The Island (girlxgirl)

Chapter 8

"I am so sorry!" gushed Hachi.

I rolled my eyes at this. She wouldn't stop talking about how sorry she was that Faun tied me up and nearly killed Pinky. I was sitting on the edge of her bed as Hachi paced back and forth.

Hachi kept at it. "Faun's a little...out there. She hates Pinky, looks like this lover she can't get over. But she just keeps taking things further! I mean, she's had her dabble in murder before, sending maids into the corihor wraith pit personally, but she's never made a direct assassination! Although there was that one suspicious suicide..."

"Princess!" I interrupted her.

Hachi's head snapped towards me. "Yes, Pet?"

"I heard Faun's story already; I don't need to hear it from you. She told me it herself; she even implied she may have committed a murder before. None of this is your fault, although I might suggest expelling Faun from here before she can actually make good on her plans to kill Pinky." I gave Hachi a meaningful look.

Hachi grimaced. "I hate the idea of sending any one of you girls away. Everyone here is like a family that I've made. It can be argumentative and dysfunctional, but all in all, we can come together if the need arises. Just you wait, Pet."

"True, but...murder? Would you really condone the greatest of crimes, other than treason?" I stared deeply into Hachi's eyes, trying to pin down her soul.

Hachi dithered. "Uh...um..."

"You won't do anything, will you?" I accused her.

Hachi clenched her eyes shut before flaring them open. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to confront her right now, then sanction her. If she so much as TOES THE LINE, I'll kick her out."

"Sounds acceptable." I bobbed my head in a lazy sort of nod. It wasn't what I actually wanted, which was getting Faun as far from Pinky or me as possible, but Hachi could make Faun keep her distance and behave.

Hachi's eyes gleamed. "Yes! And you're coming with me."

She grabbed onto my arm and started pulling me away.

"Why am I going to be there?" I questioned as I tried to pull lightly from her iron grip.

Hachi continued to hold onto me as she led me down corridors. "I need an enforcer. You need to assist me in keeping Faun to the rules I'm about to lay down for her, and to accomplish that, you must know what those rules are. What better way to remember these rules than to be there as I make them?"

I considered it. It was a valid point.

Hachi burst into Faun's room, where Faun was on her bed, lazily playing with her combat knife, the one she almost killed me with in front of the other Favored.

"Hachi?" Faun seemed surprised but smirked, probably thinking Hachi was in here to sleep with her.

Hachi snapped, "It's PRINCESS HACHI to you."

"Yes, Ma'am..." Faun bit her lip nervously, now beginning to realize she might be in for some trouble.

Hachi commanded her, "On your feet!"

Hachi's eyes had grown cold with the ruthless power of a tyrant's command. Faun hurried to her feet.

"Kneel." Hachi ordered.

Faun dipped herself low to the ground at the base of Hachi, Faun almost kissing Hachi's feet in the humbling position. Faun's eyes met me once, holding nothing short of absolute fear, but quickly returned her gaze to the ground as Hachi started speaking.

"You have made many trespasses against the grace of my goodwill. Lying, trickery, turning maids against one another, ambition to keep other maids out of Favored status, ordering assassinations, brutality, and attempted murder. How do you plead?"

"N..."

Hachi gave Faun a completely serious glare, enough to make me more intimidated than when the queen attacks me verbally. "Plead you guilty?"

"I plead guilty." Faun swallowed her pride.

Hachi narrowed her eyes at Faun. "I thought so. If you had been foolish enough to declare yourself not guilty, I would have expelled you from the castle immediately."

Faun broke out into a nervous sweat. I could see pure panic in her expression.

"As it is, you are under watch. You will stay at least ten feet from Pinky and Pet, not harass them in any form, not sit at the same table with them unless Pet or Pinky is approaching the Favored as a whole. If you come into the same radius as the ten feet or same table, it is your job to leave first, they have privilege. If you try any of your old tricks with any other maid or servant of the castle, the following punishment will occur as will with breaking the rules I have set forth. You will be exiled from the castle permanently, lose your status as my maid and as Favored, the discharge will be under dishonorable circumstances, and you will be sent, according to my discretion at the time, either into the streets or back to your tribe, who I hear will execute you for bringing such dishonor to them. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, my princess." Faun closed her eyes; I saw a single tear leak out.

Hachi ripped Faun's hunting knife out of Faun's grasp and clutched it. Faun cried out in shock, but stifled the sound to a squeak at the look of contempt Hachi gave her.

Hachi turned on her heel, saying harshly over her shoulder, "Don't even THINK about asking me to sleep with you until your punishment is lifted."

"Yes, my princess." echoed Faun again bitterly.

I silently followed Hachi out the door like a shadow, refusing the temptation to take one last peek of defeated Faun as we exited.

Once we were back to Hachi's room, Hachi let put a long sigh and collapsed like a heavy sack onto her bed. "I HATE using the power of the throne to enforce my ways. I'm sure glad it's not me who will rule when it comes time to pass kingship down to the next generation of us royals. I will happily become a female duke, baron, one of the above over some far end of the island and be godmother to my little nephews and nieces who end up kings and queens after we die."

"Why are there no royals already like that? Dukes or Barons? Why is there only a king, a queen, a princess, and seven princes?" I inquired.

Hachi gave me a perturbed look. "You don't know why there's no extended line of royals...?"

"No." I gave her an innocent smile.

Hachi sighed. "Oh yes, you're not from a scholar's nook; you're from a coastal town. Well, let me give you an informal lecture of the island's history...

The island used to be many different countries, all claiming small portions of the island. Each had their own king, queen, and general royal line. All the countries were at constant war with each other, sometimes entire generations of young men were wiped out by the intense fighting. A few of the nations managed to defeat their neighboring nations, expand their borders, then go on to fight the next set of bordering nations. Two particular nations came to power this way: Rothon and Lixxor. Both ended up being the last two nations left out of all the many countries that once populated the island. The king was a young prince of Lixxor and the queen was a young princess of Rothon, formerly a duke of Rothon's daughter, but adopted by their king and queen when the queen's father, the duke, died in battle against an invasion by Lixxor.

Rothon and Lixxor, because they were the last two remaining nations, had a very tough, bitter battle to the end, having both survived countless wars against neighbors now swallowed up by Lixxor's and Rothon's mighty armies. They pillaged each others' villages; they looted each others' lower-ranking nobility's castles. Soon, the last two places not ravaged by war became the castles of both kings. Lixxor sought to siege Rothor first.

Lixxor successfully invaded Rothon's castle and burned all inside to death alive. But at the same time, Rothon had already sent an army out before the time of their royals' deaths. Rothon's army successfully breached Lixxor's walls, and murdered everyone inside as had been done to their own rulers, without their knowledge as to it at this time, however.

The current king survived because he had been sent out before Rothon's army arrived. His job was to officially conquer Rothon by raising Lixxor's flag over the castle ruins, as the successful army could have done the deed, but waited for one of the royal line to make it an incontestable victory.

The prince arrived and as he was about to raise Lixxor's flag for the whole kingdom to see, a woman came out of the shadows and pricked his neck with the tip of her long bejeweled dagger. She was the surviving princess, who had not been burned to death, because she had hid in the horse stables as the battle raged on inside. She challenged the prince to a duel, to see which nation really won, Lixxor or Rothon.

The prince was confused; he believed that Lixxor had won an easy victory, having no idea Lixxor had been pillaged as Rothon had. The princess, experienced in magic, showed him images of what had happened back at the prince's home in Rothon. The prince gulped as he realized they two were the last royals left in both kingdoms.

The prince came up with an idea, an idea that involved them not killing each other. As the princess demanded at dagger-point whether or not he would duel or surrender and be executed, the prince kneeled and pulled out a ring. The princess was taken aback.

The prince explained to her that to preserve both royal lineages, neither of them should die, but rather they should marry and bear heirs. It would end the bloodshed for good, and neither of them would be forced to marry a peasant, although their children would have to, but that couldn't be helped, considering that they were the last two left.

The princess reluctantly threw down her dagger and agreed to it. Neither Lixxor nor Rothon's name was used for the new nation, to avoid debilitating conflict over nationality for the now-disbanded countries. Because the nation took up the entire landmass, the new king and queen decided that the nation should simply be referred to as "the island."

"...and that is why the island is simply 'the island?' Why it has no true name?" I said mostly to myself.

Hachi smiled at me. "Yes, Pet. Do you remember who I told you the prince of Lixxor and the princess of Rothon are?"

"The prince and princess are the current king and queen." I replied immediately. I had understood the story, it just...it was a very odd history to swallow.

Hachi patted my shoulder affectionately as she sat up to be next to me. "Good, good. You digest information easily; you would have made a fine scholar, maybe have went onto a university, perhaps one day taught there? You were meant for so much more than the life you were leading back at your village, you could have thrived anywhere else. But there, it was all you could do to merely survive."

It was my turn to fall back into the bed, reclined lazily like a cat in the sun.

"And I did, Hachi. I did survive. It's all in the past now." I gulped and felt a single tear slip out of the corner of my eye. This was awful, I HATED being reminded of Mother, Father, Canker, Trent, and worst of all, Grim.

I could see the black stone on my ring turn blue and the blanket of Hachi's bed swirled up in the air, then floated around, swaddling me in cozy, comforting warmth.

Hachi let out a small smile. "Magic comes so naturally to you, Pet."

"I don't even know HOW to use magic!" I protested.

Hachi smirked. "So what was that trick with the blanket then?"

"It was...a draft. Brr!" I snuggled into the mound of blankets.

Hachi gave me a knowing look. "Pet. You're going to need to face the truth. You've been using magic and you need to learn what it's all about. You need to discover what you've been repressing all along."

"And you're going to be able to do that, teach me the ways of this 'magic' that I have?" I lowered the covers away from my eyes so I could stare her down better.

Hachi just grinned and reached under her petticoat. She pulled out a stick-shaped object. It was dappled in the color purple, the texture was of wood, and a golden line ran from the handle, which was a golden cage around that end, the bottom of it, and up to the top, which was a solid gold tip.

My mind knew it could only be one thing.

A WAND.