From: Stana Hierspiel <darkannex@yahoo.com>
Date:Tue, 17 Aug 1999 08:58:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Nightly reminisces

It was getting darker in the castle. The Naradian sun was settling low
into the hills of the distance.  If you listened, there was the sounds
of men still working to clear away the last of the battle, and the
sounds of siege preperations.

Stana leaned over her balcony, arms crossed on the marble and head
cocked slightly to catch the noises. Many of them were unfamiliar. She
could ehar teh sawing of wood, hammering, half snatched jokes and
laughter when teh wind carried them this far.  But through it all there
was an ominous under murmur. It spoke of the dead whose blood was even
now watering the earth, and the dead to soon join them.

With a distracted gesture she pushed her hair out of her eyes and
tucked it behind her ears to hold. Normally a nervous gesture, this
time there was no concurring emotion in it.

Feeling as a whole was difficult these days. Whether because she still
half felt that this was all a bad dream, or because noone was treating
her as a real person in a real situation, or merely because the
capacity for true emotion had been burned out--she felt very little.

Underneath her eye caught a ghostly flash of white as Clip skirted the
rose gardens, and disappeared again.  The Unicorn had spoken as few as
five words today, and hovered just out of reach. He stayed near,
fulfilling his obligation to his Princess, and kept a wall of
superiority between himself and the mortality around.

She wondered how much he remembered about being mortal. Did he remember
it the way she was perceiving her life at home? Snatches of images,
feelings, scents. Little substance in a world gone mad?

It was too easy the way they all fit in here.  The language, the
seemingly inbred cultural knowledge, the easy grasp of political
sitautions and magic. Too easy, and too frustrating.

It was not so much that Stana wanted to be home, although she did. It
was that if she tried, she could see darkness gathering ahead. And a
single road leading into it.

She turned her eyes from the horizon and looked at the bed. Walking
quietly across the bare floor she removed teh robe, and slid in between
the sheets.

Sleep would be a long time coming.