A Highlander's Promise

Her Promise

Leora felt awkward after dinner.

Clearly not a new feeling.

Ever since she came here she has felt out of place.

Caitir refused to have her help clean up dinner because she was a guest- which earned Leora a sinister glance from Ceana- and as dessert was served everyone just seemed to relax and talk.

But she had no one to talk to.

The young men were listening intently to jokes told by Maon in Gaelic and she didn't want to burden them to reveal the English translations.

So she stared at the walls, the ceiling and was taking in all the details of the grand room. Trying to look as if she was paying to them attention with great interest, when honestly she just didn't want to seem alone because no one wanted to talk to her.

"Ceana MacAlister where is your manners?!" Caitir said once the two were in the kitchen.

"What have I done?" he daughter whined.

"You know exactly what you've done. I don't need to speak English to understand how you behaved with our guest," her mother snapped.

"I thought we couldn't trust her? We need to make up our minds. How can we treat her politely as a guest when she might be hiding something?"

"Treat her like a normal guest, surely you can tell something is off about her. She's too different, I understand. You saw her at dinner, the girl doesn't eat rabbit! What kind of person has never eaten rabbit? If she was a spy then she wouldn't be so openly strange would she?" Caitir asked her daughter when she was really asking herself aloud.

"I don't know. I just know she's weird. And I don't like her."

"Ceana, no matter what, you better not treat her as you did tonight. You are shaming our name more than your own. And if anyone will find out what she truly is, 'tis you."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the same age. Befriend her and have her confide in you. Maybe she'll slip up something. You have a better chance of having an impact on her than any of those lads. She's alone and she wants to talk to another young lass. Now you better not disappoint your family and show interest for once. It doesn't matter if she'd hiding anything or not, 'tis just the right thing to do," Caitir said sternly.

"Fine!"

And with that Ceana left the kitchen in a storm.

She hated it.

She hated her.

She hated her  from the second she arrived.

Everyone was talking about her. The whole fortress was in a buzz.

A strange girl was not what the clan expected to see when the hunters returned.

Her father and uncle could not stop talking about her.

Fionn and Ian couldn't either.

But she knew that her brother and cousin would never disclose anything with her.

No matter how close they were, even if they shared the same blood, Ceana felt further away from them than any others in the castle.

Ever since she was old enough to play, Ceana had always followed Fionn and Ian. She longed to play with them. They were always going on adventures and having the wildest times.

There weren't other girls her age in the castle and her mother had to stay and carry out her duties in the fortress. Fionn and Ian never wanted to take her to the village and watch over her, and if they did it was always forced. Her caretakers did occasionally take her to meet other girls from the town but they treated her different because she was special. As she grew older she didn't have anything in common with the village or town girls who were too shy to approach her or snickered about her behind her back. She built up a cold wall and thick skin and decided to not let anything get to her.