I was born the fourth daughter to a struggling merchant in western Falea whose daughters were each considered more beautiful than the last. Until my birth. I never seemed to notice the vast differences between myself and my sisters in my younger years. They were aloof and often cruel, but to me, who had known nothing different, this was normal.
By the time I reached the age of ten, though, I was beginning to notice something strange about my treatment compared with theirs. I tore a curtain and was not only severely punished but also made to sit inside for an entire week—the most torturous punishment in existence in my mind; my sisters tore a piece of fine embroidery or an expensive dress and were petted and coddled and told that father would pay to fix the thing.
After that, my only consolation was my father who was equally alone and sad. It was he who instilled in me my love for nature and the outdoors. It was in these places that he seemed more full of life, and sometimes, if I was lucky, his face might lose its tinge of gray and take on the look of a much younger man. It was he who showed me the royal menagerie first, and I shall never forget the times we had there. Our favorite creatures were the fauns. Their dull troubled faces reminded me of myself and my father and drew me closer to them.
Unlike most humans, however, I knew that they weren't always unhappy. At night, when no audience was in sight, they found their true selves again, and spreading their arms, they danced with one another, each step freeing them from their shackles a little more. The first time I saw them do it set my heart soaring, and I began to dream of the day when I could rise up on my own and break free of my mother and sisters' clawing hands.
Father was always a busy man. He was constantly surrounded by paperwork and bills, and I couldn't remember a time when I was awake that he wasn't holed off somewhere working. Working for our king as dutifully as he knew how, and for that reason, I resented the monarchy with every fiber of my being. It was a curiosity to me how such a loyal man as Father had gone unrecognized by the crown, and I dreamed of the day I might have the chance to speak my mind to the 'royal' king.
Those early days of my childhood, he was hardly present in my life, and each night, I would see the light glowing beneath his study door late into the night as he pushed away his exhaustion and looked over important documents that must be sent out with the early morning post. That day, though, was different, and perhaps because of the difference, it is still imprinted on the pages of my memory as though it happened yesterday.
I was only nine, and a more clumsy nine-year-old I dare you to find. I suppose I cannot blame my mother for believing I had broken her new pen. I had admired it from afar for days but hadn't dared touch it for fear of harming it in some manner. She brought it to my attention in a fit of rage, blaming me and my carelessness for running the family into bankruptcy and ruin. As further punishment, I had been banned from going outside for a month and would be forced to sit in the boot closet for an hour a day, using the dim light to patch the servant's clothes.
I could tell it was him coming through the door by the way he walked—a sort of distinctive skid-thump because of an injury he had received in his younger years when he'd spent his days adventuring and exploring rather than surrounded by stacks of paper—,and I longed to abandon my work and run to him, but I dared not for fear of the beating my mother would give me if I left my work too early. Suddenly, his footsteps halted a few feet beyond the door, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment before I heard him turn about, and then the door of the closet swung open. I hardly dared to breathe, hoping beyond hope that he had come for me instead of his riding boots.
"Bree?" He stooped down and his steel-gray eyes met mine. They were more sorrowful than usual. I gazed up at him and began to sob out the whole story, begging his forgiveness for bankrupting the family because of my shortcomings. He drew me into his arms and kissed me, whispering over and over how much he loved me until my tears had ceased.
"There, there, girly." He put a smile on for me, and even I could see the determined consternation etched between his brows. "Come with me." He took my hand, and we slipped down the hall and out into the soft morning air together. The sun shone so brightly, and the air was so clean compared the rank smell of dirty boots that I almost felt weak.
That was the only day in my memory that Father didn't work. He simply spent the day with me, and just as the sun was about to go down, when the world is at that magical hour between night and day, he took me to the menagerie.
I had always detested embroidering and fancy do-daing, preferring the earthy smell of the garden to the stuffy indoors, but I had never seen anything that captivated my attention like the glorious architecture of the menagerie, and all I could do was stare in amazement.
There was a marble plaza, swept and scrubbed until it shone in the evening sunlight, and around this, there were gardens with neat paths running through them. Flocks of brightly colored moths filled the air everywhere we went, weaving and fluttering in their careless flight. Beyond the flower beds, just as we were almost out of reach of the aromatic scents of the honeysuckles and lilacs, were the cages.
Ornate and somewhat rustic, the king had made sure that these cages would hold the wrath of any animal, creature, or storm. Behind the bars of the dozens of cages, there was always a new sight to appreciate. Birds of paradise, mystic creatures that seemed to have walked directly off the pages of legend, and other things you wouldn't want to meet in a nightmare. The king made a habit of making sure each race that he conquered felt the burn of his complete and utter lordship. The mountain trolls were put just in sight of their lost homeland, where they could stare off into the distance—desperately longing for home—but never escape. My heart fairly broke at the sound of their mournful cries, and even worse, the desolate, dull glint in their eyes that spoke of long years of hopeless torment. Even crueler than that was the treatment of the fauns.
Fauns are wild creatures, ready to follow the path of the wind and make merry with joyful songs and dances, but here they were penned in a small, barren cage where people could laugh and poke fun at them, and they could find no refuge. Ah, yes, people often enjoy laughing at those less fortunate than themselves, but I wondered how they would feel if someone threw them into the filthy, empty pen with only their friends to keep them company.
The fauns had been taken into captivity many years before my birth, and since then, they had—so it was said—forgotten even how to speak and could now only gaze dumbly at the people around them. They gazed mournfully at the bars that imprisoned them, fingers tracing the metal as though they would somehow manage to break free, but there was no hope of even that, and mostly, they wandered what little area they had, heads bent listlessly toward the ground.
In a way, I felt almost kin to them. They were lost in a place they didn't belong, shoved into a shell with no possible means of escape. I pressed my face up to the bars and stared at the poor, lost creatures, an ache growing in my heart along with harsher feelings toward the reigning monarch.
It was there, in the waining light, that Father taught me to put my thoughts down on paper. I had never known he was any kind of artist, but the practiced ease with which he put down the wayward fauns made me wonder if he hadn't been some kind of roving artist in his youth. Taking my hand in his own, he showed me the magic a bit of charcoal could create, enthralling me as usual with the way he viewed the world.
Then it was back to ordinary life for us, and I felt sad and depressed when it occurred to me that I must return to the world of my mother and sisters. I think that night was what shaped me for the years to come. Seeing the magic of the menagerie gave me something I hadn't thought to ever have: a sort of courage. For the rest of my life with them, I couldn't cower in the same manner, because I had a secret of my own, and I meant to keep it. My father had ignited the fire in me that would get me through the struggles to come.
After that night, there was no more trying to be like my sisters. I was different, and I finally embraced that fact. Besides, they never would have welcomed me into their prim embroidery circle. So be it. If I wasn't good enough to be a lady, I wouldn't be a lady. I didn't want to be what they considered ladylike anyway, so I made the servants teach me to cook and clean, and I enjoyed it far more than sharing company with my mother and sisters. I wildly roamed the forests surrounding our house until I could name every tree I passed with nothing more than a cursory glance. Most of all, as the years slipped away, and I saw less and less of my beloved father, I dreamed of the day my life would change, and I could be free.
As I mentioned in the description, I wrote this story a few years ago, and it will have mistakes, but I thought I'd post it anyway. I hope you all enjoy. Vote and comment with your opinions. I'd love to hear what y'all think. :D