[img]https://i.imgur.com/wFBCprL.png[/img]

Jinayah stood politely in the great hall, waiting for the ceremony to be over. It may have looked like she was bored on the outside, but inside, she was having quite the panic. She had yet to speak a word to the foreign princes. [i]Gifts![/i] Why hadn’t she thought of that? Then again, it’s not like she was one to win over people with fancy presents. Her preferred method of making friends was finding common ground and matching over that. So what if said common ground had been arguments over the best swordsmith and one actual duel over the reputation of the best bowyer in the business?

What was she going to do? For the first time in her life, Jin felt afraid of who she was. Forget falling in love; that fairy-tale nonsense was bound to be impossible. What if none of these men would simply put up with her? What if her natural inclination just scared them off? Then her father would be down one crucial alliance, and there could be an easy weakness against the growing threat of the empire! She had more or less accepted her fate as one of her father’s “pieces on the board”. But now she was rethinking things. What if everything was ruined? Because of her? AGAIN?

The ceremony ended at some point and people began to drift away. She also left in a distracted manner, her feet moving on their own, and her head adrift in thought. 

It was no hidden secret in her heart that she felt responsible for her mother’s death. Her siblings had treated her a bit differently in their early years. Sulhana’s cutting remarks had lasted the longest. Unfortunately, some of them had been memorized in the corner of her mind, and burned like a fresh cut. Her father, gods bless him, had done his best to connect with her. But to look at your child and to only see the face of the one you loved, gone because of that same child… It was no wonder they never spoke anymore. She understood it plain – her birth and Mother’s death had put them on this path. Maybe if Mother had been alive, there would have been a different solution to alliances. The four of them wouldn’t be in this situation. Maybe if she had never been born at all – 

Jin took in a sharp breath, feeling her eyes swim. Suddenly, she just felt so out of place. Her chest seemed to buckle in on itself. The candles in the hall seemed to swirl around her, the very stone closing in. She struggled to breathe. Outside, she had to get outside. Luckily, she was nothing if not fast, and her strong legs carried her to the nearest exit past the Court of Flowers.

It seemed she was right back where she had started, in the training yard. In her ballgown and regalia, she probably looked absolutely ridiculous. She strode to the shed where the training blades were kept, feeling her chest start to loosen the moment she laid hands on the sword set aside for her. Familiar steps  drew her into the sword dance, and she quickly lost herself in the motions. She would go the party, and soon, but first she had to calm down, her own way.