The Beginning

Psssst"

Aynira stiffened. She refused to look.

"Pssssst, your highness"

Aynira pursed her round lips and squinted her narrow, brown eyes. She could see the familiar balls of multicolored lights in her peripherals and refused to address them.  She would not let herself be dragged into trouble by those little sparkle things again.

A month ago, she had seen them in her bedroom, and they begged her to follow them outside. When she called her personal guard, Ohaike, to help her, she was scolded for lying, abusing her power, and punished with an extra hour of Etiquette classes each day and the addition of Leadership and Behavioral classes to her daily schedule. A week ago, she'd seen them in a dream where she followed them into the garden. Apparently, she had sleepwalked into the garden, and now she had to sleep tied to the bed, with her handmaidens hovering over in case she needed to relieve herself. Every time those things came around, she lost some kind freedom. In fact, she was sitting in an etiquette class at this very moment because of them, she would not have another repeat of that same foolishness.

"Psssssssssst Ay-nir-ah," sang the lights.

Aynira gritted her teeth.

"...Your roll is to represent the Nuande people well when you are married to another nation. You are to emit power and strength, even when you have none," Mother Hougui said, Aynira's stout literature, (and now etiquette) tutor.. "Now, lift your chest, roll your shoulders back, tilt your chin upward. Your back should be slightly concave,"

Mother Hougui paused, and raised an expectant eyebrow, but Aynira was already sitting this way from the last four or five times she was instructed to do so. She filled her lungs with air lift her chest even higher, which satisfied her instructor enough to continue rambling as she paced in small circles.

"This is how you emanate pride, power, and confidence upon first glance. The first glance will only get you so far, however ..."

Mother Hougui was a dull yet eccentric woman. Dull in that everything about her was exactly what was expected, eccentric in that she was passionate about being exactly what she was expected to be. Her headwrap was tall, but only tall enough to display the excessive length of her hair, a symbol of status. Her jewelry was large, gold and gaudy, but just gaudy enough to display her wealth, no more or less.  Her skin was covered in herb infused oils, instead of flower or fruit oils, so that she smelled precisely like someone who could afford skin rejuvenating medicine, but was too sensible to care about something as frivolous as smelling pretty. She spoke from her diaphragm, with a deep confident tone, but never allowed herself to sound angry, happy, or too loud, as to give the appearance of total control. Aynira knew this, because Mother Hougui had explained it all to her in painstaking detail. It was important to Mother Hougui that she looked, smelled, and sounded, exactly the way a palace instructor should and her obsessive understanding of societal expectation was precisely why she was                                       regarded for two generations as the most effective etiquette teacher there ever was. Their was no prince, princess or foreign royal that she couldn't whip into shape.

Princess Aynira didn't believe that she needed whipping, however, she was the seventh of eight daughters, and the ninth of eleven princes and princesses. She was not the heiress, and the amount of deaths it would take to make that so erased all possibility of ever her ever being the high ruler. She was not an ideal wife either, having been born with a large black birthmark over her right eye and cheek that made the entire world hate her. The superstitious attributed her birthmark to a the curse of, Ptupuam, a long dead tyrant and the most hated man in the history of Nuande. The tyrant had been killed by a flaming arrow shot into his right eye, and they believe her birthmark was proof that she was his reincarnation.Well, Aynira believed in coincidences, but no one cared about the beliefs of a twelve year old "little monster." She could serve no use to her kingdom, not in the traditional way at least, and these classes were a waste of time.

The lights persisted "Psssssst. Aynira Aynira Aynira! Come with us! Hurry"

Aynira shook her head fervently.

"Do you not understand?" asked Mother Hougui, lifting a meticulously groomed brow.

"I do! I understand everything." the princess replied, nervously, "I was just ... please continue."

Mother Hougui squinted her large round eyes suspiciously and parted her lips as if to say something more, but then she shrugged and continued with her lesson, apparently deciding against it.

"We need you. Aynira! ... Aynira!.. Aynira!...Ay-"

What!? Aynira thought, angrily. I'm not going to talk to you.

"Come with us!" said the lights, again, loudly. Their voices rang in unison, echoing around her brain. She could see them buzzing around her face even when she blinked, reds, blues, oranges, and green lights flashing about her like large glowing flies.

No! Go away. ... And stop calling my name so much.

"Aynira Please Aynira!" the lights pleaded.

The flashing began to make her dizzy, then nauseous, then angry. Why wouldn't they just leave her alone? Why were they still speaking to her when she was so studiously ignoring them? Why wouldn't they just stay away?

They repeated,once more "Aynir-"

"NO!!"she hissed furiously.

Mother Hougui, who had been facing away from the princess, suddenly spun on her heels, "Is there a problem, young royal?" 

Aynira recoiled.

"No ma'am!" the startled young royal, mumbled, causing Mother Hougui to shrivel her nose in disapproval.

"We do not shrink our voices and muddle our words, we speak with power and eloquence," the instructor said sternly. "Speak from your diaphragm. You should feel the muscles in your stomach as you speak, inhale deeply .."

The lights returned,"Aynira, Aynira, Aynira, Ay-"

Maybe I should do it, just to make them stop.

"Would you like to try it, princess?"said Mother  Hougui.

Aynira heart jumped a second time. "Yes ma'am," she said, sounding breathless. 

Aynira watched as the lights floated over towards her teacher, "Stand and recite the-" Mother Hougui started, but was interrupted as the lights flew into her head. Aynira gasped, watching with wide eyes as Hougui's eyes became filled with light. "Actually, why don't we take a small intermission? Take a stroll in the garden and enjoy this nice overcast. It'll be hot enough to burn soon enough."

Aynira nodded, slightly dumbfounded, and made a swift exit.