The letters stopped coming from her family. The last were two moons ago, nearly three. No matter, Salīa said to herself. They probably just have better things to do.
She wanted to believe it, she did. But she couldn't help this incessant nagging feeling scratching at her chest. Though it's not like she could do anything about being stuck where she was.
Salīa had come to the Faraway Forests nearly a year ago. The magi told her nothing of it, nor did her mother, who attended here when younger to become worthy as a potential Queen. Most royals and occasional nobles would get the invitation at some point, even if they weren't directly in line. Many agreed that this journey is the true crown, the one you cannot see, yet you know when it's with you.
Yet what difference did it make? She'd never be the Queen her people wanted. The magi must have thought so too. The truth is Salīa had first come to the Faraway Forests when she was a child, just before that incident had happened. Not even one day passed before they sent her right back. All they told her mother was that it wasn't her time. Salīa told them she didn't want to go anyway, and what did they know. Yet she whipped her head down the moment Queen Saoa's scowl met her.
It's not that her mother was unkind, quite the opposite. Yet Salīa could be a bit prideful. Especially now that the dubious village gossipers who once said, "I heard she's the youngest in history to ever get invited there," would now snicker about how she's, "The first in history to ever get kicked out from there."
Salīa was made to bow to the magi who said they'd invite her back soon, but she stood stiff.
"Salīa," her mother said elegantly but firmly, eyeing her.
"Ma, this isn't fair. I didn't even do anything—"
"Go study the tables."
"But—"
"Salīa."
She walked away, muttering to herself, "I really didn't do anything." As notorious as she was for meeting with trouble, how much trouble could she really have gotten into that was enough to have her shot out of that sacred celestial land of cultivation in only a few hours?
Yet her mother was already tired and so she sent her, as she always did, to go study the tables. When she led a hearty herd of galloping springboks through the villages on the day of Gift-Giving, hoping to stir up some cheer. Go study the tables. When she beat up a bunch of kids her age who stole a young cripple's crutches. Go study the tables. When she picked up a traveler's dropped book of Marvellous Maidens and The Tongue Tricks To Tease Them With and Salīa was discovered reading it while using her study books to conceal it. Go study the tables! Now!!!
It always came back to those tables. The thirteen houses of being. That was all about patience, balance, honesty, understanding, determination, kindness, discernment, connection, faith, gratitude, strength, healing, and desire. Yada, yada, yada. Across it lay the thirteen ruins of none. That's what she had been learning in her lessons up until her nineteenth birthday. She couldn't quite remember all the thirteen ruins, yet she knew they were the complementary reverse of the thirteen houses. If she indulged too much in the ruins, she'd find herself locked out of the houses.
"You could always open it," they said. "For you were the one who locked yourself out."