[Tiki Time]

Just a Consort

"Didn't I tell you this would happen? You two are just consorts of each other." Marister's words rang in her ears. She was lying in her bed in her home in Eltabbar, wringing her hands and staring at the ceiling as those words played over and over again in her head. Just a consort...I'm not just a consort...

She remembered when Marister first said it, and how angry the words made her. She was rather firm in her response that he was incorrect, that she was not a consort. Although in her mind she knew it wasn't true, the damage was already done, the words could not be taken back and Amalia's heart was drowning in them.

Just a consort...you're just a consort, nothing more. She groaned, turning on her side and throwing her pillow over her head. She wrapped her arm around the pillow and pressed it firmly against her ear, as if somehow it might be able to stop the words from entering her thoughts...but these words were in her mind, not the house, and no pillow could quiet them.

Soon it wasn't just Marister's voice...it was hers as well, "I don't want to be your courtesan you come to visit when you're bored!"

"You're not!" Tyrael's voice interjected. I'm not...I'm not she repeated to herself. Not a consort, I'm not a consort.... No matter how many times she seemed to think it, she couldn't shake the feeling. But what if I am? How would I know? How do I know I'm more than just a consort?

"Stop it" she spoke aloud, tossing the pillow across the room at her wall. Stop, just stop it. She crawled out of her bed and left the bedroom, wandering in to her meditation room. She took a deep breath and stared at the yellow carpet and let the sound of the fountain fill her ears.

She could feel herself calming down, but Marister's voice was still in her head. Pursing her lips, she approached the golden gong and rang it three times. Clang, clang, clang. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on that ringing of the gong, the clanging that filled the room and her head. Even after it faded, she tried to keep on hearing it, re-imagining that sound over and over again.

She opened her eyes briefly to move herself to the center of the room, and slowly lowered herself to the ground. Closing her eyes once more, she tried to focus on the three fountains that surrounded her and the sounds of the water rushing. She took several deep breaths, in...and out...and in....and out... until she felt as if her body was melting away from her and she was nothing but a spirit.