Mariens (Part 2)

"I will, Danond, but first, I need a bath. Join me at dinner." My eyes danced to behold him and I relished breathing the thin, clean air of the mountain.

Danond walked me to my room and I asked him to choose a dress for me while I went ahead to the bath. I stayed in there a long time, cleaning with the lilac soap and shaving and cleaning my hair with a lilac shampoo. I soaked in mineral salts for my aching muscles and enjoyed the warm, bubbly water for a while. It had never felt so good to be clean.

The dress Danond picked out for me to wear was one of pale purple satin with silver trim. The sleeves of the dress flowed down in sheer fabric to the ground. I wore a silver headdress and curled my hair and left it down. It was a heavy dress but it flowed so nicely; I thought that Danond had done a good job of choosing it. I thought he might just pull a dress off of the top of the trunk and be done with it, but he thought about what would look best on me.

Zoreth wore a clear blue dress of silver fabric and gold trim and a gold circlet with a blue moonstone on her forehead. Laurideth wore a gown of white and curled her long blonde hair and pinned up the top of it. Both of my daughters looked lovely. Still, I would rather see them on the beach at Rania with fragrant flowers in their hair. To my surprise, a great feast had been prepared, and when we walked out everyone bowed to us. I felt myself blush and I thought I would cry. Tables were set in the garden as the sky became violet and flowers, ferns, and candles were everywhere. No place could have looked more romantic. I was embarrassed and overjoyed at the same time. I felt overwhelmed with all of the attention and every eye on us.

I sat beside of Danond and I answered his questions. Music played as we ate and I felt happy as I had in the garden with him days before. It was the happiest I had been since I was in Rania, which was the happiest I had been in all of my life. King Zolond raised a toast to the nine of us and blessed us and I felt proud that I had been the leader of such a quest.

Mother Nindeth told all at our table that she was proud of me and that I had been worthy to wield her son’s sword. I definitely felt like crying then, because I knew that her son, Golroth, was known as the best warrior to ever live on the earth and the most valiant. He was known among the Mariens and the Lians as ‘Mighty Golroth’ but he was eventually killed in battle with the head evil angel but mortally wounded him. The jewel-encrusted silver shield that I used I thought was made by Mother Dria as Zoreth’s and Laurideth’s were, but she had repaired Golroth’s shield for me and made theirs in its image.

Zarideth told stories about the demons we encountered; Anubis, Bes, Bast, the sphinx, Medusa, the snake demon, the Minotaur, Ishtar, and the griffin. Everyone’s eyes widened at the telling of all of it. At the end of it all, she told about us taking the chest out to the middle of the sea passed the beach of black sand and the rainbow in the waterfall and flying on the unicorns.