The thought of clerics fussing with her father, and worse, unable to relieve him was distressing.  "You'd better not go anywhere, father, we still need you here with us before you return to mother."<br/><br/>The revelation that Cassandra was<em>not</em>her mother, however, rocked her.  For a moment, she could only stare at the fire, unhearing or seeing.  Her world had momentarily shattered, nothing connected, nothing fit.  Her siblings joked about her being the odd little carrot top growing up, but they always expected some odd fluke from the family line.  At least, that's what she expected, always fighting to catch up and fit in.<br/><br/>Finally, she stared at the painting she held in her arms, the personality so familiar, the portrait an everyday icon of her father's study; she looked at it as if for the first time, searching the structure of the face, the fair skin, the hue and shine of the hair.  While it was a noble portraiture, sometimes more of a caricature than a true likeness, some similarity seemed to tease out in the eyes, or mouth.<br/><br/>"First a bastard, now an heir...?" she wondered, putting down the painting.  Suddenly, she turned and knelt by his feet, taking his hands in hers.  "But, does this mean you are not my father?"  She would hate to lose her father, at least by blood, she wouldn't want to implicate his honor either.  "What does this mean?  What am I to do?"