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I used to wear a crown and all the other frills that come with being royalty. It wasn't really my thing. I much prefer to keep a low profile and standing before a kingdom to smile and curtsey didn't really do it for me.
My mother never understood but thankfully, my father did. He sent me off to train with the best fighters and thieves in the land. None of them knew I was a princess. I dared not tell them but I could not, most unfortunately, conceal the fact that I was a girl. The young men hated me for it. And at the same time they loved me.
I wasn't unattractive; in fact quite the opposite. My fellow students would jeer me during our training sessions and make rather pathetic attempts to court me afterwards. I would only humor the more talented of my classmates. I weaseled the tricks they had learned from them as I played like I was interested.
I rose through the ranks quickly. Aided by the skills I learned from these simple-minded men and the grace and agility I had gained from being forced to go through countless posture and dancing lessons and other such things a princess is forced to endure by her mother I was soon at the top of my class.
One day our teacher asked us to for a line at the back of the room where we normally gathered at the beginning of each day. I organized myself with the rest of them trying not to stand too close to any one of them and waited for our instruction. He waited until we grew quiet and then asked us all why we were training, his eyes were on me.
I wanted to speak but wasn't sure of what to say. Several of the men around me spoke up before I found my tongue. "I wish to be the kings assassin." I stated clearly. Muffled chuckles erupted all around me. I was not amused. One of my more adamant suitors spoke up then. "We all wish to kill the king sweetheart." He wasn't quite as dim as the rest of them, he had a handsomeness about him and I actually rather liked him until those words passed his lips. I wanted to protest but I couldn't as laughter spread throughout the small crowd.
Again our teacher spoke almost as if he hasn't heard the comment. "The King's most valuable agent, his most priceless treasure, she defends the Kingdom as surely as any army in the midnight hour. The soft of heart fall to her blade as grass before the scythe. Even the most resolute are made careless and die by her wiles." The men were instantly silent and they watched as the man who taught them turned and left.
He didn't teach us anything that day we had to go about training on our own. The men gathered together and every now and then I overheard a loud argument as they brawled in the other room. I stayed to myself practicing my technique with various weapons but I kept coming back to the scythe, perhaps it was because of my teacher's earlier words. The drawn out, curved single-edged blade with a long, bent handle somehow felt right in my hands.
I took to using the weapon from that day on and the men took to calling me the reaper. It was intended as a joke but it didn't phase me, I actually rather liked the name.
Soon came the time when I had to return to my family. I dreaded the idea but I knew I didn't have a choice. An elaborately decorated carriage came for me and I in an equally elaborate dress was required to enter with naught but prying eyes upon me.
Strangely, they watched unspoken as I left and I was glad to be rid of most of them. Two pairs of eyes looked through me that day. One set belonged to my teacher and I burned inside knowing I would never see him again. The other belonged to my former suitor and a chill ran through me somehow knowing we would cross paths again on much more unfriendly terms.
As we came again to Da Xia, my home, and The Land of Eternal Summer, I tried to appear happy if only to please my father. But returning to this lifestyle exhausted my spirit. I felt no want to do anything not even live. I insisted that I was made for better things but my mother only countered that there are no better things than being a princess and royalty and she continued to parade me around like a doll on display.
I implored my father to let me serve as his guard but he wouldn't have it. No matter what I had learned, I was his daughter and would not be treated as anything lower. So I took matters into my own hands.
I stood watch outside the room of the king and queen many nights hidden in the shadows as the other guards slept at the door. Just before the break of dawn, I would noiselessly return to my own guarded chamber and sneak past those intended to keep watch. All went well until one morning I waited too long to return.
The guards posted outside my door began to shout that in turn woke the guards at my parent's room who immediately spotted me in the light of the rising sun. I tried to no end to explain my wanderings away. My father stationed four more guards outside my room making it rather impossible for me to find a time when one or more of them was not awake. He said it was for the best but I knew better.
Days passed and one morning I awoke to screaming. It was my mother. I burst out of my room the doors flew open and knocked several of the guards over as I raced down the hall. Two guards lay lifeless at my feet as I entered my mother and father's room. My father's decapitated body still rested on his bed and the trail of blood suggested that his head lay at the far side of the bed from where I stood.
Tears were streaming down my mother's face and though we had out differences at times I loved her and she loved me. I never wished to see her die. The blade came from behind, striking her in the back, tearing her flesh and silencing her forever.
I knew his face all too well. And he knew mine. But now we knew each other for out true selves. I am the princess Dyani Natsu of Da Xia, a land where the sun darkens my already ebony skin and my eyes flicker with the reflection of that same sun. He is prince Keelin Tuyet of Pipon The Land of Eternal Winter more commonly referred to as the frozen north.
His face is snow white and his hair is dark though it looks as if it is covered in frost. It never looked like this before perhaps he dyed it to conceal his identity. His hands are gloved in silky black as the hands of Piponians often are because of their icy touch.
He does not speak. He does not smile. He does not move. I turned and left knowing he would not dare follow. He wasn't quite as dim as the rest of them like I said before.
I've not returned to my true home since that day. And I have no desire to. My people take care of themselves I suppose. I have, however, made several visits to Pipon. I took the head of the king at dawn and stabbed the queen in the back one morning at dawn. Another day not too long after I found the prince, gutted him and strung him up by parts better left unmentioned.
There are no royalty in summer or winter anymore. There was a princess of Pipon about my age, the twin of Keelin by the name of Istas but she left her land long before this whole matter occurred. A wise young woman it seems.
Though she was once my goddess Sendra has been no help to me. And Mudith has been far more trouble than good. I choose to keep my distance from the ladies who govern the seasons.
I much prefer Marawen who eludes the advances of the
god of the hunt as I once did many years ago. She
cares for me and keeps me. And I in turn serve her and
her people the Storm Weavers with gratitude removing
all those who are unworthy from her presence.
I’d heard that kind of scream before; it was that of a panther in pain or trouble, most likely both. As I stole through the forest the panther’s cries no longer tore through the air. I became wary but proceeded towards where I’d first heard the sound.
I soon came upon a group of several men busying themselves with tying the front and back paws of a dead panther. It’s eyes, though still glowing in the darkness of the night, would soon fade and sink into it’s noble head. I know not how they did it. That panther could easily have taken ten men were it alive. Here there were only six.
As I stood in the shadows I quietly removed the collar from my neck. The closest man began to walk toward me. Once he entered the shadows he was mine. I slipped the bone collar round his neck and twisted quickly. Any last words he may have had I do not know for he would no longer speak. I rested his body in the darker shadows behind some trees and took my collar back from him.
Two of the other men came then into my shadows to look for their companion. One of them meeting my collar, the other my scythe but not for long as it passed through his neck and left his body and head to go their separate ways. His head, unfortunately gave me away as it rolled into the small area lighted by the men’s flickering lamp.
Forgetting their task of binding the cat they backed away from the decapitated head. One of them, quite by accident, knocked over the lamp extinguishing the flame. He, being the closest was my next target. I had dropped my collar with it’s last victim so with my free hand I pulled a sharp hunting knife from it’s brace at my thigh. I aimed for where I had last seen the fleeing man and threw the knife blindly. I smiled into the darkness when I heard him scream and fall to the earth.
I was continuing forward when a bright light appeared behind me. As I looked back I saw the broken lamp had lit the brush beneath it on fire. I turned my eyes ahead again and sprinted after the two men left. They split up and I went after the faster runner first. I lept upon him like a hungry cat and dug my claw into the flesh at the back of his neck. He begged me not to kill him but it was already too late for him even though he didn’t know it.
I let him up and he ran off into the dark night. The poison would take him while I found his friend. The Storm Weaver’s porcupine had lent me one of her appropriately named spiders. I milked some of the deadly liquid from ‘Poison’ as Sabra calls her most unobedient spider. I used the poison on my finger claw. It may be small but ever so deadly.
I went immediately into the trees following the sounds of footsteps and breathing in the night. I hurriedly went from branch to branch, tree to tree until I was ahead of the last ‘hunter’. I dropped the blade of my scythe downwards and held loosely onto the handle. He ran straight into the blade and in his surprise he tripped and fell upon it dying almost instantly.
I retrieved my tools as I retraced my steps towards the panther. The fire had not spread much so I untied the big cat by it’s light. I then lifted the magnificent creature to my shoulders. The body was still warm, perhaps because of the fire which I promptly put out.
Panthers have been hunted for generations. I took the lifeless animal back to my tent at the edge of Storm Weaver camp; there I skinned her. Wearing a panther skin is a symbol of power and wisdom. I would use her pelt to make clothing for myself and my friend Kismet.
It took great patience and skill to remove the claws. In some areas wearing panthers’ claws as a necklace is regarded as a good luck fetish. I carefully plucked each whisker from her face and used my hunting knife to chop them up very finely. I placed them in a small vile. They can be used as a poison by puncturing minute holed in the victim’s intestines, which then become infected.
The deaths of the hunters would be as meaningless as were their lives but my panther would live
on to aid me even in death. Because she had value in life she would always have value to me.
