Milynne By Lixxa
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Ella Enchanted.
Milynne's POV
I guess you could say that when you die, you don't feel any pain. Because you're dead of course. So why is it that I was in intense pain and felt like I wanted to grab some cute little animal's neck and twist it dry with my bare fingers? I wanted to rip apart something, my insides hurt, but muscles were on fire...
Moaning, I opened my eyes and tried to focus my vision on the ground. I felt so dizzy, and felt a pounding in my head. What had happened? I remember driving to Anna's house for her birthday party, and...oh god. A car from the other direction had swerved into my lane and before I could have blinked, crashed into me. I think the ringing from the crash was still in my ears, and I could tell the pain definitely was. I remembered that I was flown to the roof of my car, probably from hanging upsidedown. There was an extremely hot fire before it all went dark. It was probably the explosion of the car, enough to kill anyone. So why wasn't I dead? Why was I still in one piece?
"You all right there lad?" a voice called out.
I looked up and realised I was sitting in some alley, and the stranger looking at me wore clothes that looked like a peasant's from medieval times. Hello, get with the time! "Yeah, I'm fine." I stood up and gave a sheepish grin at the person. He shook his head and left, muttering to himself.
Walking out to the streets, I realised that my clothes were practically soaked with ashes, and garbage in my hair. Ugh. I combed through my hair with my hands as I walked onto the street.
I had no clue where I was. The shops and buildings and inns looked like they were from four hundred years back, and needed a lot of colour. The people that were running around from store to store looked like they could use some colour in their clothing as well, since they were all dirty. I could definitely tell that I wasn't in Canada anymore. I so wish I had a dog to say that properly.
Coming to a stop in front of a building, I looked through the glassless window to see a group of people wearing long hoods that covered their faces swinging swords at each other, but not in a killing sort of way. I could see a taller, older looking person trying to teach them how to fight. Where in the hell am I? Why would anyone need to know how to use a sword? They invented guns for a reason!
"Are you okay?" a voice asked me.
I turned to see someone talking to me. He too wore the dark green cloaks and hood that the other people in the building were wearing, but the hood was down enough for me to see his face. He had brown wavy curls like my hair, but had the silverest eyes I had ever seen. They seemed to sparkle as he smiled at me warmly.
"Um, I'm wondering, where am I?" I asked, deciding to play clueless. I needed to find someone that I knew.
"Did you hit your head?"
"Um, yeah, I think so." I felt a small bruise on the back of my head to make sure I wasn't lying. I was a horrible liar. "Um, can you tell me where I could find Calgary?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the guy said, confused. He looked about to be sixteen years old, like me. What was he doing carrying around a sword? I thought as I eyed his sheath. "Calgary? What's your name?"
"Milynne. But you can call me Lynne."
"Well Lynne, you just happen to be in the city of Aerio, or in the country of Ayortha if you're wondering."
"A what now?"
I had never heard of Ayortha being a country, and I've been tested to name all the countries in the world before. EIther this dude was some insane moron,...or I was.
"Ayortha. Listen, I think you may have amnesia. You must have really hit your head hard. Here, come with me, I know someone who can help you. Oh, and my name's Ka-...Keanne."
I followed him to a building which looked rustier and dirtier than the other buildings I've seen. It was actually just two buildings down from the fencing one which I had peered through. Inside it was just as messy and old looking as the outside, but I could tell the atmosphere was really warm. There were a couple young kids running around laughing and a young woman who was caring to them warmly. Keanne walked up to the old woman sitting down and watching everyone else. I could tell he made sure to keep his hood low enough to shadow his face.
"Abby? This is Milynne. I found her outside and I think she must have hit her head, because she doesn't know where she is at all," Keanne spoke to the grey haired woman in a slightly lower voice.
"Oh?" Abby gave me a glance, and reached out to run her hands through my hair. "Are you an orphan, child?"
"I don't know." Was I then? I died, but my parents didn't... Just then I thought of my parents, and how worried they probably were for me. They probably thought that I died in the car wreck, but I just wanted to scream that I was in a place called Ayortha and was definitely alive and well. "I just remember waking up in some alley," I said truthfully. A damn dirty old alley!
Abby and Keanne whispered to another for a few moments, before Abby nodded and stood up slowly and wearily to walk over to the younger woman tending to the kids.
"She said that you're welcome to stay here for as long as you like," Keanne told me. "This is an orphanage though, so I hope you won't be uncomfortable."
"Oh I won't," I said, slightly crestfallen. Does that mean I have to live here? What about clothes? Money? My family? My older brother Derek had wanted to start teaching me to drive soon, and my eldest sister Stacey was going to let me go to a senior high school party soon. But right now, I knew that this was the least of my worries. For now, I had to figure out exactly what was going on.
Keanne glanced outside the window. "It's getting late, I should be getting back to the pa- getting back home by now. I'll see you around, Milynne." Aw, and I didn't even get to talk to him yet. He was sorta cute.
I gave a short wave before I was approached again by Abby and the younger woman.
Abby and her daughter Tess worked alone in this old, poor orphanage, caring for about a dozen sick, abused or abandoned kids. Abby had a husband, who was in another country called Frell doing knightwork to pay for the orphanage. Tess was married also, but her husband had disappeared mysteriously a few years ago when they first got married. Most presumed him dead.
"That is so sad," I told Tess as we folded some clothes that were donated for the children. I had been here a couple days, and everyone seemed nice, even the kids. "Did they ever find any sign of him?"
"I don't think so," Tess said a little tearfully. She was young, about twenty five-ish, but she seemed warm and motherly like Abby was. There was literally no one like these people back in my world, everyone's not rude but they're more wild and NOT down to earth. "I think about him often, but right now my life is to care for my mum and to find these children a home." She seems pretty happy doing it. Maybe if I ever return home I should volunteer a bit...
"You know what? I think he's still out there," I said confidently. "Otherwise there would have been a sign that he was dead."
"Or maybe he was eaten by ogres, bone and all?" Tess suggested half heartedly.
"Ogres?!" I gasped. They sound disgusting.
"Yes. They are one of the worst creatures you could come across with. One look at you and they would instantly know everything about you, all your fears, your dreams, everything. It's their oily voice that would persuade you to do their bidding, and then the next thing you know..."
"You're eaten alive," I finished. I shuddered. "That must be horrible to be eaten like a chicken. I mean, to me it's bad enough imagining how the chicken feels..."
Tess laughed. "Yeah..."
I spent the next week learning about Ayortha, and how this country was an ally with Frell. I learned about KJ's, nobles, the way of life... Tess told me about the King Arthur and Queen Marigold of Ayortha. They had one son name Prince Kalan who was to be coronated in a little over a year for the throne of Ayortha.
"It's amazing, you should travel like I did when I was your age. There's so much to see out in the world besides ogres. They're centaurs, giants, elves, fairies..."
"Fairies?" I inquired, intrigued. I had been here nearly two weeks by now and I wanted to find a way to get home. "As in magic?"
"Yep. They mostly show up at weddings or something grande like that, and it's really hard to find one in the crowd because they look so much like humans."
That was interesting. Maybe I could find a fairy to help me get back to Canada, and see everyone again. They must be frantic by now. But for now, all I could do if I wanted to survive was to keep helping out here at the orphanage, so that's what I did for the next week. I didn't see Keanne ever since the day I woke up in Ayortha, but I did visit the fencing club often. It was so cool how they could learn to fight with sharp weapons, but I guess the more that I heard about the cities and ogres from Tess, the more I could understand that fencing was probably a necessity in life.
I didn't get too close with Abby, because around the time that I first started living here she grew ill. So sometimes I played with the kids, who had grown attached to me, while Tess tended to her mother. But around the time a month had closed, she had fallen into a deeper sickness. In her old age, her body was so fragile that she didn't even make it in the amount of time the healers had suggested she'd live for.
Since Abby was a small peasant woman, she didn't have a funeral except for the Minister to come down for us to bury her in the backyard. I had sent the kids away to the fencing building, where Master Kane said that he would look after them for a day while he cancelled lessons.
"Ssh, it's going to be okay," I whispered to Tess, hugging her tightly as we watched a knight bury Abby's body six feet under.
Tess sniffed, her eyes red. She had become my best friend since I was brought here and I couldn't stand to see her like this. "It's not fair. I'm only twenty five, and my mother was actually much younger than she looked, she was only fifty three. I'm never going to see her again, it's just not fair." As I hugged her, I remembered my mother, probably thinking that I was dead, and she was crying over me. The only difference was that to her I was sixteen just barely and she was only thirty five.
Tess knew that she couldn't manage the orphanage by herself, even with my help since I might 'recover from my amnesia and go back home soon'. So she sold the orphanage to a batty old woman who lived in a shoestore with her husband, but she still stayed there to work. Even though she was also an average peasant, she was quite wealthy for some reason.
The batty old woman wasn't nice at all like Abby was. As soon as she got settled in she ordered the kids to start fixing up the house since it was so broken and everything. And when they didn't do a good job, she would smack them on the face.
"Hey, you can't do that!" I cried out. "They're just children!" Isn't there a law or something against this?
"Well you're not. So what you can do is go outside and pick out those awful weeds growing, and then plant some flowers," Mistress said. She was very large, with a large belly, chin and just plainly unappealling. I wrinkled my nose. I hadn't bathed in a month, except for the time we went for a swim in River Lucarno which stretched from here to Frell. But the water isn't exactly purely clean, and we had no soap or shampoo or conditioner. But somehow, I felt less oily than she appeared to be.
"Now you just wait a minute!" I said angrily. "I don't work for you, I just live here as an orphan." \
Mistress leered at me, snarling. "Listen Missy. I don't care what your name is, where you live or what you say, if you want to continue living here with food, water and shelter, then you gotta do what I say. That or get out." She held her cane up at me threateningly.
I knew I definitely couldn't just let someone boss me around like that. I've been here a month and I was sick and tired of just staying here instead of finding a way to get to a fairy and getting out of here, no matter how nice Tess and Abby had been. It was time for a course of action. "Fine," I muttered, stomping outside with fury. I'd do what she say. For now.
Later that night, I slipped into Tess' room and slid a note into her hand. I was leaving, since I knew that there was no way I could handle Mistress. I hear she used to be a teacher at a finishing school, which I find was hard to believe. After, I packed up a brown skirt and white shirt to wear, and then stole a pair of comfortable shoes Mistress' husband made. Then I pocketed a couple gold and silver KJ's from her extremely large pouch. I bet she stole them all.
I had no clue where I was headed. As I strolled through the streets of Ayortha, I figured I could stay in one of the inns. I had enough money. I checked into an inn, and wondered where on earth (if this was earth) where I should go next.
When I woke in the morning, I could hear a lot of commotion downstairs. I looked out the window and to my horror there were guards outside arguing with the innkeeper. A girl was standing next to her, probably her daughter.
"I think so, someone with that description checked in last night," she said nervously, "brown wavy hair, brown eyes, dirty tattered up servants' clothes...wasn't that right Areida?"
"I think so mother."
"We're under orders to arrest her. She apparently has stolen some money from the Mistress down at the orphanage," a guard commanded.
CRAP! I had to get out of here! Never before had I done something so brave and brash. I gathered my things and once the guards had disappeared into the building to look for me, I climbed out of the window, hanging onto the railing with my life. Since it wasn't that far down, I managed to slide down the side of the wall before taking off in a sprint.
"Hey watch it!" someone yelled at me.
"Watch it yourself jackass!" I screamed back at the person, never looking back. I bolted for the river behind some trees, careful to make sure no one was following me. Panting, I went down on all knees and washed my face and hands in the cool clear water. That was too close.
Diving into the water, I washed myself before changing and putting my curly wet hair in a pony tail. I figured that if I pickpocket several rich people as I go along, I would eventually encounter a wedding or a ball where a fairy might appear. Then I could ask her to help me. Oh who am I kidding? I was probably in a coma or something and this was all a terrifying dream! I needed to wake up somehow right now!
Drying off, I began to hear voices coming from the trees. "Do you have it?" a gruff voice said lowly.
There was a pause, before someone answered. "Yes. I've got your poison. Now give me the crates of wine and the money."
"Now you see here, I sorta need this wine, and I'm not about to give away my money," the first man said dangerously. I held my breath in fear as I heard the second man grunt. He began choking and crying out in pain.
"It's time to pay dear Marigold a visit," the other man muttered. Then there was silence.
In fear, I didn't move from where I was at the bank for ten solid minutes. Then I cautiously threw my old ripped clothing into the river, tying a small pouch to my neck which held my money. Then I carefully walked to the trees to see if they were gone.
A horrible stench filled my nostrils. Ugh! It was a mixture of rotten fish and eggs, and blood. I could make out the dagger in the man's throat before I saw his body. It was glinting in the sunlight, with the man's fingers clasped around it the handle. What kind of world was this?
I gagged, before walking over and pulling the dagger out of the throat. No doubt that this smell would attract wild ogres soon, even if it was this close to civilization. I would need a weapon of some sort anyway. So I ran back to the river to wash the blood off before tucking it under my skirt.
"What to do now?" I said out loud to myself. I supposed that maybe I should find Keanne, maybe he'd help me. But he thinks I'm so theif probably, and I had no clue where he was. Why oh why did I have to run away?
Then all of a sudden, a realization hit me. "Marigold?! Queen Marigold!"
I dashed towards the city again before realising that the guards were still after me. I really wish I had a car here. In the distance, I could see a black carriage pull north where I could see faint outlines of a palace. That man was already headed for the castle! If he really is going to poison the Queen...
"Aaahh!" I screamed as I felt a sharp push on my back, sending me towards the ground. I turned around in time to see something big, green and ugly strike at me again with its fist.