That Doesn't Look Like a Seahorse (Alanna)

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Alana liked animals. They were easier to understand than people and she didn’t have to talk to them. And they didn’t talk back. She didn’t have to worry about what they’d think about her either because they were just animals. They didn’t really judge too much. At least, not as far as Lana knew. And that’s why the mergirl was hiding out in the loft of the stables. It was quieter and she felt much more peaceful here. Plus, the horses reminded her of seahorses, except that horses were bigger. And a lot hairier. They kind of scared Alana because they were so big but as long as she was up in the loft then she was safe.

There was lots of hay up here, which wasn’t very comfortable, but it wasn’t terrible. It kind of reminded her of prickly coral. Except coral was brittle and would have broken if she’d laid on top of it. She laid on her stomach and watched the horses as they snorted and ate and did other horse things. She laid her chin of her arms, which were crossed on the floor in front of her. This was kind of peaceful and she didn’t really feel too afraid. She would have liked to have had a pet back in Atlantica, but Daddy probably wouldn’t have liked that.

Alana heard footsteps and she peered over the edge just enough to see someone’s boots, then retreated back, hoping that the person was going to be in and out quickly without noticing her. That would be preferable.

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Alanna of Trebond was not the type to complain, even if the complaint was not knowing her way around. Without Ralon of Malven to create a common enemy between herself and, well, anyone. Having no one to spend time with except her cat and her horse made her homesickness so much worse. She missed Myles, Raoul, Garry, George, Thom... And especially Jonathan. She was so worried that her smiling friend (as Thom called the Duke) would try something now that she wasn't around. What if something happened to Jonathan? She was almost certain that Rodger had told him about the Black City to try to kill him. It would have worked, if not for her. Now she wasn't there, and what would happen if Rodger tried something new? Another Sweating Sickness or an accident or a duel...

Alanna tried to quiet her worries as she entered the stables and went to Moonlight's stall. She quickly saddled the mare, but was cut short as Faithful entered. There's someone in the loft, trying not to be seen, the cat yowled. His words sounded like meows to all but her, for now. He could choose who understood him and who could not. Most often he spoke only to her. "Is there a reason you're hiding up there?" she asked aloud of who ever was in the hay loft.

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Alana watched the red haired boy work walk into the barn. She peeked out curiously, comfortably aware that he couldn’t see her, but she could see him. And he probably wouldn’t look up at the loft either, so there wasn’t any chance of being seen. It was comfortable knowing that she had a safe hiding place up here. So she watched quietly. The cat that followed the boy looked fuzzy and would probably be soft to touch, if Lana ever had a chance to touch it. But that was unlikely because land animals still made her a little uncomfortable. She didn’t know how to react to them.

And then the boy was calling out to her and Alana panicked. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. She’d thought that she’d been safe up here all by herself. How had he seen her? She didn’t think anyone could see her and she wasn’t moving so she hadn’t made any noise. So how had he known? Did he have magic or something that he could tell when people were hiding or something? That would be really awful if he did because then she could never hide from him. Hiding was so much easier than talking to be people.

All these thoughts were whizzing through her head at lightning speed and she still hadn’t given an answer. Carefully she scooted forward to peer over the edge of loft again. “I’m not hiding, I swear. The horses make me nervous because they’re so big, but I didn’t want to leave so I came up here.” She was rambling again. Speaking was hard. Talking to people was hard. And scary.

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Alanna glanced up towards the hayloft for the first time. She saw the girl with her long, dark brown hair, and was struck by how different everything was here. Girls would never have been found in the stables at the castle. Not the pages' or squire's stables, at any rate. With her knight master who he was, the only other women she was used to seeing were those who wanted to earn their ways into his bed. That fact irked her though she hadn't a clue why. A sigh threatened to escape her lips.

Then she noticed the bit of straw sticking from the older girl's hair. A smile crossed her face as she thought of Stephan the groomsman, a man who was always lounging in the lofts of the pages' stables. Since the pages were required to care for their own horses, his only job there was to make sure that they did theirs. 'Alan' had been friendly with him, especially since he was one of George's men. At the thought of George, though, the sigh came. When she had told him she was leaving, her friend the Rogue had kissed her. She had never even known that he felt about her that way, and she had no idea how she felt about his feelings. She didn't care for him as more than a friend, that was for sure. Even if she was a woman, she would never act like one.

"Hiding isn't a bad thing," Alanna finally called in return. "I'm sorry if you didn't want to be found. You needn't worry about the horses, though. They won't bother you so long as you don't bother them. You could meet mine, if you'd like." She smiled as Moonlight snuffled at her hair with her big, soft nose.

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The boy seemed okay, but Lana was wary of him. She was usually wary of most people anyways, no matter how nice they were. There was some saying about how it was the nice ones you had to worry about. Or something like that. Maybe it was different. She couldn’t remember anymore. It’d been a while since she’d heard it.

It was nice of the boy to offer to let her meet the horse, but Lana wasn’t used to such a big animal with so many legs. She wasn’t even used to her own legs, so animals that had 4 legs, which was twice as many as her, seemed like a bad idea. Plus, horses had fur and it was funny looking. Some of it was long, but most was short and horses were nothing like any sea animal she’d ever come across before. The mergirl shook her head. “No thanks. Land animals have too many legs. And horses really don’t look anything like seahorses. And they’re really big. Bigger than any dolphin I’ve ever met, but dolphins don’t have legs. Just fins. And stuff.” She was rambling again, but she couldn’t help it. Sometimes words just spilled out of her mouth without her even thinking about them. It wasn’t very good, but sometimes she couldn’t stop them. She was going to have to work on that.

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The sea? Where was this girl from? A pirate ship? Alanna smiled nonetheless. "Well I could let you meet my cat, then. He's very small, and he's nice too," she offered. "Maybe you could work your way up to the horses." She could understand being afraid of horses, even if she personally never had been. Horses were dangerous, even if they weren't trained as warhorses.

"You don't even have to come down if you don't want to, Faithful likes high places." Okay, so that last bit wasn't entirely true. Faithful never really climbed anywhere besides her shoulder, after all. In jest, her friend Gary had once said that the black cat wouldn't climb on anyone else's shoulder because Faithful was afraid of heights. She guessed it was time to find out. She wanted to meet this strange girl.

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It was nice of the boy to suggest the cat, but Alana still wasn’t sure. Cats were weird too. And they were little and fuzzy and had funny looking whiskers. She didn’t think she’d ever work her way up to horses. They reminded her too much of seahorses, except that horses were a lot bigger. “I don’t know,” Alana said uncertainly. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to meet the cat. She could see it much better from here and seeing was sometimes better anyway.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t know anything about cats. I’ve never had a cat and I don’t understand how anything with legs works. Well, besides crabs and other crustaceans. I don’t really know anything about mammals. Anything that doesn’t live in the ocean I really don’t know anything about. I’m sure your cat is nice, though.” Alana did think the cat was probably nice, but she didn’t want to meet it. Not really. How did a person even meet a cat? This was complicated.

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Alanna listened with a sigh. "It's your choice, you know, to meet the animals or not. But if you don't face your fears then you will never get better. If you don't try you will never succeed. Sometimes you only get one chance and if you hesitate you won't get another." After all, every time she had been uncertain and had acted things had worked out. She had beaten Ralon from practice, and from failing over and over again, not from wondering if she could. She a tiny girl page, ten years old, had sent Ralon of Malven running home even though he was four years her elder.

"Sometimes you just have to try. If something happens to you, you'll recover and you'll learn. If something doesn't then you won't have to be afraid. I hold cats and ride horses all the time and I'm still in one piece," Alanna pointed out. This is how she expected girls to act. Scared of their own shadows and unable to do anything, or think, for themselves. She hated being a girl, and she would never act like one. No matter what kind of body she had, she could do just as much as any man. Maybe even more.

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The boy sighed and Alana felt like she was disappointing him. She didn’t want to disappoint people. She really tried not to if she could help it. She hated the feeling that people were disappointed in her. She didn’t mean to be afraid of everything. She couldn’t help it. She’d never been brave like her sisters and she was pretty sure she never would be either. They were all brave and Alana wasn’t. She didn’t want to disappoint anyone. She really didn’t. But fear was stronger than anything else she’d ever felt.

Disappointing people was pretty horrible, though. Lana was always disappointed in herself for disappointing other people. It was the worst feeling in the world to know that she was disappointing people. The mergirl sat up, moving away from the ledge so she couldn’t see the boy anymore. She wrapped her arms tightly around her knees. “I’m sorry for disappointing you,” she said softly. “I’m not brave enough.”

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Alanna was surprised by that. Why would this girl care if she was disappointed? Or think that Alanna cared enough to be disappointed in her in the first place? Sure, she wished that women would take charge of their lives more, but she didn't even know this girl. At least the girl wasn't just meekly going along with everything she said, though this wasn't much better.

"You're not disappointing me. If you can disappoint anyone by not facing your fears, it's you. If you would try, you would find out that there's nothing to be afraid of. Or, at the very least, you would know what to watch out for," Alanna said. "I don't care what you're afraid of or how you deal with it, but you won't get very far cowering from everything."

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She was a horrible person. She was so afraid of everything that she couldn't do anything with her life. She just hated to disappoint people and it was easier not to try because then she wouldn't fail and disappoint anyone. But apparently it wasn't a foolproof plan because she was disappointing people right and left anyway. It was awful. She should have never swam away from home no matter how mad Daddy was at her. At least home was safe and full of things she actually understood. Life on land wasn't what she thought it was going to be.

The boy had some very reasonable things to say, but he still didn't understand. Lana figured that he must be fearless. He must not know about the paralysis that fear brought on. Lana was suddenly like an unprotected clown fish out of an anemone when fear struck. She didn't know what to do and her first instinct was to hide. "I don't want to get far," she admitted. "I don't even want to be here at all."

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"Well then why are you? Did someone force you to come?" Alanna asked, frowning. That wasn't right. She hoped this other girl hadn't been forced to come here. She knew what it was like to feel trapped. If it hadn't been for her twin, she would be in the convent right now, learning eleven different ways to pour tea. Yuck. But this girl didn't seem the type to fight what was wished of her, either. They probably wouldn't have had to try very hard to get her to do something she didn't want to. Then again, Alanna wasn't having any luck in that department. Maybe the girl was more stubborn than she seemed.

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No one had forced Alana to do anything, but she hadn’t exactly wanted to come here. It was an accident really, but it was also her own fault. It was her own fault that she had wound up here in the first place. The worst part was that she didn’t even know how to get home. It probably didn’t matter anyway because Daddy would be mad at her when she got home. She probably deserved it too.

“It was an accident,” she finally admitted with a sigh. “I swam away from home and then I somehow got here. I’m not even sure how. One minute I was swimming away from Atlantica and the next minute I was in some harbor and I had legs and I didn’t understand what was going on.” Alana wanted to cry because she just wanted to go home. She wanted to find her sisters and bring them all home with her and have everything go back to normal. She didn’t want legs and she didn’t want to be with all these humans. She just wanted t go home.