<span style="color: #FF0000"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Isolde Devonhard</span><br/>The Shadow</div></span><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o793/Galvin_Fugazi/38f1727d-3417-4713-a9a2-7e9f2871cb3a_zps469c3edd.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">Isolde sighed when they were finally alone in the room. She and the Queen. Like they had been so often. Sometimes she wished it were only them two and the rest vanished into thin air. She got along pretty well with her older sister. They both knew what they had at each other. Isolde lacked the ambition to be Queen and Sintrina lacked the patience to deal with every little problem arising. They were some experienced pair in the daily duties and it made Isolde even more furious that Carine had never been the same to Freya. When she got Carine, of course by artificial reproduction, she had dreamed that Freya and Carine could be the same combination like she and Sintrina. She had put high hopes in her daughter, with the age difference be nearly the same like between her and Sintrina. But although the two girls had been close in younger years, it had not worked out later. And Isolde knew that it was partially her fault.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">„You know, when Carine turned fifteen, she wanted to go outside with Freya, wanted to have the same adventures like your daughter. I have fought long with myself, if I should allow it to her or not. Then I refused and told her that fifteen is too young for such dangers. But in a year or so I will allow it to her. Carine was very disappointed, but she looked forward for this one year to go by.“</span><br/><br/>Isolde sighed once more, remembering how ten months later Freya had her hunting accident and how it changed all. Not with Carine, but with her. She had panicked, had feared that she may lose her daughter. But she had not understood that her decisions had made her lose her daughter too.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">„Then Freya had her accident. I have seen you never before so devastated, so destroyed like in those first hours. I knew that if Freya would die, it would change you. Irreversible. And I knew, if it would happen to me, I would never be able to get over it either. You see your daughter grow up, you see her having dreams and you see her tears when they don’t come true, you comfort her when she has fallen and her leg is bloody, you worry about her when she is ill, you hear her first words…you have so many things that give you this special relationship with your daughter and you know if she is gone, she will take something of you with her. I swore to myself, that I will not see that happen, that I will not go through it like you had to go through it with Freya.“</span><br/><br/>Isolde swallowed hard, a lump was in her throat and her face sagged, displaying some of her age finally.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">„When Carine asked me again, I said no. I would never let her leave Ovia, I even refused to let her go to the outer rings. I was overprotective, I wanted only the best for her, I wanted her to be an advisor to Freya, like I am to you. But it was probably the moment when I lost my daughter. She had never been the same afterwards. She bickered, she bristled, she started fights, played pranks, she got unbearable. I sent her to the military, hoped that they would made a better person out of her, would grind down the corners and smoothen the surface. It worked for a while, until they had to go to the battlefield and the commander held Carine back in Ovia. On my secret orders of course, but Carine understood that I had again intervened in her life. From there she refused to follow orders, they had to throw her out of the military. Soon after she started to take drugs and we don’t speak anymore with each other.“</span><br/><br/>Isolde looked down in her lap, on her folded hands. She had wanted to hold Carine back once again earlier, had wanted to stop Kira. But then she had understood that maybe this was the last chance to reconceal with her daughter.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">„I wanted to stop Kira. I wanted to keep Carine in Ovia. But you know…I still love my daughter, I still hope she will become a fine advisor to Freya. Maybe this is th last chance that my daughter turns out good. Maybe it is the last chance for me to have a daughter. A daughter that I truly love, even if she doesn’t believe me this. I hope Carine returns save, I hope Freya returns save and I hope that the two get along in the future. I really hope it…“</span><br/><br/>Isolde’s voice broke and she sat there, starring into empty space, her eyes filled with tears she had never spilled and her mind confused between hope and worry. Why was it so difficult to have kids and why was it even more difficult to be a good mother?</div>