Wonders & Woes of Writing: The Birthright, Part One

            I was going through some of my old things, and I found this short story I wrote in my high school creative writing class.  I got the idea from a really bizarre dream I had...  Admittedly most of my dreams are strange.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!  Here’s part one:

The Birthright

            The charcoal fire burnt smokelessly and Lysander stopped his interrogation as dawn drew near.  Picking up his harp he leaned back and plucked out a simple tune.  The girl sat quietly across from him, her black hair falling across her face.

            Yul, Lysander’s second-in-command silently appeared.  “Is she cleared?”

            “She appears to be harmless enough,” the king replied, nodding, “No weapons training.  Grew up on a farm, was captured by a slave ship and managed to escape it.  Then we found her.  She knows nothing of Marovia or the usurpation here.”

            “She’s foreign?”

            “Yes, from Syricos,” Lysander paused his strumming long enough to gesture towards the east and the island country that lay there.

            Yul nodded and glanced at the girl, “She has a name I assume.”

            “Yes, I suppose so, but I didn’t think to ask it.  Girl, what’s your name?”

            “Ieda,” Her forehead wrinkled slightly for an instant before she recovered her neutral expression.

            “Ieda,” Lysander repeated.

            The girl nodded and gave him an almost smile.

            “Do you have any questions, now that I’ve spent the night questioning you?”

            The girl looked momentarily confused, but then gave him a real, but timid smile of pleasure.  “You’re the rightful king?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then why are you on the run?”

            Lysander sighed and ran his fingers through his short brown hair.  “My friend Timothy betrayed me and tried to seize my throne.  My cousin is helping him.  I had to run for my life to escape the mobs that were out to get me.”

            “How were they so successful in getting the people to go against you?  After all, you’re the king.”

            He sighed again,  “You’ve heard that I’m a weakling, right?”

            Ieda shook her head.

            “I forgot, you’re foreign,” He leaned forward.  “A lot of people think that I wouldn’t make a good king because of something that happened years ago with Rafael.”

            “Is he your cousin?”

            “Yes.  He’s the one that is backing the rebellion.  Anyway, we were having a mock battle and I wasn’t playing the way he wanted me to, so he pulled out a knife and sliced open my leg.”

            Ieda grimaced and glanced at his ankle where a large scar barely showed from beneath his pant leg.  “Is that….?”  She pointed.

            “Yeah.”

            She shivered and looked away.

            “I didn’t fight back.”

            “Huh?”

            “I didn’t fight back.  That’s why they think I’m weak.  And I let them think it.  It serves its purpose.”  Lysander looked up at the brightening sky.  “Looks like my sister has sent me a message.”  He got up and hurried away.

            Ieda frowned at this back,  “It serves its purpose?”  But he was already gone, catching the homing pigeon that came from Syriah.

            Lysander pulled the message tube from the pigeon’s leg and emptied it.

Mercenary fleet coming up river.  Wedding being planned.

Rafael and Timothy suspicious of my movements.  Be careful.

Love, Syriah

            Lysander’s forehead wrinkled as he read the message.  “Wedding?  What wedding?”  He found a scrap of paper in his pocket and scribbled his question on it, after which he stuffed the paper into the message tube.  Then he watched as the homing pigeon flew back towards the castle.

…

            Syriah paced the floor by her window.  Her face was pinched and her once-fitted dress hung loosely on her.  A bird flew into the window and she surged towards it, almost hurting the bird in her rush to get her brother’s message.

What wedding?

            She started to cry.  “He hasn’t been near the castle in the last two months; he can’t know anything except what I tell him.”  She reminded herself, wiping her eyes and writing her reply.

Mine to Timothy to legitimize his usurpation.

            She had just released the bird into the air when there was a noise behind her.  Syriah spun around and saw a figure standing in the shadows.

           “So that’s how your brother is getting such good information.”  Rafael stepped into the light.  A hooded falcon sat on his gloved fist.  “We can’t have that.”  He moved to the window and pulled the falcon’s hood off.  The predator took to the sky as Rafael turned back to his cousin.  “I’m sorry to say that your brother will never hear from you again.”  He stated as he grabbed her arm and dragged her away, towards the dungeon.