A Need for Valor
an excerpt

Today was the final sitting for their painting. Her mother was Supreme Kyrala Myrene, ruler of the realm of Mocnom. And she was her first born daughter, Veilya Myrene. She settled onto the small stool on her mother’s right, and smiled at the painter. He instructed them both to make small adjustments so they were sitting as they had been yesterday.
As she sat, her mind again went back to that painting. ‘What are we supposed to remember?’ she wondered as she thought about the childless Supreme. ‘Why is it so important that we know that hundreds of years ago there was a woman who had no daughter?’ In her mind’s eye, she saw the hallway once again, all the names of the rulers and their daughters. It occurred to her then that they were all different. The name of the oldest daughter in each picture was not the name of the Supreme in the next painting. Why was that? ‘Do we get new names when we become Supreme?’ she wondered, ‘That must be it. I wonder what my new name will be. Something prettier then Veilya, I’ve always hated tha…’
‘There, finished’ the painter said, putting his brushes down and turning the painting around for the mother and daughter to see. Veilya looked at the painting, and her mother took a deep breath. It was perfect.
He had managed to perfectly capture her mother’s auburn hair, each strand alight in its own away. He caught every fold, crease, and wrinkle in her mother’s ivory gown, and in her own mint dress. He did take some artistic license, in making her fly-away flame-red hair seem a little more settled then it really was, but he captured the curious light in her amber eyes just perfectly. And her mother’s eyes, the green orbs held such sadness, seemed to be almost filled with tears that she refused to let fall.
“Momma, why do you look so sad?” Veilya asked her mother. Her mother looked down at her small daughter, and her smile was weak.
“Only because I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.” She said softly.