Andarin: The Mountains: Voraer;

“You would give up your sacred rights for a brat you barely know?"

"Yes, I would."

"You would give up your throne for him? He who has caused you such misery, such humiliation?"

"Yes, I would."

It was unfortunate to judge one before you even knew them. If Voraer would take the time to settle, he may learn that Skylar was not that bad. What Voraer didn’t know was that her intentions were not those of the children with sticks. She was not like those he had met, even her father. In so many ways they were different. And in so many ways, they were the same. Father and daughter with a history that was so complex and dysfunctional. The two had been through so much together and here they were. Here they still stood beside one another. Nicodemus the father who had dismissed his daughter after the tragic death of her mother. The reasons were numerous; she looked like her, acted like her, was everything….her. Skylar the daughter who had wanted nothing but his love, wanted nothing but to know what had happened. And in the process she blamed herself. Still blamed herself….because in all honesty she only knew the basic story, not the details.

He was flame; she was air and earth.

Skylar, however, was more crude. Her power was more….subtle. The earth that she wielded was tame, as was her air. I doubt that anyone would ever see her as anything more than what she really was; kind, loving, forgiving. Everything that was Nicodemus, but hidden. Her look was more feral in a beautiful kind of way. She was awkward, pale, more built like a doe than a horse. Skylar was a pale palomino, with only a white foreleg to mar her color. Her legs and neck were long, spindly. In all honesty, she was a scrawny thing. And yet in all her strangeness, there was the most beautiful thing in the world. The way that she moved, talked, it was everything that told you it would be alright. She spoke of dreams and stardust, and her heart knew no bounds.

He turns and she gasps, her expression that of a wounded dog (body lowered, eyes pooling with tears). She furrows her brow in loss then. Was it something she had said? Skylar had always been one to blame herself. She stepped back, shaking her long mane so that it would conceal her face like that of a long veil. Her voice is shaky then. “I…I didn’t mean to….I’m sorry.” She tries at a smile, her cerulean eyes strengthening. She wasn’t one to give up. “You were alone. And I thought I’d see if you wanted to talk. You seem angry.” She pauses. “My father is not one well known. His name is Nicodemus.”

APPRENTICE

**SKYLAR**

"You have spilled your own blood rather than the blood of an innocent. That was the final task and the most important."

Picture Copyright to Romance 2009