A broken manor, unloved and seemingly unwanted squats crudely among disused fields. Lacking any color of it's own it borrows the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of the burnished sky as dawn breaks over this little world I feel I should be able to call my own. I lean on my hoe pondering the absurdity of life as I watch the stunning display above me and how it affects my surroundings. Mine, a word rather rusty with disuse to me. How often, in that pit of despair, could I use that word? The rooms assigned to me in my father's house were hardly mine. Open to any and all at my father's whim, I did not even own a key to them. Those walls were my life, my prison, and my cage. And I, I was nothing more than a doll, a piece to be put on display to show how wealthy, how powerful, and how refined my father was. "Look" he would say, "I have taught my daughter a bit of magic to make her own food, now she need not bother her future husband to provide sustenance for her." Always dressed in the finest fashions, not that I would know as I never left that place of misery, "Look" he would exclaim, "I have dressed her to best effect, these women cannot be trusted to know how to be packaged to present themselves in the most pleasing manner to their men."
It was not always like that, not that it was too much better, but before Mother's death at least I could have some freedom. I remember in those very early years that I was allowed time out of doors. Allowed to walk the gardens or take my meals alone with a book of adventure for enjoyment. Once Mother died with my baby brother, all of that changed. Tutors and servants were my only companions. Every meal taken either learning to provide silent attentive company to the male head of house or listening to my father rant about other noble families or the throne, whichever displeased him more at the time. I actually enjoyed the meals where my father ranted the most, at least then I got to learn a bit about the outside world. I was not to attend parties, I was not to associate with lower class girls. I most certainly was not to get near a male not trusted by my father. This last actually makes how Kel joined my staff rather interesting.
Before Father inherited the estates, Grandfather ruled with an iron hand. As harsh as father's tongue, and most certainly his hand can be, he has never been as harsh as Grandfather. I remember the day well, Kel was a slave, one of many on the de Kormon Estate, he was positioned in the stables, a position of honor for a slave. His task was to learn, being naught but a boy at the time the incident occurred. The old Duke's favorite saddle had somehow gotten scuffed, no one knew how of course. And Grandfather, not caring who had actually done the thing but feeling the need to punish the "useless" slaves, chose Kel at random, he was in line of sight or so I later heard and had him beaten to within an inch of his life and had his tongue cut out. He was then dumped in the middle of the floor to live or die as he would. Some of the older slaves took pity on him and knowing I was a soft heart took the boy to me. I had a healer quietly brought and had the boy cared for, once he was in no more fear of sudden death I made sure he was moved to my staff. I gave him the option before I did so and with a nod of his head he agreed. Thus was he castrated, as all males in my staff had to be, and given to me. There he remained, a loyal servant, until my wedding day when he became my bodyguard as well as my best friend.
Shaking myself from these memories I look at the manor and lands once more, still clothed in the beauty of dawn's light. The promise the new day brings is also the promise of a future I will fight for, for now I see the manor and lands as what they could be, what I will make them with everything I have. I grip my hoe tightly and look over at Kel with a smile, he grins back also wielding a hoe of his own as we work to make a future of freedom, however constrained that freedom must be, we will make it ours.
