The dim light of the fire in the fireplace of the kitchen flickered just enough for Juliette to see the form of Shae sleeping. The young Ithinian shifted so that she was looking at the ceiling instead of the Tigran that had told her to sleep in her bed instead of one of the others that she would have had to trudge through the twilight covered snow to get to. It was late and the fort was quiet enough where she could think about the odd events of the chilled day.
She had lost two of her friends, at least she was sure she had. Tanoro had made it quite clear he wasn't her friend and she and Elizabeth would probably never be good one either. She frowned slightly, why was it that the animals of the fort were nicer to her than her own people?
Eric the Slizzar.
Shae the Tigran.
Ztril the Allar.
They were nice to her yet she was constantly called mannerless and rude and a child, even though she had seen things no child should see, by her own race! Tanoro and Elizabeth only wanted her to learn manners and speak that stupid language she hardly could figure out because appearently that was the only way they could be friends. Yet she is the horrid one when she hasn't tried once to change them! Jamie was the only Ailor that has cared to ask if she was okay, yet of course he probably wouldn't have asked in the first place if her cousins had been around..
Juliette paused her wild thoughts, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the palm of her left hand, her right shaking the slightest bit from a mix of being worked up and the old injury she held on it. Her eyes flicked around the room, landing once more on the large, sleeping cat. She stood from the bed and tiptoed to her, peering at her but not daring to touch and wake her. Juliette stood there for what seemed a whole night, remembering the whispers words that the Tigran had said to her.
Juliette would learn to fight, learn to protect herself from the evils of the world, Juliette would be respected like everyone else. Than her thoughts drifted to when they spoke of her religion, the words on Estel and the Spirit and the desert Goddess of the Tigrans.
Slowly the girl wandered back to bed, climbing under the covers with a final thought before a restless sleep fell over her.
Maybe the Imperial Spirit wasn't real.
