arrival

Samantha

Hector Whiteclaw was all too accommodating to the kidnapping.

“Anisa!” he proclaimed, walking down the steps of his manor. “How many years has it been?”

This was an instance where she was ungagged. “Different daughter.”

“Ah! Well, I only just learned a princess was arriving a few hours ago. The details were sparse.”

Doubtful. Others on the trail were clearly informed. Probably. “I’m sure,” said Samantha. “Was Anisa tied up like this when she arrived?”

He opened the side of the wagon. Bound legs and upper arms.

“Oh! Ha! No, no she wasn’t.”

And that was that.

She decided, first piece of scratch vellum she got, she’d list everyone who’d wronged her, and to what degree, and maybe a fitting punishment. Probably not in Saxle, though, she’d need to invent some kind of code so no one would learn about it. Something that wasn’t ‘easily invertible’. Regardless, with his jarring cavalierity, Magister Whiteclaw was quickly topping the list.

A thought occurred. Why didn’t she just put everyone else who could inherit the throne on the list. That would only be what, twenty-four, twenty-five people, and she was apathetic to most of them.

“I see you’re already getting started with your education!” he said, eyeing the physics book she had forgotten she was gripping (despite her binds), half-open. “Should expect nothing less from the Days! So brilliant, and so driven!”

“Sure. Uh, yes, thank you.”

“All those books should be for our library. I wouldn’t expect someone just entering our college to fully understand, so don’t feel bad if you didn’t understand some of it!”

Maybe if she’d burned the books, they’d have turned around. Oh, but the thought of doing so made her sad.

“I assume she can be untied?” he asked to the driver, who simply shrugged.

“Of course she can,” said Samantha, daintily folding the book with half-tied arms. “What’s she going to do? Run into the snow and die?”

“For the more adventurous types, we like to do some conditioning first.”

She paused, frowned, then failed to catch her tongue. “I understand you’re attempting to be open-ended, with the intent that I think of the worst possible thing ‘conditioning’ could be, but in doing so, you necessarily reveal that the process isn’t as bad as that. Please be specific, so I can have an appropriate level of terror.”

He simply stared. She turned the book over, admiring its construction, avoiding his eyes.

How had that just tumbled out, that was at least two coherent thoughts, in service of making her life worse, to the man who could do so. Maybe all the reading and bread made her so smart her mouth generated a brain separate from her own. Maybe it was always there, and it was just growing bigger.

“Who’s your mom, princess?”

“Carline Mallow.”

“Ah, yes.”

“I find I take more after my father, though.”

“Oh really?”

And then she managed to snare it. “Perhaps we could discuss this inside. I’d like to warm up, and remove the pins from my legs.”

She could just lie about her name.

Wait, no, Roe couldn’t be illiterate, how would she be able to communicate at all? Was it only shrugging, nodding, flipping her bow-drawing finger? Presumably, then, she could just write out ‘her name is Samantha’ and hand it to him.

…It’s all moot, regardless. Doubtless, hidden among all the books and bags, was some documentation she hadn’t found in her 6 days of boredom detailing exactly what her father wanted to be done with her, if his level of ignorance wasn’t completely an act.

She’d called herself ‘Samsara’ for a while, alongside Quincy calling himself ‘Quintessence’. Sounded powerful. Important. Apparently meant something about death and life in some other tongue. The name was a choice she was making for herself, and forcing others to go along with, because she was a princess and princesses needed respect.

Joan and Quincy and Verris had gone along with it. Though, Joan was their maid at the time, and Verris went along with most of the things she said…

“My name is Samsara Day,” she said.

“She would call her daughter that,” replied Hector.

Walking next to him, Roe nodded and tittered.

“Hey Roe, are you mute?” said Samantha.

“No, why?” said Roe.

She probably shouldn’t kill Roe, nor should she do anything that’s traceable to her. Maybe Roe’s favourite scarf will have accidentally flew off a cliff. Hopefully she had an emotional attachment to it.

Maybe she should kill her.

Maybe she should just kill everyone in the immediate vicinity, now, or at least bite them and gouge out their eyes, before she’s executed, and sent to some terrible afterlife, or her soul is just permanently destroyed. Eternal darkness. Seeing as to how everyone hates her. But what a waste of her non-stupidity, which seems to be lacked by oh-so-many. Why couldn’t it just be trivial, to tell everyone that they are all stupid, that they don’t know how to act, that they just need to be her slave and do everything she said, and it’d be alright.

“You’re an asshole, Roe. A week.”

“I’ve spoken to you before. At the guild.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I thought we were joking.” She turned to Hector, walking down the hall. “She thought I was mute.”

Roe was led to a hall, Samantha was led to an office, and instructed to wait in a chair until Hector would return some minutes later. He gestured to a clock on the wall and told her that when the big hand moved from the one thick line to the next thick line, he would be back. She said nothing.

Everyone should have a clock.

Well, no. There are those who don’t deserve a clock. They should be killed or enslaved or ‘conditioned’, as Hector so cavalierly put it. Really, Anisa was pretty good with that, though she didn’t execute as much as she should. Perhaps it was one of the few things they agreed on, maintaining a functioning society required a firm hand, even if they disagreed on what a firm hand looked like. But no, that’s what Casse and Holomorpheus did, and so reasonable law enforcement is tyranny.

Though, who can be expected to follow laws when so many are illiterate, ugh. And when no one actually cares to read. And when books are so expensive.

She had had a lot of time to read at Penbarrow.

He had a bookshelf, as well. Presumably, there was some book assembly workshop nearby. For the quantity of books needed for a school, they may have moved from manually scribing to using some type of stamps. Or maybe there was some form of magic that allowed easy book duplication. If they had the latter, she’d definitely need to bring it back to Felkner…

The desk was sufficient. It was the bread and bread and bread of desks. Doubtless Hector had a better desk somewhere else, for more important work.

The chair she sat in was the same, though it at least had a cushion.

Shame. From the clocks, to the books, to the desks and chairs, so much time was spent recreating the same objects…

Hector entered. He sat across from Samantha at the desk, laying out several pieces of paper, a stamp, and an inkwell.

“Samsara Day?”

She was surprised. “Yes.”

“Would you prefer that, or Samantha?”

“…Either is fine.” Dammit.

“Samantha Sarah Day. I’m assuming your father had it explained how things work here?”

Blink. “No, he didn’t.”

“Oh, no problem. At the Academy, we take the elite of all ages, and instill in them the precepts of the octovium. I expect a princess is already familiar?”

“Familiar, yes.”

“We’ll first conduct a series of tests to determine your aptitude in each subject, to assign you fitting classes and teachers. Once that’s been decided, you’ll have the freedom to choose electives.”

“‘Electives’?”

“Classes to enhance understanding in more specific subject matters. Your father indicated you should be allowed to choose.”

“He really said that?”

Hector held a paper. “He also said you may call yourself Samsara.”

“What electives did Anisa take when she was here?”

He consulted a paper, then flipped it face down. “I don’t have the permission to say.”

Samantha was confident Anisa hadn’t taken any. Anisa generally seemed of the opinion that the most competent people were those at Felkner, and so if any extra education were to be had, it should be had there. Presumably, Reimond had allowed her that choice.

“You can see a complete list of the offered electives after your tests. You’ll spend your first week being moved in to your room, and given summaries of what each test entails.”

She briefly hung on the word ‘entails’ for seemingly no reason. Maybe it reminded her of something in one of the books she’d not read, or maybe she just liked its shape.

“My son Vincent can take any questions on particularities. He’s rather excited to meet a princess.”

She thought she should be flattered, but wasn’t. “We’re not exactly an uncommon breed.”

“Up here, you are.”

She wandered, and talked to other students, and remained vaguely annoyed, and considered diving into the snow, and found her room.

The bed was buttered bread.

Roe gave Samantha a crate, which had formerly been buried under books in the wagon. “Do not open in a small area.”

“What is this, a bomb?”

“A special backpack. From Anisa.”

“Did she take Quincy’s hyperspace chest and turn it into a bag?”

“I don’t know. Bye.” And Roe walked away.

She was irritated her irritation towards Roe seemed to be fading.

Indeed, inside the crate was a ‘backpack’, a pink bag with arm straps and buckles. Fine material, mediocre craftsmanship. She pulled it out — it was quite heavy — and turned it upside down, onto her bed in her small room.

Out poured three letters, several clothes, paper, poorly bound books, more clothes, a knife, a few fine books, a brush, and coin. One letter was from Anisa labelled ‘Read 1st’, one was a letter from Lionel…

So they had all colluded, her father and her sister and her brother and Roe and probably the guild. Great. Was nice of Lionel to pack her clothes, though. She’d read later, when she was less angry at them. She swapped to a dress and scooped the excess clothes back in. It wasn’t hyperspace, so turning it upside down probably would affect the gravity inside… and it was definitely larger on the inside than the outside… and, it seemed to weigh less than it should…. Some kind of stipo.

All she could think was, how annoying would it be to need to take into account objects like this at security checkpoints. Could one make a cloak that was bigger on the inside, and fill it with weapons, volatile chemicals, monsters? At least this came from Anisa, presumably she had started to take that into account…

Letter from Hendrik. Ah, that explained it. Though, she’d generally expect better craftsmanship from him…

She wasn’t angry at him, so she opened it.

Samantha. As per Her Highness Anisa Day’s first request, I’ve constructed a Woman’s Pink Stipospace Backpack with Toggleable Antigravity Crystal to assist with your studies. Testing indicates the crystal has a charge of 80 thaum-hours, which should counteract 10 kg for 8 hours, every day. Assume it’s less, as it may have recharged over the course of our tests. One can adjust force output.

As per Her Highness Anisa Day’s second request, I hope this letter finds you alive. If Quincy truly was assassinated,

She put the letter down. He was playing the game, too. He should know better. No one cared to know Quincy enough to understand exactly why he would’ve killed himself, and instead used the lack of understanding to justify paranoia, blame, and perhaps treason.

Not that she was opposed to any of that, in principle. It was just annoying they couldn’t be upfront about it.