VII. “Don’t you remember this place?” the huntress asked her. They were sitting in the middle of a meadow lying on the fringes of the Payon Forest, a small garden notable for its beautiful carpet of tiny white flowers.
Venris hugged her knees closer to her, thinking. She was surprised at how comfortable she was around this certain girl. The huntress, clothed in standard hunter’s gear and threadbare tights seemed to be more than what she appeared. For Venris, her presence was oddly comforting. Like she knew for the longest time…
Then her thoughts drifted to faded childhood memories so blurred that only bits and pieces could be recalled. There were flashes of a brief image showing a garden…
“Mm…I guess not,” the huntress sighed, then laughed. “Come to think of it, don’t you remember me?”
Venris snapped out of her reverie and took notice of the other girl’s eyes. There’s no mistaking it, we have the same eyes…
“Am I supposed to know you?” Venris finally blurted out.
The huntress shrugged. “Actually, no. Your father made sure that my existence was kept secret.” She smirked at that. “Well, almost. I am still alive, after all. He got my mum though, bless her soul.”
“What do you mean?”
The huntress toyed with the leather lacings of her short skirt. “Well. To cut the story short, I’m your father’s illegitimate child. Err…you don’t mind, do you?” She looked up at Venris, seemingly regretting her words.
Venris shook her head, occupied with recollecting her earlier memories. Images of a garden flashed through her mind, and of little girls’ voices, filling the air as they played…
She does look familiar, Venris decided. I could not forget her eyes…and that rather mousy hair…
“We used to play together…” Venris said, hesitatingly. “There was this garden…”
The huntress nodded encouragingly. “You’re getting to it,” she winked. “You shouldn’t forget family, after all.”
A name came to her.
“Rottie…” Venris mouthed the syllables softly, a whisper, a small remnant of a past that had almost escaped her. “I called you that, but your name is Selrotta…”
“Good enough!” the huntress clapped her hands in glee. Then she stopped, and held Venris’ hand solemnly. “You were taken away from us when you were nine years old, Venris. You should not have forgotten about me so quickly.” There was a pregnant pause.
“But anyway,” Selrotta sat up and hugged her long-lost half-sister briefly. “I’m glad we met again, Ven. What were all those rumors about you? Were they true?”
“Heh. It doesn’t matter if they were. It wouldn’t change the people’s view of me anyway,” Venris said drily. “You’re lucky. I bet you can do anything you wanted.”
“As long as it’s within the constraints of the financial budget (which isn’t much), yeah.” Selrotta shrugged.
There was a period of comfortable silence between them. Venris plucked many of the tiny white blossoms and along with their stems produced a perfect white crown of flowers. I haven’t done this for a long time now, Venris remembered. I must have been an expert at this when I was a child…
“I remember you used to love playing in this garden, little sis,” Selrotta remarked, out of the blue. “You used to complain about my mother not letting you go out here much, because you were so little and she was so worried that he would take you. Which he did.”
“Mm.”
“You loved these asters so much…”
“Asters?”
Selrotta lay down on the white floral carpet. “These flowers are called asters, Ven. We used to call you the Princess of the Aster Garden.”
That thought made Venris smile. “Really?”
“Yeah. And you turned out to be a princess after all,” Selrotta stretched out, yawning. “Lord Dastonia decided that one of his bastards--er, female bastards, if there are any--should become his heiress. He picked you because you were cuter than me,” Selrotta pouted.
“I’m not going to be a ‘princess’ any longer. You heard that I’m going to be married off, I suppose?”
“Of course. It’s one of the biggest news tidbits in Rune-Midgard.”
Venris winced at that. She herself did not know the extent of the publicity laid out for the event. “I thought so.”
“I bet you want out, huh.”
“Do I have any choice?”
Selrotta sat up again, brushing off the bits of grass and petals off her upper garments. "Yeah. If I have any choice in the matter, I wouldn’t let my favorite little sister be pushed around.” She groped her side pockets for a pen and a piece of paper, then laying the strip of paper against her left palm she scribbled a short note on it, then folded the paper and handed it to Venris.
“This note will be your ticket out of this shit. Just say the word, now, that you want out.”
