Something, shimmering brightly, streaked through the air with a whoosh and just barely grazed her cheek. She screamed.
"Who did this?" she shrieked. "Who? What foul, pathetic little-"
"My dear," the handmaid said. "My lady, please, it didn't even leave a mark-"
"I - don't - care!" she raged, gasping for breath.
"Oh dear," the second maid said to the first. "She isn't... She's having another attack, isn't she?"
The third handmaid hurried up to her lady, only to be swatted away like a fly with an expensive handbag. She let out a shriek as the heavy silver affair collided with her head.
"Don't you shriek at me!" the lady said. "Utter one more word, one more pathetic squeal, and you'll never work for me again! Any of you! You'll never work for anyone - ever - again. Do you hear me?"
The handmaids nodded mutely and curtseyed to their mistress. The boldest of the three scurried off to fetch the lord.
"What is it, dearest? What's wrong?"
He was young man with fashionably cut copper hair and fine clothing. His nose was hooked, his eyes and brows dark, his posture that of a rich man. That he was.
His wife, a rather pretty young woman, two years younger than he, with dark brown curls, a turned up nose and a slightly plump face, turned on him, narrowed light blue eyes flashing dangerously as she advanced.
"Something," she said. "Happened."
He frowned and made a motion as if to brush hair out of his eyes, or scratch his nose, or bite his nails, but appeared to think better of all three. "Now dearest, I'm sure it's nothing-"
The lady's bloodcurdling scream sounded again through the courtyard, making the bells in their far-off tower shudder and clang ominously in the thin mountain air.
"I'm leaving! And I won't come back."
"No, don't, dearest, please don't..."
The handmaidens were watching this exchange with horrified expressions on their pale faces. If the lady left...
"She can't be serious?" one whispered to the other.
"I don't know," the second replied. "She's never left before..."
"But this might be the last straw..." the third said. "The one, if expression be pardoned, that breaks the goat's back..."
"Yes," the second said under her breath. "I believe this was."
"I am leaving, mark my words I am! Tonight!"
"Tonight?" said the bewildered lord. "But my dear, the road? Travel, at night, without light or knowledge of what lies beyond these walls?"
The lady was quiet and frowning.
"Pray reconsider," the lord said. "Stay the night, at very least. If... if you insist on going," he sighed. "I'll help you pack. You can leave in the morning. I'll provide an escort-"
"No," the lady whispered. "No. I'm going tonight, and I'm going alone."
The handmaids exchanged looks.
"All right," the lord said. "Very well. Go, then. Leave at once. Get out of my sight!"
The lady's eyes widened, she set off, scurrying for the first time in her life, towards the stables. At the door, she turned.
"You," she said to her handmaids, her eyes narrowed in anger, dislike, and fear. "Pack my clothes."
"Yes, milady," the three chorused, curtseying and hurrying away.
Minutes later, the lady left, a solitary figure on a horse, resolutely blinking back tears. The handmaidens were called into the hall, to be addressed by their lord.
"I have no use for handmaidens," he said without preamble. "And I want you to go. You may take the dresses given you in this house, and you will find your wages on the table by the door. Take horses if you must, the brown mares. You are to be out of this house within ten minutes. You are to be out of my sight within two. "
And they left. Outside the gates they disbanded, they and the lady traveling with the four winds, none knowing the names of the others.
As the ruby of the sun sank lower, hiding behind the red garnet slopes, and plateaus of the Kommen Moor, Desert of Valleys, a shadow cast itself over the vast emerald forest to the southeast that now failed to amaze the lord’s jaded eyes. His scrying globe reflected the rainbow-tinted clouds drifting lazily across the dusky sky and intensified the rays of the setting sun that shone brightly through the glass-less windows of his tower room.
He himself stood with his arms behind his back at the miniature table that held the globe. Sifting through images with contemplative nods, he watched his wife as she led her horse down a rusty orange slope towards the east, where a sea of treetops and her destiny awaited her.
“Lin,” he whispered. Her name hung in the twilight. The last rays of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon and the land around him went finally dark. He closed his eyes. He knew she would return.
~-~
A/N: So, I'm wondering what people who actually write think of this, because I've gotten mixed reviews when I showed it to friends.
Friend #1: It's good. *I stare at her and blink.* It's good. It's very intriguing.
Friend #2: OH MY GOD, that is amazing, I felt like I was reading an actual published book. *I turn red, but she can't see because this is on AIM.*
Friend #3: As usual, you have way too much mystery at the very beginning and you have to explain it or else no one will want to read it. It doesn't make any sense -- all that it says is that someone gets angry and leaves.
So, tell me, if you do not find it too difficult, which friend you agree with -- #1 or #3.
I think I forgot to mention that this wasn't the whole story. It's only the prologue/first chapter, so it's not supposed to have a central conflict as a whole.
I'm curious to see how this is going to develop.