Melting Snow

One

  Okay, everyone. First chapter. Since it's the background chapter, I'm not really sure about it, so be sure to comment and let me know how you think the story is going! Thanks a lot guys!

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Melting Snow - One

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       People are born with a predetermined destiny, a fate they must follow from the moment they begin to breathe until the moment they give up that right. I was born in a small shack behind the castle, my father not even present because he was serving dinner to the king’s guests at the time my mother went into labor. He was not even informed of her pains until well after I was swathed in a rough piece of fabric once used as a table cloth. He did not even make it home until well after she was dead.

            Father said that her fate must have been to bring me into the world. He said that his own destiny is to raise me alone.  None can actually blame me for not wanting to think about fate any more after that.

            I couldn’t say that I had a bad life; I most certainly did not. At least, not compared to most other people I knew from the same social class as I. We got to keep and eat the scraps that never made it to the royal table, and thus we were fed far better than any others in the kingdom. The king had a special place in his heart for my father, or at least for my father’s cooking, and never treated him wrong in any way. His kindness extended to me as well, and I was able to run around the lower level of the castle frolicking and playing without a single care in the world. After I had completed my daily list of chores, of course.

            However, none of that quite mattered to me in the slightest. What mattered to me is the look on my father’s face when he came home and only saw two places set at the table instead of three. It mattered when I pretended to be asleep, and I heard him crying on top of his own straw mattress, the sobs chilling me to the bone. The instance that mattered to me the most, however, was when I turned ten and I went to wake him up one morning only to find that I couldn’t. Because he would not be ever waking up again.

            Crying was not an option to me. Not a single tear was shed. I refused to cry, and so I didn’t. All of the townspeople, whom had known Mother before she married and worked at the castle, and all of the castle servants who had known Father since the king brought him here from over seas, all came and told me how sorry they were for my loss. Yet still I did not cry, even when they all told me I should. They told me it would be easier if I could release the pain. I knew that they were all wrong.

            The one good thing my father left to me was his recipe book, and a knowledge of the kitchen that would rival any cook eight times my age. When King Richard found out about my talent, he offered me a room inside the castle walls, and a job right where Father had worked before me. He allowed me a few years to grow in stature until I could reach the stove without being on my tip toes, but as soon as I turned thirteen I would be made to work. And work was something I knew how to do.

            If I remember correctly, I met Mohan precisely a year and a half after Father’s funeral. I was sneaking up in the second floor of the castle, where I knew I was never allowed to go. But what was a poor, orphan child to do after the few things she was assigned were finished, and the entire day was left in her hands without a single adult checking up on her?

            The answer to that, I found, was explore.

            I tried out all of the outdoor places first. The stables lasted the longest, a few weeks to explore every corner of the large building, and another week to memorize every horse’s name and pattern so I could merely look at them and know who it was. My favorite was a brown and white speckled horse whose name was Folly. I even snuck around and fed her a few handfuls of grain that I was able to find and reach.