Rydion Story~Page Three

Calina sits on a chair in her children's room.  Looking over her sleeping babies.  A gentle sigh escapes her lips as her amber eyes sadden.  This hut is alot larger than it used to be.  It started as a single room.  Then slowly over the years it grew into six rooms.  She missed the days of the single room hut.  Her life was much simpler then.  Though she wouldn't trade her family, her children, Jeisen or the friends she has made along the way.  She could go without this.  She frowns softly the saddened expression turning to one of pain as she rises from the chair.  Walking over to each of her children kissing their foreheads then moving to the main room of the hut. 

Jeisen had seen to the fire as he does every night.  She sits down on a simple wooden chair with a pillow on the seat and props her foot up on a side table.  Her amber eyes look blankly to a wall as for a moment she gets lost in the past.

Calina was fourteen when she ran away from Adonia.  Ran away from her life as the outcast princess.  The joke of the family.  She had read about the legends of the amazons for years.  She thought if there was one place on the three realms where she would fit in Areatis Island would be that place.

She remembers growing up in Adonia.  She was too young to remember Demura.  Sabine had kidnapped Demura when she and Shzazina were four years old.  Samuel had been nine.  She remembers Samuel didn't talk for months after Demura disapeared.  She remembers their father mourning having expected Sabine had killed his eldest daughter.  She remembers not understanding why Calisto, their God, would have allowed such a thing.

Demura and Samuel were like she and Shzazina.  Demi and Sam always looked out for each other.  When Samuel was born the God Calisto was so offended that the male she made Demura with had a son that she almost took Sam from the family.  Demura stepped forward and announced to all that this was her Samuel.  Her protector.  Calisto saw the love in her daughter's eyes for the boy child and let him stay.  They were inseprable from what she can remember. 

Calina and Shzazina were identical twins.  Down to birthmarks.  But that is all that was similar about them.  Whereas Shzazina was soft spoken and kind by nature to all.  Calina was born wanting to know and understand and argue.  Calina was Shzazina's protector.  Calina walked about a week before Shzazina as a baby.  Shzazina took her first unsure steps holding her sister's hand.  Calina was first to ride on a horse by herself.  Shzazina would ride infront of Calina and lean against her so happily.  Until one day Calina told Shzazina that she was ready to ride.  Shzazina smiled in her loving way and told her she was ready but would miss being close to Calina.  Calina was the one that would come home with a black eye or bruises defending her sister when a boy or girl hurt Shzazina's feelings.  Calina was the fighter.

Shzazina like Samuel had this very subtle way of handling situations.  Neither ever really had to raise their voice.  Whereas confrontations with Calina usually ended up in screaming battles and furniture breaking.  Shzazina was the only one that understood her sister's pain.  That feeling that she just didn't belong.  When father told Calina he would not have the seamstress make Calina riding pants like the men wore it was Shzazina that went to the stable boy and bought a pair from him.  When Calina wanted battle armor to practice fighting in her father protested asking why she couldn't be more like Shzazina and read and sing and play an instrument instead of playing war with the boys.  It was Shzazina who commisioned one of the men to make special armor for Calina. 

At the dinner table Father and his men would enjoy dinner then around the time dessert started they would begin the "What did Calina do today" stories.  Calina never showed that these hurt her so badly.  But soon she found herself getting into the habit of grabbing a piece of fruit then slipping quietly from the table before the laughter would start.  Though evertime she heard laughter as she quietly read in her bedroom she just knew it was all of them laughing at her.  Shzazina would never say anything to father on this.  As she knew it would not help.  But every night she would bring Calina up the dessert she missed. 

Calina loved her family dearly.  They really were not bad or cruel people.  They just didn't understand her.  And in that she began to feel like a freak.  One night before dawn's light warmed Adonia she ran away.  The route she took eventually led her to Rydion.  She had never been to Rydion.  No one from Adonia really ever wanted to be away from Adonia for very long.  Adonia was perfect in everyway.  The weather was always pleasant.  Not to hot...not too cold.  If there was ever crime in Adonia Calina certainly doesn't remember that event.  If there was ever a bad crop in Adonia, no one would be old enough to remember that either.  People lived and loved in peace in Adonia. 

Rydion was a shock to her to say the least.  But a pleasant shock.  In her mind people here lived.  They lived and learned new things everyday.  She was rather arrogant by nature and didn't make many friends.  She was young and many would question her about her home expecting she was a run away.  But she kept her hood over her head and kept her mingling to a very minimium.  Only when she had to purchase food or the occasional lodging would she venture into the public.  It was on one fateful day in a tavern eating a meal that she met the man who would change her life.

She had been eating her meal quickly as the tavern seemed to be filling fast.  Not wanting to linger.  Just wanting to leave before the questions started.  When a man entered the tavern and walked over to her table and just sat down.  She blinked and glared at the man keeping her head hidden by the cloak.  Her amber eyes slowly taking the man in as he just sat there and stared at her in an amused way.

He was about four feet tall.  And seemed older than anyone she'd ever known.  He was missing a few teeth and his skin was so wrinkled it looked like badly aged leather.  he had a simple white tunic on.  It was very dirty and torn in places.  She finished her meal in a few big bites having already paid for it she rose from the chair and left the tavern.  Just as she turned the corner to leave the town she frowned and glared as that same man was standing in her path.

Finally giving in she growled low, "Why are you following me, old man?" 

The man burst out laughing.  A deep unpleasant gravely sound as unpleasant as his little beady black eyes and equally gravely voice, "You come with me."

Calina tilted her head to the side and sneered at the man.  "No.  You will leave me pass.  I'd hate to have to hurt someone your age.  But I will do it if you don't stop following me.  I'm not some trick for you to bait out."

The man roared with laughter.  Which annoyed Calina further who moved to pass the man.  The man quickly stuck a foot out sending her sprawling in the dirt.  She rose and drew her daggers ready to do whatever was necessary to get this man out of her life. 

The man grinned at her and said simply, "If you beat me.  I let you go.  I leave you alone.  If you no beat me.  You stay with man and train with man."

Calina grinned ferally and nodded then attacked the man.  After she woke up.  She felt rather disoriented.  Looking around seeing that not only did her head throb like no other time in her life.  But she was in a forest.  She smelled roasted meat of some sort.  There was a fire.  Slowly rising holding her head in one hand she saw that man.  She was about to rise and attack him again when he quirked a brow and gave her that look.  That look she has seen Samuel give to people as a warning.  It usually only took that look to calm people down.  That look worked on Calina who was still ever so sore from the last time she tried to attack the man. 

The man went back to seeing to the rabbit he was roasting and ignored Calina.  Calina looked the area over.  She was in the Mystic Mountains.  She groaned loudly.  She had to pass these mountains to get into Rydion.  Was he taking her home?  No.  Please no. 

After a while the man separated the rabbit handing some to her on a large leaf.  She ate in silence.  The man looking at her occasionally grunting eyeing her up and down as if messuring her up.  Then finally he said after they finished their meal, "I train you.  Gods send me.  You great Queen one day."

Calina laughed thinking the man was insane.  "Oh really?  I great queen one day?"  Immitating the way the man talks.  Which only seemed to annoy him.  After she woke up the second time.  She learned not to get snippy with the man.  Or at least be at a great distance when she did so she could run quickly.

Calina spent a year training with the man.  When she walked through the gates of the amazon village at the age of fourteen with the man at her side.  She got alot of looks.  But many just thought he was her servant or slave.  She approached the queen asking to become a sister. 

The queen looked at her then looked to the man and asked, "And who is he?"

Calina replied simply, "He is the man."

After that in the amazon village Calina's friend was forever refered to as 'the man' at least to his face.  The man was never very far from Calina.  She continued to train with him over the years.  He quickly earned the respect of the amazons as did Calina. 

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