Blood Brothers

First Impressions

We were shown to an audience chamber and told to wait. At least, that's what I had to assume the servant had told us as he left. We certainly ended up doing a lot of sitting idle as we waited for the King to show himself.

Liesel began to lose her patience now, her nerves serving to unsettle her the longer we waited. We both eagerly looked up when the door to the audience chamber opened, but we didn't see anyone come in. Liesel got to her feet, curiously going to see who had opened the door. I remained on the couch we had claimed, content to wait for her verdict on the matter.

Liesel rounded the opposing couch and the table set behind it with a flowing arrangement of flowers one way. I blinked when a little girl of perhaps six years old came creeping around the other side. The little blonde startled when she found me watching her and froze, blue eyes wide. Her little fingers clenched in her pure white nightgown, like she was afraid of me.

I cocked my head, trying to figure out why she would be wary of me. I decided it was more a fear of being seen by Liesel when the girl moved in a crouch to the front of the couch and peeked over the back and around the flowers, looking for my lover. I raised a brow in some amusement as I watched the little girl.

I wasn't exactly fond of children. Neither was Liesel. But I tended to stand them better than Liesel did. I wondered if it was an instinctual thing, young children knowing who disliked children and giving them a wide berth. Most of the youngsters in my home town knew not to cross paths with Liesel too. My musings faded as I watched Lisel and the girl move again.

Liesel finished her investigation at the door and closed it again, turning to come back to me. The little girl skittered back around the couch, staying out of Liesel's sight. I bit my lip to kill a smile as Liesel stalked back across the room, muttering about strange old houses.

She froze and I straightened in surprise at a sound behind me. I glanced back and found a piece of wall slowly swinging out, then gently closing again. Again, anything coming or going was not to be seen. I glanced at Liesel when she moved to investigate, then down at the grinning six year old peeking out from behind the other couch. I twisted to watch as Liesel ran her hands up and down the wall, trying to figure out how the secret door opened.

A presence close to me made me turn, and I blinked at the second blonde, this one eight, standing quite close in front of me with smiling blue eyes as she held a finger over her lips. Her gaze flicked over my shoulder towards Liesel, then she was turning away and rushing over to her sister, grabbing the younger girls hand and tugging her. They moved swiftly and silently despite their flowing night clothes, flitting across the floor to disappear in the heavy folds of a curtain.

"Something is going on here. Are we being played for fools or is this place haunted?"

I twisted around again to look at Liesel as she gave up trying to figure out the secret door and came back towards me. I had barely debated telling Liesel about the game going on around us when the main door slammed open and a third blonde girl came to join the fun.

I blinked in astonishment as the ten year old girl, dressed in trousers of all things, came pelting into the room and looked around, I assumed for the younger girls. She strode around the couch to stand in the middle of the room, queen of all she surveyed. Her sharp grey eyes took me in briefly, then turned to stare down Liesel as my lover lost her temper.

"Little brat! Go back to the kitchen with you, dirty little maid." Liesel switched to French when the girl cocked her head at the strange words. I doubted she had changed her words to anything kinder. She certainly hadn't changed her tone.

I jumped to my feet and caught Liesel's hand when she raised a hand to smack the girl. The girl might be dressed in trousers and be wandering around barefoot, but I got the feeling she wasn't as low in the household hierarchy as Liesel was assuming. Something about the regal way she moved. The grace and defiance she exhibited, even in the face of a woman twice her size.