MY GOODNESS! After both a fun and shameless attempt to get feedback, I was happy to see everyone responding in fun as well. Thank you everybody for your reviews. I have never had so many people guessing as to where a story will go, it was quite a joy to read all of your ideas. And as such, I will give you an idea of where the story is heading.
Firstly, as you will quickly see in the second chapter, Anne is going to be a main character in the story. For the first few chapters we will split between her and Fitzwilliam's POV.
Though it isn't really noticeable in this chapter, there will be two different time lines to begin with. DON'T FREAK OUT! This will only last for a few chapters, as Anne's time line will begin near the end of P & P while Fitzwilliam's starts some months after. They will both eventually merge, with other characters as well, and the rest of the story will take place at one time, though there will still be chapters from different character POV.
I was going to post a much longer chapter a few weeks from now, but since you all have been waiting so patiently, I decided to post a shorter chapter now instead of making you wait. Happy reading, and thanks again
-Macurial
Chapter 2
She opened her eyes to a blackened room. The curtains smothered the windows, choking them of the light they gently offered. She could hear her mother's voice in her mind, high and unyielding. "The light makes you sick my dear… it has always made you sick." It had happened again.
Much like the previous times, she awoke to an ache in her stomach and lightness in her head. She always awoke in her room, which was ever unchanging. What did change from day-to-day was whether she could remember how she got there. Sometimes she could remember coming in and changing her clothes, having her hair brushed, and settling into bed, but many times… she couldn't remember the previous day at all. She would have to ask a servant what she had done, who she'd seen and where she had gone. The servants would always tell her a list of people had stopped by, that she'd spent the day with her mother, and, as always, that she had gone nowhere. Whole days were often lost, and weeks were like a tributary of murky creeks, hazy and disarranged.
She brought her hands to her eyes, softly rubbing them. She had memories from childhood, and though often fuzzy, they were enough to remind her. It hadn't always been like this.
She could remember many days of play outside in the summer months. Rosing's had a garden that was perfect for children hiding and seeking, a day could easily be lost trying to find a friend. She had a vague memory of looking around a hedge to find two curly-haired boys crouched and giggling.
" I can't recall a turn in which I didn't discover you." she heard herself say.
"You only found us because we laughed!" the taller one said, pulling the other to his feet.
"Yes!" she replied. "But then, you always laugh."
What were the boys' names? The more strenuously she focused, the fuzzier the memories would become. She sighed, rolling to her side she pulled her pillow close. If her mind went to childhood, to sunlight, and to playing, it eventually lead to…
Papa.
She tried to clear her mind, stop the flow of thought. She squeezed her eyes, thinking of nothing but her own breathing. For a few minutes, it worked. But she could never keep the thoughts of him away.
Sir Lewis de Bourgh was widely known as a joyful man. His great wealth allowed him to stay at home most of the year, where he dedicated many of his hours to uninterrupted play with his daughter. He was not what one would call classically handsome. He was fair bit shorter than average height, a bit round in the middle, and had a nose so large it would've belonged better on a canine.
His hair however, was the yellow of autumn leaves starting to turn, and when he leaned down to pick her up she would run her hands all through it, petting it, combing it, lifting it up then letting it fall. It was still the softest thing she had ever touched. He also had a beautifully full smile, which he gave easily to those both close and newly acquainted, and if one was around Rosing's on one of those days spent with his daughter, one could easily assume that it was a permanent feature.
They would play many sorts of games together. When it was too wet to go out, they'd keep by the fire playing chess and cards until Anne couldn't take the sitting around anymore! Then, with just a little persuasion and a few quick glances around the room to see if her mother was near, he'd say in a whisper "Cakes and Castles?"
It was her favorite game.
The first task was to build a castle using only the items that could be found in her room. The bed and mattress would be used to form a foundation and wall, while the sheets formed a bridge and moat. Once the castle was built, he'd announce:
"Queen Anne, the kingdom has run out of cakes! We are done for!"
"All is not lost good sir! I have heard of a faraway land… there, cakes are grown by the hundred. And if we are quite sneaky, we may be able to acquire one."
"I have heard of the place of which you speak. The journey there is fraught with danger! Few have the cunning to steal such delicious cakes without being apprehended."
"But the need is dire sir! We must have cake!"
"Yes we must!"
They would then tiptoe across the entire house, hiding from every servant and whispering conspiratorially the entire way. Once they returned, making sure that the drawbridge was up and castle was secure, they would hurriedly dive in (for they were quite famished by this point) seeing no need for plate or fork.
Sometimes at night when he was putting her to sleep, if he could catch her unawares, he would pick her up, raising her high in the air and say "Anne, you are flying! how is it you are flying?"
When her giggles would finally subsist she'd say "I cannot say, perhaps the winds of got me!"
"Yes indeed!" he'd say, "Quite strong those winds can be. Quite strong." He'd spin her around a few more times before gently "crashing" her down on the bed, and tucking her into it.
One night after doing this she asked, "Papa, do you think there will come a day when people really can fly?"
One thing she truly loved about her father, was that he never laughed at her silly questions. He always took a second to ponder them with good thought before responding, as he did then.
"Yes my dear." He said, after a minute of deliberation. "I truly believe so."
He then kissed her on the cheek, and tucked the covers over her shoulder one last time. Blowing out her candle, he quietly moved towards the door. Before turning the knob, he turned around, and said in the middle of the darkness. "And my sweet Anne… When that day comes, and we can fly… I don't believe we'll ever come down."
A month later he had his first dizzy spell. Two months later, he had a seizure in front of twenty dinner guests. And not a month after that he was bed ridden. It all began soon after. The haze, the forgetting, the medicine. A year went by, five, ten, twenty... just that fast, and here she was, laying on the same bed she did that night many years ago when they had spoke of flying.
A servant would be in soon to wake her, as would her mother with the medicine. Soon she'd be fine, the memories would fade away becoming fuzzier and weaker. She just had to wait, a few minutes more and she'd forget all about flying, and cakes, and curly-haired boys with adorable giggles, but mostly she'd forget the thought running through her mind right now. That if her father were here to see her and she was now, frail...sickly... pale... empty. What is it, she wondered, that he might say?
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A dark chapter I know. Stick with it, things will start moving soon.
Again, thanks for reading! Pull up your boots and buckle up your helmet, because in the next chapter Colonel Fitzwilliam is going into battle.
