The Great Escape

Lady Kiara

"I would scold you for being out in the cold, if it did not so happen that you were in a bad disposition." Her eyes flew open at her mother's voice. Startled, she sat straighter before relaxing.

"Ma?" She questioned and breathed out, exasperated."What have I told you about startling me?"

"Nothing?" The Countess cocked an eyebrow. She settled down beside her daughter and ruffled Kiara's tangled hair.

"It is way past your bedtime, young lady." She butted the side of Kiara's head with hers.

"Sleep would not come tonight."

"A fair argument."

Silence stretched between them for a while. The pockets of the quiet, melancholic night were filled with the soft cackling of the fire and chirping of crickets.

Making herself comfortable on the grass, Lady Kiara had put her head on her mother's outstretched thighs and closed her eyes.

"You will catch cold," Daisy chided but her hands moved to caress Kiara's head, urgently and lovingly.

"Will not," Kiara mumbled.

"One sneeze in the morning, and I will chase you with a broom," she scoffed as she looked down upon her daughter's face. Her eyes were closed and her grasp around the hilt of her sword loosened.

Countess Daisy poked Kiara's cheeks. She did not budge.

"Charles, you were a good man," Countess Daisy whispered to herself when she was assured Kiara was asleep and dreaming away. Tears brimmed her eyes upon remembering the grey haired, reckless bastard of a Duke. It always had been the three of them- her, Matthew and Charles. To think one of them is gone forever, that one of them was presumably murdered in cold blood- the thought invoked nothing but maddening, heart shattering pain. Loosing Duke Charles Louise was a great loss— personal as well as professional.

As much as he insisted to take risks in his younger days, he had matured as a man. Daisy did not knew what cause that. Nevertheles, though it irked her— gaining another critic that is; more so the kind who was once a partner in crime— Daisy had always been and will always be proud of the man he had become. Who shouldered his responsibilities with such intellect. Who bore the pain with such grace. Who managed his family and Dukedom with such balance.

"Ma."

Kiara was looking up at her with a frown. A stray tear had trailed it's way down from the side of her eye and disappeared into her hairline.

"Hmm." Daisy wiped her tears, then proceeded to wipe Kiara's. She let her hand rest on her forehead and starting patting it.

"You should sleep, brat. We are supposed to be up early in the morning." Daisy flicked her forehead.

Kiara flinched and scrunched her nose.

"Do you think the witches did this? Bit off the hand which was always there to lift them up?" She asked, rubbing her forehead.

"I can not tell for sure, Kiara." Daisy sighed heavily and she suddenly  looked ten years more her age. Her brown eyes dulled with misery, tanned skin blotchy after the secret mourning sessions, grey hair in the mass of brown ones somehow more visible now, fine lines of wrinkles evident on her face. Past few days had seen her ageing more than the past years, Kiara noted. In some years, I would look much more like her then I already do, an arbitrary thought flashed in her mind.

"Papa is convinced."

"He is revengeful and that is it."

"You are not?"