Silence in Sagas

12

Willa woke in the castle, but not in her own room. There was a faint pounding in her head. She sat up slowly and scrunched up her nose at the though of what she'd done last night.

"Don't worry, no one saw much of your drunken state."

Allia was standing by the window, a cup of steaming tea in her hand. Willa sighed and rose up slowly. She was still wearing the clothes from yesterday.

All this time, and she still hadn't gotten to try on a dress.

And here she was thinking of trying on dresses. In a castle. In The Castle. Made out to be Oliwa. On her way to meeting Oliwa's parents today.

"That's good," said Willa, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She looked out the window, over the kingdom. Like, really over the kingdom. "What floor are we on?"

Allia tipped her head back and emptied the cup. "Sixth."

Willa nodded slowly. "Do you like it here?"

Allia studied Willa for a moment and sighed. "I don't know, honestly... There are too many hills. No sea in sight." She dumped down on the couch next to Willa and hugged her own arms. "And it's so cold."

"COLD?" Willa raised her eyebrows. Centis was as cold as it wasn't hot. Wait what...?

Allia laughed. "Well, I think it's cold."

Willa sighed. "Is it really that tropical in the Marines?" 

Allia looked at the floor for a while. She was seemingly very deep in thought. 

"Yes," she said eventually. "Or, I guess it would appear that way for you. So, yes, but no."

They sat in silence. A silence that Willa found herself listening to. The castle was often engulfed in low rumblings and murmurs, sometimes distant shouts, but beneath all that... a silence seemed to lurk. There were no birds chirping, and there was no sounds of trees falling. A wave of homesickness washed over Willa. She did miss the sounds of trees falling behind her cabin.

A thought hit her. "Do you know if there is some way to go outside the castle?" she asked Allia who turned and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't your Shaes tell you?"

"My shaes?"

"Sorry, your Schoolmasters... Didn't they tell you about the castle - about the gardens?"

Willa furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head. She had had no Schoolmasters, but she couldn't really tell Allia that, could she... It was best to just pretend that these Schoolmasters had been clumsy, lousy ones. She could pass with that, right?

"No, they didn't... Would you mind telling me?"

Allia stood up and walked to a desk in the middle of her room. It was identical to the desk Willa had in her room... She wondered how many desks like that one existed in this castle. 

"My Schoolmaster told me that there are two gardens in the castle," Allia said, and Willa felt herself become a little disappointed... Gardens, not forests or any kind of wildlife (but what other thing she had expected, she didn't know).

"There is one inside the castle, and one on the outskirts of it... I think it's a little corner of the on inside the castle that you can see from here." Allia gestured towards the window. Willa stood up and walked closer to it. She looked down - she didn't need to get very close to spot it. The window was a large one - not high up on the wall. The windowsill was down with her knees, and... the tall cliffs and rocks she had climbed back in Notteny had made sure to eliminate most fear of heights, but looking down into what was meters upon meters of castle walls, Willa's head started to spin a little.