Lords and Sailors

1

                   "Father, I don't see why I have to marry him! I don't love him! In fact, I hate him-!" The princess argued with her father as they walked through the hallways of the castle. The princess was about 5'9 ft, 160 pounds, with dirty blonde, almost light brown hair that came down shortly past her ears. Her face was round and chubby, she wore a frown, yet her eyes were bright with excitement or perhaps hatred for her father or the suitor of her's. Her eyes were a mix between blue-green,blue-gray, and hazel, her eyes were special as they changed their tint at different times. She was gifted with the eyes of her grandmother. She wore a beautiful light blue-gray gown that reached her ankles, it was flowy so she could move easily in it.

                     "Cairistìona MacMiadhachain! You are a princess, you must marry that man! I am your father, and because of that you are under my protection until you marry!" Cairistìona's father snapped at her as they reached a dark oak door, and her father opened the door. "The ball is tonight, and you must get ready! By the end of the night, you will be engaged, and that is that!" With that, Cairistìona's father shut the door in her face, and Cairistìona was left there, almost on the brink of tears, as she ran to her room in a slightly remote hall of the castle. Once she got to her room, she threw open the door, and then slammed it shut once she entered the room. She went over to her bed, sat down, and wept.

                      "O gods, what am I to do? I cannot go against my father, I am not strong enough. I cannot try to make him listen, he will not understand! What am I to do?!" The princess wept and wept, for she could not think of any answer. The servants heard her cries and they tried to comfort her, but they couldn't enter her room, as she blocked the door. After many long hours of crying and praying to the gods, the princess got an idea. What if she were to run away? Leave without a trace, then she could be free to be who she was on in the inside. "Yes.....Yes, this plan is my only option! I must work swiftly however, my father soon, will come for me to take me to my doom at the ball!"

                        So, Cairistìona went to work. She found some old clothes of a servant's which were her size, she found something to hide her chest so they would not recognize her as a girl, and finally she found a dark cloak to hide her face. She ran to the small washroom near her room with the items she had found, and changed out of her beautiful dress, and into the old, dirty, servant's clothes she found, but not before hiding her chest, and she pulled on the cloak. She then tiptoed back to her room, and filled up a small bag with three of her favorite books, spare clothes, some money, and some rope, just in case. "Now...to get out of the castle unnoticed."

                        The princess was in luck, as all the servant's were in the ballroom, tending to the guests who already had arrived. She slipped out of the castle into the stables without much trouble either, besides her cat meowing at her, and it broke her heart to leave him, but she told herself she must, and that he would be fine. Once she got into the stables, she found her favorite horse, Liùsaidh, and got up onto her. She made sure her bag was surce and took one last look at her castle and home, and she then rode off into the night.

                           Behind her, Cairistìona could hear the shouts of her father, the cries of her mother, and the chaos of the ball as she rode off faster. She just entered the dark forest as she heard her father shouted orders to search around the grounds for her. The blood was pounding in her ears, the air felt frigid as she raced into the night, it wasn't long until the sounds of the old life she had just left behind faded away into nothing. After who knows how long, with her horse panting almost, Cairistìona stopped, and took her bag. She got off her horse, and then sent it back to the castle, deciding to go the rest of the way on foot. As she watched her horse trout into the darkness, she realized that she didn't know where she was to go. "I.....really need to actually come up with a full plan before I race head first into things. Well....." She mumbles, before sighing, "There's only one way to go now. Straight. May the gods be on my side..."  Cairistìona whispers as she heads deeper into the forest, starting a new path all her own, free of her family and old life. Or....

                             So she thinks.