My Parents Are Ruining My Life

So, I think mom's mad at me again.

Yeah, I probably should have told Blank to buzz off and find his own place to trash, and just gone to the stupid party and talked to mom's stupid enemies. She says it's a peace talk or something but it's pretty obvious that everyone there hates us. We keep fucking their stuff up, of course they do. But they don't even hate us enough to make it interesting. I mean, like, if war was going to be declared there or something, I would have gone. But it's all just "of course the giants respect Xanadu's sovereignty" and "Xanadu engages only in lawful border actions." Boring. And stupid. If people would just say what they meant it would be over a lot faster.

Anyway. I "let" Blank throw his party and get drunk and trash the place, and that was pretty cool, even when mom showed up because at least it's a ruler of a small country who's shut down your party. Not everyone can throw a party like that. And then I got grounded again, which I was pretty much expecting but they always forget about it halfway through, and it doesn't matter anyway because I don't have any friends. At least it got me out of that stupid official dinner. Although that did end up being interesting, so that sucked.

I wasn't there (duh) but this guy Stavros showed up from Skaraven or something, looking for help overthrowing whatever oppressive dudes hang out in the south. Mom'll probably figure out some way to get out of doing anything other than maybe sending a boat or two down, "because we have our own problems." (But mostly because Dad's stopped saying anything about stuff like that. Used to be every so often he'd sponsor a revolution or something just to get the fuck out of the city. Skaraven's too far away for him to do that, but still. I can see why he'd want to.)

Oh, and Blank's ship caught on fire. Anika's fault. (Got to admit, that's better than some party. I need to find a way to upstage her.) And she was with this other dude Janan who claims to be Blank's son. Wouldn't surprise me.

Figuring it out'll keep me busy. Mom drafted him into some task force along with that chick who came with the Verrik, Aed, Stavros, and Leif. And then she went and stuck me on it, too. I'm supposed to "get along" with Leif. How am I supposed to "get along" with someone who doesn't want to get along with me? He treats me like an idiot when he pays attention to me at all. (Hells, that was another reason to stay away from the reception/party/bullshit summit/thing.)

Yeah . . . probably shouldn't have thrown that party. Getting stuck on a boat with Leif is way worse than getting grounded. At least Ax's there too. Ax is okay.

Sigrid and Gannen's Kids

Sigrid and Gannen have two sets of male-female twins.

The older set:

Leif - Level 10 Runethane - In charge of Xanadu's magic sector

Freja - Level 11 Greenbond - In charge of Xanadu's religion sector

The younger set:

Anika - Level 8 Ritual Warrior - In charge of Xanadu's trade sector

Halden - Level 7 Unfettered - In charge of Xanadu's entertainment sector

Leif and Freja are exceptionally magically inclined. Sigrid's decided that this could be due to the fact that she spent nearly her entire pregnancy in Xanadu (and with the Heart of the Sea). Whatever the reason, Leif and Freya are the most in tune with the Heart of the Sea (though neither of them has mastered it yet). They've basically been competing to master the Heart for most of their lives. Whoever controls the Heart will be the next ruler. Leif is the oldest, so he's the presumptive heir. This makes Freja a little annoyed (she's only minutes younger), so she works all the harder at controlling the Heart.

Anika and Halden don't really care about the Heart of the Sea so much. They might care if they could pull off some elaborate prank with it, but it's really tough to manipulate, so they lost interest. The younger twins certainly inherited their parent's troublemaking streak. Halden's in trouble with his mother nearly all the time. Anika doesn't get yelled at quite so much. Whether this is because she doesn't cause as much trouble or because she's better at not getting caught is not entirely clear. Lately, Halden's been spending a lot of time with Captain Blank. The younger twins are also both excellent swordsmen with light weapons.