Three Fates Bound By Scars

We were brothers once.

Lenai was wearing her finest gown, it was woven from loose white fabric, and had thin nearly see through sleeves. It was floor length but airy, the neckline low enough to draw attention but high enough to avoid scandal. Lenai donned a tiny green necklace of faux emeralds to match her eyes. Her scarlet hair was tied into a loose braid with a white crow pin synching the braid at the top. A gift from her mother, wretched as she was, that she had been given by the late King's brother.

Mother, what did you really have with Leinor?

She'd asked once, mother didn't come alive for her husband and in fact did most of the ruling herself. She treated her husband like an unwanted piece of furniture and his presence served only to annoy her. Her left arm was missing from the elbow joint to the hand, on it was grafted a soul enchanted prosthetic. As a child she'd wondered endlessly about it until...

Lenai asked, so low she'd whispered, "What happened to your hand...your real hand?"

Mother turned from the mahogany desk in the study, her face twisted up into an ugly snarl, "Never."

"I, I'm sorry- I just thought,"

"Never ask me that again, do you understand?"

"I u-understand." Lenai stammered, mother's nails digging into her wrists.

She'd never asked about Leinor again, about the dead King, and would dare not ask after the lost arm. Perhaps mother had loved the dead King's older brother, perhaps she hadn't but in any case something had happened. Talking to Kaya had only made her curiosity more intense, there was no reason to doubt the royal family's claims of a suicide. Lenai made up her mind to ask her cousin more about the body's strange condition, if she could find something to use against her mother...

A knock at her chamber's door interrupted her looping thoughts, "You may enter!" she called out.

The servant girl clambered in bashfully, "Lady Lenai, Prince Elias sent me to tell you that he has left a council meeting and awaits you in the music room."

"I'll be out in a moment." Lenai said.

The serving girl gave a little bow of her head and scurried to wait outside, Lenai took a steadying breath. It was hard not to be a little frightened of Elias, with his ears, fangs and...the thin line of a scar was still on her hand. The area where his claws had pricked her from the ball hadn't healed over completely, she knew he hadn't meant it. It was still so close to the stories she'd heard in preparation to come to Verona, the prince with the violent temper. He had wild shifts where he became near feral and attacked anyone in sight, even his own family. Lenai had made a plan for every variable besides him; she'd intended to avoid him as wholly as possible.

I can't avoid him now and I'll need to figure out a way to use him to my advantage if I'm to win a crown here. If I'm to charm myself into Arryn's good graces...

Arryn made her shiver with his empty cold eyes and the way the feeling of frost still clung to her skin from that first night. Carefully she took another steadying breath, Elias wouldn't feel comfortable if he realized she was scared. Lenai walked out of her chamber to meet the servant, wearing her best lies on her face. The girl beckoned Lenai to follow her and they were off to the music room in the upper chambers of the castle.

They arrived at the door of the music room, the serving girl gently knocking to notify Elias of their arrival before taking a bow. She waved goodbye and disappeared, it had been so quick, and Lenai was accustomed to servants walking with the guests to present them. Perhaps the girl had been afraid of him too,

It must be so lonely, growing up in a castle where everyone shakes when you're around.

For a moment she was sympathetic to his circumstances, at the very least the staff Lenai grew up around had been warm. She'd had the occasional visits of Kaya and the constant companionship of her dear handmaiden, Noelle. Her own little family of sorts who she had brought together had come to be an acceptable replacement for mother and father.