did Ania notice that he was indeed handsome. Forgive me, Princess, but if you were going to do so, I would be in chains already. He rubbed his muscled arms with his palms and shivered slightly. If youll forgive me again, Princess, Im going to get dressed. Ill keep my back to you so you can do the same.
Indeed he kept his word, and minutes later they were walking together through the valley. Ania knew she should call for help immediately the Revival was violent, after all, filled with anarchists and murderers but something about this Kenton Dago stayed her hand. It was only later that she realized she was feeling the first aches of love for this man that had dived into the water to rescue her and who was honest about his identity from the very beginning.
Kent, as she called him, showed her the path through the valley he had taken even as a kid, and demonstrated some of the methods he had learned of avoiding the guards. Furthermore, he claimed to have seen her swimming one day years ago, but could not let his eyes linger on so fine a human form. Once again, she had to fight a smile.
He climbed the valley numerous times over the next several weeks, and soon Ania began to look forward to her clandestine meetings with him. He spoke of a Revival group that was not the band of brutes the King described but a collection of men and women who were dedicated to a rule by the people, led by elected citizens, as it had been in the old days of Estolle long before the coming of the Furies. The more she listened, the more she found herself drawn to their cause.
She was not foolish enough, however, to blindly invest in Kents word alone. She began to retreat to Calinon Castles archives, where she found old, dusty texts, long forgotten by even the archives chroniclers, that contained personal reflections and testimonies that were not mentioned at all in her daily lessons from the approved history books. She particularly found of interest a written account from a prostitute of the town of Daventry that described not an attack by wild Vespers and a heroic stand by the King, but rather a drunken and hobbling Edvard, fresh off one of his nightly sessions with her, throwing empty wine bottles and rocks at a pair of Vesper chicks that had made a nest in the great tree at the center of town, which the town had unanimously decided to protect. Edvard so disturbed the chicks that their mother soon swept down from the mountain overlooking Daventry and knocked Edvard to the ground, leaving a nasty gash on his head, and then scooped up the chicks in her great wing and took them far away.
Ania went to the archives more than the falls and pools. Leenie took great surprise in this, but nobody else even seemed to notice. After reading countless stories that at best differed slightly from the official history and at worst outright contradicted it, she met with Kent once again by the Vecchio clearing in the valley. I dont know what to believe anymore, she confessed. I was raised believing one thing, but now I want to believe that those were lies. She was confused, and hurt, and angry.
Kent comforted her with soothing words and cupped her small, smooth hand in his own. Despite their many liaisons, it was the first time he had dared to touch her since pulling her out of the pool on the day they met. Ania placed her other hand atop his, and they kissed, softly, as Kent ran the back of his fingers down Anias trembling cheek.
Kent asked her to help the Revival, but Ania wasnt ready to commit to such a massive change in her life just yet. That night, she approached the King with the alternate she wasnt sure if she wanted to call them true, because she wasnt sure what that word meant anymore histories of Estolle she had uncovered, histories that painted the country and its royal line not as heroic defenders of the realm that earned their leadership by birthright but rather as willful oppressors of the people who collected taxes to fund golden halls and spread forth the army for conquest, rather than its stated goal to elevate the lesser peoples of the world by bringing them into the kingdom.
Edvard told her she was foolish, and that her mind had been poisoned by falsehoods. She then asked him to recount his version of the story where he saved Daventry from the wild Vespers, and he retold his heroic tale of defending the town. When she read to him the account of the Daventry prostitute, his face fell, and she knew then that he recognized truth in the words. Is everything youve inscribed as truth in our history a lie? she asked him pointedly. Enraged, Edvard ordered her locked away in the castles prison keep.
Ania felt more confused than threatened, and after two days of being visited only by the guard who brought her meals (which were plentiful and well-prepared she still was a Princess), the confusion turned to boredom. She demanded to see the King, or even Leenie, but the guard politely told her he wasnt allowed to let her see anyone.
So she was especially surprised to see Leenie push open her door on her second night of captivity. She held a ring of keys loosely in her left hand and a heavy cooking pot in her right. The guard lied unconscious at her feet. I wish I didnt have to do that, she said, glancing down at him. He was rather nice for a guard of the keep.
Ania rushed forward and wrapped her arms about Leenies shoulders. Och, careful, child, Leenie said, staggering backward slightly.
We have to get out of here, quickly, Ania said. I cant let you be caught.
I know, Leenie said. Ive made arrangements.
Ania asked what she meant by that, but Leenie shushed her and led her through the dark hallways of the keep. They made their way outside, where a high-pitched bird chirp directed Leenies attention toward the hedgerows that lined the western side of the keep. Out stepped a cloaked figure, who motioned for them to follow before quickly retreating back into the shrubberies. Ania followed Leenie toward the figure, then stifled a yelp as a man gently gripped her wrist. The man pulled back the hood on his cloak, and even in the dark Ania could easily make out Kents face. She kissed him fiercely (Leenie rolled her eyes and averted her eyes), then he said, Come, we havent much time.
Kent led them along a winding path through the valley, crouching to the ground as random patrols passed by in the distance. Before long they had reached the bottom of the valley and found themselves facing the tall wall that surrounded the city of Erandia. Kent uttered a series of quick whistles as they ran along the wall, and soon they were answered by a whistle from the other side. This way, Kent said, leading them several more feet. As he brought them to a halt, a portion of the wall moved. Ania peered closer and saw a small block of bricks slowly being pushed toward them. The block soon separated from the wall entirely, and a man and woman on the other end crept through the opening. You were right, Kent, the young man said when he saw Ania, she is gorgeous. The woman slapped him on the shoulder in annoyance, then ushered them through the opening.
Kent and the other two took Ania and Leenie to their Revival camp, located in a secret basement of the Graven Tavern in Erandia. There, Ania was finally convinced that they were what she had suspected they were for quite some time now: simple freedom fighters, genuinely desiring a return to the days of representative rule by choice, not unchecked power by heredity. After the way in which she was treated by Edvard, she felt no particular loyalty to him or his kingdom (and in truth, she never had), so she agreed to help them in their quest to overthrow the monarchy, provided that little to no violence result in her actions. Kent himself assured her that violence would likely result more from her not joining their cause, and so her fears were momentarily settled.
They waited another day to rest and make their plans, then, just before the sun rose on the second day since her escape, Ania trudged back up the Selah Valley with Kent and a skeptical but loyal Leenie in tow.
[Here the historical records are murky, due to lost transcripts in the Great Fire of 718 A.A. Accounts differ, and though there is always the temptation to fill in the historical gaps with reasonably reliable hearsay, doing so would, in this case, especially, betray the nature of the truth for which Ania Minerva was so well known to advocate. So in this spirit, all that can be verified is that Ania and Leenie smuggled Kenton Dago into Calinon Castle, and that somehow they enabled a small band of Revivalists to also enter the Castle. They made their way to the thrown disguised as castle guards and all but forced him to relinquish his crown. How this was accomplished exactly has been lost to history, but every surviving record indicates that it was a bloodless coup.
The records resume approximately two years later.]
She would return to this pool every day the seasons allowed for the next fourteen years, never finding another Mer but never losing her curiosity. She trained herself to hold her breath for longer and longer periods of time, so that she could dive a little bit deeper into the pool, but her efforts proved fruitless.
One such day, however, as a bald, limping Din Freber tried and failed once again to shoot down the Vespers flying overhead, she remained under the waters surface for nearly two minutes, and as she turned her head toward the top to swim up, her heart nearly stopped, for a man was there before her, swimming furiously down to her. Her eyes went wide, but she hardly noticed the pain in them as water assaulted her pupils because the man wrapped her in his arms and paddled hastily toward the surface.
Exhilarated, she turned to the man, whose black hair was pressed flat against his round scalp, and said, Are you one of the Mer?
But the man, gasping for breath, swam to the muddy shore and pulled himself up, revealing a bare pair of muscular legs beneath a small pair of shorts that clung to his skin like glue. Ania frowned, then clumsily covered her naked breasts with her hands and tried to sink as low in the water as possible while still keeping her head above the surface. Who are you? she demanded. Have you come to spy on me?
Spy on you? the man said incredulously. I thought you were drowning; I jumped in to save you.
I did not need saving, she retorted. Now tell me who you are.
He replied that his name was Kenton Dago, and only then seemed to realize who she was. Youre Princess Ania, he stated.
Who is Kenton Dago? she asked, mostly to force herself not to blush. In all her time, no one save for Leenie (who had consented to her swimming alone for several years now) and some of the castle staff ever seemed to recognize her. Katrine was the public Princess Ania had served her lone purpose by being adopted, and had often gone days or even weeks without a single word or glimpse from the King or Queen.
I will not lie to a princess, Kenton Dago said. Im a captain for the Revival.
Despite being relatively sheltered, Ania of course knew of the rebel group known as the Revival that had given the King more trouble than he cared to admit in recent years. Why are you telling me this? she asked. I will call for my guards, and theyll arrest you.
Kenton Dago smiled, and only then did Ania notice that he was indeed handsome. Forgive me, Princess, but if you were going to do so, I would be in chains already. He rubbed his muscled arms with his palms and shivered slightly. If youll forgive me again, Princess, Im going to get dressed. Ill keep my back to you so you can do the same.
Indeed he kept his word, and minutes later they were walking together through the valley. Ania knew she should call for help immediately the Revival was violent, after all, filled with anarchists and murderers but something about this Kenton Dago stayed her hand. It was only later that she realized she was feeling the first aches of love for this man that had dived into the water to rescue her and who was honest about his identity from the very beginning.
Kent, as she called him, showed her the path through the valley he had taken even as a kid, and demonstrated some of the methods he had learned of avoiding the guards. Furthermore, he claimed to have seen her swimming one day years ago, but could not let his eyes linger on so fine a human form. Once again, she had to fight a smile.
He climbed the valley numerous times over the next several weeks, and soon Ania began to look forward to her clandestine meetings with him. He spoke of a Revival group that was not the band of brutes the King described but a collection of men and women who were dedicated to a rule by the people, led by elected citizens, as it had been in the old days of Estolle long before the coming of the Furies. The more she listened, the more she found herself drawn to their cause.
She was not foolish enough, however, to blindly invest in Kents word alone. She began to retreat to Calinon Castles archives, where she found old, dusty texts, long forgotten by even the archives chroniclers, that contained personal reflections and testimonies that were not mentioned at all in her daily lessons from the approved history books. She particularly found of interest a written account from a prostitute of the town of Daventry that described not an attack by wild Vespers and a heroic stand by the King, but rather a drunken and hobbling Edvard, fresh off one of his nightly sessions with her, throwing empty wine bottles and rocks at a pair of Vesper chicks that had made a nest in the great tree at the center of town, which the town had unanimously decided to protect. Edvard so disturbed the chicks that their mother soon swept down from the mountain overlooking Daventry and knocked Edvard to the ground, leaving a nasty gash on his head, and then scooped up the chicks in her great wing and took them far away.
Ania went to the archives more than the falls and pools. Leenie took great surprise in this, but nobody else even seemed to notice. After reading countless stories that at best differed slightly from the official history and at worst outright contradicted it, she met with Kent once again by the Vecchio clearing in the valley. I dont know what to believe anymore, she confessed. I was raised believing one thing, but now I want to believe that those were lies. She was confused, and hurt, and angry.
Kent comforted her with soothing words and cupped her small, smooth hand in his own. Despite their many liaisons, it was the first time he had dared to touch her since pulling her out of the pool on the day they met. Ania placed her other hand atop his, and they kissed, softly, as Kent ran the back of his fingers down Anias trembling cheek.
Kent asked her to help the Revival, but Ania wasnt ready to commit to such a massive change in her life just yet. That night, she approached the King with the alternate she wasnt sure if she wanted to call them true, because she wasnt sure what that word meant anymore histories of Estolle she had uncovered, histories that painted the country and its royal line not as heroic defenders of the realm that earned their leadership by birthright but rather as willful oppressors of the people who collected taxes to fund golden halls and spread forth the army for conquest, rather than its stated goal to elevate the lesser peoples of the world by bringing them into the kingdom.
Edvard told her she was foolish, and that her mind had been poisoned by falsehoods. She then asked him to recount his version of the story where he saved Daventry from the wild Vespers, and he retold his heroic tale of defending the town. When she read to him the account of the Daventry prostitute, his face fell, and she knew then that he recognized truth in the words. Is everything youve inscribed as truth in our history a lie? she asked him pointedly. Enraged, Edvard ordered her locked away in the castles prison keep.
Ania felt more confused than threatened, and after two days of being visited only by the guard who brought her meals (which were plentiful and well-prepared she still was a Princess), the confusion turned to boredom. She demanded to see the King, or even Leenie, but the guard politely told her he wasnt allowed to let her see anyone.
So she was especially surprised to see Leenie push open her door on her second night of captivity. She held a ring of keys loosely in her left hand and a heavy cooking pot in her right. The guard lied unconscious at her feet. I wish I didnt have to do that, she said, glancing down at him. He was rather nice for a guard of the keep.
Ania rushed forward and wrapped her arms about Leenies shoulders. Och, careful, child, Leenie said, staggering backward slightly.
We have to get out of here, quickly, Ania said. I cant let you be caught.
I know, Leenie said. Ive made arrangements.
Ania asked what she meant by that, but Leenie shushed her and led her through the dark hallways of the keep. They made their way outside, where a high-pitched bird chirp directed Leenies attention toward the hedgerows that lined the western side of the keep. Out stepped a cloaked figure, who motioned for them to follow before quickly retreating back into the shrubberies. Ania followed Leenie toward the figure, then stifled a yelp as a man gently gripped her wrist. The man pulled back the hood on his cloak, and even in the dark Ania could easily make out Kents face. She kissed him fiercely (Leenie rolled her eyes and averted her eyes), then he said, Come, we havent much time.
Kent led them along a winding path through the valley, crouching to the ground as random patrols passed by in the distance. Before long they had reached the bottom of the valley and found themselves facing the tall wall that surrounded the city of Erandia. Kent uttered a series of quick whistles as they ran along the wall, and soon they were answered by a whistle from the other side. This way, Kent said, leading them several more feet. As he brought them to a halt, a portion of the wall moved. Ania peered closer and saw a small block of bricks slowly being pushed toward them. The block soon separated from the wall entirely, and a man and woman on the other end crept through the opening. You were right, Kent, the young man said when he saw Ania, she is gorgeous. The woman slapped him on the shoulder in annoyance, then ushered them through the opening.
Kent and the other two took Ania and Leenie to their Revival camp, located in a secret basement of the Graven Tavern in Erandia. There, Ania was finally convinced that they were what she had suspected they were for quite some time now: simple freedom fighters, genuinely desiring a return to the days of representative rule by choice, not unchecked power by heredity. After the way in which she was treated by Edvard, she felt no particular loyalty to him or his kingdom (and in truth, she never had), so she agreed to help them in their quest to overthrow the monarchy, provided that little to no violence result in her actions. Kent himself assured her that violence would likely result more from her not joining their cause, and so her fears were momentarily settled.
They waited another day to rest and make their plans, then, just before the sun rose on the second day since her escape, Ania trudged back up the Selah Valley with Kent and a skeptical but loyal Leenie in tow.
[Here the historical records are murky, due to lost transcripts in the Great Fire of 718 A.A. Accounts differ, and though there is always the temptation to fill in the historical gaps with reasonably reliable hearsay, doing so would, in this case, especially, betray the nature of the truth for which Ania Minerva was so well known to advocate. So in this spirit, all that can be verified is that Ania and Leenie smuggled Kenton Dago into Calinon Castle, and that somehow they enabled a small band of Revivalists to also enter the Castle. They made their way to the thrown disguised as castle guards and all but forced him to relinquish his crown. How this was accomplished exactly has been lost to history, but every surviving record indicates that it was a bloodless coup.
The records resume approximately two years later.]
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
For me, sports has become boring and almost unwatchable. Maybe it's because so many more important things are happening in my life. That will surely change to some extent when pichers and catchers report to spring training. After all, unlike the teams I root for in other sports, the Sox are, and will always be like a lifelong friend to me. This will be my 56th season rooting for them. That's a lot of pain, mixed in with occasional pleasure.
It's the pleasure that makes the pain tolerable, or even welcome. Sort of like another part of my life, I suppose.
So, what's going on otherwise in your everyday life?
oh, I know right where you are then. Great area. DO have any food places that you especially enjoy.