DoSP Part 1, Xander's Diary

+JMJ+

Part one of the Diary of a Sailor Prince

Ninth Day of the Hot Season

My name is Xander. I am a prince of the Glittering Island highest ranking island on the Third World. Today I have reached the unbearably old age of nine and ten summers. I have done nothing in the past three years since fighting the terribly wicked people of Kildimere. What rotten people. Now they are coming back to steal away my big sister Anne and force her to marry one of their especially rotten princes. I have no idea what his name is, but that is no excuse for me to like him. I detest the very air he breathes. Or I will when I finally meet him. I suppose not everyone from Kildimere is evil. My eldest brother Zeno married a princess from Sandstorm Lodge. An unimportant part of Kildimere. She is alright as far as girls go. My other older brother, Yaron is also married. The bride he selected is boring, dainty and very girly. Things alright in a girl, but intolerable in a friend. She makes me ill. Yaron seems to like her, which is downright crazy of him. Anyway, to the point. I am the fifth child of the fourteen children of King Maldirk and Queen Jezana of the Glittering Island. My father was once an off worlder but that has not stopped him from conquering the Glittering Island. I believe he was trying to conquer Kildimere too. I think he would have done so too if Zeno had not arranged a truce. He married one of their princes and gave Anna's hand to one of their princes. Zeno is the oldest in our family. He married princess Giselledona of Sandstorm Lodge a few years ago. If I liked kids, I might actually like that mouse they call their child. But as it is, I don't like children and Mouse makes me nervous. Anne is the second oldest. As I said earlier she is engaged to some high ranking prince, who probably goes around in a silk nightshirt. Yaron is the third eldest. He recently just married Lady Alia of Greystark. She is so flimsy that she just makes me sick. Pretty and empty headed. Beatrice comes next. She is Yaron's twin. She is also the sharpest tongued shrew ever to have walked the Glittering Island. I think she deserves not to get married. She is always whining about how she is going to be an old maid and no one loves her. Then comes me, Xander. I shall never marry. The girl who is worth my time has not been born yet. A lovely example is sister Cassandra. She comes after me. Father adopted her, so that we could keep a boy, girl, boy, girl pattern in our family. She married twice in her sixteenth year. Zeno, Yaron and I helped end the first marriage. She got whiny and depressed after that, so we hooked her up with our friend Rupert. Poor man. Whatever did he do to deserve it? Then comes the triplets. Waylan, Deborah and Varek. They are just plain evil. When anyone sees them together they run. All together they are mass destruction. Pity, I wish I was one of them. Then comes the twins Ester and Fiona. But Fiona doesn't really count as father cast her out of the family as he couldn't adopt a boy to go between them, since they were twins. Poor Fiona. Then comes Uli. If he isn't running with the twins he's off making mischief on his own. The youngest two are Greda and Tarek. Tarek ran away from home three years ago. Greda followed him and neither have been seen since. Zeno tried to find them a couple of times, but father was very discouraging about it. Ha! I have introduced my family.

Farewell for now,

Me, myself and I

Twelfth Day of the Hot Season

Nothing worth recounting has happened since my birthday. But I feel the need to mention that my home is being overturned so that rotten prince from Kildimere can get a favorable and untrue impression of my family. I told everyone that we should just make everything look like a dump, then maybe the prince would go away.

“Xander, peace depends on this marriage!” Anne cried. Her and Zeno put the Kingdom before themselves so much that it makes me sick. No one should be that unselfish.

“Make yourself useful, brother.” Zeno ordered.

“Just a quick question.” I said, “If peace depends on this marriage, why hasn't father forbidden it?” There are rumors going all over the Third World saying that father is a warmonger.

“Shall you box his ears?” Yaron asked as he looked through the garden window.

“I am sorely temped, brother!” Zeno growled with a nasty look at me. I retreated for the stairs. No one should ever stay where they were not wanted. My older brothers and sisters were all grouches. I never even dare go within twenty paces of Beatrice lest she bite my head clean off. Not literally either.

Farewell for now,

love me