Family Matters

I want to preface everything I am about to write by saying that this Girl's Night was a lot of fun. I didn't realize how fun that type of thing could be until it was all of us, in the water, feeling... at peace. We haven't had time to be at peace for all that long, even when travelling we're on guard, or at least I am...
 
But Viertree... talking about family, about...
 
They were talking to Kayrin about Rholis, and they talked about how you need to be kind to your siblings, about loving your siblings and using polite words, that you... and...
 
I killed Vamwaeline.
 
It doesn't matter that she killed our parents first. It doesn't matter that she didn't stay dead. I killed her. I pushed her, and I thought I made my peace with it, but ever since I found out she is still alive... I ache. It's getting harder and harder to pretend I'm fine. That I'm not remembering all the times before things went bad, when she'd come to me to patch up a scrape to her knee or ask me how I felt about whatever boy Mom and Dad were introducing me to next or coming up and hugging me when she saw how defeated I looked after one of my lessons, and I just...
 
Where did things go wrong? How did she go from being a bright little ball of sunshine and wit to... parricide? To sororicide on my part?
 
What became of them? My siblings? What does Vamwaeline being alive mean for them? Sure, we fought, and I know they didn't respect me, but I thought they loved me... I loved them, even if I left them and...
 
Was I a bad sister? I was a bad heir, but was I... I never felt like...
 
Gah.
 
Then the talk about using my real name in Xhorhas. They keep wanting to call me Loraelsia. Which I shouldn't REALLY mind, because it is my fucking name, but... I don't want it. I don't. I don't want it. I don't want to be Loraelsia Mithrilspine again. I don't want to be that miserable, disappointing woman who was never good enough for anyone or anything. I don't want to be the girl who pushed her sister off a tower and looked at the situation and ran away, leaving everyone else she cared about to pick up the pieces. I don't want to be an utterly worthless, talentless waste of space and resources who squandered every attempt her parents made to better her through her own ineptitude and talentlessness. I want to be Ael. I want to be happy. I want to be the woman who walks into a tavern and owns the space, who dazzles with stories and cards and patter and shows those she cheats a good time. I want to be a wanderer, I want to be anonymous, I want to be mundane and slightly shitty, but content.
 
I want to be Ael.
 
And I don't believe Viertree. I mean, I don't think she's lying, but I think she's understating the way that the former heiress of a noble family of a nation that they are at war with will be greeted. Everyone talks about these rewards and privilege's and future endeavors and I'm sitting her convinced that the moment I am forced to take up the mantel I abandoned I'm going to end up imprisoned, or else I'm going to have to leave, because the fact of the matter is I am NOT an enemy of the Empire. I'm just not an enemy of Xhorhas either.
 
I have nowhere else to go, but I am convinced I am going to be fucked, I just think I will be less fucked there than here.
 
I want to be Ael. The best thing Loraelsia Mithrilspine ever did was leave.