A Terrible fate

Part 30

"Princess, it's time to wake up." Lionel softly shook me awake, practically cooing as I shifted in the mound of blankets he had left me in. "did you sleep well?"

I nodded softly, wriggling out of the fluffy confines of the bedding as he chuckled.

"Good. Bethany is here to help you get ready. Once she's done with you we can go and look for the things you want to get."

He stepped out of the room as Bethany slipped in. She gently brought me from the bed to the vanity with the help of two other girls. One of them ran to fetch a dress from my room while the other disappeared into my parents closet as Bethany came back with a damp cloth to clean my face with.

"Lionel says that you two are going to go scavenging for some things from your uncles." she set the cloth down in the basket next to the vanity, reaching out to undo the braid she had done yesterday "do you want another braid today?"

I didn't say anything. Too busy thinking about what I should grab from whose room. I needed something from Uncle Ashur, I already figured out what I wanted from Andrea's room and from the triplets. Uncle Bjorn had a collection of little figures from the places he fought at, but what did uncle emeric have?

By the time I got out of my own thoughts Bethany and the girls had dressed me in a warm gray dress of mine with another of my father's sweaters over it and tied it up with one of my mother's silk ribbons that he used to keep his short hair out of his face.

My hair was braided again, this time in two with one on either side of my head.

"There, that's fit for today I think." Bethany smiled, waving at me once more as she and the other two girls left letting Lionel back in.

"Alright princess, how should we do this?"

How should we do this indeed? It hadn't occurred to me the other night, but I still coulndt really walk around on my own yet. And having him hold me up by my side as we walked together would surely take too long.

"Should I carry you? Or would you like to try and do some walking around?"

In lieu of an answer I lifted my arms towards him.

"Carrying you it is!"

Nearly gleefully, he swept me up and got me settled in his arms. I was small enough that I could sit in the cork of his elbow with my knees over his other arm and have my arms around his neck or on his shoulder.

"Is it safe for her to be carried like that?" Clahadore quipped as the two of us left my parents room. I suppose it makes sense that he would be joining us.

"yes. Now princess, where to go first?"

First we headed to my Uncle Barret's (bjorns) room. It was the farthest one away from my parents, positioned near the entrance to the interior palace hallways. He and Uncle Emeric were the strongest, many would call them bear-like in their appearance and strength.

Uncle Barrett's room seemed small for such a big man. Its walls were covered in tapestries from his homeland in the north, thick woven paintings of the great conquests of kings and fights between men and the giants of the mountains from old tales. The shelves were filled with figures, statuettes, knives, swords, jewels, or any other little thing he could slip away from a battlefield.

Uncle Atlan called it barbaric trophy keeping, little things he took from the places he was victorious in. Oftentimes he would pick it up from a person's body, from a charred home, a broken city.

He and Uncle Ermeric were fighters, they had been soldiers for hire for a long time before they met my parents, which had been many years before they had my brother and I.