Antaran's Journal

After the usual morning ritual we were told to meet the princess in her room in one of the two houses next to the one Carana and I were staying in. Sereliaen was still feeling sick, so Tartek told her to stay in bed again.
I was the first to enter the room after a calm knock on the door. Nobody had answered, so we just entered and saw that the princess was asleep. If the priests hadn't already revealed her true identity to us, we would have thought that the princess was just a normal kid. Her room wasn't different from the others. Her bed was as ordinary as the rest. Her clothes and covers were red, just like everything else made of cotton in Namtolan. And she was obviously feeling pain, just like any other normal human.
When Tartek came in after Carana he coughed loudly. The princess' eyes opened slowly.
"Who are you?" She then sat upright in her bed, looking at us with only one eye open, the other one was swollen to the size of a small apple.
Oh yes, there was a difference between her and the other guests: She had this room for herself. There was no other bed in there. When cleaning the houses a few days ago I noticed up to four beds in all other rooms.
"Good morning, princess. We are the group of people who have been ordered to guide you back to Insomida," Carana said with a slight smile on her beautiful face.
The princess blinked with her good eye.
"How do you know I'm the Princess of Insomida?" she asked, surprised and slightly angered.
"Sometimes suppliers need to know what's inside of the package before delivering it," I replied, loud and proud. Tartek smacked me on my back.
"Good boy! Someone should've raised your income back in the good old days," he said with probably the largest amount of sarcasm ever witnessed in human history.
"Whatever, I don't care. I just want to get away from this filthy village. I always told my father that people in Namtolan are nothing but a bunch of old, senile grandfathers who don't give a crap about their guests, and my father always told me that those were just rumors. Now, look at me," the princess said. Anger and sadness were nested deep within her voice.
But now after hearing those words I quickly understood why she was sent to Namtolan in the first place.
Tartek shrugged.
"Those bastards will be hanged, I swear. I'll take care of that for sure. Nobody makes me look like this and gets away with it." She pointed at her face with both hands.
Just now I started to understand why they're actually sending her back to her hometown. It wouldn't make much sense to keep her. If they kept her and the wounds wouldn't heal, then it would make things even worse. They probably have some point in their contracts (or whatever they use to make appointments) that promises complete safety, but there's still some danger left because of the location high up in the mountains and all that, and in case of injuries nobody of Namtolan would take any responsibility, but instead they would just send the patient back so that someone with higher medical skills can take care of the problem.
"But if that one fat man hadn't stopped that stupid animal, I'd be dead, so I guess there is some hope left for this place," the princess added.
If Tartek had carried a sword, the princess would've been quartered by then. But instead his face just turned red and his eyes glared at the princess.
"That fat man you're talking about - that's me," Tartek mumbled.
"Oh, well at least you're aware of your weight problem! That's a good start," the princess said with a broad smile on her face.
"You-" I think Tartek was now really ready to throw the princess out of the window after choking her with her own hair, but Carana just turned him around, opened the door and forced him out with a gentle kick in the butt, closing the door again afterwards. I heard him yelling and hitting something outside.
So much for the military discipline.
"Princess, as I said before, we will be your guide back to your hometown, back to your father. I'm Carana Sivand, this is my husband Antaran Sivand." She pointed at me. "The man who fought the bear is Tartek Batunan. His wife Sereliaen is here as well. Both will also accompany us."
The princess sniffed and wiped her nose with her left arm. "Do you have any combat experience or do I have to be afraid of getting kidnapped by mere butterflies?"
Carana grinned. "I've been teaching self-defense in Insomida. And Tartek has a lot of military experience."
"No way! And what about the other two? Cannon fodder?"
"I've been an employee of the Insomida Delivery Service," I said, right when I realized that this probably was a mistake to say that to the princess.
"Oh," she said. "I never thanked you personally for sending stuff around in my town. Guess that's done now too!"
Then again, she was already in Namtolan when we broke out of Insomida, so she couldn't really know anything about our strike, or the deaths we had caused.
"Why are you here anyway? Did someone tell you to climb a mountain and you just followed the command because you wanted to play nice?" the princess asked.
"We have our reasons, but that shouldn't matter to you," Carana said.
Not yet, I thought.
"Can you walk?" my wife asked. I admired her ability to just block off all the sarcasm that got shot at her from the princess' direction.
"Sure. The bear just slapped me in my face. The rest of my body is as good as always," the young princess answered.
"How about luggage?"
"Just one bag. Wasn't allowed to bring anything that would've cheered me up in this boring place."
"Are you aware of the fact that there's a long journey lying ahead of us?"
"Of course. I wasn't brought here in one day either, you know?"
Carana made a break and looked more carefully at the princess' face.
"You have fever," my wife finally said.
"No, I don't," the princess responded.
"Yes, you do, princess. You should rest up until tomorrow. Stay calm and save your strength." Carana touched the girl's forehead and cheeks. The princess sighed.
Then she suddenly made an annoyed face and pushed Carana back.
"Leave," she mumbled and fell back into her bed, hiding under her covers again.
We left the house and realized that Tartek was gone. Carana was heading for Vetar's room and I followed her. She told the high priest about the princess' fever and that we would start our journey tomorrow. Vetar just nodded and didn't say anything, not even looking up from his books.
When we left the house we ran into Tartek who was just on his way to the high priest as well. We told him about the fever and our plan of leaving Namtolan tomorrow morning. Just like the high priest, Tartek didn't say anything, nodded and went back to his room, probably to look after his woman.
Carana told me that she wanted to take a look at the other injured kids. I can't stand watching children in pain, so I just said that I would take a walk around the village and organize my thoughts of the recent happenings. She saw through my lazy excuse, smiled, gave me a quick kiss and was gone.
The day was long. I had nothing to do but looking around. Through a window I saw priests taking care of the children who had died yesterday, making coffins out of some wood that would've been used to heat the houses, yelling around, shouting commands at each other in anger and sadness, next to the two covered bodies lying on tables. It was a confusing view... bluntly spoken.
I don't know if they get buried up here, or if someone sends them back to their hometowns in the coffins. I've delivered several letters in my life that told their receivers about deaths of close relatives. But I'd never want to deliver a coffin. That must be tough. And dangerous. And generally just somehow disturbing.
I will try to get some sleep now, although the pictures of blood and ripped flesh are still preventing me from having acceptable dreams, so I'll just look at my sleeping Carana and think of a better place, a better time.

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