Jalenashi (Red Currant Binge, Whipped Cream, Pocky Chain)
‘Verse: ☼ The Sun, Radiant ☼
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Red Currant Binge + Whipped Cream (the majority of these take place when Ruhana is a teen/child), Pocky Chain, Hot Fudge
Rating: PG-13
Title: Jalenashi
Summary: A Princess’ downfall, told as disjointedly as it happened.
Notes: These are not in exact chronological order except for the first and the last (which is just before Something Turning).
11. Eclipse
Eclipses are for luck in the old Arambhi tradition, when ancestors can reach through the greatest divide of all - between life and death - to influence their descendant’s fortunes. It is said they walk as shades among the living, guiding their hands as they never are able to at other times.
A child born during such an auspicious occasion is said to be uncommonly lucky. Jalenashi, the heir to her father’s throne, was blessed, touched by the gods, and at her birth the whole nation rejoiced, for surely if the war could be won, it would be by an eclipse-born.
15. Force of nature
As she grew, Jalenashi did indeed prove to be exceptionally lucky. Moreover, she was talented: anything that she wanted to do was done quickly and efficiently. Archery, writing, fencing, riddles, sculpture; even, and especially, military strategy. All of it she tamed and made her own. By the age of twelve she was going to her father’s meetings and it was her insight that won the Battle of Taryuna when all seemed lost for Arambh.
And the people eagerly awaited the day when she would wear the Peacock Crown and lead them to their absolute victory over Fallstar, as Arambh’s Queen.
10. Fog
It seemed all people had only awestruck eyes for the High Princess and heir, even her Fallstari enemies. They called her the Crimson Tide and the Thunder Bringer, the Scourge of the West and Lady Hot-Land Cold-Heart (it sounded better in the Fallstari dialect it was coined in, admittedly), all names embodying their wonder for Jalenashi.
While humans held the queen-to-be in esteem or horror uniformly, the animals she encountered were a different story. Birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, even fish… all avoided her or went out of their way to harass her.
It was a sign.
3. Distant thunder
But no one saw, no one knew, no one even guessed. When Jalenashi was five, she became sister on top of all the other things she was - genius, prodigy, queen in the making - to a perfectly ordinary baby girl marked by perfectly ordinary - that is, mixed in meaning - portents. Ruhana was not star-marked, but she was certainly much loved - by her people, by her parents, and above all, by her big sister.
But Jalenashi’s late teens saw the princess drifting further from her little sister. And Ruhana was left in the lurch as Jalenashi’s affections lessened bit by bit.
8. On the horizon
To an observer their interactions were not strange, but for sisters who had once been closer than twins despite their age difference, the gradual shift to a more normal relationship - one with good days and bad days - was more like a plunge into an ice bath for the little princess.
Ruhana did not understand. Her entire life she had relied on her sister, had looked up to her, had adored her, and more importantly Jalenashi had let it happen. Had fostered her love.
But a teenager discovering she wanted more out of life…
It was true for both of them.
9. Thin ice
It was Jalenashi herself who became the first victim of her compulsion to be perfect. Her temper grew, and as it stretched it became a fragile thing. Liable to snap at any moment.
Jalenashi had learned early, learned often, that perfection was required of a Queen. Her mother’s death had taught her so much about life and the nature of royalty. She had to strive every day, every moment to hold on her her dignity, to keep the queenly aura high, until perhaps, maybe, one day it would be second nature.
She would conquer it as she had everything before.
13. Frost
Ice-Heart. It suited her.
Jalenashi smiled at her new title in Fallstar, one she had justly earned by ordering the slaughter of the entire population of a newly-conquered village, one where a resistance was said to have been brewing. Something about people’s rule and peace or some such traitorous snakevenom against the Crown.
The peasantry were not good enough to rule themselves. Surely they knew that only a just and perfect Queen knew how to run a country.
She would crush these fool’s notions, and she would lead Arambh to glory.
Ice-Heart. She would wear it proudly.
7. Eye of the storm
In the dreary days of Nehal it happened.
Nehal was always a time of precarious balances and eggshells, when everyone was tense, prepared for the next Great Flood to sweep everything away in raging waters and catastrophe. It was not so surprising, then, that Jalenashi and Ruhana’s first great division happened in this month.
It was a little thing at first, something easily forgotten, but it grew until the sisters were irrevocably parted. Jalenashi’s ire turned on Ruhana.
She was no longer safe while the storm raged around her. The storm had moved, and she had not moved with it.
1. Cold snap
King Madhav died suddenly, violently, in Jalenashi’s twenty-second year, launching the most devastating battle for the throne in Arambh’s recent memory.
On the one side, High Princess Jalenashi, a cold, ruthless tactical prodigy whose natural claim was offset by her plunging popular opinion.
On the other, the unsung Ruhana, who’d grown from her sister’s shadow into a lady of her own standing, one whose fairness and kind heart was the subject of much admiration across the land.
Deadlock, but then - the tide turned when it was discovered, quite by accident, that Madhav had been murdered by his own heir.
2. Heat wave
The months after Madhav’s death were among the hottest in Arambh’s history. It was almost as if the sun itself felt the burning ferocity with which the sisters warred, and reflected it; it was almost as if the cooling rains and relief-bearing winds were holding their own breaths for who would be the victor. For whether the Fallstar would be conquered at last, as Jalenashi had promised, or a fledgling ally in a new era of peace, as Ruhana desired.
For who would step over her sister’s still-warm corpse and declare herself Queen.
The people waited, and suffered.
4. Storm front
Few of Armabh’s people considered the royal war their war as well. For those who were invested in the outcome, it was split on who to back: most people bore the scars of the war and would be hard-pressed to accept its end no matter how weary they were of it’s costs, and besides, Jalenashi was going to win whether they liked it or not in their eyes. But as time wore on, they realized that it was not so. Ruhana’s fairness was refreshing after her father and sister’s cruel hearts. Perhaps she would change things for the better.
14. Natural disaster
“It’s perfectly natural, dear sister,” Jalenashi sang to her vanity’s mirror, where a sketch of little Ruhana at twelve was tucked into the frame. It was Jalenashi’s own work, done in blue ink, and depicted Ruhana - her rival, her enemy, her unworthy-of-their-relation nemesis - in a rare moment of pensive repose, at least for that age. Now, it seemed, Jalenashi’s threat had unearthed a buried serious streak in Ruhana, and Jalenashi was almost afraid for her claim’s success.
“A fire must burn dead leaves. A flood must wash away impurity. I am the same, little one. The same.”
12. High tide
Madhav - murdered.
It was a strange thing - a maid in the palace, which was at the time Jalenashi’s stronghold while Ruhana controlled the city beyond, knocked over the princess’ journal and found the incriminating ravings of a madwoman, or so the story went.
(The truth: that maid was in fact a spy, a man, and Ruhana’s consort - Ravir of many talents.)
The king’s body had long since burned, but the people rose up like a great tide at the revelation, and within days Jalenashi was routed, her loyalists executed, and her support crumbled to dust.
Ruhana was crowned Queen immediately.
5. Dry spell
The new queen sent out her diplomats immediately, talked of peace. A few were met with snarls and swords at the border, one or two were arrested and hanged as war criminals by Fallstar, but finally she broke through when a great revolution shook the West and the new King, a man called Gavin, heard her pleas. The soldiers returned home at last.
Years passed without word from or about the ex-High Princess. The Arambhi people settled into their daily lives again, returned to a forgetful normalcy as people will do.
But Ruhana never forgot, and she never forgave.
6. Flash flood
It all came crashing down in an instant, the very instant that the assassin’s knife buried itself in Gavin’s back.
And like a flash flood, it swept all traces of life away, drowned anyone unwary enough to be in the path of its fury. It drenched the dry earth all at once, it dragged down the soaring cliffs of perceived safety and all that grew there. It announced itself with a roar like a hundred lions, like a thousand stampeding elephants, all in her ears and in her heart, urging her to run, to run, to never turn her back again.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Red Currant Binge + Whipped Cream (the majority of these take place when Ruhana is a teen/child), Pocky Chain, Hot Fudge
Rating: PG-13
Title: Jalenashi
Summary: A Princess’ downfall, told as disjointedly as it happened.
Notes: These are not in exact chronological order except for the first and the last (which is just before Something Turning).
11. Eclipse
Eclipses are for luck in the old Arambhi tradition, when ancestors can reach through the greatest divide of all - between life and death - to influence their descendant’s fortunes. It is said they walk as shades among the living, guiding their hands as they never are able to at other times.
A child born during such an auspicious occasion is said to be uncommonly lucky. Jalenashi, the heir to her father’s throne, was blessed, touched by the gods, and at her birth the whole nation rejoiced, for surely if the war could be won, it would be by an eclipse-born.
15. Force of nature
As she grew, Jalenashi did indeed prove to be exceptionally lucky. Moreover, she was talented: anything that she wanted to do was done quickly and efficiently. Archery, writing, fencing, riddles, sculpture; even, and especially, military strategy. All of it she tamed and made her own. By the age of twelve she was going to her father’s meetings and it was her insight that won the Battle of Taryuna when all seemed lost for Arambh.
And the people eagerly awaited the day when she would wear the Peacock Crown and lead them to their absolute victory over Fallstar, as Arambh’s Queen.
10. Fog
It seemed all people had only awestruck eyes for the High Princess and heir, even her Fallstari enemies. They called her the Crimson Tide and the Thunder Bringer, the Scourge of the West and Lady Hot-Land Cold-Heart (it sounded better in the Fallstari dialect it was coined in, admittedly), all names embodying their wonder for Jalenashi.
While humans held the queen-to-be in esteem or horror uniformly, the animals she encountered were a different story. Birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, even fish… all avoided her or went out of their way to harass her.
It was a sign.
3. Distant thunder
But no one saw, no one knew, no one even guessed. When Jalenashi was five, she became sister on top of all the other things she was - genius, prodigy, queen in the making - to a perfectly ordinary baby girl marked by perfectly ordinary - that is, mixed in meaning - portents. Ruhana was not star-marked, but she was certainly much loved - by her people, by her parents, and above all, by her big sister.
But Jalenashi’s late teens saw the princess drifting further from her little sister. And Ruhana was left in the lurch as Jalenashi’s affections lessened bit by bit.
8. On the horizon
To an observer their interactions were not strange, but for sisters who had once been closer than twins despite their age difference, the gradual shift to a more normal relationship - one with good days and bad days - was more like a plunge into an ice bath for the little princess.
Ruhana did not understand. Her entire life she had relied on her sister, had looked up to her, had adored her, and more importantly Jalenashi had let it happen. Had fostered her love.
But a teenager discovering she wanted more out of life…
It was true for both of them.
9. Thin ice
It was Jalenashi herself who became the first victim of her compulsion to be perfect. Her temper grew, and as it stretched it became a fragile thing. Liable to snap at any moment.
Jalenashi had learned early, learned often, that perfection was required of a Queen. Her mother’s death had taught her so much about life and the nature of royalty. She had to strive every day, every moment to hold on her her dignity, to keep the queenly aura high, until perhaps, maybe, one day it would be second nature.
She would conquer it as she had everything before.
13. Frost
Ice-Heart. It suited her.
Jalenashi smiled at her new title in Fallstar, one she had justly earned by ordering the slaughter of the entire population of a newly-conquered village, one where a resistance was said to have been brewing. Something about people’s rule and peace or some such traitorous snakevenom against the Crown.
The peasantry were not good enough to rule themselves. Surely they knew that only a just and perfect Queen knew how to run a country.
She would crush these fool’s notions, and she would lead Arambh to glory.
Ice-Heart. She would wear it proudly.
7. Eye of the storm
In the dreary days of Nehal it happened.
Nehal was always a time of precarious balances and eggshells, when everyone was tense, prepared for the next Great Flood to sweep everything away in raging waters and catastrophe. It was not so surprising, then, that Jalenashi and Ruhana’s first great division happened in this month.
It was a little thing at first, something easily forgotten, but it grew until the sisters were irrevocably parted. Jalenashi’s ire turned on Ruhana.
She was no longer safe while the storm raged around her. The storm had moved, and she had not moved with it.
1. Cold snap
King Madhav died suddenly, violently, in Jalenashi’s twenty-second year, launching the most devastating battle for the throne in Arambh’s recent memory.
On the one side, High Princess Jalenashi, a cold, ruthless tactical prodigy whose natural claim was offset by her plunging popular opinion.
On the other, the unsung Ruhana, who’d grown from her sister’s shadow into a lady of her own standing, one whose fairness and kind heart was the subject of much admiration across the land.
Deadlock, but then - the tide turned when it was discovered, quite by accident, that Madhav had been murdered by his own heir.
2. Heat wave
The months after Madhav’s death were among the hottest in Arambh’s history. It was almost as if the sun itself felt the burning ferocity with which the sisters warred, and reflected it; it was almost as if the cooling rains and relief-bearing winds were holding their own breaths for who would be the victor. For whether the Fallstar would be conquered at last, as Jalenashi had promised, or a fledgling ally in a new era of peace, as Ruhana desired.
For who would step over her sister’s still-warm corpse and declare herself Queen.
The people waited, and suffered.
4. Storm front
Few of Armabh’s people considered the royal war their war as well. For those who were invested in the outcome, it was split on who to back: most people bore the scars of the war and would be hard-pressed to accept its end no matter how weary they were of it’s costs, and besides, Jalenashi was going to win whether they liked it or not in their eyes. But as time wore on, they realized that it was not so. Ruhana’s fairness was refreshing after her father and sister’s cruel hearts. Perhaps she would change things for the better.
14. Natural disaster
“It’s perfectly natural, dear sister,” Jalenashi sang to her vanity’s mirror, where a sketch of little Ruhana at twelve was tucked into the frame. It was Jalenashi’s own work, done in blue ink, and depicted Ruhana - her rival, her enemy, her unworthy-of-their-relation nemesis - in a rare moment of pensive repose, at least for that age. Now, it seemed, Jalenashi’s threat had unearthed a buried serious streak in Ruhana, and Jalenashi was almost afraid for her claim’s success.
“A fire must burn dead leaves. A flood must wash away impurity. I am the same, little one. The same.”
12. High tide
Madhav - murdered.
It was a strange thing - a maid in the palace, which was at the time Jalenashi’s stronghold while Ruhana controlled the city beyond, knocked over the princess’ journal and found the incriminating ravings of a madwoman, or so the story went.
(The truth: that maid was in fact a spy, a man, and Ruhana’s consort - Ravir of many talents.)
The king’s body had long since burned, but the people rose up like a great tide at the revelation, and within days Jalenashi was routed, her loyalists executed, and her support crumbled to dust.
Ruhana was crowned Queen immediately.
5. Dry spell
The new queen sent out her diplomats immediately, talked of peace. A few were met with snarls and swords at the border, one or two were arrested and hanged as war criminals by Fallstar, but finally she broke through when a great revolution shook the West and the new King, a man called Gavin, heard her pleas. The soldiers returned home at last.
Years passed without word from or about the ex-High Princess. The Arambhi people settled into their daily lives again, returned to a forgetful normalcy as people will do.
But Ruhana never forgot, and she never forgave.
6. Flash flood
It all came crashing down in an instant, the very instant that the assassin’s knife buried itself in Gavin’s back.
And like a flash flood, it swept all traces of life away, drowned anyone unwary enough to be in the path of its fury. It drenched the dry earth all at once, it dragged down the soaring cliffs of perceived safety and all that grew there. It announced itself with a roar like a hundred lions, like a thousand stampeding elephants, all in her ears and in her heart, urging her to run, to run, to never turn her back again.