Paladin's Pendant

Paladin's Pendant - Chapter 11 - The Search Begins

As Chat and Twirl were walking out of the Snow Leopard Caves Twirl began to have a very bad feeling deep inside her chest.  She had just scribbled down the poem greedily as it was recited and it just didn’t feel right.  Somehow the monks knew she was a fraud.  Somehow they knew she was betraying Chat.  But deep inside she said to her self ‘No one understands.  You are the only one who really knows.’  Even so she felt like a sell out and a coward.

Then as Chiffon showed up she knew the game was up.  Twirl was extraordinarily angry that the gazelle had ratted her out and betrayed her to Chat.  She knew Chat would eventually find out.  But right then?  What if they needed Chat's help to interpret the poem?  What if there were more invisible cliffs to walk through for heaven’s sake!  But Chiffon had no idea about the things that had occurred moments before at the Snow Cliffs... how could she have?

And so Twirl did the only thing she could have done.  She let go of Chat's hand.  She walked over and stood next to Chiffon.  She turned and walked away from one of the only people in this world that may have ever been a true friend to her.  

Since leaving the mountain’s gorgeous vales and epic cliffs every time Twirl thought about Chat and how he probably hated her, her own anger boiled within her.  ‘How dare you judge me Nigel?’  She didn’t know where any of this was coming from.  She didn’t know if Chat hated her.  She didn’t know where her own anger was coming from.  It was all very confusing all of a sudden.  

As the troupe walked the long journey down out of the mountains and across the plains of Mace a war raged within Twirl.  A war of allegiances.  A war of emotions she had for Chat and her new friends that had so readily trusted her.  A war of intellect analyzing her relationship with Chiffon and the King.  And ultimately a war with herself and her shame for the destroyed life that laid out behind her.

At one point in their long journey Chiffon sauntered up next to Twirl and said, “I am certain his highness will be overjoyed at your successes.  The poem should be more than enough to see your parents released.”

Twirl’s parents were alive she reminded herself.  Living a lie with others can sometimes make you forget simple truths such as this.  The story that Twirl had told the group had been partially true and partially a facade.  When Twirl was originally performing in her parent’s traveling troupe she had been invited to visit the King she denied his request.  The young raccoon was living the perfect dream as she saw it.  She had her parents, the road, and her fans. 

The King had not taken too kindly to rejection.  So he sent spies into the traveling troupes camp at night and stole the two things that mattered most dearly to her, her mother and her father.  The moment she realized her mother and father had disappeared she knew they had been kidnapped by the King.  Nothing else made sense.  Realizing the mistake she had made she began the long journey to the Red Cliffs of Pike to see a King about terms for releasing her parents.

When Twirl arrived at the castle she was ignored.  This much is true.  She wasn’t even given an audience with the King to hear his demands of her.  And so she eventually got the idea to perform a legendary performance in order to bring the hippopotamus down to her if she couldn’t go to him.  And it had worked.

But the reception wasn’t nearly as welcoming as she had told Chat it was.  The terms from Lord Durge were clear.  She was to become the Kingdom’s lead spy and there was to be no discussion or negotiations.  And then came the most startling revelation of them all.  The Lord Durge wanted King Unys’ Cave of Shadows for himself.  He wanted the treasures and the untold riches held within.  And most importantly, the King wanted the Paladin’s Pendant.  He hadn’t told her what he would use the wish for - but she could guess.  Durge seemed like the sort of individual who was afraid of dying, she could see it deep below the surface.  And so she knew that the King would wish for immortality.  Not for peace for His country.  Not for unification.  No, he would wish selfishly for himself.