The Hunters Mistress

Chapter One: Outcasted

The day had finally arrived for each of the guilds to choose their medics. With her mother lost to a rare disease, Fango studied extremely hard to display her willingness to aid sufferers returning to their guilds from war. Everyone in the town knew she suffered most after the loss of her mother, but Fango kept smiling, determined to never let another soul be consumed by grief and disease. 

Fango clenched her teeth and walked into the town hall. Upon entering, she noticed the giant display of all the medics printed onto the billboard, with their names corresponding to all of the magic guilds that had accepted them. She was ready. Holding her luggage tightly, she knew she would have to begin her duty as a medic immediately after acceptance. Her eldest brother, Mango, had already left home a year after her mother's death. Fango knew that her leaving meant that her father, would be left alone. 

Slowly and nervously, Fango walked up to the billboard and searched for her name. Eyes darting, she began to tear up. Her name was nowhere to be found, her application to any magic guild had been rejected.

"But why?" Fango whimpered, "My grades aren't bad, I fit all the qualifications. Don't I?" She began to cry and break down whilst others murmured amongst themselves. 

"That's her daughter, isn't it?"

"I heard their son ran away from home."

"It's that family, of course no guild would accept her..."

"It doesn't matter how hard she works, she will always be a failure, because she is that woman's daughter." 

Fango was too busy wiping away her tears to notice the horrible comments passer-by's were making. "What do I do?" she thought quietly, her eyes still blurry from crying, "My father won't be expecting me home early." Fango grabbed her luggage with one hand and hurried out of the town hall.

Fango started to pace around on the porch of her house. Would her father be disappointed? Would she be a failure? How else would she save people's lives from disease? Fango felt helpless but built up the courage to face her father. She walked up slowly to the front door and was just about to walk in when she heard glass shatter from the inside and her drunk father, mumbling words of terror.

The muffled voice of her father could be heard beyond the oak door. "It is all my fault... ALL MY FAULT, I let her go and now, now look at me, I'm cursed. Stupid wrench, stupid child. I should've killed the child that was born."

"Child? Does he mean me?" Fango thought, shivering at the idea that her father wanted to kill her, "What's going on?". She was scared, frozen, unable to move. Her father started smashing plates, grunting as he tore the house down from the inside. Fango stood behind the door, the only barrier separating her from her father's rage.

She felt as though she was doing something wrong, listening to her father's words without his permission. "Dirty child...Without you, she wouldn't have had to go, the whole town wouldn't set us as outcasts...My son would still be here!"

Fango knew that her father was speaking about her now, but she was shocked and confused. She had never seen her father so angry, and so....so sad.

"I thought it was a rare disease that killed my mother," she whispered, her voice crackling as if she was on the verge of bursting and crying. She was just loud enough for her father to notice that someone had been listening to him rambling. "WHO'S THERE?!" He yelled with his booming voice, making Fango jump up from fright. Panicking, she quickly ran from her home and hid behind a nearby truck, just outside the view of her enraged father. Though she could not see her father in his furious state, she heard the wooden front door creak open, followed by quick-paced footsteps, rummaging and swearing around the front lawn. Her father was looking for her.

Fangos mind was racing. Had she just overheard something that she hadn't known? Had she found the reason that the whole town had avoided her? Something wasn't right, perhaps her mother didn't die the way that she thought. Fango felt lied to, betrayed by her own family, her own people. Throughout her whole life, she focused so much on being a medic that she never truly learnt to understand the people around her.

It was heart-breaking. She realised she was not wanted, not needed, not by the town, nor by her father.