Susan Vos Grenig

Her name was Susan and she was a princess of Sylant. Not _the _princess of Sylant. There were, in fact, three of them. Her oldest sister, Sharana, was the crown princess who had been born and bred one day to rule Sylant as queen. From the moment of her birth Sherana had known what her destiny entailed. She was courteous and kind with a witty intelligence and a clever turn of mind which allowed her to rule well and wisely. Already she was beloved of the people, and would easily take up the reins of power one day.

After that, there was the middle sister, Sarah. Tradition in Sylant dictated that the first child of the royal family would go on to become the king or queen. The second would join the priesthood. Mostly this meant becoming a high ranking priest or high-priest who would oversee the religious essentials of Sylant just as the oldest sister oversaw the worldly needs. However Sarah had followed a more inscrutable path than just this. She had become a very special sort of priestess.

She had become a paladin.

The family had been proud of her; for even though the original purpose of the paladin orders were long one, Sylant prided itself on having them. They were the symbol of Sylant and its people and to be accepted into them meant that one had to be of the highest quality. Even royalty did not get a free pass. Sarah had worked and trained for years before she was even considered. Now she wore the silver-bronze armour of a paladin with pride and strength, and was almost as well loved as her older sister. It was said that one day she might even be head of the Order of Silver Dawn, and therefore train new paladins just as she was one day trained.

Yes. Those were her sisters. The first place was Sherana, proud and beautiful. Trained to rule and guided by a deep understanding of the world and the people within it. Then there was Sarah who shone with a graceful light from within and whose charisma and courage inspired all she spoke to.

And after those two, in third and last place, there was Susan.

Princess Susan Vos Grenig, to use her full name. She was the one who always seemed to be left out. It wasn't anyone's fault. She just wasn't as good as her sisters. Inevitably, her life was a string of being introduced as ''and the third sister'' and the greatest praise she usually heard about her exploits was ''and of course, there is Susan too.''

Susan would be the first to admit that she was not particularly brave like Sarah was. She was not beautiful like Sharana. She did not have a knack for ruling or inspiring people, and in fact she found them frustrating and hard to deal with. She was trained to present herself as a noble lady of the court but compared to her sisters, she was a paltry prize indeed. It wasn't that she felt she was bad; she knew she was good. But she just wasn't as good as her sisters, and somehow that hurt more than simply being bad.

One thing that she took pride in was her appearance. She didn't have the same natural grace as Sharana, but she worked at it. Like most of her family, Susan had pale skin and ginger hair. She wore it long so it fell down her back. She had green eyes of emerald hue, and pale skin which was frosted with freckles. Her ears were pierced, and her face was finely boned and delicate looking. She was considered something of a beauty even by herself when she was not comparing her body to those of her siblings. In spite of her lack of accomplishment, there were many who wished to marry her.

Which was good since that was to be her primary role. One child to rule the kingdom, one child to go to the priesthood. Finally, one child to secure alliances or to strengthen internal ties. That was how it was done in Sylant. From the moment they had been aware of their own futures, each sisters had known what they would be. Sharana would rule as queen when their mother stepped down, Sarah would become a high priestess of one sort or another.

And Susan would marry a man she had never known and go very far away from home. Possibly never to return.

It was a depressing fate which had become more and more difficult to hide from as she had aged. Now, close to her twenty first birthday and the date of her arranged marriage, Susan felt like a woman being led to the executioner's block. She had never before met her prospective husband, and knew him to be a noble of some foreign kingdom. She didn't want to go with him. She didn't want to leave home. She loved it here for all she could not help but compare herself to others. This was where she had been born and where she belonged, but no one seemed willing to hear her out on the subject! As far as her mother and eldest sister were concerned, it was her duty. Not a pleasant one, perhaps, but one she was expected to undertake for the good of all. She would spend her life miserable in a land she did not know because it was for the good of Sylant and this was the end of it.

Sarah - who had always been closer to her- was more sympathetic.

"I know it seems bad," The paladin told her when she vented to her older sister. "But I am sure that it will not be as terrible as you think. The man is not a bad person."

"You've met him?"

"A few times. He is a knight and I have spoken to him now and then when our work brought us together. He is polite and mild mannered, Not a cruel person."

"Maybe not, but I don't know him at all!" Susan wailed. "How can I love someone I do not know?"

"No one expects you to love him," Sarah drew her into a close embrace. "Just to live with him and be his partner. It is a cruel fate, but it is what our people have always done."

"Does that make it right?" Susan asked with tears in her eyes.

"I do not know" Sarah said. "But it is what must happen. I will visit you often, I promise and you will make friends there. Perhaps you will even come to love him. Stranger things have happened. It will be all right. You will see."

But Susan was not consoled, and cried herself to sleep that night in fear of the bleak future which awaited her. She thought that no one - not even her own sisters - would heed her pleas and in a sense she was correct.

But something else did hear her. And it answered her that very night.