Into Estonie
by @LittleBear

The two weaved through the crowds and seemed extraordinarily unremarkable. To the untrained eye, they were just a man and his child, their faces hidden under large hoods. They blended in seamlessly with the citizens hurrying on their way; all of them huddled under their cloaks to avoid the drizzle. Their cloaks were not too fine or threadbare, too clean or unnecessarily muddied. No one would think her face or her black ringlets were deliberately obscured.

Natiselle squirmed and put her pudgy hand on Erion’s collar “Papa” She asked.

“Yes, Nightingale?” he murmured as he tried to remember exactly where we needed to turn, it had been so long since it was safe enough to walk these streets.

“Will Kraio be alight? He looked so strange,” she said, “like someone took all of his color.”

Erion gave her a reassuring squeeze and turned to look at her. “Nati, your brother will be perfectly fine as long as we finish quickly. Now do you remember what I told you about being in the city?”

She nodded solemnly and whispered, “In the city we have to be like spies, and spies have to be sneaky and silent.”

He kissed her cheek and whispered, “That’s right Nightingale.”

And they traveled like this, silently through the city streets, looking for all the world like a father and his daughter.

When they finally arrived at the apothecaries’ window, the drizzled has turned to rain and they were grateful for the awning’s shelter. Erion set Natiselle down and with his back turned to her; Erion began describing Kraiotan’s symptoms to the little man inside.

Natiselle took this time to watch all of the people go by. This was nothing like the main street in Holvim, They were moving so urgently, everyone here looked as if they had very important places to be. The mix of different people baffled young Natiselle, the range in clothes – from laborer’s worn rags, full of patches to the fine garments of important looking ladies under big umbrellas.
Natiselle was especially captivated by a sleek carriage that rolled to a stop just in front of the apothecary. It was black and covered in ornate gold filigree, and, it was hard to tell, but it looked as if it was covered with emeralds. The door swung open with abandon and Natiselle could hear the unmistakable sound of a scolding.

A boy around her age appeared in the door, his face turned to whoever was inside. He must have been nervous, for not two seconds passed before the trinket the boy was fiddling with slipped through his fingers.

She watched as the pretty little box tumbled down the steps of the carriage and bounced to her feet. She bent down to pick it up when she noticed how frantic the boy looked as he jumped out of the carriage.

Indeed Strisen had been playing with his most prized possession and he would never forgive himself if he lost it.

As she stood up, she took a moment to look at the ornate carvings that covered the box. It was so pretty that for a moment, she considered keeping it. But, when she saw him on his hands and knees, looking for it, felt a pang of guilt.

She left Erion’s side and tapped the boy on the shoulder; the box outstretched in her other hand.

When he looked up at her, she could not help but stumble backwards. For underneath his neatly combed silver hair was her brother’s face. The piercing green eyes, the dimples, everything but the color of his hair and the absence of freckles were the same.

Her hood slipped off and shiny black curls bounced around her face as her mouth fell into a little “o”.

Little Strisen had never seen a face so sweet. He stood there dumbfounded before he noticed the box and snatched it from her fingers.

“Thank you,” he murmured hastily as he checked the box for scratches.

Usually, Natiselle would have said something snarky in the way that only children can. But she stood too stunned to make a peep. She would have stayed there forever if Erion had not whisked her up into his arms.

With the ease befitting a spymaster, he slipped into the crowd as if they had never been there at all.

Strisen realized he was being rude, and more out of fear of his nurse than anything else, he looked up to thank her properly. But, there was nothing left of them.

“Come Strisen. Stop gawking at whatever it is,” his nanny said as she steered him in the opposite direction with a bony hand. “If you are late to archery again, your father will have my head.”

He ambled along and let her tug his hood over his head; even though he had told her many times that he liked the rain.

She, however, was not thinking of the rain. Instead, she was scanning the rooftops, looking for movement that did not belong – a glint of metal or flash of Deracose blue. “Hurry along,” she said.

Already halfway to their mounts, Erion moved as quickly as he could without breaking into a run.

“Papa, who was that?” Natiselle asked, whispering shakily into his ear.

He reached over, pulled her hood up, and asked, “Who are you talking about?” The pit of his stomach sank as he thought of how this would traumatize her.

“The boy. The one who looked like Kraio. With the white hair.”

At Erion’s silence, Natiselle began to panic. “Papa, no. You are scaring me.”

He stayed mum for a beat. “Nati, darling, there was no boy.”

She almost kicked him with her little legs. “Papa, he was there! He had a little box!”

“How much did he look like Kraio?” He asked her, hating himself every step of the way.

“Just like him,” she whispered as wrapped her little arms around Erion, “but he had white hair, just like old lady Camran.” She felt Erion stiffen and she grew a little louder in her fright. “Papa! Stop it!”

“Shh, quiet my little spy.” He took a breath and wondered how dearly he would pay for this in the future. “It just means that we need to get back to Kraio faster. We have what we need, I know I promised you I would take you to see the fountains, is it all right it we come back another day?”

Little Natiselle burst into tears. “Yes Papa! I want to go back now! I know that I fight with him all the time but I do not mean it. I – I, I – do not want to see the Kraio ghost again.” She was close to a full on wail.

He put a protective hand on her back, “We will get there in time. Do not worry your little head.”

They rode hard the moment they were able and made it back in record time. Dusk had just fallen when they came upon the little cottage, hidden in the foot of the cliff.

Erion gently shook Natiselle awake as they came to the house. “We are here, Nightingale.”

Her eyes flew open and she whispered her brother’s name.

“He is alright,” he said as he dismounted. “But maybe do not tell Kraio you saw his spirit. I think he has been through enough, yes?”

She gave him a very serious nod and lifted her hands to be put down. The second her legs hit the ground she went tearing into the house.

Without so much a word to her mother, Natiselle ran straight to Kraiotan’s bedside and threw herself on top of him, causing him to cough in surprise. When she saw his sunny hair and smattering of freckled, she hugged him with all of her little might and stammered “D-do not ever do that again. You are not allowed to be sick anymore,” she hiccupped, “who will I play with?”

Kraio, confused and very feverish, patted her little head and wheezed, “Get off me fatty, I cannot breathe.” She leapt off him and whipped her eyes with her fists.

“You get to be mean just because you are almost dead.”


Notes

Me: 

I'm thinking that this might be the very beginning of Natiselle's story because it contains all the major protagonists; Erion, Nati, Kraio, and Stris. And kind of sets up the characters: Erion as loving Nati (and Erion) very much and wanting what is best for her but also ensuring that the mission and plan can go forward, even at the cost of her future pain. Nati is of course curious, self centered (but she's like 6 so its okay), and attracted to pretty things. Stris thinks about things very analytically, and tries his best to do what is right and proper when he really just wants to be a little boy. And Kraio is very much the older brother who wearily/with a sigh just goes along with Nati's antics.

SOOOO… I wanted this to be the first view into them and their characterization but I 'm really wrestling with how to do this without re writing this in the point of view of every character - hence the head hopping. And if you (as someone who has lovingly tangled with these characters before) are having trouble de-tangling them then, its totally on me to make it clearer. 

TryToDoItWrite: 

A little bit of grammar details:

There was a little bit of head hopping. You were in Erion's head one second, then Nati's, then the other boy's then the nurses all in the space of a couple hundred words. I got confused a little bit. I think I'd suggest, even if you're writing in the third person, to stick to a narrator for a longer period of time. That's just opinion though. You see some of the great writers "head-hopping" now and again.