[Chriseva] Cindereva

1. A Soldier in the Woods

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, across the ocean and through the fields and the forests expanding far into the horizon, there were two kingdoms that lived through a constant state of war. People who lived in the two kingdoms could not remember a time of peace, before their nations started the battle that unrolled through decades and cost families fathers, sons, husbands and brothers.

It was the battle between the peaceful kingdom of the North, where the people fished for their trade and grew crops to keep their children fed and clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads, against the battle hardened kingdom of the South, where their soldiers were bred from young and taught to fight as children. Their king was a tyrant and a dictator and rejected all notions and requests from the North Kingdom for armistice and peace. The king only wanted war, he only wanted blood and all the people in the North knew about the Southern soldiers growing up was that they were blood thirsty killers who pillaged and plundered defenseless villages; destroyed their livelihoods and raped their women and bathed in the blood of their enemies and left their corpses out to be devoured by animals.

They were always immediately identifiable by their deep black uniform and blood red lining, and the menacing Wolf emblem on their chest piece.

It was the tale mothers would tell to their children to keep them from misbehaving: "Don't be naughty, or the Penetrators will come to steal you from your beds as you sleep at night."

It was the stories a little girl named Eva used to hear growing up, told to her by her mother when it was just the two of them curled up on the carpet, watching the crackle of the cinder burning in the fireplace.

Young Eva used to live in a big house with a large compound alongside her mother and her father and an array of animals that used to scurry around the household; dogs and cats and rabbits and mice and birds sitting perched on the windowsill singing their sweet songs.

But death and tragedy found Eva young even though she and her family lived on the outskirts of the kingdom, away from the town and the castles and so far away from the fighting often times it actually felt like it was nothing more than the fairytale her mother used to tell to her when she put her to bed.

She lost her mother to sickness and her father to heartbreak and lost her fortune and her house and her beautiful clothes over time to the debt collectors and money grubbing relatives, but Eva didn't mind. She still had her animals and that was all that mattered to her.

She now lived in a ramshackle little hut at the edge of the clearing where the grassy plain met the mouth of the forest. It wasn't a very big house but it was homely and it was cozy and it was hers and that was the only thing that mattered in the end. She planted flowers and vegetables in the small garden that surrounded her hut like a fence, the vines creeping up the outer walls and little purple flower blooming like Mother Nature's own gift of artwork to her.

Her dogs and cats slept on the bed with her, the chickens and the birds perched on the arm rest of her worn sofa. The little mice and the squirrels in the potted plants hanging from the ceiling and the rabbits bunched up together at the foot of her bed.

It wasn't a very big family, but it was hers.

She supported herself by working for a wealthy family, a Count and Countess and their daughters, that lived a few minutes' walk up the cobblestone path after she'd trekked through the bushes away from her hut and away from the peaceful and comforting embrace it provided her. It was a beautiful life but it was also very lonely.

The family she worked for was very rich, and they were not friendly but they were also not cruel, with two daughters who were of similar age to Eva: Sara and Ingrid. Sara and Ingrid lived the life Eva once did, but she never begrudged them for what they had; for all the pretty clothes they wore and all the fine jewelry that glinted on their bodice; for the parents they still had who smiled at them and told them constantly how much they were loved. They were not friends by any definition of the word, and both the girls could be very callous with their words and very rude with their actions, but they were not bad people.