"Lydia? Lydia are you listening?"
"Yes."
"Your escorts are here. Do you have your things packed?"
"Yes."
"Alright we'll be going now. Are you ready?"
How could she even fathom an answer.
Since she was a young girl Lydia had always been considered brilliant. At least when it came to others her age. She quickly picked up on things such as which berries were good to eat and which would kill you the moment they touched your lips. Which paths were the safest to take through the woods and which birds sang certain lullabies.
Her grandmother taught her to read when she was six and since then she had tried to get her hands on any books she could come across. Fables, myths, historic pieces. Books of poems and short stories. Anything. When she was little she enjoyed the tales of heroes and thieves. Dragon slayers and rogues taking to the night. As she grew older though, she was more drawn to anything that could open her eyes just a little bit more to the world around her. The stories and things she learned helped take her away from the mundane life she had in the tiny village.
The day came, however, when even the made up lands inside her head couldn't keep the real world from crashing around her. She had just turned sixteen - old enough at this point to be yearning for a different kind of freedom, but still young enough to naively grasp on to the little wonders. When her mother and father left one evening to visit her grandmother a few villages over, they never returned.
The first night Lydia assumed they had decided to stay in town. The second night she imagined they were camping somewhere in the woods, alone but together. The third night her facade began to crack. The fourth night they finally found the bodies - mangled by some kind of wild animal and ravaged almost beyond recognition by scavengers. It was only her mother's necklace, still wrapped around her throat, that claimed them.
Lydia cried and screamed the moment the head of the village told her the news. What she had feared most. She cried and cried and cried. She cried as if she was four years old again, falling down and scraping her knees. She cried like an infant being brought into the world for the first time, realizing how cruel it could be. Lydia cried more than she had let herself in her entire life. Letting all logic and reason slip through her fingers. She was a child. She was only a child.
It didn't take long for plans to be made. For her bags to be packed with all that she could carry. Leaving her little home and well known town behind. She had her mother's necklace around her neck and father's old dark rose colored cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Two escorts from her own village and one from her grandmother's where she'd soon be living. Beacon Hills.
Foxes Note: Hey all! Just wanted to say thank you for stopping by and checking out my story. This is just the prologue to give you a little taste of the time, setting and what's to come! Hopefully by now you've caught on that this isn't set in present day ;) I'm hoping to update once a week so be on the look out for the first chapter.
