I won't share any of the novels here, but I will share a short story I wrote for a background character who I have had to more or less reluctantly delete from the trilogy. I struggle a bit with short stories because I feel like I can't always communicate a "point", and I also struggled with the voice because I so rarely write in 1st person. But inspired by dear @Thalionwen's lead, I'll post it anyway and I'll be grateful for any feedback. It is not fanfiction and not particularly Tolkienesque, but it is fantasy.
THE GODDESS' SCRIBE
Part 1/6
I knelt before the statue of Divine Hallia the Wise. The cold seeped through the flagstone floor, through the thin robe they had given me, through my skin and flesh and into my very heart. The goddess’ amethyst eyes were cold and unfeeling, as hard as the four faces that stared down at me. Four gray-robed Scholars, two men and two women, flanked the goddess’ statue.
One of them, a dark-skinned Renochi woman who could hardly be a few years older than myself, was the first to speak. She leaned forward in her chair, her raven-black hair falling around her face like a curtain.
“You say you have come to give up everything and lay it at Divine Hallia’s feet.” It was not a question, but I could hear the disbelief in her voice.
“I have come for that reason, yes.”
What else could I say?
“You are willing to give up everything?” a man asked. I heard the insolent disbelief in the way he used the pronoun. He wielded that insolence like a Maiden stabs a needle through embroidery cloth, enlarging the holes of self-doubt.
I nodded, biting back the words I wanted to say. I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice. Only people without a future joined the Scholars of Hallia.
The man seemed unsatisfied by my response. He was middle-aged, thin in the way of someone who has never indulged in any pleasure in their life. Would I be that way too once the pleasures of wine and sex were taken away? Pain gripped my heart and I closed my eyes tight against the memories that threatened. As if I’d ever want to sleep with anyone else now that Mabon is dead.
Another woman spoke then, her face a little plump and lined. But her voice was gentler than the others. “My dear, there are gentler places to seek sanctuary. Other orders will take you in. A woman with your… background, with your skills—you could become a Healer, a Midwife, a—”
“I want to be a Scholar.” Perhaps it was rude to interrupt her. After all, she was only trying to be kind—the first person to be kind since before I had arrived at this freezing hunk of rock on a mountainside. But I was used to speaking when I wanted and how I wanted, and their refusal to accept my decision was infuriating.
The woman’s lips pressed together. With her hair hidden in an old-fashioned headdress, she looked more severe. “It is a hard life,” she said, as though she did not think me able to cope.
Well, I’d coped with worse.
“You’d have to give up everything,” the first woman said, a note of disbelief still in her voice. “You wouldn’t be able to claim anything of your old life. No clothes, no jewels... no titles…”
“I know that.” My voice was clear, enunciated. I wasn’t a child, and I wasn’t a fool. Maybe others were driven mad by grief, but not me. Grief was a coward’s way out. I wanted revenge.
The last of the four, a man so old that his beard was white and his head bald, said nothing. He only looked at me. Somehow, he was the most unnerving of them all. If he didn’t trust my reasons for wanting to join the Scholars, he didn’t say.
I frowned. I’d rather have it right out in the open, but they all seemed to dance around it.
The middle-aged man sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “I vote no.”
The older woman frowned at him. “We haven’t decided to vote yet, Endon. Let her have her say.”
My say? They expected me to plead my case? Wasn’t vowing to give up all my earthly possessions, my relations, even my own gods-forsaken name enough? They were all looking at me expectantly, waiting. Rysia’s blood, I thought sourly, but I didn’t voice the swear. I’d probably give Ancient and Bearded a heart attack.
I took a deep breath. “I know that there is no statute that insists all would-be Scholars are young and impressionable. You are supposed to accept people at any time in their lives. Of all walks of life.” I narrowed my eyes at the man Endon, who raised an eyebrow coolly in return. “As I said, I am willing to give up everything I have and devote my remaining years to Divine Hallia and the pursuit of knowledge.”
I was talking like I was some decrepit crone, as close to the end of my life as Old Beardy, when really I wasn’t even near the end of my childbearing years. I could have had a few more children—and really, that was why I was here to begin with.
Their faces were still stone, and I couldn’t hide my annoyance any longer. “I’m not a charity case. My own tutor, Scholar Nessa, taught me well. I know the history of the Four Kingdoms; I can read, write, even illuminate a damn manuscript page if I need to.” Endon scowled, but I thought the older woman hid a smile with a cough.
The dark-haired woman put her head to one side, like a crow eyeing a hunk of meat. “And what about King Rhian?”
My soul froze, burst into flame, and refroze in the space of a heartbeat. “What about him?”
As if sensing blood, Endon took up the hunt. “Part of our vows are to be impartial. Do you really think you can achieve that?”
I met his gaze. If he noticed that my eyes were as violet as those of the goddess whose statue loomed above him, he did not comment.
“I’m a gods-damned princess of Afyn, Scholar Endon. I can do whatever I set my mind to.”
That was a mistake; I knew as soon as I said it. Endon leaned back in his chair, smirking—as if getting me to admit who I was counted as a victory. Well, dancing around the subject hadn’t done me any good, and with eyes like mine, it would be hard to deny who I was. All Four Kingdoms were no doubt buzzing with the news that the conquered princess of Afyn had escaped King Rhian of Lanthyr’s clutches.
“But you won’t be a princess any longer.” The older woman’s voice was too kind, too patient. It grated.
“Why else do you think I’m here?” I said sharply.
As a princess, I was a danger to my country. Rhian had chosen to name me ruler over my little brother Farlan. Never mind that Farlan was twenty and had been named king as soon as news of Father’s death had been delivered from the battlefield. Rhian didn’t actually want me to rule Afyn; he just to pit us against each other. And when I had refused, he had tried to take me to Lanthyr as a hostage. A hostage... maybe even a wife.
My lips thinned. Rumor said that Rhian had killed my beloved Mabon himself. Gutted him with a broken sword. At least Mabon had driven him to his knees before he died. No one could say that my husband hadn’t given everything he had for Afyn.
But there was no way I was going to risk that bloody Lanthyri king laying his hands on me or my country.
The old man was still watching me, stroking his beard. My father used to do that when he was thinking hard. Before Rhian smashed his skull open with an axe on the battlefield.
“We should vote,” he said, and this time nobody argued. “What do you say, Endon?”
The middle-aged man crossed his arms again. His smirk was as greasy as pig’s fat. “No. With her history, she will never be able to pass the Trials.”
The Trials? Inwardly I groaned. There was more than this farce of an interview? Not, I thought sullenly, that I am likely to even make it past round one.
“Myvanna?”
The dark young woman took a while to answer. Her head was still cocked to one side, her lips pursued.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I think she should be given the chance to prepare for the Trials, at any rate.”
Endon shot her an exasperated look, as if his ally had betrayed him. But I hardly noticed. A shiver of fear ran through my already frozen body. What if they were going to string me along, keep me here and send word to Rhian? The Scholars were sworn to be impartial, but the Tower of Hallia was technically on Lanthyri soil, and they may not want to infuriate a potential benefactor. A potential conqueror.
The old man pressed on. “Gwyneira?”
The older woman shook her head and sighed. “I still think there’s an easier way for her to seek sanctuary, but if this is what she wants, who am I to turn away a potential priestess? I say yes.”
Old Beardy took his time to say anything. He hardly seemed to notice when I fixed him with the sort of stare I reserved for my silliest handmaidens. He was still stroking his beard, playing with the end. Was his say the final vote? It seemed a little foolish that they were two and two; what if they were two for and two against? Was two votes against enough to send me away from the goddess’ safety back into Rhian’s potentially lustful (and certainly wrathful) arms?
“I am convinced,” he said at last. “We should let her join us for a year and a day. She may leave at any point during that time, if she so wishes. At the end of that time, she will undergo the Trials to determine whether she is worthy of joining us as a full-fledged Scholar.”
I realized I was trembling. “Thank you, Scholar…”
The old man smiled. “Mabon.”
My heart sank. Fate was cruel, to give him the name of the one I had loved. But of course, he had chosen it for himself, the name of the noble hero of legend. Just as Mabon’s parents had chosen to bestow it upon the man who would become my husband, who would one day take me in his arms, and father my poor babies who died so young, and die in a bloody ruin upon the battlefield.
“What name will you take as your own?” Scholar Mabon asked me.
I bestowed upon him my sweetest smile. “Sioned.”
I had spent a long time deciding this. If Scholars usually chose the names of ancient queens or heroes, well, so would I. Even as a child, I had always liked the story of the rampaging Mer Queen who refused to make peace with the Lanthyri, even when it cost her half her kingdom and her beloved daughter. Now, it held a deeper meaning.
“Sioned?” Endon roared the name back at me. “See, Mabon; she mocks us. Cast her out now, and let us not waste any more time on her.”
Myvanna frowned down at me from between her curtain of dark hair, her eyebrows drawn in disapproval. Gwyneira’s motherly face looked oddly strained, as if the choice had wounded something deep in her core. I almost regretted it, almost took it back. But I had never been good at admitting when I’m wrong.
“Sioned,” I insisted.
Mabon studied me, but there was no rancor in his wrinkled face.
“Scholar Myvanna, show Sioned to her new chambers.” A smile quirked at his lips. “I warn you... they won’t be very comfortable.”
As if a princess had never had to deal with discomfort. If I was afraid of that, I never would have come here in the first place.
Thanks! Admittedly the world is hardly recognizable from what it used to be. I'm not so much of an avid worldbuilder so I've added sort of bits and pieces of history and culture and religion over the years. I've started getting into reading historical fantasy like Guy Gavriel Kay recently and I really love that taking something known and adding an element of fantasy to it. (Also loved Burleigh for the same reason!)
I meant to post a few days ago; trying to even out the updates instead of posting all at once. It is a short story, but short by my standards... it's still almost 9k. 
(I am reverting to my teenage self with these smileys, but they are just so tempting...)
I didn't even notice it when I reread the section. I am dying over here.
