Part 30

“Princess, it's time to wake up.” Lionel softly shook me awake, practically cooing as I shifted in the mound of blankets he had left me in. “did you sleep well?”

I nodded softly, wriggling out of the fluffy confines of the bedding as he chuckled.

“Good. Bethany is here to help you get ready. Once she's done with you we can go and look for the things you want to get.”

He stepped out of the room as Bethany slipped in. She gently brought me from the bed to the vanity with the help of two other girls. One of them ran to fetch a dress from my room while the other disappeared into my parents closet as Bethany came back with a damp cloth to clean my face with.

“Lionel says that you two are going to go scavenging for some things from your uncles.” she set the cloth down in the basket next to the vanity, reaching out to undo the braid she had done yesterday “do you want another braid today?”

I didn't say anything. Too busy thinking about what I should grab from whose room. I needed something from Uncle Ashur, I already figured out what I wanted from Andrea's room and from the triplets. Uncle Bjorn had a collection of little figures from the places he fought at, but what did uncle emeric have?

By the time I got out of my own thoughts Bethany and the girls had dressed me in a warm gray dress of mine with another of my father’s sweaters over it and tied it up with one of my mother’s silk ribbons that he used to keep his short hair out of his face.

My hair was braided again, this time in two with one on either side of my head.

“There, that's fit for today I think.” Bethany smiled, waving at me once more as she and the other two girls left letting Lionel back in.

“Alright princess, how should we do this?”

How should we do this indeed? It hadn't occurred to me the other night, but I still coulndt really walk around on my own yet. And having him hold me up by my side as we walked together would surely take too long.

“Should I carry you? Or would you like to try and do some walking around?”

In lieu of an answer I lifted my arms towards him.

“Carrying you it is!”

Nearly gleefully, he swept me up and got me settled in his arms. I was small enough that I could sit in the cork of his elbow with my knees over his other arm and have my arms around his neck or on his shoulder.

“Is it safe for her to be carried like that?” Clahadore quipped as the two of us left my parents room. I suppose it makes sense that he would be joining us.

“yes. Now princess, where to go first?”

First we headed to my Uncle Barret’s room. It was the farthest one away from my parents, positioned near the entrance to the interior palace hallways. He and Uncle Emeric were the strongest, many would call them bear-like in their appearance and strength.

Uncle Barrett's room seemed small for such a big man. Its walls were covered in tapestries from his homeland in the north, thick woven paintings of the great conquests of kings and fights between men and the giants of the mountains from old tales. The shelves were filled with figures, statuettes, knives, swords, jewels, or any other little thing he could slip away from a battlefield.

Uncle Atlan called it barbaric trophy keeping, little things he took from the places he was victorious in. Oftentimes he would pick it up from a person’s body, from a charred home, a broken city.

He and Uncle Ermeric were fighters, they had been soldiers for hire for a long time before they met my parents, which had been many years before they had my brother and I.

Within Uncle Barrett's room, on one of his packed dusty shelves, there was a crude little wood carving of a house.

It was by no means his greatest trophy that he took, if anything it was the one that most would never look at twice. There was no glittering, no reverence, no shine to it. It was just a small little wood block that looked as if it had been carved by a child. Next to it was a far more impressive one, a small little wooden house carved from a block of hickory wood.

They were both very important to Uncle Barret. The finely carved wood house had been made by a craftsman in the first village that he and Uncle Emeric had been hired to fight against. They had been victorious, and the man had offered my uncle his wealth in exchange for his family.

Uncle Barret took the carving. It was of their home, where the craftsman lived with his family, his wife and a little baby, and where his workshop was located.

Years later, many years later, Uncle Barret and Uncle Emeric returned there by my father’s side to deal with some enemy forces, to help the village this time.

When the work was done, a little boy had walked up to Uncle Barret and given him a carving ‘Like my papa did!’ he had whispered shyly.

It was from another little block of hickory, the same little house, carved by the next generation of craftsmen that would grow to live and work there.

I took both of them from my uncle Barrett's room.

“The good and bad are important to remember. They make us.”

Was what he had always said when my brother asked why he kept the trophies from places he had hurt. I suppose that would ring true for me as well now.

Uncle Emeric’s room was next. He was Barret’s older brother, and he was much bigger. If Uncle Barret was a bear then Uncle Emeric was a mountain.

He was perhaps one of the most gentle of my uncles. Every baby, when they were first introduced to the family, would be passed to him first. A tiny little baby in the hand of a mountain.

He was all of our godfathers. My cousins and I would always flock to him and he would carry us around or toss us up into the arms and catch us while booming with laughter.

His room was much like Uncle Barret’s, filled with things from their homelands, from their journeys, from their time overseas and across the lands. His shelves though were filled with little portraits of every one of my cousins and I. A portrait of when we were first born, varying ones of us throughout our childhood, little trinkets that we would find and give him.

For a birthday a few years ago my father had a portrait of all of my cousins and I commissioned for him, it hung across from his bed. I wanted to get that, and the tightly bound leather journal that he kept. It had entries from when each of us was born, our first steps, first words, and all about the little things we would do with him. It was pages upon pages of him gushing over each of us. The journal also included little notes and messages he would come up for us. Small things that he would say sometimes to make us feel better or to help us along in our lives. He would write them down when he said them, or when he thought of them to keep for when we needed them.

Next was Uncle Corentin’s room. He and Uncle Atlan were the craftsmen of our family. Uncle Atlan loved design, fashion, and the arts but Uncle Corentin was more of a swordsmithing man. He designed weapons and then forged them himself. Many of the swords, knives, daggers, bows, crests, and other smithing or weapons that my family had had were made by him.

His room was very flamboyant, as Uncle Atlan liked to put it. Colors everywhere, things of all shapes and all sizes and textured scattered about on the walls, floors, shelves, and chairs.

He called himself a collector, Uncle Kuro called him a hoarder.

I always loved his room. He was from the sands, like the triplets were, and he always had something burning or brewing in his rooms that filled it with heavy delicious scents.

What I wanted from him was a small music box that he had made. It played a little lullaby, one that every uncle of mine would often sing to us when we were little and having trouble falling asleep. It also served as a small storage box for trinkets, where Uncle Corentine put little sashes of his favorite teas, incense, and herbs. The box smelled just like he always did, like tea and food.

My Cousin Oliver had his room right next to his father’s, on the left. He was the third eldest of my cousins, a year or so younger than Kichi though their birthday was only a few days apart.

He was very bright, loved to read, and often he would sit with me with his nose in a book. I think that out of all of my cousins I spent the most time with him.

We were always reading with each other, happy to sit in silence with our books in front of us, leaned up against each other in the sunshine as we read.

His favorite books to read were collections of myths and fables. He loved them so much he had a small library of his own in his room. One of the rooms that would have been a study area was now filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves, a pile of pillows and blankets in the coroner was his personal reading area.

Hidden in his room, in a spot he had shown me only one before, was a well-worn notebook.

He had started writing his own book of myths, presenting the ones he knew and loved so much in a different way. Taking the varying perspectives of the many collections he had read from and combining them into a new one. He was about halfway through when he showed me it last time.

I slipped the unfinished book out of its hiding spot and then went to one of the bookshelves to grab his favorite book, one that his father had brought with him from their homelands.

Paxton’s rooms were on the right side of his father’s. They were just as messy and cluttered as Uncle Corentine’s. He loved to draw, people, animals, plants, blueprints, weapon designs, anything that he could he would draw. Paxton was only a year older than Haku and I, and he was often by his father’s side in the forge. He was learning the art of the trade, to make weapons and jewelry and little wonders from metal.

His sketchbooks were full of everything, his most recent one was nowhere to be found, it was probably in the throne room with him that day. He always carried it withhim.

I grabbed the one he had finished just last year. It had sketches of the dogs from the barracks, the forge, our uncles and cousins, the palace, and the gardens amongst its pages.

I went to Uncle Altan’s rooms next, which was as neat and fashionable as he was. He designed each of the children's rooms to best suit us. The furniture, the fixtures, the colors of the walls and the linens, all of it was drawn up and picked out by him. He also was in charge of most of my family’s wardrobe and stationary. He selected which colors look best of who and what style was most comfortable in - for you look best when you are comfortable, he would always say - he made sure we all looked put together.

His study was the only messy part of his quarters, with designs strewn about everywhere, samples of fabrics, colors swatches, embellishments, and bits and bobs all over the place.

His process was a messy one, but he always had the best and cleanest results of anyone in the field.

He had hundreds of pieces of jewelry, enough to fill a closet. However next to his bed on one of the nightstands there was a little box that held his most reassured pieces. There was a little bracelet made of stone, it was a baby’s bracelet so it was so tiny that no one could really wear it. He often wore it on a chain around his neck.

It was a bracelet that he had been given when he was a baby, and he had given it to each of my cousins and I when we were little as well. It was so small that we grew out of it in a year or so.

He wore it nearly everywhere, unless he was outside and working, because he said it had all of our energies in it now and it connected us to him and the family.

Clem’s room was attached to Uncle Atlan’s by a door near his study that led right into his son’s quarters.

Clem was a little ball of sunshine, older than Paxton but younger than Olive, always so full of energy and sass.

His favorite thing was rocks, he had a large bookshelf that was just full of them. Uncle Coretine had to make him one specially out of a thicker hardwood to support the weight of his collection.

The majority of them were crystals, shiny and rare rocks that he would be gifted or would buy at special markets across the lands or during festivals. A few of them were just plain rocks, from places he had really liked or ones that just looked odd and interesting.

His favorite was a little black pebble that he never was able to really identify. It was oblong, with one side rounded and the other slightly pointed. It was a deep dark black and it was often warm to the touch with an iridescent shimmer to it.

He always kept it in a little leather pouch in his pocket, he said it gave him good luck. He hadn't had it that day it seems, because the little pouch was in that little silver dish that Clem kept next to his bed. He would put it there every night for safekeeping and he would pop it back into his pocket every morning.

Sometimes if he was in a rush he would forget it.

I slipped the pouch into my pocket, maybe it would help me out a little bit too.

Uncle Kuro’s room was closer to my parents, just as Kichii’s was close to mine and my brother’s. Uncle Kuro was my father’s head guard and steward, so it made sense to have him so close by, Kichii would have one day filled the same role for my brother.

Uncle Kuro had many weapons in his room, he was raised an assassin after all so i suppose it made sense. His main weapon had been a set of knives or a pair of daggers, he normally had multiple hidden within the folds of his coats or tucked into the straps of his boots.

The one little tool that he used the most however was a small silver pocket watch, black with tarnish. It had been the first non-weapon gift he had ever received.

The first gift that wasn't meant to push him further down the path of a killer.

He always had it tucked safely away in specially made pockets in his coats and vests and shirts. Uncle Atlan had sewn each and every one of the tiny hidden pockets in himself.

I couldn't find it in his room. A quick word with Clahadore revealed that it had been with him when they recovered his body, but it had been saved. Set aside with other items of value and importance to the family before the bodies were properly sent to the afterlife.

He set out to fetch it for me personally, promising to ensure it was clean without ruining its aged look.

In the meantime I grabbed one of Uncle Kuro’s thick gray blankets. He would always wrap us up in it when we visited him for stories and thick hot chocolate with spices blended into it. He would bundle us up and set us in front of the fire and tell us all we wanted to know about the places further away than any of my cousin’s and I could ever imagine.

It still smelled like the warm cedars he used in his fires at night.

Next was Uncle Ashur’s room. Neat and tidy, as always.

He was a lot like father, liked having everything put away in its place. Mother was quite the opposite, he had everything thrown about everywhere. Uncle Kuro used to say that father would use Uncle Ashur’s room as a sanctuary for cleanliness when mother’s messes got too bad.

He always wore black gloves. Thick leather pens with soft lining in the winter and thinner lacey ones over the summer, with linen ones during the spring and fall.

I never knew why, I just know he always wore them. Father usually wore gloves too, he had a scar on the back of his left hand. It looked similar to when I burned myself on a hot baking pan fresh from the oven when swiping treats one day, it looked just like those little burns when it had mostly healed over. Father wore gloves to keep it out of sight, and to stay stylishly mysterious, my mother said.

I wonder if Uncle Ashur wore them for the same reason.

I took a pair of his gloves for each season. The thick padded ones for winter, with snowflakes embroidered into them in small white thread. Thin linen ones for summer, with a black lace overlay that laid out a design of flowers under a pagoda. Spring ones that had little flowers embroidered into a thicker linen. And his fall ones which were of a black leather, painted with golden leaves.

I took the ones he had worn the last year, ones that he had nearly worn out into threads.

Andraik’s rooms were next.

They were attached to his brothers’ which were attached to their fathers. I slipped through the triplets' rooms to get to him, I knew what I wanted to get from him.

There was a sword hanging on the wall in his study. Across from the wall of floor to ceiling bookshelves that he had filled past bursting. Uncle would have him clean it out, get rid of and donate the books he never touched or had only read once, only for Andraik to fill them right back up again in a matter of months. He and I were much the same.

Though Father just kept giving me bigger libraries for my growing collection.

Andraik had many swords in his collection, the wall across from his book shelves was full of them on ornate hangings and wall mounted shelves.

The one I was looking for was a baby’s sword. The first one he was given, completely blunt and so itty bitty that a toddler could hold and swing it around.

It was the first sword he was given, a few days after he turned three. Its blade was made of onyx, the handle was gilded in silver, and the sheath was a dark blue with little stars painted on it.

It was the first sword he practiced with as a little boy, and he let all of our cousins use it during their first practices as well.

It had gone through all of us, even me when I had some basic sword training when I was younger.

Next was the triplets' shared bedroom. Like my brother and I; Sahid, Amal, and Hanan all shared a bedroom. The room was a large circle, as it was located in one of the other towers of the interior palace that was torn down, and it was split into thirds.

Sahid’s section was on the right side of the entrance. His bed was a large four poster one with colorful gauzy fabrics and tulles hanging down from the canopy. His stuffed toys were lined up neatly at the head and foot of his bed in the order that he would take them to bed with him. Lions, bears, fish, dolls, snakes, and every other manner of animals All of them made out of fleeces and felts and fuzzy fabrics and stuffed to make them full and plush.

His favorite plushie sat proudly atop his pillows, looking down at all the other ones.

It was a small black horse plush, He slept with it every night and it had to be repaired every now and then from how much he used it. When he and his brothers first arrived here Sahid brought the pony plush everywhere with him.

Amal’s section of the room was to the left of the entrance. It was painted green with little murals of leaves and different flowers on the walls and his section of ceiling. His bed was a big round pillow with blankets and pillows surrounding it, it almost looked like a big cushy bird's nest.

His plushies were all arranged around the bed on the inside, right up at night the little wall made from the diverting of the pillow.

Amal had more dolls than Sahid did, and the few animal ones he did have were butterflies, bees, snakes, or snails.

His favorite was in the center of the bed, amongst the little pile of blankets that he would often leave there every morning after climbing out.

It was a little white snake plushie, with big black eyes that were embroidered on. He loved it too much to bring it outside of the bedroom with him anywhere. Uncle Ashur was worried that his habit of plucking snakes up from the ground and cuddling with them was caused by the beloved plush, but Amal would bawl whenever he tried to take it away to bring him away from the snake habit.

Hanan’s section of the room was straight across from the door. His bed was a circle like Amal’s but he had a large canopy that covered it, making a little tent shape around it.

His stuffed toys were all over the place, scattered around the room. Some here trailed into Sahid’s section, others were tossed into Amal’s bed, though most were in little piles around his own section.

His favorite plushie was buried amongst them all, a black bird with a silver painted beak and big embroidered stars in its eyes. It was big enough that its wings could wrap around his shoulders. Uncle Atlan had sewn some buttons on it just so the toy’s wings could be connected and Hanan could carry it around like a shoulder bag, though Amal was usually the one who ended up carrying it around with him for Hanan.

The last room to visit was Kichii’s. Itw as right next door to my brother’s and mine. His room was much different than Uncle Kuro’s, even if they were both fulfilling the same role and had similar backgrounds as failed assassins.

Kichii’s rooms were painted powder blue, his furniture was all white and fluffy and fuzzy everywhere. A large portion of his bedroom was taken up by the big marble vanity and mirror that was stationed next to his closets.

Some of the vanity drawers had little hair and makeup tools, some had special little jewelry pieces. A majority of the drawers were filled with ribbons.

Silk ones, cotton ones, linen, complex lace, little embroidery patterns, blues, greens, yellows, reds, browns, painted ones, multi-colored dyed ones, simple little lace ones, and many many more. We always joked that if there was a ribbon, Kichii had it.

He would use them to tie up his hair in his usual pony-tails or braids.

HIs favorite was a ribbon that had a ribbon of pale blue lace in a flower pattern on top of a gray silk ribbon. He used it all the time, whenever it wouldn't clash with the rest of his outfits.

It was sitting in its special little crystal dish on the vanity top.

“That's everything.” I murmured as Lionel and I left Kichii’s room.

“Are you sure?”

“Everything I want for now. I want to keep all of it, but these are their special things.”

“Do you…” He paused, glancing back at the doors that led to mine and my brother’s room. “Do you want something from your brother?”

I was silent for a while, when I did speak I don't know if i really said it aloud or not. Either way, Lionel understood and took me back to my parent’s room with all my little treasures.

“I'm not ready to go back there…”