Royal Plaything

Lilia sat on a pile of hay in the back of an open carriage. She held close a cloth bundle that held all of her possessions, they were very meager. She wore a washed-out yellow dress that had sewn patches on it and her long blonde hair was wild and tangled, it painted a pitiful picture.

The carriage was passing through a bustling market but just as the world ignored the little girl huddled inside a carriage that smelled of horse dung, she paid no attention to the world as well.

It was more of a wooden cart, the shoddily dressed man driving the cart had shown up at her little house that morning. He said very little, only letting Lilia know that her Aunt was the one that requested for her.

Lilias soft blue eyes were clouded over, there were smudges of dirt on her cheek that she didn bother to wipe off. Her mother would have been the one to do it but she didn have her mother anymore.

Lilias eyes clouded over and she roughly wiped at it with the sleeves of her dress. Crying did nothing, she had done nothing but cry for the past couple days and all it did was make her sick.

Her parents had gone on a trip the week before and she was put in the care of their neighbor, a kindly old woman. Lilia was going to miss Holly, she never complained no matter how much Lilia cried.

Her Aunt had been over the day it happened, Aunt Caitlin. Lilia didn see her often but she knew that Caitlin was her fathers older sister who worked at the Kings Castle.

She didn like Caitlin very much because she always had a sour expression on and was always very strict.

Caitlin had been the one to bring the terrible, terrible news of her parents death and she had immediately told Lilia not to cry because it wouldn bring them back.

Lilia knew that she meant no harm but she wished her aunt could be nicer. She couldn complain though, her aunt was already being plenty nice by choosing to take her in, and Lilia couldn make herself a nuisance.

It was in this state that she rode the cart to the castle, even the sight of the huge whitewashed turrets couldn spark an emotion in her.

She always liked going to the market with her mother because then she could catch a glimpse of the castle looming majestically in the distance but now it hurt to remember.

The Kings Castle was at the very center of the capital of the Kingdom of Aedon. Lilia was being brought from the outskirts of the capital so the journey took several hours.

The sun was overhead in the sky and beating down harshly on the twelve-year-old girl sitting solemnly in the back of a cart drawn by a single, old horse.

The driver of the cart took a detour as they got closer and closer to the castle, taking the servants entrance into the castle.

Caitlin was there to receive her young niece and she immediately bundled Lilia into her private chambers.

Unlike Lilia who had wild blonde hair that fell in violent waves down her back, Caitlin had straight, dark hair and deep blue eyes which were a sharp contrast to Lilias soft blue eyes.

”What was Holly doing? ” Caitlin muttered grumpily to herself as she placed Lilias cloth bundle in a corner of her room. ”It wouldn have killed her to keep you clean. ”

Lilia just stood awkwardly at the center of the room, it was a surprisingly well-furnished room with a bedframe, tables, and a dresser.

It was in a far better shape than her home had been, she would admit… Thinking about home made her remember her parents and unable to help herself, tears prickled at the corners of Lilias eyes.

She quickly squeezed her eyes tightly shut, she didn want her aunt to scold her. It was just so difficult, there was no one to console her when the only people she had in the world were taken from her.

Holly was a sweet old lady but she could barely walk and Lilia had to do all of the chores around her little house, the most affection she got out of the little old lady was a weak head pat.

It wasn nearly enough… It wasn enough to hold all of Lilia that was spilling out of the break in her heart.

So the harder she tried to hold back her tears, the more they burned and filled up her eyes, spilling down her dirty cheeks.

If Caitlin saw her niece crying, she said nothing about it and went ahead with what she was doing.

”Your hair is something I simply do not have the time for, sit here. ” She said briskly, placing a small stool at the center of the room.

Caitlin was supposed to be at work, so she wasn trying to be unfeeling, the world just cared little about the tears of a little orphan girl.

Lilia obeyed quietly, saying nothing when her aunt chopped off long locks of her hair. Her crying intensified, her shoulders shaking slightly as her hair was shorn short.

Neighbors and random strangers had always told her mother to cut it but her mother refused, taking proper care of her very willful hair. Lilias core memory of her mother was laying on her mothers lap while she gently combed out the tangles in her hair.

The haircut was very shabbily done, Caitlin prioritized time over style and quickly guided her niece to the small wooden bathtub she had brought up to her room for this very reason.

There were servant washrooms but she owed it to her brothers daughter to look after her at least for the first day she was here.

Lilia had tired herself out by this point, her eyes simply could not cry anymore. She sat meekly in the wooden bathtub, her arms wrapped around her pink-tinged knees as her aunt poured warm water over her head.

She felt lighter as the weight of her hair was cut off but it was also a weight she missed dearly.