A Tale of Crown and Country

Reila

    Crying wasn't going to change history, Reila chastised herself as she marched past the ends of Mr. Vestan's wheat fields to the edge of the Inglewood forest. She needed to get away, needed to be by herself. She really needed to figure things out for herself. Getting angry wasn't going to solve anything. The situation was over, and she had to deal with the aftermath responsibly. She reached the first of the line of trees, their trunks like masts reaching for the sea in the sky. Suppressing the urge to run straight into the dense foliage, she walked further until she found the clearing.

Where she came to think and be alone, the clearing was small enough to pace in without tiring her out. It held a respectable number of trunks for sitting, and was hidden enough to only be easily found by those who already knew where it was. Reila sat on an old fallen log at the edge of the clearing and put her head in her hands. Her long brown hair fell in front of her eyes, but she didn't mind: it wasn't as if she was using them at the moment.

Her entire life was a lie, she exaggerated. She corrected herself: it was world-shattering, life-altering, but not a lie. She was still herself. Mereila Deiarn, who helped out in the cloth shop in her home of Quaelsi. She hesitated to call it a family shop, since apparently she wasn't entirely family, but Quaelsi would always be her home, seeing as she had no idea where she had come from.

She was an orphan with a family, as far as she could tell. Mereila Deiarn, she said the name again in her mind. It was her name; she had adopted it as much as the Deiarn's had adopted her. It was a part of who she was. It didn't matter where she had come from, who her parents were; it mattered who she had become. That was the only important thing here. Reila had always been confident in herself, and she wasn't about to let a revelation like this shake that. That was part of her identity–her confidence–and as long as she held onto that, then she'd always have a role to play in this world.

Reila lifted her head from her hands and curled loose hair behind her ears. She rolled her shoulders back and took in a deep breath.

Leaves rustled behind her, and Reila snapped her attention to the source. A boy in loose pants and a cream shirt stepped into the clearing, brushing off the bits of nature that had managed to cling to him in the process. He pushed wisps of dark hair out of his eyes and looked at her with a glint of sympathetic sadness in his eyes.

Annoyed, Reila turned away from him. She wanted to be alone–that was why she was here, and he knew that. She wanted to think things through for herself, ration with herself, fully comprehend how this changed her life before returning to town.

"Reila..." he started. She didn't answer, didn't turn back around. "I know how you must be feeling right now."

It was a sweet gesture, but it wasn't what she wanted right now.

"You can't possibly understand what I'm thinking, Castin," she said accusingly.

"That's your problem, Rei, you're thinking. Maybe you try feeling instead."

"What use is that?" she said, lowering her guard. Castin had managed to get under her skin.

"You just found out you were adopted," he said simply. "How does that make you feel?"

"That's the thing," she stood and faced him. "Feeling isn't going to help. What's done is done. You can't tell a rose to be a lily when it's already grown."

"See, you're thinking again."

"You want me to feel?" she asked accusingly. "Fine, I'll feel."

Castin looked at her, waiting for her to say something.

"I feel betrayed, alright?" she admitted. She started to wander around the clearing. "I feel lost. I feel confused. I feel hurt and angry and just–betrayed," she ended sadly. Reila realized what her friend had done, what he had pushed her to do. She wanted to commend him for it, but that would boost his ego too much. "Why would they wait almost sixteen years to tell me?" she asked. "Why wait? Why not tell me earlier. Why not not tell me at all? That's why I feel betrayed."

"Maybe they wanted to wait until you were old enough," Castin offered.

"But sixteen, Cas?" she said. "That's an awful long time."

"Now you're back to thinking."

"Yes!" she exclaimed, irritated to her wits end with her friend who refused to understand her. He had known her how long? At least ten years, and he still wanted her to feel rather than think, heart over head. But what good had a heart ever done? Hearts caused problems that only the head could fix. The heart was a wild goat and the head its reluctant herder. Sure the heart had power, but it never lasted–it was inevitable. "Of course I'm thinking again."

"So Reila, what are you going to do about this?"

"What am I going to do?" she repeated, taken aback by his sudden shift in tone. Now he was prompting her, playing with her. He was letting her use her strengths. He had asked her to think. "Well," she began, "I guess I've got to find them. My birth parents, I mean."

"How are you going to do that?" he asked.

She paced for a minute, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger as she was accustomed to doing while solving a problem. Castin waited patiently, knowing not to intervene just yet. He knew her tics and cues, and yet insisted on infuriating her.

"Aldira," she declared, her eyes aglow with excitement.

"Aldira?"

"Aldira," she repeated in earnest. "I could find records there, at the University of Allriya library. There must be some sort of archive of the sort."

"That's if you're Allriyan," he pointed out.

"I must be Allriyan," she said a little hurt. "I don't look so different from you or my family." She had hesitated to use the word since the revelation, but seeing as it was unproductive to refer to them as "The Deiarns", and they were the closest thing to family, she would continue to use it.

"You could be Reightneirian," Castin offered. "There's not much difference between them and us."

"Now who's over-thinking?" Reila teased. She looked around the clearing, and, realizing she had accomplished what she came here to do, it was time to return home.

Castin saw the realization enter her eyes. "Ready to go home?" he asked playfully.

"Always," she smiled and linked arms with him as they exited the clearing.