HELLBOUND WITH YOU

6: Fragments

A Carraige. That simple.

If  I was granted the blessing for a single wish right now, I would ask for a carraige. We were walking, put plainly.

No.

He was walking, I was on the brink of crawling. I raise my fatigued eyes up and ahead to the cause of my misery. Any pitiful or fearful mood I was in had long been removed by now, as I stared at the back of his head with a vengeance even I knew I hadn't the energy for. With the amount of gem adornments on his coat, I presumed he was of the high-class nobles. I guess he did belong, but was plain stingy.

We were going through a small village now. Without a care of who could spot me out as the criminal who abused the duke, the stranger strolled through the center of the market with me trailing behind him.

"My name is Jesse" no response

"May I know yours, sir?" I politely ask to rebuke the stagnant and familiar tension between us as we walked

"..." but alas courtesy was something only a few mothers taught to their young ones, and even fewer of these young ones made effort to learn. I already knew where I would place the one a few feet ahead of me, If I would ever find the need to.

I don't make any further attempt after that. So we just keep walking with nothing but the shufflings of the town hustles filling the space between our two forms.

                                      ....

It was dusk now.

An eerie feeling brewing in me as I stared up at the place I was to reside in, with the price of serving as a servant. A castle.

Why?
Because he is a Lord.

I lift my eyes further upwards and away from the magnificent structure to gaze at the dark sky. It had gotten darker since we crossed the gates into the royal vicinity but I don't stare for long as a feel my cheeks wet from the tears of mother nature herself. Rain.

What I would give to not be like rain. Floating in peace, only to be dropped down to the lowest point, hard. Literally. If there was anyone who said to my face they hated pity, I would make it my life mission to change that insight. Laying eyes on the pile of wooden brushes from where they had landed from across my body that took the brunt of the collision, up and towards the perpetrator of the supposed accident and I can't put into words the wave of tiredness that crashes into me, the woman staring down at me like I killed her cattle seem to make this all the more hopeless.

"You have been appointed as one of the Garden servants, these brushes shall be your everyday tool for the chores that shall be further explained to you by your sector supervisor..."

drunkenly tired eyes, yellowing teeth

"The slave quarters shall be your place of rescidence from henceforth, it lies at the east-wing of the palace..."

scrawny arms with flab muscle flapping energetically from the demonstration her arms potray

"You are not permitted to step foot into the central floor of the palace..."

lips sharpened to form the ever-present sneer lining her face, her expression as daunting as her ragged appearance...

"...by the crack of dawn and you are to only retire to your quarters when dusk settles.."

...like the embodiment of witchcraft

"...that understood?"

no "yes"