Secret Memories

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 15th June 2015

Characters: Zelah
Description: Xeladrie remembers her lost sister.
Location: Sunstone Seahold
Date: month 13, day 10 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: Bryvin, Xelfin

Zelah

It was late in the evening, after Xeladrie had had dinner with Bryvin. He
wasn't coming to her bed tonight, so she felt secure in revisiting her old
memories. She'd left instructions that she was not to be disturbed unless
the Hold was on fire, claiming a sense of general malaise. She drew the
curtains and brought a glow into the spacious closet. Then she opened a
specific trunk, pulled out the clothes, and triggered the false bottom to
rise up.

Inside she'd kept a few precious treasures she'd wanted hidden from her
family. Especially from her father. After Elarie had died, when it became
clear her father would never speak about that particular daughter again,
she'd put together everything she could save of her sister's, had it
hidden inside this false-paneled trunk of her sister's. (She'd always
wondered where Elarie had gotten it, but was so grateful that she had it;
other side, she never could have saved anything that reminded her of her
sister.)

There was a lock of Elarie's hair that had been twisted into a bracelet.
Elarie used to save the hair that came out into her brush, and had tied it
together at one end. She'd used it to teach Xeladrie to braid hair, since
as a young girl she'd tugged her sister's hair and made it hurt. It had a
pink ribbon woven into it, one that had once been vibrant but had faded
over the Turns until it was a pale color you could barely tell had been
pink.

Then there was two beautiful hair clips. One was wooden and had been
carved with an intricate pattern of vines. The other was made of silver
and had tiny turquoise beads inlaid into it. Both of those she might be
able to wear now, without having to hide them away, Xeladrie realized as
she considered them. Her husband likely wouldn't recognize them. As long
as she didn't wear them in sight of visitors from Turquoise Bay…though
maybe her father had forgotten by now. She set them aside and continued
exploring.

There was a small book in there, the item Xeladrie had come to find. She
brushed her fingers over the cover, feeling the pebbled texture. Their
family's wealth meant that they'd had access to luxuries not granted to
the average Pernese holder. Elarie had had beautiful handwriting and the
Harpers had convinced their father to let her have training in lettering
and calligraphy. She'd been so pleased by it, marveling at how she'd be
able to write the most gorgeous invitations. To practice, she'd been given
several blank books with paper in them. Not anything high quality, the
castoff kind that could tear easily, but still valuable and precious.

Elarie had used some as copybooks as intended by Lord Xelfin, but she'd
also kept a diary. As a child Xeladrie had never understood quite what
Elarie was doing. Only that it was important to her sister. And that their
father wouldn't like it. So when she'd died, Xeladrie had stole the books
her sister wasn't supposed to have and hidden them.

Now Xeladrie flipped open the cover and gingerly turned the pages. The
sight of her sister's smooth and elegant handwriting moved her as it
always did. She stroked a fingertip lightly against the words, imagining
Elarie's hand moving the pen, her lip poking out between her teeth in that
habit her father had always tried to break.

As she'd grown older she'd started reading the diaries. At first it was
just a way of connecting to her sister, feeling like Elarie was still
there to be a solid and reassuring presence. Then it had begun to be a
source of answers, for when she felt like she couldn't ask her mother or
other sisters. Elarie had written about her developing body, about how
lonely she was when she fostered out. She'd written about her growing
interest in boys in general and in a man in particular. She'd written
about romance, secret meetings, desperate longings. Xeladrie's eyes
scanned the pages she'd read so many times before, seeing them but not
really reading them.

She knew how the story ended.

It ended with the last entry written while Elarie was at Coral Bay,
reading only "I made a mistake."

It ended with Elarie coming home, bruises on her body. Being confined to
her room. Speaking only to Xeladrie and her mother, ignoring her fathers
and brothers and other sisters. It ended with Elarie beginning to waste
away from not eating and from throwing up from morning into the night.

And it ended with three months after she came home, when she threw herself
into the sea and her body was dashed against the rocks.

Xeladrie had to close the book then, before the tears she felt pricking at
her eyes could break free and drip onto the pages. She closed the precious
book and set it back in the false drawer, putting the cover back in and
sealing it. Then she leaned against the wall of the closet.

**Elarie, why did you do it? Why did you let yourself be led astray? And
why couldn't you have just taken Mother's offer of a dragonrider's
"assistance"? Elarie, then you'd still be here. Maybe you'd be the new
Lady of Sunstone. You'd have the children you always wanted, the family
that would have made you happy.

Why did I survive when you didn't? And why must I be married to _this_ man?**

Because Xeladrie knew who Elarie had transgressed with. She knew what had
happened. And she knew that Xelfin must not have remembered just who had
been the cause of his daughter's suicide, or else he never would have
arranged the match of Xeladrie. Unless he knew, and he'd arranged the
match as part of some kind of twisted plan. She wondered about that. She
couldn't ask, but maybe a maid would know…

Last updated on the July 8th 2015

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