Gremyne Sunsets

Zende was playing with her dolls. She was five years old -quite a grown woman she insisted- and the daughter of the lord and lady of Vyver, one of the more Southern provinces of Gremyne. She had been taught all these things though she didn't quite understand all of them.
"Zende!" her mother called.
"Yes mommy." Zende said and smiled to her mother.
"Lady Merka, dear, you know how I like to be called by my title."
"Yes Lady Merka."
"That's a good girl. Now what do you say?"
"How was your day Lady Merka?" Zende said and bowed.
"Yes. Well... now... carry on. Take your dolls and go play elsewhere so me and your daddy can talk."
Zende skipped out of the room carrying her dolls. Outside of the room her favourite doll dropped out of her hands. Zende sat down on the floor and looked at her doll. It wasn't broken and this was as good a place as any to play with er dolls. The window-arches could be their houses, the floor a ballroom.
After a while though Zende could hear her mother shouting.
"Dreen, I've heard these things from reliable sources!" Her mother yelled
"And I say you I haven't."
"Do you love me?"
"Of course I do." her father answered.
"You don't mean that. You think I'm ugly!" Lady Merka sobbed.
"Oh, come on. Don't cry. Where did you hear these rumors?"
"They're all over town! The servant girl told me. The servant girl!"
"Which one?"
"That b*** Karolin. She did it to hurt me." no more tears.
"It's probably just some wench trying to make money of us." Dreen insisted.
"There is a name. The baby is a male and his name is Zonder or Zander or something."
"Well, no province was ever hurt by a few bastards."
"No, you will not laugh this away. I won't have it."
"What do you suggest I do?"
"Kill it."
"Killing a baby won't make me popular."
"You aren't popular to begin with. Fear is such a better way of persuasion."
"That's true, my little candy."
Suddenly Zende heard laughing. She snuck away deeper into the window-arches and clutched her dolls beside her. The door opened and her mother walked past without seeing her.
"No-one will have a claim on these lands except my children." she said and giggled.
Zende waited for her mother to pass and when there wasn't a sound anymore she continued playing ballroom dance with her dolls.
A brother? She didn't want a brother, she wanted a cat.

Continue To Part 2 of Zende
Read Zonder's Part 1

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All images copyrighted to me except for the dividers. I got those from Dreslough.com