'Tis The Season: A Wattpad Christmas Countdown

Sleigh Ride

[written by the wonderful kura_skymning ]

She wandered in the snow, without knowing where to go. After all she had done to escape from that hell she had lived in for seven years, from that villa where she had tried all she could to satisfy and please a master who thought that nothing was enough for him, this was the least she could do.
She had planned everything, yet she was now alone there, in the emptiness of the forest, where only her leather boots made a slight noise as they sank into the snow.

What would she do now?

A slave couldn't go too far, not without being caught, sooner or later. And as much as she wished she could avoid that fate, she knew it would have happened, and that she wouldn't have been quick enough to run away.
She brushed aside a lock of her raven hair from her face, she lifted one of her thin feet to place it on a protruding root of a tree in an attempt to rise from the snow and drive away that insistent cold that tormented her ankles and calves, but to no avail, since a light wind took advantage of her gesture to sneak under her skirt, cooling her whole legs. And as if it weren't enough, as soon as she lifted her other foot, she slipped and fell, hitting her tailbone on the tree's hard roots, which were submerged by the snow.

«Ouch!» she exclaimed under her breath, rubbing her back.
At that moment, a confused noise made her head turn, her heart throbbed in her chest: barking.

Her master was looking for her!

She got up, albeit with difficulty, and started to run into the snow as fast as possible, lifting her feet so much from the ground that she almost felt like she was flying; the cold wind whipped her flushed cheeks, fear bit her chest, forcing her to hasten her pace, so much to take her breath away. She heard her master's voice screaming her name in the dark of the night, and she didn't want to see him ever again. She didn't want to go back to cleaning the marble floors, to polishing the candelabras, to taking her punishments and never having a moment for herself: she wanted to be free, for once.
She had served him for seven years, she had completed her time at the villa, just as it had been written on the contract: what more could he want?!

She hit her chest violently against something really hard, a powerful TONK echoed in the small clearing she had reached in her mad rush, she fell backwards, hitting her tailbone again in the snow.

«Woah, are you ok?» asked a male voice unknown to her. The girl quickly looked up, turned over the collar of the coat she had stolen from her master's daughter and, trying not to be seen, she answered: «Um, yes. Yes, I'm fine.»
In front of her appeared a young man with thick, uneven, blackish curls, with big brown eyes and with his lips curled in a peculiar smirk; He wore winter clothes made of raw wool, and a ridiculous hat crowned his ruffled head, making it look like a nightingale's nest.

«You really hit it hard,» the stranger replied, grabbing her arms to help her up. She stood up, still hiding into her coat. He then stooped, studying carefully the hard surface against which she had slammed a few moments before; a strange sound escaped his lips, just like a snort, but more similar to a bark.

«Dang, the lacquering has turned out.»

«I'm sorry ... » she murmured, bending next to him to check the severity of the damage, « ... maybe I can fix it ... »
The young man laughed, shaking his head.

«Oh, don't worry. It's unimportant! This jalopy has endured worse blows!» he then exclaimed, pulling a loving pat to the wide and strange structure composed of that strange, brown material. She studied it for a few moments, confused.
And he seemed to notice it.