No Crown, No Glory

Chapter IV

"The ship is safest when it is in port, but that is not what ships were built for"_Paulo Coelho (The Pelgrimage).

Slowly, Arielle turned around. 'Ella' was a nickname not many people new--in fact, no one apart from her family did. Its origin was a cute story that happened when they were children, and her name was too difficult to pronouce. It was the first thing she deemed as strange.
Her brother, Elijah, stood in front of her. It left her suddenly stunned, for they haven't been close in years. Years that Arielle had spent either alone or with Aideen, and, as the thought roamed in, she noticed he hadn't spared a look to her since he came. Although, Aideen's official position was that of a maid's, she wasn't one in that very sense of the word. That being thought, it wasn't easy for her to grasp his opinion of her.
"Yes, Eli?" The princess, very sweetly, responded. She hoped her smile could mask her worries, for Elijah's tense voice told her he wasn't as relaxed as he seemed. Even if, in a Ball like this, no one could ever be that relaxed. Which made Arielle wonder what was so different for the two young man she met before.
"I don't want to discuss it here," He told her, looking around. The prince's eyes found Kyler's, who was grabbing a goblet with Suryan wine dripped in it, and carefully sipped it. Hanniel, however, was talking to the ladies, again. It made him swollow. To Arielle, though, it made her narrow her eyes. For one, his position was one that didn't look comfortable, as if he was delivering a speech he wasn't particularly fond of. It was the same sensation he gave out when he talked to her. But she atributed it to the Ball.
Then, it was Aideen, but when Arielle looked with him, he averted his gaze.
"Then we shall go to somewhere a bit more...private" With that, Arielle pulled him by the wrist, dragging him along with her all the way up to her room, in the Highest Tower of the Castle of Aeronia.
Her room was already neatly clean and made up, the sun rays crossing her window to warm up the cold walls. It was a bother to have to walk up all those stairs, but then again, it gave her a sense of privacy. Elijah, despite going through more serious training, looked already tired, while she, who spent her days entering and leaving, running around the four closed walls she called home and which she could not put one of her feet outside. The hours she spent training with her father were, as all else, a closed knit secret she couldn't share with anyone at all.
The prince looked uncomfortable, as if the conversation they were about to have left him like that. It was, sincerly, foolish. On one hand, she didn't ask for it, nor did she needed it, but on the other--it was something she craved.
"So?" Arielle tried to ease down her curiosity. It was burning up her skin, itching everywhere. Her thinking was calm and clear, but the feeling that there was something inside was making her want to scratch herself badly. "What is it?"
"It's just..." He begun, but paused, cutting his thinking by half. The words struggled to get out, as the prince's been waiting to blurt out this for a decade. "How do I even start?"
"By the beginning, you idiot!" Arielle snapped, and smacked him in the head. "It was you, who wanted to talk to me, remember?" She raised her eyebrows, while Elijah's anger only spiked.
"Don't you tell me you haven't been dying to get to talk to me, too, Ella," He teased.
"I was fine, before that..." She answered, but quickly closed her mouth.
Oh, this is definately not how I wanted it to go.
Honestly, she had been imagining how this would be like, speaking normally to her brother after so much time apart. It was, unexpectedly, not going very well. While they seldom argued when they were kids, now it was a foreign feeling. She was hoping they could go back to how they were before...before everything.
"Is that how you truly feel?" He asked, half expecting her to snap at him again, but, luckily, he only felt a pair of thin, long arms wrapping around his middle.
"No, I missed you," She spoke. "I missed you a lot," She sighed. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me anyways?"
She looked closely at her brother's face as she unwrapped herself off him. It wasn't as blank as it had been during the Ball, but the only emotion she was seeing was regret. Sadness. Not a bit of...say, happiness?
"I wanted to ask you how was your life here after I...uh..." He couldn't bring himself to say the rest of the sentence. He wanted to blow it off to someone, explain how it was back the Camp, someone who did not come from the same experience as him. His parents? Not a chance. All his friends were from the Camp. So, that left him his baby sister. He felt...beyond guilty for leaving her...but what choice did he have? He wanted to be close to her...and if she wasn't making the first step, he had to be the one. Wasn't that a testament for his bravery?
"Very normal, I guess" She admitted. "I couldn't get out as I couldn't when we were young, I had a personal maid that looked after me..." She hesitated. How was she supposed to tell her brother the cold treatment she received from her own parents?
"You mean the girl that is always with you?" He questioned. On and off, the princess always looked for a hint of emotion, but his face, as tanned and fine as it was, was a mask apparently tough to crack.
The princess nodded. Deena was special to her, since she had been the only one she had interacted over the course of ten years. Ten very long years.
Deena wasn't only her maid; She was her best friend, her sister, her confidante.
"A beauty, isn't she?" Arielle smirked. It was pretty easy to notice how much Aideen was excited to meet the prince,--in reality, a lot of girls were, but the young maid had, what she called, a special previledge.
It was Elijah's turn to simply nod. In his opinion, girls were the farthest of his mind. First, he had to train more so he could take over the kingdom. Second, win the crown.
"Does she do her duties?" It was the prince's next question. Fairly, Arielle was tired that it was only her being subject to a long interrogatory.
"Yes, dear brother, but it is not like I am incapable of doing that by myself." Arielle smiled, the excitement running down her veins. "I've training too"
"I see" Elijah's silver eyes narrowed. Even though it did not appease him to have his sister fight, it did made her glow up.
"I'm also thinking of participating---" Arielle started, but a loud, freaked shout came from his brother's mouth.
"NO!"
"What?" She was stunned, so stunned that she rose up to step farther away from the bed, occupying almost the whole room. It was not angry or frustation, sadness or regret. It was pure, unleashed fury. Although she did not understand the cause of it.
She had been thinking about it for a while. Ever since she heard her father's annoucement, it was a thought that kept appearing.
What if she actually joined them? What if she participated...
"Absolutely not" He insisted. "Don't you know how dangerous that is?"
Arielle rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm fully aware, but please," She batted her eyelashes at her brother, like a lady would. "Tell me: How on the desert is the infamous Trial Games dangerous?"
Elijah blinked. "It doesn't matter how much train you have, it would never be enough,"
He calmly tried to reason with her.
"And yours is? It lasted the same as mine," She argued. She was fully aware of the danger of it, yes. But why on the desert should that mean she could not participate?
"No is no, and that's final," He declared. He was about to leave, when she said:
"You're not papa," She cried. "What makes you the one who decides for me?"
The prince sighed. "You do not understand what we go through,"
The fury just burned her veins and increased the temperature in the room.
"Then, please," She dared. "Enlighten me,"
He gave in. "Very well," He begun. "It all starts when we get there. It's a remote location, somewhere in the desert, but they don't care. They only need to bring us, not stay there with us. They tell us we are not there to make friends, only live. There are peaceful times; When we are learning strategies and history, taught by a scribe, but apart from that, it's not something pleasurable.
We get beaten, at first. Harsh words to toughen us up. If we survive, we get to have lunch. If not, it does not end. It never does. Upon the years, it worsens. But that's a lot of years among other boys--we start to develop, it's hard. Eventually, all the bruises go away. But it's not something pretty. We learn to stand up for ourselves. And respect. Always respect.
That's when Arielle's heart broke.