After The End

Chapter one

I look out of the window in my room at the palace, bored out of my mind. I sighed and watched as a blue swallow dipped and dived through the lush green hedges and shrubs in the palace garden. Who would have thought being Queen would be so boring. Seriously, Im pretty sure kingdoms go to war just for something to do.

It wasnt like this when I first came to the castle. Ethan and I had spent days wandering the palace gardens, picnicking and riding in the woods that bordered the one side of the palace. It was the happiest few days of my life, for the first time ever I understood what all the books were talking when they harped on about how wonderful love was, how light and free it made you feel, I felt like I was permanently floating on a cloud.

After those days of peace and quiet followed a whirlwind of activity as we started planning for the wedding, the days flying by so fast that it felt like I would wake up in the morning blink, then the day would be finished. When the wedding was over Ethan had to start his duties as king, attending meetings and appointments, leaving me to do whatever I liked. Ethan is so busy now days that I only see him at supper. I spend my days wandering the gardens or reading books from the castle's massive library. I was perfectly happy doing that in the beginning, I enjoyed not having to worry about cooking, cleaning and running around after my stepmother and her horrid daughters but, after a while it got boring and lately I've spend most days so bored I want to pull my hair out. When I brought it up at supper one night Ethan just laughed and said I should enjoy relaxing while I can. I don;t think he understands that I'm the type of person who needs to be doing something; I can't just sit around all day doing nothing constructive.

I leap off from the ledge I was perched on. If I stay inside for another second I think I am going to go insane. On my way to the door I caught sight of myself in the mirror and hardly recognized the woman staring back at me. My hair was no longer limp with a dull unhealthy tinge as it had been when I arrived, it now looked healthy as it sat braided into a crown on top of my head, the colour of corn silk. My sky blue eyes sparkling and I had filled out a bit and lost that gaunt, starving look from years of being deprived of proper food. I grabbed a plain brown cloak on my out the room and put it on allowing my face to be swallowed into the darkness of the hood so I could hide from any Lords or Ladies who tried to strike up a conversation with me about the weather or the kingdom or some other nonsense. Their friendliness irritates me because I know it's fake, half of them couldn't care less about me and were just trying to gain favour with the king by befriending me. The other half wanted to get me to mess up around them or reveal how little I know about being a queen so later they could all sit around and laugh about the common country girl trying to fit in with the elite royals.

To put it mildly I despised them all.

My favourite part about the palace is the garden. Acres and acres of beautifully crafted landscapes, exotic flowers and birds, roses so colourful they looked fake and the juiciest fruits hanging from trees, so huge that they weighed the branches down. I headed for my favourite part of the garden, a massive maze made out of humongous green hedges towering high above my head. It sometimes took me hours to navigate my way to the middle where there was a pretty little pond that had water lilies the colour of a pale pink sunset, sitting on top of emerald green Lily pads with the most colourful fish I've ever seen swimming around underneath the surface. When I eventually made my way to the center I was greeted by an unusual sight. One of the palace guards was standing in the middle of the pond in the knee-deep water, his black pants and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up so they wouldnt get wet and he appeared to be trying to catch a fish with his bare hands.