Unintended Consequences (1 Jan 2003) Alice speaks with Rachel about the Rules of Mirari.

The Black Boat
A mid-sized boat of dense black wood, about the size of a yacht but with a long, flat deck. A door in the deckhouse leads into quarters large enough for four, or six if they squeeze in and share the bunks, when the nights on deck turn so cold that icicles hang from the rails.

Nashita al-Zephyr, the djinn who has been graciously flying the boat, calculated that the remaining journey to the Palace of All Seasons would take them about eight hours. She is flying the vessel as quickly as she can, and they soon outdistance the knights on the ground below. Everyone is anxious and tense to arrive, but worrying will not make it pass faster. Many of the boat's occupants use the time to nap. They expect to arrive a little after dusk, and once there, no one knows when their next chance to sleep will be.

A groggy Princess Angel has just woken from her nap, and the little blond girl decides to go out on the deck, to avoid waking anyone else who might still be sleeping in the dimly lit hold. She emerges into afternoon sunlight, and blinks against it. The first person she sees is Rachel, sitting with her legs curled beneath her next to the railing. She leans against the rail, watching through the bars as the landscape races by below.

The little blonde tiptoes across the deck. "It sure is pretty up here," she murmurs sleepily as she nears the older raven-haired girl.

Rachel looks to Alice, and smiles. "Yes, it is," she agrees. "Mirari looks so peaceful and white below us. I watched Ahearn run for a little while, but he outdistanced us long ago. And we've left the knights behind, ourselves." She gestures first east, then west. "It's as if we're alone in the world."

After settling herself to sit next to her friend, Alice leans forward and peers along with her at the snow-covered vistas that pass slowly beneath the black boat. "It's very quiet," she agrees. "And soon it will be very noisy! I'm sure when Lord April and Sir Theodore arrive, everyone will show how excited they are to see them."

Rachel smiles again, but the expression doesn't last long on her face. "You don't think the army we fought at the Green Sward is all the Destroyer had, either, do you?" she asks Alice.

The little girl seems to think on it. She counts a few icicles as if numbering off points in her head. "There weren't any Vyglari, or wraiths, or ice goblins," she says after a moment. "There were ice goblins at the Palace. And there are some in the Winter lands."

"There were Vyglari," Rachel corrects, with a quiet shiver. "One of the knights told me he fought one, and was sore wounded by it. It escaped, though, in the rout."

"I don't know if I would have enough bandages for a Vyglari. They are very big. That's what Lady Yseult said," considers the little girl aloud. She frowns at the thought.

"They are gigantic and terrible," Rachel confirms. "And you would have no need to bandage one, my l -- your highness. They are as evil as they are large."

"I don't understand evil," admits Angel. The little girl tilts her head and glances at her friend. "I like to think they're just very unhappy. And if maybe we could help them, then they would be our friends. Even Vyglari. Even goblins," she adds shortly.

Rachel considers that. "I understand a little of it. Greed, hatred, and misunderstanding -- those, I fear, are common faults in all of us. But the Vyglari ... They are more than unhappy. It is as though they live for cruelty. They exude it. Mayhaps it is the Destroyer's magic that makes them seem so."

Angel turns to peer through the railing again. Her breath clouds under the cold and in between speaking she amuses herself by puffing short-lived clouds. "It's very sad." She exhales then tries to blow a hole through the center trying to make a cloud donut. It doesn't work. She wrinkles her nose.

The young, dark-haired woman only nods her head in agreement. "M -- your highness," she begins after a moment's pause, "Knight Redmane said that you had been to see Lord October with her. Did -- did he mention me, at all?"

After blowing another breath-cloud Angel purses her lips and then shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she offers sheepishly, "I'm sure his lordship did mention you but I can't remember just what about. I'm sure he was very proud of you though. And I do remember your prophecies being mentioned in the Queen's Court."

Rachel blinks a few times. "My prophecies?" She looks confused.

"Lady Raven's prophecies," Angel corrects. "And you played Lady Raven, and, oh, well I suppose it is very confusing." She smiles faintly and turns back to regard her friend, asking, "Does it trouble you that mortals can change Mirari?"

"Oh ... Lady Raven." Rachel flushes. "Funny, it seems so long ago, and so far away. I had almost forgotten pretending to be her. But she's a real person in Mirari. And not me!" She shakes her head. "Yes, it troubles me. Very much so. I daresay it troubles all of us. Do you know ... I watched the Lord Explorer make a place, here. I helped him. We made a whole town: Caer Sidi. It seems so terribly unreal to me. It's hard to even remember doing it."

"I think Tommy wants to change that. But I don't know how he can. I don't think he knows how either, not yet. But I'm sure we'll find a way," offers Angel kindly. "I just don't know what to think of it. I like Mirari. Very much so. But I don't want to ... to ..." she frowns as she searches for the words, "to break it, because I don't want anyone to disappear because I dreamed differently."

"Nor do I! It is an unsettling feeling, to think one might wake the next day and be someone else entirely," Rachel says, feelingly. "I would that I knew how to change that. Do you have any ideas, your highness?"

"A little," answers Angel. She draws up her knees and hugs her arms around them. "Like maybe if we wrote the rules to stop those kinds of changes, or maybe made a story about it so Mirari wouldn't need us anymore because the story would be finished. And then, um, well the Sieges. They have 'anchors' and maybe that's like a dream-bridge and if the bridge is gone the dreams can't cross. But I don't like that idea very much."

"I don't like that idea, either," the black-haired girl admits. "But I would do it, if it meant we would be free to control our own destinies. I do not know about finishing the story. I think life would be, perhaps, a little too dull, if there were no stories left in it. But ... making new Rules?" She looks curious, and puzzled.

"Ryan Jordan and his friends made new Rules. Ryan Jordan decided how the world should be, and everyone voted, and that's how the Rules started," explains the little blonde girl. "Maybe we could do that too. But making Rules sounds very hard. We'd have to be extra-super-careful or we might make a bad one and then maybe we'd be legends, and the others would be double-legends, and then who ever played the game after us would have to change everything all over again and that would be very very confusing."

Rachel gives a little laugh. "So if we make just the right Rules, then no one would be able to play the game after us? Wouldn't that be the idea?"

"I think so," answers the blonde who has since screwed up her face trying to figure it all out.

"It sounds very simple, really. If we just got you all together -- you, and Lord Thomas, and Simon, and Redmane, and Nymuae, and you all agreed on a new rule -- do you think that would do it?" Rachel asks. "That seems too easy. Is that all that the Harcourts did?"

"Well I think so. First," the blonde begins counting off on her fingers, "Ryan Jordan and Lord Melchizedek made the first Siege. And the second they started playing and most of the Rules started then. But, um, sometime John Harcourt didn't like them and he tried to change them. But we won't do that part. I don't think Lord Eoin wants to play anymore. Not like that. And then next Ryan Jordan wanted to leave so he made the Rule of the Year. Which I think he didn't mean to, not like it is now I mean. And that's what happened. When we changed things we didn't call them rules. We pretended and then that's what happened. So maybe it isn't like voting. Maybe we have to pretend and believe and things kind-of-sort-of become Rules. I think maybe the last Rule that everyone voted on must have been voted on like a game, and not like a very serious not-game vote." Angel takes a deep breath and smiles, adding, "And maybe that's what happened."

The sun drops low on the horizon, painting the boat's shadow into the ground far to the east of them. As the two girls converse, Lord April emerges from the deckhouse, stretching and unkinking his back. He doesn't appear to notice the two sitting by the rail. Rachel frowns, listening curiously to Alice's description of events. "What was the last Rule? The Rule of the Year? I do not think Ryan Jordan can have meant it the way it came out, either."

"Ryan Jordan didn't want to stay. He made Mirari and then, then he went in to Historie. I don't understand. Didn't he like it?" asks Angel of Rachel. For the moment Lord April's niece doesn't seem to notice that her uncle has stepped out engrossed as she is in the discussion of Rules.

Rachel shakes her head. "I don't understand that, either. It must have been an ... unintended consequence. Like he didn't realize that saying Kings could only rule for one Year would mean that he'd have to die when his Year was up."

Angel frowns at that. "It's like a bad genie wish. Like if you ask for candy and then you get buried in it. But Lord Melchizedek said Ryan Jordan couldn't dwell as Ryan Jordan in Ainigton and also in Mirari. And that he went in to Historie. That maybe he didn't or ... couldn't? ... enjoy it. I wonder if that's what Lady Nymuae meant when she said I would have to chose. That you can't be both forever. I wonder if Ryan Jordan was sad because he had to leave his friends."

"Maybe he wanted to go into Historie, because that's where his friends were," Rachel muses, quiet and a little morose.

Lord April finishes stretching, only giving a quiet nod of acknowledgement to the girls, not interrupting their conversation, as we walks to the prow, where the djinn hovers, watching the landscape before them.

Having nothing further to say on the rather sad topic, the little blonde goes quiet. She turns her head to look around the slowly darkening -- and a little too gloomy at the moment -- deck. When she spots her uncle, she leans over to Hannah and whispers, "I've only been in Mirari for about a week and already I've met a lot of family. I wonder if Sir Tristan knows how hard being a prince or princess is? Maybe I should write a list."

Rachel blinks and frowns at that, then shakes her head. "I don't think Sir Tristan will need to worry about being a prince," she answers. "He stood to become Lord April, when his Lordship ascended to the throne. I should think that would still be the case, though I do not know for sure."

"Oh, he isn't Lord April's son?" asks Angel. She regards her friend curiously and with more than a bit of a blush. "I know Sir Tristan is my cousin. I don't really know how it works either. I just have to be careful because I don't want to make it worse."

Rachel shakes her head. "No, he is not. He is the son of Angelo of April, who was younger brother to Seraph and Raphael. Lord Angelo died when Tristan was little more than an infant. Seraph named you in honor of him, I believe."

"Oh!" And the blonde turns scarlet. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry. I really am just learning about my family in Mirari. Sir Tristan really won't need a list though, you're very right."

The Golden Hawk reaches out to pat Angel's hand reassuringly. "Oh, don't apologize. It's quite understandable," she says with a smile. "I've lived in Mirari my whole life and I still find parts confusing."

Angel's face remains red but she looks comforted by her friend's words. "You know what? I've never met a Djinn before, either. Do you think she would mind if I said 'hi'?" she asks.

"I'm sure she wouldn't," Rachel says. She gets to her feet, stretching, then offers Angel a hand. While she stoops, a raucous cawing echoes on the breeze, and Rachel whirls about, blinking. A crow flies towards the pair, wings outstretched.

The hand is accepted and the princess begins drawing herself to her feet as she peers in the direction the crow caw came from. "Is it Ryland?" she asks as she squints against the light of the setting sun.

Rachel nods as the bird drops to perch on the rail. "I think so. Is it you, Ryland? Is it you?"

Angel watches the bird as it perches on the rail and then shifts to examine his legs carefully. "Maybe he has a message," she suggests. "I hope something didn't happen!"

The bird bobs his head. "It's me," he caws. "Greeting, your highness, Miss Hawk." He holds out his leg, with a message tied to it.

Rachel reaches for it, asking the crow twice, "Did something happen?"

Ryland dips his head, solemn, as she unties the small scrollcase. "Aye, m'ladies. The Destroyer's armies ha' come. The Palace is besieged from East and West, and her majesty the Queen sent me to warn the princess."

The princess draws back. "The Palace is besieged?" she cries in disbelief. "Oh no! Oh my, oh my, oh!" She shakes herself from her fretting. "Oh! We must tell my uncle! And Sir Theodore! Take this." She slips a unicorn-headed ring from her finger and presses it to Ryland. "Tell Sir Theodore what happened -- he's behind us on horse! I must tell my uncle!" And then she whirls around only to realize that every face on the deck has turned at her outburst, their expressions as shocked her own.

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