Here are some more notes for The Story of Jasmine:

While Glynn poked the fire, Jasmine wondered if she could possibly be homesick. Since the relentless psychic noise had quieted, she was free to think about other things. She’d only been there for less than a day, yet she felt so much more at home, (than anywhere else in the world,) with her tangible ghost sisters, in the belly of an underground temple she had scarcely visited.

If she was still a princess, she’d demand to stay there. But she was not a princess. Not any longer. Before she met her sisters, she renounced all privilege. Thus far during their trip, save for that one thought, no doubts or regrets surfaced about her loss of princess status. She was something more. In the circular throne room, members of the Order of the White Flower collectively materialized before her. At first, she thought she had been sleeping when they appeared. Then she must have sleep-walked back or forward in time, caught within the power of a waking dream.

“Was I only an emptied cup to be filled?” She asked herself.

It seemed to her she became another person. She felt different. Her thoughts strayed around the events of that night. She traced the change in herself to originate from that happening at the Order of the White Flower’s ancient temple grounds. Jasmine noticed she felt a marked change in her demeanor. Of course, who wouldn’t be altered by such an event? But she had no peer to talk to. She searched her mind for some story or advice Ermengarde could have left her in a situation such as this.

Jasmine puzzled over many things as she went over and over what happened that night. That night, when she spoke, a voice (her voice?) originated from her belly. The voice was booming and resonated throughout her rib cage. Vibrating thus, she felt the power in the delivery of her words as well as in the words themselves. That night, with the light of the glowing moon behind her, atop the roof of the ancient temple on the White Throne Mountain, she spoke deeply and purposefully among a chorus of her sisters’ voices…

Again, Jasmine shook herself out of her revery and brought herself back to the present. She sighed to herself, “Ahearn thinks I’m a conquest; Thorne thinks I’m a fool, and Rogan thinks I’m a pawn. Even so, no body knows who I truly am. Everyone defers to me because I used to be a king’s daughter. But I’m so much more now. None see because I keep to myself concentrating all my available reserve of powers to control the effects of the ring on my finger!”

For days, as they traveled on a wind-swept plain during the day, Jasmine depleted her energy reserves in focused concentration. Jasmine concluded the elements of air and fire, which prevailed in their journey, resonated with the ring to enhance their effect.

© 2018 DARLENE

I AM A FAN of “THE STORY OF JASMINE”