THE LIGHT OF A'LEST

CHAPTER 3

     Kara stuck herself with the needle, flicked it away, and then kicked the half-sewn curtain across the stage. The familiar heat of anger rose deep from within her and crested as the drapes flew into the air and landed in a heap just off stage. Her temper seemed to constantly hover just on the edge of release these last few weeks. Being forced to leave her home had only marked its start. Reaching down and clutching the oval-shaped mirror beside her, she held it to her face. Reluctantly, she forced her eyes open while she took slow, deep breaths. Staring into the partially scratched surface of the mirror, the flush of red that wreathed her cheeks slowly began to dissipate. Still, her once beautiful features seemed so tired, stretched thin. Her gorgeous brown hair lay snarled in places, despite her most earnest efforts. Forcing herself to stand, she stood from the wooden platform these backwater fools called a stage and patted the dust off her stupid brown skirt. She sighed as she scrutinized the rest of her clothes. The simple white smock. The light blue vest. The unremarkable brown slippers. All of which she tried desperately to keep as clean as possible despite hating them intensely. It was not the simple clothes that bothered her. After all, she had worn far worse than this on occasion. It was everything. The journey north to the backwater village of Tia had been long and arduous. Her chaperone and only company, Uncle Ca, had started out sympathetic to her plight at first but now seemed indifferent. He treated her no differently than the lowliest of stagehands and forced her to endure countless hours of menial work, like stitching stupid stage props or tending to one of the actual performers' makeup or clothing.

     "Mere relation to greatness is no guarantee of its survival, daughter. Talent must be cultivated through hardship and hard work. The gods despise nepotism," her mother Elian would say as she pretended to watch one of their servants brush Kara's hair, while simultaneously scrutinizing her own image in the mirror. Her parents' logic was that if she was to learn to become a great performer like them, then she too must travel with one of the many roving bands of performers that crisscrossed Gaia and earn it herself. This was far from the truth in Kara's eyes. After all, she was fourteen now. A feat accomplished shortly after departing the capital to rove the countryside as an indentured slave to her oppressor "The Uncle." The truth was her parents were successful, remarkably successful, and that success depended on not having to be parents to her or her older sister. All her life, they had jumped at any opportunity to ship them off to whatever school was farthest away for their "own good."

     "Where is that blasted girl gone off too now?" Ca's booming voice bellowed as he examined the half-sewn drapes that now lay in a heap near the edge of the stage. "The show begins in twenty minutes; these blasted drapes are still not done. Look at this, she's somehow managed to get blood all over them! Kara! Kara! How am I supposed to put on a show about the finest palace in all of Gaia with bloody drapes! Kara!"

     Ca had no idea what he had been thinking when he agreed to take on his impetuous niece. He groaned and stretched his back. It ached constantly, but it had grown worse since taking the girl in. "Too old for this," he grunted. The girl had no idea what it meant to work for something, and her attitude was far worse than his sister had let on. Ahh, his infamous sister, the great and mighty Elian, royal actress extraordinaire. "Petulant snob!" he grumbled while massaging his back with a balled-up fist. She had been on him for years to take the girl under his wing. He half suspected that she only wished to be rid of the girl so that she could attend court more often, and after spending a few weeks with the girl, he was starting to understand why. She was hopeless, no, worse than hopeless, a burden. He had finally submitted to his sister's latest bout of pleas only after she had agreed to pay him handsomely for the inconvenience and, most importantly, given his guild prime placement in this year's lunar-light festival... A grand endorsement, none grander, but even this was starting to look like a bad deal.