Not Alone (title pending)

Not Alone is the fantasy book that is the sequel to Alone In the Dark.  It is going to be a series of three books in all.  That is if I get them all completed.  The second one is mainly about Fëllon Xrëeon’s (the main character from the first book, Alone In the Dark) daughter, Žashŧä.  Yes, I know.  The name looks very fancy.  Almost too fancy.  But I had fun creating it.  :)  Here is an expert from Not Alone.

Comment and tell me what you think of it!

Angelina Zoe

               Žashŧä leaned her head back against a branch of the tree she was up in and sighed deeply.  She drew out a dagger hidden from somewhere on her person and flipped it in her hand, muttering as she did.  “‘Princess’ don’t flip daggers in their hands, Žashŧä dear,’” she mimicked her mother in a high voice, making a sour face.  “Well you know what, Mother?  This is one princess who does!”  She hurled the dagger with all of might forward, hitting a tree in front of her.  It hit it with a thunk and was rooted firmly there. 

               “What do you think of that, Mother?”  Žashŧä growled as she pulled another dagger from her boots.  She flicked her wrist, still holding the blade in her hand, and licked her lips.  “When am I ever going get out of Yilla and into the real world?”  Žashŧä sighed, hating the life she was living now.  She never wanted to be the princess’s daughter.  She wanted to be normal.  A normal, twenty-one year old elf.  But that was impossible, being the granddaughter of the king of Yilla.  Everyone wanted to serve the granddaughter of King Glandias, and no one would ever leave her alone.  No one.  Not even her own mother. 

               Žashŧä made another face as she thought about her mother.  Her father wasn’t bad, she admitted to herself.  He didn’t raise her the way that the ancient elves of Yilla had raised all of their children.  He did it the way he thought best.  And that is where her mother and father didn’t always agree on.  Life just isn’t fair, she thought to herself.  I’d rather be a villager, starving and not having enough clothes than to be the Princess Aurïa’s daughter.

               She flipped the dagger again in between her fingers and hurled it right next to the blade she had thrown before.  She needed a way to vent her anger, and this wasn’t enough.            

               Suddenly, Žashŧä was aware of another presence near her.  “That’s one way to let your anger out,” a voice from behind her echoed. 

               She turned around quickly, drawing another dagger, and suddenly stopped when she recognized the elf.  Sitting in front of her, twenty feet from the ground, above in a tree, was her father, garbed in black.  She sighed, relieved she didn't hit him accidentally, fueled by her anger.  “Father?  What are you doing here?”  She asked, looking at him with her quizzical blue eyes that still had anger behind them.   

               Fëllon adjusted himself on the tree branch he was sitting on and gazed into Žashŧä’s face.  She knew that he was thinking she looked so much like her mother.  That just made her sourer.  “I've come here to see you, my dear.  Why else would I be here?” 

               Žashŧä didn’t meet his piercing black eyes and turned away from him, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Not a lot of people can sneak up on me like that,” she mumbled, staring at the decorated handle of her dagger.  It had an intricate design of two wolves under the three suns of the far away land Freelane.  

               “It is a gift of mine, sneaking up on people.  And it is much easier when that person you are sneaking up on is angry or absorbed in troubling thoughts.”  For a split second, Fëllon thought back to his adoptive father who taught him the meaning of stealth.  But only for a second.  “Žash, what’s bothering you?” 

               Žashŧä sighed angrily.  “Mother!  Mother is what’s bothering me!  I can’t be with her for more than a minute without her telling me what to do and what not to do!  You don’t know how annoying it gets!”  She brought her dangling legs up and held them close to her chest.

               “She is your mother,” Fëllon commented, leaning back a little.  “And you owe her your respect.” 

               “You don’t understand, Father,” Žashŧä whined, putting her hair behind her pointed ears.

               “Oh, yes I do.  You should’ve seen your mother before you were born.  Even before we were married she was giving me orders!  Ordering me around like a slave!  Like I was her personal bodyguard.”  Fëllon lifted an eyebrow and smiled.  “Then again, I was her personal bodyguard.”  

               Žashŧä gave him a wary look and narrowed her eyes.  “You are just making that up.”

               “No, I’m not.  If you think she’s bossy now, it’s only because she loves you so much.”  Fëllon paused for a moment and then went on.  “If she didn’t care about you, then do you think that she would worry about your future?  Or her wanting to bring you up as mothers bring up daughters that will soon rule Yilla?”

               Žashŧä’s expression didn’t change at all.  She still held the dagger in her calloused hand and looked at it wistfully.  “She wants me to stop sword fighting.”  She then looked up at her father with pleading eyes.  “Father, you know how much sword fighting means to me.” 

               Fëllon nodded slowly, looking at her thoughtfully.  “No one said that you had to stop it if you didn’t want to.  Your mother just expressed her unhappiness with it.  That is all.” 

               Putting her dagger away, Žashŧä unfolded her legs and let them swing again.  “I guess I never thought of it that way.”  She was quiet for a while, pondering on what her father had just told her.  “I, uh... guess I should go talk to mother.” 

               Fëllon nodded, a hint of a smile on his handsome face.  “That would be a wise thing to do.” 

               Žashŧä shrugged and stood up unsteadily on her thick branch, holding her arms out for balance.  “I guess the sooner the better.”  Then she quickly added, “But I’m not going to repent.  Just talk to her.”

               “You’d better be quick about it.  You know how your mother can worry.”

               “Oh do I ever!”  She jumped from the branch and clung onto another one further down, doing that for each level of branches until she got down to the ground.  “Are you coming?”  She called up to her father.

                “Yup, I’m coming!”