The Red Raven
Prologue
Of Unruly Beginnings and Untimely Ends
A/N: This was a fleeting thought that I had some time ago during one of my many feminist escapades. I finally decided to put it into words, and thus this story emerged. To those of you who are familiar with this title or who read my first attempt, I am pleased to say that I have edited this story drastically in the hopes of making it more refined. I hope you all enjoy this short prologue, and thank you all for reading! The first chapter should be posted shortly.
The man brandished a strange marking on his shoulder. With the curves of its broad, black lines, it bore the resemblance of a ring. No scrap of fabric was ever meant to conceal it from sight, not even in the dead of winter when Felicia's mother bundled her so tightly with layers upon layers of fabric, the young girl feared she may never move.
That was only the first characteristic that young Felicia had noticed about the stranger. The second was that the man talked with a peculiar accent.
It caused her brow to furrow upon deciphering his speech, for he spoke in such a ghastly way that made it seem as if it were his intension to conceal each word by his butchering elocution. It was as if he loathed the words he must speak, and thus cursed each one with a gritted diction as they fell from his lips.
The other villagers chortled from their many mocks and jests of the man's inflection but Felicia always found it enchanting. She was drawn to his abnormal conduct for she had one of her own as well.
In truth, she was very disparate, unlike the other girls her age for she chose to dress herself in the raw hide pants, tattered tunics, and working, leather boots that were appropriate for most men to wear, and thus her mother deemed "uncouth" on her youngest daughter. Felicia never understood why it was considered proper for them to wear such articles of comfort while she was only permitted to dress in gowns that were fashioned from the most unruliest and uncomfortable of stiffened fabrics, made complete by shoes with elevated heels that caused her feet to whimper from their confined enclosures. The thought alone still coerces a faint grimace to her visage.
The villagers would have tolerated her abnormal disposition if it had rested with just her demeanor, yet it proceeded to extend to her conduct as well. She refused to sing the idle hymns that were taught to her by her mother and older sister, claiming them to be lackluster and full of trivial nonsense. Her stitching was absolutely abysmal by her mother's standards, for the young girl's head was always somewhere amongst the clouds, concocting fantasies of mystical escapades with danger awaiting each turn. She never sat still long enough, even for her mother to teach her the proper way to prepare a stew that would win her the heart of her husband. Such a notion of romance always resulted in the young girl grimacing.
Despite her mother's disapproval, her father always had adoring words to encourage her with when mother was well out of ear shot, or else they both risked a stern talking to. He was the one who taught Felicia how to properly mount a horse and to skillfully, to the best of the peasant's ability, wield a sword. Thus, Felicia grew to spend her days ridding and hunting by her father's instructions. She was even audacious enough to send the boys back to the hems of their mother's skirts with their tails between their legs after she bested them in a match with wooden swords, often to defend the name and honor of those who were just as peculiar as her.
Therefore, when she looked upon the stranger, she did not see a man to deride and ridicule for his differences, but a man who was alone in his ways, and thus lonely. She saw a companion, and he enriched their friendship by telling her the most magnificent of tales. They were the legends of the Red Raven, and they would live on in her heart long after the man had passed away.