What was the thing you most regret leaving behind in that castle?
My mother had a nurse, Fairhands, who had watched over her through her own childhood. Fairhands was like another mother to me and Firewind. When we fled the castle, I saw her lifeless body; her throat had been cut, and her eyes stared glassy into the darkness. It was only when I saw Fairhands' corpse that I knew the game of hide-and-seek we played in the castle that night was in deadly earnest.
Your family is depicted escaping through the portcullis of your mother's father's castle. In most sieges, this would be the most heavily invested point. This, along with the fact that no one else escaped the siege indicates that there was some collusion over the escape on the part of your father's enemies.
Would you say this is true and if so, who colluded, how and why?
Hmm, I never considered that we had been allowed to escape. But the ease with which my mother was able to elude the armies of Threerocks suggests that was exactly the case. Perhaps my father's family had some hand in the matter, for it was only those whom my father loved that survived the siege. And certainly my father had learned many of the castle's secrets, because my mother loved him and kept nothing from him.
Or perhaps Prince Steelbright of Threerocks insisted that she be let go, for it was said that he had loved her before she married my father.
Ok your mother was a princes and your father a swashbuckling merchant... This must have been a heck of a romance!
What was the story of your parents?
My mother, Princess Sunhair, loved to go down into the city of Royalport in disguise. The people of the city humored her, because she was my grandfather's only child, and well-loved for her good nature. The Wave Dancer was in port by chance one day when she was in the city in disguise, and my father Breezewalker met her and was struck by her beauty and charm. She had never met anyone like him; the men of our kingdom were more staid and proper than my father.
So my father wooed my mother in secret, believing her the daughter of a merchant or perhaps a lord. But then he came to the court of my grandfather, King Granite, with his brother the captain to negotiate with my father, and learned her real name and station. And my mother confessed her love for him. My grandfather was angry, but he could deny his daughter nothing--especially when she confessed that she was with child by the handsome stranger.
How did the royal family react to her having children by a traveling merchant?
My grandfather was furious with my mother, for he had hoped to marry her to Prince Steelbright of Threerocks. The court loved my mother and thought she could do nothing wrong.
Did they marry?
My grandfather insisted on it. If he could not marry his daughter to the son of the King of Threerocks, he would at least be sure there was a strong arm to defend her when Threerocks came to war against us.
Are you now the heir to the throne or were you disowned by the family?
My brother Firewind was born moments before me, so he would be King of Rivenrock--if Rivenrock were still a kingdom to be ruled by one of us. But the King of Threerocks rules Rivenrock now, and Firewind would have to claim the throne from him by force of arms.
What was it like growing up as children of that union?
My father was often at sea on the Wave Dancer, but twice a year or so, he would come to visit us in Royalport and stay for a month or two. There was some tension between my father and my grandfather, but my father was always happy to be with us, even if Rivenrock could never be the home to him that the deck of the Wave Dancer was.
The members of the court cosseted us and loved us. My mother was often melancholy when my father was at sea, and left our care to Fairhands. But when my father returned, ah, then she was like flowers in the spring! She loved my father.
What was the trip from the castle to the pirate ship like?
When my mother fled the sack of the only home she had ever known, she took with her all the fine jewels my grandfather and father had given us. She hired a ship to take us to the great port of Sailhome, far to the south, where my father had said the Wave Dancer was trading. It was a frightening voyage, filled with storms. Some of the sailors said we were cursed, and proposed to throw us off. But the Captain had seen the talisman my father had given my mother against such a great need, and he protected us from the sailors.
In Sailhome my mother searched for the Wave Dancer, but she had not yet come into port. After weeks of waiting, it seemed that she would despair. Our supply of money was low, and my mother feared that the agents of Threerocks might be seeking her. But then my father found us, and took us to the Wave Dancer, and told us it would be our home forever after.
Did you and Firewind ever cross swords in anger?
Firewind was my other half. To draw my blade on him in anger would have been like pointing it at my own throat! And I know he felt the same about me. How lost and alone he must feel without me, as I feel without him ...
Were you renegades, or did you sail with the blessing of the Navigator's Guild?
Once I saw officials of the Guild on board the Wave Dancer. They did not treat us as renegades, but still, there was an uneasiness, as if my father's clan held strangenesses which they liked little--or even feared. To say we had their blessing would be an exaggeration, but we had their permission.
How long ago did [the sinking of the Wave Dancer] happen? If it was a while ago have you looked for your brother?
It was perhaps a year ago that my brother and I were parted. I have searched for him in every port, asked for him in every tavern, spent coin upon coin to bribe news of him, but none have heard of Firewind, or of Sunhair, of Breezewalker, of the Wave Dancer since that fateful day. And the Navigator's Guild say nothing.
Assume that the piece of wreckage you clung to was only big enough for one person and your brother was still with you. Who would have survived and why?
We both would have drowned, for everything we did, we did together.
What lengths will you go to to obtain revenge upon your grandfather's murderer and the return of the castle and lands which are your rightful inheritance?
Rivenrock seems so far away that sometimes I think it was merely a dream and I lived all my life on the decks of the Wave Dancer. I care little enough who rules in Rivenrock, but Firewind dreamed of someday returning there in triumph over the King of Threerocks.
I care far more about finding my brother and my parents again than I do what happens in a land I've not seen since early childhood.
Which [obscure and compelling] truths did you learn? What was the nature of those truths?
What "that" has to do with the price of beans.
I learned what people value. Some people value things or the money that can buy them. Others value power, whether bought by fear or money. Some value only knowledge. Some value nothing save that they earned it by sweat and blood; some value only what they stole or gained at great risk.
Others value only love, and they are often happier in their riches than seekers of money or power or knowledge, though others would reckon them impoverished.
Okay, so one day, following a rumor, you find your brother. He is in the dirtiest tavern in the worst part of town in a port little better than a pirate's haven. (Think the Vulgar Unicorn in Sanctuary.) He is slumped in a corner, half-dead from drink. There is no look of recognition in his face when/if he sees you. What do you do?
I can't believe my brother wouldn't recognize me ... I think our bond was too strong for that.
Assuming I had some reason not to dismiss him as an impostor, I would care for him until he was strong enough to remember who I was. If he had amnesia, we'd seek a cure. If it was just drunkenness, I'd dry him out.
Once he was strong enough to go on, I suppose we'd look for our parents. But he was the stronger-willed of the two of us, always. So he would almost certainly have some kind of opinion about what we should do ...