p class="MsoNormal"strongspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"Author's Note: I just finished reading Bitterblue, and the plot bunnies started clamoring. So I had to write this. Enjoy!/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal"strong[Edit: This is from 4-ish years ago, btw.]/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"Timeline/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"She sees her father strike her mother when she is but a year old. It's always been there at the back of her mind, never obvious until dragged into recognition. She realizes that she had not even passed her first birthday when she learned / When she was three years old, she found bones in the gardens. Thinking them some new play toy, she threw them for the dogs to fetch, not understanding when the cook wrestled them from her hands and scolded her. She was three when she learned the truth. br / She was four when she learned / She was six when she learned caution. br / She was seven when she learned to /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"But it wasn't until she turned twenty that she learned peace./spanspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"strong[Edit: This is from 4-ish years ago, btw.]/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"Timeline/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"She sees her father strike her mother when she is but a year old. It's always been there at the back of her mind, never obvious until dragged into recognition. She realizes that she had not even passed her first birthday when she learned / When she was three years old, she found bones in the gardens. Thinking them some new play toy, she threw them for the dogs to fetch, not understanding when the cook wrestled them from her hands and scolded her. She was three when she learned the truth. br / She was four when she learned / She was six when she learned caution. br / She was seven when she learned to /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"But it wasn't until she turned twenty that she learned peace./spanspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';" /span/p