Running away had seemed a good idea at the time. Images of dancing with other bandits before a bon fire, roaming the hills and wilds with a band of traveling fair folk, or stumbling into an enchanted glade where faeries danced each evening had passed through her thoughts. Stealing away in the dead of night, servants sleeping and the few favored hearth dogs had only watched her with large liquid eyes as she passed silent as a ghost through the servant’s exit.
Stealing her brother’s clothing had been easy and for once she didn’t grieve over her lack of proper upbringing. In truth Adara rarely felt the whim nor want to be lady-like. Now, tromping with too large boots on over her feet, breaches that were overly tight about her hips and a tunic that sagged and pulled along her chest, she felt ever the urchin. Ruthlessly she tugged on the wide brimmed hat that covered her identity rather effectively.
For weeks she had made plans to slip from the keep unnoted in the night. Even if she had to live the life of a Rom wanderer it was better than wedding some heathen northerner. Her slender shoulders stiffened with indignity at the idea. They were savages, barely able to be considered humans. She had seen one of those highland breed once. His hair had been wild and tangled his clothing rough at best with a queer sort of patterned cloth draped about him haphazardly. No, she definitely did not wish to be the lady of those fens and moors.
So she had run away, and now reflecting back Adara decided that it had been the single biggest mistake in her life. Of course it had seemed a wonderful idea, a perfect one. She would be the mistress of her own fate; now with hunger pinching her belly, she could almost envision the layout of the great table, the roast boar, vegetables smothered in cook’s savory sauces, wintered over apples boiled and seasoned until they practically melted in her mouth. Her stomach growled in angry protest at the stray wandering of her thoughts.
Absently she wiggled, settling her hips in the dried and brittle leaves that made her personal bower. No faeries danced here and the traveling folk were long since past. Her mouth formed a petulant line as she stared over the star strung sky. Only pride kept her from running back to her home; pride and her refusal to wed the man chosen for her…
**to be continued**
lady_tenkou Community Member 
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