Kalistan

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Lady Nicolette Ananto-Collins published Memoir
"Oh, I don't surf anymore," says Princess of the Empire
Luxon, Grand Duchy of Ananto
December 4, 5716


Empress Carolina II Ananto visits Princess of the Empire Nicolette Ananto-Collins at home in Luxon

Once known as the Queen of surf for winning the Kalistani Surf Triple Crown (a feat which has not been replicated since), the Princess-turned surfer-turned Regent now says her surfing days are behind her. "Oh I don't surf anymore," said Her Highness, Princess of the Empire Nicolette Ananto-Collins, Countess of Luxon, at her home near the sea in Luxon. "I still do swim laps: An old lady like myself needs to stay in shape, but, you know as I get older, things don't tend to stay put and gravity always wins..."

The Princess of the Empire, who is aunt to Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto, and sister of the late Emperor Fredrick IV Ananto, will turn 70 in 5717, and looks back on a long and full life in her new memoir, "On the Swell" which hits bookstores this week. In the autobiography, which she cowrote with Christy Zarate and is having published through Sun Press in Sulari, she describes her life as a one of competing pressures. "I dropped out of life for a very long time because I really couldn't handle all these people demanding things from me," she said, to explain why she retired from professional surfing. "I got the Dah job, and it got to not be fun anymore. I couldn't just surf like I wanted to. I had to be at this corporate event, and take a photo for this magazine. I started getting weird letters, from men and women, and I just decided, that was it. I retired from professional surfing, took a little time off and started teaching."

And drinking. The Princess said she had dealt for years with drug and alcohol addiction. "I don't want anyone to be all poor me, but it really got control of my life. I kind of became a recluse, and when I wasn't at the beach, I was at home drinking and doing all kinds of things. My husband, who ironically was the head of the world's largest drug cartel, tried to have me cut off at the dispensaries, but I had to remind him that I outranked him. It really affected our marriage at that time, and that I think was the saddest thing at all. He put up with a lot from me, that I don't really think any person should put up with, but he was very patient with me, and eventually, I was shocked into cold turkey sobriety, and had no real choice over the matter."

That shock came in the form of Her Highness inheriting her niece after her brother and sister in law died in a plane crash over the Mad Dog Ocean. "I was still not healthy when Carrie came to live with me," she said. "And Andrew was travelling all the time. The news itself sent me into a deep depression: except for my niece, I had lost my whole family almost. My brother, I looked up to him. I thought he was so awesome. And my sister in law, Jenn, she was my best friend. Losing them and the boys was too much to bear. And I thought every single day about going back to the drugs. But now I was something I had never intended to become. I was a mother of a pre-teen, and I had to try to keep it together for her, if I couldn't do it for myself. I had no idea what I was doing and decided that I needed to keep a clear mind if I wasn't going to fail completely."

Her Highness, then Princess Nicolette, on the Swell sometime in the 5670s

The Princess, as the only eligible candidate, remained regent for about 10 years, just under the time that her brother had served as Emperor. "And I wouldn't have been nowhere without people who stepped up and helped me. My husband returned home for a while, and we kind of rebuilt our shattered relationship. I had a lot of people who helped me raise Carrie into the remarkable and beautiful woman she is now: Fun fact, she may be as old now as I was when we lost her father. it's been a very long time. But I am happy to say, she owes her love of spaghetti to me." A statement at which the Empress, who was sitting next to her during the interview, winced at.

After leaving office, the Princess has spent her time doing "whatever the hell I want to," she said with a laugh. She still regularly smokes tobacco, but has other wise remained clean and sober for more than 30 years. "I just find I have a lot more time to do things that I like doing if I am not wasted or recovering for 18 hours out of each day. I can write poetry, I can go to the shore and paint the sunset over the Swell. I still get to talk to surf clubs here in Luxon, all of whom want to try their hands at surfing one of the most challenging waves in Terra. I play Go, thanks to Carrie's, and especially Elliot's teaching. I can paint, I volunteer weekly at the Global Music Hall of Fame where I help the archivists. And I just generally do whatever I want. I really have had a remarkable life and I still have some great years left in me."

The Empress who joined us for the interview, mostly sat silently and listened to her aunt tell about all of her wilder days with a polite smile. "We are sure," she said toward the end of the interview, "that our aunt was far wilder as a young person that the woman we met as a child. Nicki was our aunt before she was anything else. Our brothers adored her, and we ourselves were always a little afraid of her when we were young. She has an outsized personality. She doesn't say much, so when she finally does, it is always like a bolt of lightning. But we are so proud of her, we are so thankful that she adopted us and took us in. We need her to tell me stories about our father, because we have forgotten him almost completely. She can help us reacquaint ourselves with our mother and father."

The book "On the Swell: the Life and Times of the Queen of Surf" is available in all book stores across the Empire.

@LaModa