Prosy: Interview
Jan. 16th, 2012 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflyTitle: Interview
Word count: 320 (unfinished total: 521)
Rating: G
Prompt:ariestess's: the left-hand path
Notes: Palua has previously appeared in Gathering Herbs, though this story is set about a year before that one.
Today Palua was fourteen years old. She had been educated in the convent, along with several of her siblings and other noble boys and girls from the west of Atash, for the last six years. Now her official education came to an end, and she would return home.
That is, if all did not go well.
Some of her teachers awaited her in the parlor, along with her parents and her older brother and sister, who would take over the running of the duchy when her father died or retired. She took a deep breath and gave her overskirt another adjustment. It still wasn’t laying right, but she gave up and left her room. Her teachers knew that six years in the convent had not been enough to give her grace and manners; her family, having last seen her several months ago, would surely not be surprised. And it would only strengthen her position, or so she hoped.
She walked slowly in the uncomfortable, pointy-toed shoes down the hallway from her room and down to the parlor, near the front of the convent. When she reached it and saw her family and teachers sitting in the chairs, she gave a bright, unfaked smile, curtsied, and sat down in the one chair deliberately left empty for her.
“Palua,” said her mother, smiling warmly. She reached over and gently squeezed Palua’s hand. “Are you ready to come home?”
She squeezed back, but then she glanced at her favorite teacher, Kuru, the convent’s healer. “I’m sorry, Mother. I miss you, but I’m not.”
Kuru nodded. He had been expecting this. “Palua has expressed her desire to go into priestly training and become a healer.”
“Are you sure, Palua?” asked her brother. “That’s going to be even harder training than your classes here were, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Kuru. “It is the hardest path, the path that is different, the left-hand path."
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Word count: 320 (unfinished total: 521)
Rating: G
Prompt:
ariestess's: the left-hand pathNotes: Palua has previously appeared in Gathering Herbs, though this story is set about a year before that one.
Today Palua was fourteen years old. She had been educated in the convent, along with several of her siblings and other noble boys and girls from the west of Atash, for the last six years. Now her official education came to an end, and she would return home.
That is, if all did not go well.
Some of her teachers awaited her in the parlor, along with her parents and her older brother and sister, who would take over the running of the duchy when her father died or retired. She took a deep breath and gave her overskirt another adjustment. It still wasn’t laying right, but she gave up and left her room. Her teachers knew that six years in the convent had not been enough to give her grace and manners; her family, having last seen her several months ago, would surely not be surprised. And it would only strengthen her position, or so she hoped.
She walked slowly in the uncomfortable, pointy-toed shoes down the hallway from her room and down to the parlor, near the front of the convent. When she reached it and saw her family and teachers sitting in the chairs, she gave a bright, unfaked smile, curtsied, and sat down in the one chair deliberately left empty for her.
“Palua,” said her mother, smiling warmly. She reached over and gently squeezed Palua’s hand. “Are you ready to come home?”
She squeezed back, but then she glanced at her favorite teacher, Kuru, the convent’s healer. “I’m sorry, Mother. I miss you, but I’m not.”
Kuru nodded. He had been expecting this. “Palua has expressed her desire to go into priestly training and become a healer.”
“Are you sure, Palua?” asked her brother. “That’s going to be even harder training than your classes here were, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Kuru. “It is the hardest path, the path that is different, the left-hand path."
Did you enjoy this story? You can read more stories in this world or see all my fiction posted at Dreamwidth!