I.
The feather is not the beginning.
It is only the end.
One moment Elesis is picking up the red feather, feeling the warmth radiate into her hand. The next, she is standing in front of the king.
"Where did you find this feather, maiden?" He demands, plucking it out of her fingers and running it through his own. "Speak."
"In the field outside my home," she replies. "I was-"
The king holds his hand up for silence, and Elesis flinches and is silent. "You have been blessed by the Firebird," he declares, holding the feather high above his head. "You can save our kingdom!"
And all people in the court cheer, they cheer for prosperity and the king, but no one cheers for Elesis, because she is just a girl who works at her father's forge to keep their business afloat. No one cheers for Elesis, the girl who has been "blessed" by the Firebird.
The king takes her hand, and leads her out to the courtyard in the middle of the castle, and Elesis does not open her mouth. If she does, she will scream and run far, far away from the king and his miserable excuse of a castle.
Elesis has been running all her life. She does not want to run anymore.
In the middle of the courtyard stands the kingdom's prized possession, a majestic tree that glows in warm gold even in the cold winter light. The castle was built around this beautiful tree, and the foundations of the kingdom built on its roots.
It is a simple apple tree with golden leaves that never die and golden bark that tastes like vanilla sugar. It bears golden apples, four times a year, golden globes that drip with the golden nectar of the gods.
Never, in the thousand-year history of the kingdom, has this tree ever come close to dying.
She takes the golden apple with both hands when the king hands it to her. She turns it over in her hands. There are no blemishes on the surface of the apple. It is perfect.
Too perfect.
"Use this to catch the Firebird for me," the king whispers, much too close to her for comfort. "If you succeed, you will marry my son and become my successor."
Elesis is a blacksmith's daughter. She does not want to become a princess.
For six days, she stands on the castle wall, waiting for the Firebird.
For six days, the Firebird does not come.
On the seventh day, Elesis is beyond exhausted. She has had no food, no sleep, only the falling snow to drink as water. She has looked longingly into the golden apple in her hand, and put it against her lips, kissing it as if that would give her the strength to keep going.
On the seventh day, the Firebird comes, and it is determined to get that apple in Elesis' hands at all costs.
Suddenly Elesis is washed over by a rain of fire, as she wrestles with the Firebird for the golden apple. There are flames lapping at her face, but she has one hand wrapped around the Firebird's charred talon.
Elesis looks up into the mournful eyes of a bird that has been pursued by a ruthless hunter for a millennium.
She does not see a monster who threatens the livelihood of the kingdom. She sees a creature struggling to survive.
This is no ordinary bird, after all. It is a Firebird, the most elusive of avians.
She lets go.
The Firebird leaves with its talon intact, and the golden apple clutched in the other.
Elesis watches it go as she sits alone in the snow.
The guards come to arrest her shortly, not only for failing to capture the Firebird on the king's orders but giving the Firebird the golden apple, the kingdom's treasure.
She is marched through the city as the citizens gather round, to see what the fuss is about. She cannot see her friends, her family. She knows the guards have gone to stop them from taking her back. She doesn't care.
Elesis is just a blacksmith's daughter. She didn't want to be a princess, and she still refuses to be one. And if that means she's going to be thrown in a prison and left to rot, so be it. Her father didn't raise her to submit to anyone's will but her own.
The guards throw her just outside the city walls, into the wilderness that is the rest of the kingdom, into the snowy ocean of winter. "Elesis Sieghart," the king says, disappointment and sadistic pleasure lining his smile, "you have failed me and the kingdom. For this, you are banned from our city. Should any of my guard or any of our citizens see you again, they will be obligated to execute you."
She smiles back at him, but it is emotionless. She is too tired to argue, but if she opened her mouth, a million scathing words would pour out, full of anger and deep hatred and spite.
The entourage go back into the city, and Elesis does not move as the city doors grate to a stop.
Then, and only then, is Elesis truly alone.
A/N: if you've been wondering where I've been this past month it's because this sucker of an idea wouldn't let go until I started writing it
I am mortified that there are no Elesis/Rose fics in this archive, or at least any EleRose centric fics, so I decided to make my own
Also this is the shortest chapter of anything that I've ever posted but next chapter will be longer I swear
~Marg