A response to the freewrite prompt not a boy, and a continuation of my Ballroom Project!
Would Alila's life have been different had she had been born a boy? She knows that her older brother Orvec is held in high regard by the townspeople, and by her mother. Her mother, the high priestess, will only tolerate one woman on the city's high councils and within influential political circles: herself.
With a sense of crushing inevitability, Alilah has grown to understand her position in recent years: she is valuable to her family in that she is a good asset to have on hand. She knows that negotiations as to who will be her future husband are already ongoing, that several of the city's wealthy families have expressed an interest, that both her mother and father have pointed out certain candidates to her at grand balls and ceremonies – watching her reaction, gauging whether the match could be viable. Occasionally, one of the suggested candidates will pique her curiosity, but to no avail. So far, all have been dismissed for some reason or another. Negotiations collapse, the potential amount of her dowry contested by one or both of her parents.
It wearies her. If she had been a boy, pushed into military or political circles, as Orvec had been, would she feel more content with her life? She is sure she would. As things stand, she must remain in her wing of the palace most of the time, with no consistent form of activity, nothing to divert her or stimulate her mind.
Every morning is the same: she wakes up, she is dressed and attended to by her maids, she is ferried to and from whatever lesson has been assigned to her that day. She has received extensive instruction in regal deportment, in court manner, in polite topics of conversation.
She does enjoy her occasional lessons in the psychic arts – assigned to her so that she might soon be ready to join her mother's circle of priestesses – but this limited practice time does not satisfy her. It's not enough. She has taken to doing whatever she can to hone her intuition on her own: visioning the distant lands described by her brother, trying to clear her perception of certain things, trying to bring to life the exquisite buildings and fantastical landscapes he has shared with the family every time he returns from his travels.
Alila wishes she could travel too. But that is out of the question – an heiress, permitted beyond the city walls? She is to remain in her tower, only to be brought outside for brief visits to cultural events, when she will be dressed in her finest gowns and presented before visiting dignitaries. She was content with that for a long time – certainly, when she was in her early teens, nothing seemed more exciting or glamorous than such occasions – but she has grown more restless of late. She wants to see more, do more, understand more of the world ... yet her prospects of doing so seem more remote by the day.