Laniara

Prologue

“Members of the Areima Council for the case of Laniara, please, remember your duties as you are now called to the Meeting Room to discuss your final decision,” the Chief Adjudicator called to the seventeen silver- and green-robed Areima Council members. Slowly, the members rose as one and began to file from their large crescent-shaped balcony and out into the corridor beyond, the Bow-guard and Sword-guard holding the large mahogany doors for them.

Laniara watched all of this in a daze as the high blue windows of the Judiciary Circle began to bleed together with the deep mahogany walls. She was the only one who knew the truth about the events that had taken place, and she was the only one who would be wrongly blamed for them.

As all the colors around her began to run together, creating a large swirl, Laniara found herself suddenly going back in time, to the crime that had taken place, and her internal struggle of being an outcast.

Part One -Outcast

Laniara felt the sun on her face, leaking through the open window of the hut she’d slept in with four other children. All five of the children were the orphans and street rats of Allidir, the capitol of the great Western land of Amraderi. However, compared to the others, the fourteen year-old girl was the worst of all the Amradeir street rats. She had been left by her mother —the ex-High Areima Council-woman— when she was only eight months old, after her mother’s fall from grace.

Who Laniara’s father had been, was a mystery to all the Amradeirs. It was a mystery that everyone —including Laniara— had tried to solve, but no one could. Then again, there were many such mysteries in Amraderi, such as, who was the strange witch who lived in the reeds of Lake Amonir, and why was she there? (Admittedly, Laniara had found out the answer to this question.) Or, what made the Central Clock stop every 21st day of the month at exactly 12:01, and start up again at exactly 1:02, still on time?

But by far the greatest mystery to appear in the last fifteen years, was the birth and parentage of Laniara. How could the daughter of the supposed perfect Amradeir —Allenir— have come to be what she was? And who was the man who had sired the imperfect hooligan?

Laniara herself had always wondered these things, and as dust danced in the sunlight from the window, she tried to puzzle it out. “If I’m the daughter of Allenir, then shouldn’t I look something like her? Or shouldn’t I be a proper Amradeir at least?” she whispered to herself.

“Allenir was a proper Amradeir,” she mused, glancing around her tiny box of a room. She skipped over the mirror, knowing the image she would see there would be horrifying. At least, for an Amradeir it would be. All Amradeir had red hair that shined with a silver light and complimented their pale skin and slender forms perfectly. Allenir had been the perfect picture of that. She’d stood at six feet tall, and her sliver-shining red hair had hung to her waist. She’d been slender as a stick, even when pregnant. Not to mention she had a genuinely porcelain complexion.

Laniara on the other hand, was scruffy and short, only five feet two inches tall. And in all honesty, she was quite barrel-chested, and her skin was a dark tan, matching perfectly with her dark brown hair, which would shine any color but silver. She was the farthest you could get in looks from an actual Amradeir. And she still had yet to be called to the Trial of Justice and the Trial of Truth, in which Amraderi’s children passed into adulthood, most at the maximum age of twelve, and Laniara was already two years passed that.

“I’ll never be a proper Amradeir,” she whispered to the walls, feeling her usual self-pity over the hard, cold truth. But her pity didn’t last for long, as a sharp voice cut through her sorrow, piercing her ears.

“Laniara!” Emelir —one of her fellow street rats, who was only eleven, and rumored to be the next Amradeir to endure the Trials— shrieked. Though Emelir was an orphan, she was still as a proper Amradeir should be.

“What Em?” Laniara asked, trying to make her voice sound as sleep-ridden as possible, so that Emelir would just leave her to her misery, though, she doubted that would happen.

“Get up!” came the reply, followed quickly by a pounding on the door of the small room.

“Alright, alright,” Laniara sighed, rubbing her eyes, she slowly sat up and grabbed her purple tunic and leather leggings off the floor. It was the tunic of a child, and the leather leggings announced her as a street rat.

Feeling a chilly breeze suddenly blow through her open window, she shivered and grabbed her leather jerkin off of the peg where is was hanging. “What d’you want Emelir?” she grumbled, her voice muffled by the jerkin as she pulled it on.

“There’s a message dove here for you,” the younger orphan called back through the door.

“What? A message dove for me?” Laniara asked, her voice full of surprise and puzzlement. Opening the door she stared at the light-purple dove and sighed. The purple immediately signified it was not a summons for the Trials, nor was it any important message. It was simply a message to a child Amradeir. Disappointment showed so plainly on her face, that as Emelir set the bird on her extended wrist, she also gave the older girl a hug.

“Your summons will come some day, I’m sure,” Emelir soothed. “And I’m sure you’ll be all the more influential of an Amradeir for it. It’s just taking them some time for the necessary paradigm shift to happen. Trust me, your turn will come…”

“Thanks, Emelir,” Laniara sighed, glaring down at the dove. “Well, I suppose I should read the message…”

With that, she turned back into her room and shut the door, wanting to be alone with her sorrow. As she sank onto her bed, the delicate scroll bag slipped from the dove’s beak and fell to her floor, where it stayed. But Laniara was too sad and full of self-pity to even notice that the bag was different than the usual deep purple velvet. Instead, it was of blue silk.

“I’ll never be a proper Amradeir,” she whispered again, this time to the dove who was her only company. It gave a small croon as she pet it on the head, but then, with its message delivered, it flew out the window, leaving Laniara all alone once again.

Part Two -Into the Reeds

“Laniara!” Emelir’s voice rang through the small cottage once more, causing the girl to jump as she washed the breakfast dishes.

“What Emelir?” she snapped irritably. She had been annoyed at everyone and everything all morning so far, and she swore that if Emelir called her name one more time, she would rip the other girl’s throat out. But even as that thought came into her head, she thrust it away. Violence that wasn’t in defense of her country was not permitted, and committing an act of violence would cause her to become even less of an Amradeir than she already was.

“Laniara, the King and Princes of Delir —the Southern Kingdom— are coming to Allidir today!” Emelir exclaimed excitedly.

“They are?!” Laniara gasped and accidentally dropped the pot she was washing into the washtub with a loud clang. “But…It’s completely unannounced!”

“I know! But they are! Isn’t it amazing? There hasn’t been a visiting king or queen, or even so much as a page in Allidir in fifteen years!” Emelir exclaimed. “Oh,” she added as an after-thought, “Allinia wants you to go tell the Reed Witch about it.”

“Do I have to?” Laniara groaned. Allinia was the orphan’s caretaker and loved to torture her with tedious, pointless work.

“Yes, but come on, Laniara, it can’t be that bad. Besides, you have to remember: ‘Every Amradeir do your part, lest ye wish for the summons not,’” Emelir quoted the country’s motto, which kept all its young workers at their work.

“Alright. Fine. But will you finish scrubbing this last pot then?” she pleaded.

“Okay!” Emelir smiled cheerily. “I guess I’ll see you later!”

“Sure thing,” Laniara sighed. Quickly, she dried her hands and walked out the door. The sun was burning brightly high above them, and she had to shade her eyes as she stepped into the busy street. All around her carts hustled by, filled with all forms of goods, from dried pastas to manure. Everything was in full swing in the marketplace, and everyone was bustling about, trying to prepare for the Southern King.

“Oh Laniara, Laniara,” crooned a familiar, unpleasant voice from across the street. Laniara looked over to see one of her numerous cousins standing across the street, smirking at her. The other girl’s name was Amradia, and she was supposed to be the most proper Amradeir in all of Amraderi, though, no one but Laniara knew her cold inner demon that bit and tore at wounds not of the flesh, but of the soul.

“What d’you want Amradia?” she snapped, glaring across the street.

“Oh, nothing, just have fun with your Witch!” she laughed cruelly.

“I’ll do that,” Laniara growled under her breath as she turned and started away. She wanted nothing to do with Amradia, nor with her cruel taunts. Everyone knew that the job of finding and telling the Reed Witch anything was afforded to only those deemed unworthy by the Areima Council.

Not that the Witch was all that bad. Her name was Shawnir, and she was originally from Delir, but she had crossed the wall between the two nations, and come to live in Allidir. No one but Laniara understood why she was as she was, or why she lived like she did. And seeing at both of them were outcasts, she and Shawnir had become good friends over the years.

Looking back at Amradia, she spat and growled to herself, “That’s to you and your ilk, Amradia. What do you know of Shawnir?” As she turned away, she noticed a rip in Amradia’s tunic’s silver shoulder and smirked. “So you can look like a hooligan sometimes,” she mused to herself.

As she left the town limits for the woods that lay between Allidir and Lake Amonir, Laniara suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. Something didn’t feel right. She felt as though something horrible had happened, or was about to. Hurrying her steps, she started down the old path to Shawnir’s house. It was almost completely over-grown with vines and grass and tree roots, but she could still find it.

Her sense that something was horrifically wrong grew until suddenly Laniara realized that the birds in the forest weren’t singing, and it had grown dark. Looking to the sky, she saw the heavy rain clouds that had covered the sun, and she was surprised. When she’d first stepped out of the cottage, there hadn’t been so much as a cloud in sight, and now nearly half the sky was covered in heavy rain clouds which threatened to dump in buckets on the citizens of Allidir.

Breaking into a jog, Laniara caught sight of the field of reeds ahead and sighed in relief. The rain wouldn’t be able to soak her after all. She would make it to Shawnir’s house just in time.

“Shawnir!” she called out as she neared the door. But right as she reach the small hut, something hit her stomach as though she’d been punched, and she doubled over in pain. But it wasn’t any form of physical pain. It was something that dragged at her spirit, and made her bones weary with worry. “Shawnir!” she called out again desperately, but instead of heading for the door, she jogged around the side of the hut, and out to Shawnir’s small stable.

“Shawnir! Are you there?” she yelled, hoping to get an answer, but as she rounded the hut, she saw the answer quite plainly, and was forced to look away.

Shawnir stood, bound to a pole, with all her animals’ carcasses at her feet. As the contents of Laniara’s breakfast were heaved up onto the only bit of dry, un-blood-soaked ground around, something glinting caught her eye. There! In between the horse’s bared teeth! What was that? Starting forward, Laniara tripped over Shawnir’s small, dead kitten and fell onto the horse. As she got to her knees, she felt blooding coat her everywhere, and knew that she had horse hair now coating the sleeves of her purple tunic. It was spring, and therefore shedding season.

Cringing at how grimy she know she looked, Laniara leaned up to the horse’s head, and pulled the glinting thing from its mouth with her right hand, as she carefully closed its sightless, dull eyes with her left. She stood and looked at the item she held. It was a piece of silver cloth, clearly torn off of some article of clothing by the horse in a frenzied battle. Carefully, she tucked it away and then picked her way over to where Shawnir stood.

“Being an outcast is always hard, but knowing the truth can be even harder,” Shawnir spoke at last to her, words of wisdom that seemed odd at the moment. As Laniara unbound her friend, a tear rolled down both women’s cheeks.

“What happened?” Laniara asked, her voice filled with sorrow for the bloody event.

“The people of Allidir no longer accept me,” Shawnir stated softly. “For they have sent a mere immature child to do their bidding…’A. of Allidir.’” She pointed to the three words that lay carved into the neck of her beloved mare.

Part Three -Shawnir of the Reeds and Amradia of Allidir

Shawnir and Laniara sat around the small table inside Shawnir’s hut. The pair hadn’t spoken a word since Shawnir had pointed out the words. The two had piled the carcasses in the now-empty barn, and set them to burn. Silent tears of loss —more than just loss over the animals— streamed down both their cheeks as they silently drank the tea Shawnir had made them.

“Who could have done this?” Laniara thought angrily, her mind just as full of tears as her eyes. “Who could have killed a woman’s beloved pets? Murdered them? A lamb, three pigs, four chickens, a mare, a foal, a cow, two puppies, and a kitten…Who could have done it?!”

“Laniara,” Shawnir’s voice broke softly through her thoughts. “You are a smart girl. I know you know who did this…But you must promise me not to go after her.”

“Her?” Laniara asked, surprised. She looked up into Shawnir’s kind face and gawked, suddenly realizing how like her own appearance Shawnir was. Though the older woman was thinner than Laniara, she was still short, and just as Laniara, her hair was brown, with golden traces in it. Her skin was a nice tan color, unlike the white porcelain of the Amradeirs, and for the first time in her life, Laniara felt that she truly belonged somewhere, and that maybe she was not a misfit after all.

“Yes, Laniara, her. It was a girl who did this. And if I know you, you will know exactly who she is. After all, you’re the great mysterious detective Laniara, Daughter of the Queen of Cryptic, —as she was called in my Delir— your wonderful mother, Allenir.”

“You knew my mother?!” Laniara exclaimed in surprise. Though she had spent quite a bit of time around Shawnir, it had really not been time spent talking.

“Correction, I know you mother, Laniara,” Shawnir said kindly. “She may not be alive any longer. But she still lives on in each and every one of us whom she loved…”

“But…How?” Laniara asked, trying to grasp the information.

“Your mother traveled a lot, my dear. And her favorite country to come to was Delir. I sense you’ve figured out that you are not all Amradeir, haven’t you?”

“Y-yes,” she stammered. “But there was n’t record of who my father was, so I was never sure.”

“That’s the great mystery about you my dear. You can solve any mystery, but your own,” Shawnir laughed.

“B-but…”

“Come, let us think of more pressing matters than parentage. Let’s see, how about my attacker? It was someone from Allidir, with the first initial of ‘A.’”

“But that’s half the city!” Laniara protested.

“Well, then, we’ll just look at the other clues. Let’s see, there’s the—” a sudden banging on the door interrupted Shawnir’s words.

“Open up!” yelled a cruel, hard, cold voice through the door.

Laniara jumped for the sword on Shawnir’s wall, but she wasn’t quick enough, for whoever was behind the door, clearly was not about to wait. The door was flung open right as Laniara tried to yank the sword down.

“Enforcers!” the voice yelled as Laniara yanked the sword down and spun it around, narrowly missing Shawnir as she swung around the face the Law Enforcement Officer —nicknamed “Enforcers.”

“She’s got a sword!” screamed one of them, and the next thing Laniara knew, she was being charged, bound and dragged away. The face of Amradia always looming over her as it all happened. She’d been set up! And there, on Amradia’s shoulder was a missing piece of silver tunic fabric. Amradia was the real animal-killer! But they would never believe her about it.

Part Four -The Decision and the King

Slowly the Judiciary Circle came back into clear view as Laniara pulled herself out of the memory. Sighing, she realized that the Areima Council was now filing back in, and it would not be long before the decision on what to do with her came. Staring around the room, her eyes latched onto Amradia, her chief accuser, who now stood in all her accusing glory as the “chief witness” to Laniara’s “crime.”

“There wasn’t a crime. At least not on my part. The only crime I’ve ever committed was being born!” she thought angrily as she glared at Amradia’s leering smirk.

Shawnir hadn’t been allowed into the Circle, since she was not of Amradeir blood, but as Laniara looked around, she realized with a gasp that someone else had. A tall, stocky man stood near the door, flanked by two Southern guards. He had tan skin, and his hair was a dark brown that shined gold, red, and black in the light. The crown upon his head immediately identified him as the Southern King. The very King of Delir whose coming she was supposed to tell Shawnir of.

A silent sigh crossed her lips as she realized she’d never told Shawnir about the coming of her King to Allidir. The fiasco back in the reeds had taken all thoughts of her original duty from her mind, and now she felt guilty for it.

“I’m so sorry Shawnir of the Reeds. I meant to tell you. I know it would have brought some joy into both of our lives,” she thought to her older friend sadly. “Perhaps if things had been different, we would have stood side-by-side together and welcomed him as he paraded down the streets. But that will never happen. I doubt I’ll even ever see you again. I’m really—“

“Has the Areima Council reached a verdict?” the Chief Adjudicator called to the balcony, where all the Council had filed back into their seats.

“We have!” they called as one.

“And your verdict is?” the Chief Adjudicator called back.

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! She will from hence forth be banished from the kingdom of Amraderi!” the Council replied in unison as tears began to pour down poor Laniara’s face. She had expected nothing less than that verdict, but it still hurt to hear it. Now she would officially never be a true Amradeir. She would never pass from childhood to adulthood.

At this statement from the Council, the Circle burst into discussions and movement. Everyone was talking, and the place turned into a mass chaos of chatter and moving bodies. Through all the movement, no one noticed that the King of Delir had moved forward and was now speaking to the Chief Adjudicator.

As Amradia loomed over Laniara as she turned to go, the Chief Adjudicator came forward, accompanied by the King. “Laniara, the King of Delir has offered to take you with him, so that you might still have a proper home,” he stated in a kind voice that made Laniara puzzled. Then, she remembered that the Chief Adjudicator was her mother’s twin brother, Atir.

“I thank you, kind King,” Laniara said with a curtsey, accepting his offer, but the words away and pulled her so that she might stand straight.

“Please, no formalities,” he laughed, smiling kindly at her. “We are leaving, and to me the case seemed to be rather cruel. It seemed it was a case of an outcast versus a perfect Amradeir. Which is never fair…”

Laniara felt a small smile grace her lips, but something was puzzling the back of her head. However, she did not question, she had just gained a new home, and hopefully one where she would be loved.

“Besides, my sons will absolutely adore you,” he added, chuckling to himself. “They only have one sister, and she’s nowhere near as tough as you. It’ll be nice to have someone besides me to whip them into shape.”

Laniara laughed and grinned, maybe this home would be good after-all.

Epilogue

Laniara quickly packed her things in her bag. She had to leave home within twenty-four hours of her banishment, and the King’s party planned to leave within the next half-hour. The boys were nice, and as the King had said, they really did need someone to whip them into shape. But she didn’t mind. For once it felt like she had a family.

“Family,” she sighed softly. That was the one thing she’d never had, and the one thing she would never find out. She still didn’t know who her father was, and now that she was being forced to leave the place where she might be able to find out, she knew that she would never be able to.

Reaching under her bed for the last item she had to pack, her sword, her hand touched something odd. Something that was not of leather, or the hair of a mouse, of the dust of the floor.

“Silk?” she whispered, puzzled. Clasping her hand around the item, she dragged it out to reveal a message in a blue silk bag. Suddenly, she realized that it was the message the dove had brought on the day the King had come. The day she’d been framed.

Slowly, she opened the bag and pulled the message out. It was written on a thin paper that quite clearly didn’t come from Amraderi. Staring at the message, she gaped in surprise. It was from her father! It read:

Dearest daughter,

You do not know me, nor do I know you, but some day I hope we will. Your mother left no note to me of your birth, she only left me your twin brother. Only was it recently that I found out about you from my closest correspondent in Amraderi, Shawnir of the Reed. I loved your mother dearly, as did Shawn, but neither of us ever found out what happened to her until you met Shawn. I understand that this made seem odd to you, but I am coming to see you in Allidir. Take care, my daughter. I hope to be there sometime in spring.

Until we meet,

Love,

Your Father

Below the note sat the seal of Delir, and rolled inside the paper was a picture of her mother, dressed in a blue silk tunic, the leather leggings of a street rat or traveler, and a leather jerkin, holding hands with her father, the King of Delir.

A/N: Hey, okay, I had to write this story for LA, and, well, I'm pretty proud of it. It's quite long, and it was supposed to be a short suspense/mystery story, but oh well, I got a 98 on it, and so I'm happy. Anyway, PLEASE review and tell me what you thought. I hope to someday follow this story up with others of the same realm, and create them into a collection of stories, and eventually a full story told through many mini stories. Please tell me what you think of this, and whether or not you think I should continue with others about this realm. Um, I think that's all, so, ta ta for now! Als/Lor/Kat