The Chicken Reform

So touched that some of you are enjoying this bit of fluff.

Chapter 2 - Coal Dust & Sunshine

Killian ran all the way through the lesser frequented pathways of the village until he reached what passed for home. It was just a few lengths of torn canvas draped over a very rough wooden frame and secured with rope. The materials had been salvaged by his brother, Liam, from the ship on which they'd been travelling after it had foundered in heavy seas. Their father had long deserted them several ports back, and the old captain had allowed them to stay on board and earn passage. The work had been back breaking but the two lads had loved the freedom and the fresh air.

The brothers had been the only survivors and had nearly lost their lives in the ferocious violence of the storm. After dragging their water logged carcasses to shore they had only just managed to avoid being murdered by wreckers, the vicious opportunists that stole the cargo and anything else of value from ships that came to grief in the sharp reefs. The wreckers were focussed on killing any of the crew and securing the cargo that had managed to make it to shore. Two small boys had been virtually invisible amongst the steep waves. Liam was four years older but early life spent in perpetual near starvation meant he was not much stronger than his younger brother. Liam had been nothing less than heroic that night in keeping his brother afloat and getting him to shore. It had been a brutal and bloody night all around, and the two boys were well aware of how close they'd come to losing their lives.

Taking refuge in a hollow in the dunes and long grass, they'd waited until the thieves had picked the leavings of the wreck clean. When the shore was finally deserted, they had dragged to the beach the few pieces of ripped sail and broken wood that floated forlornly in the shallows. In the weak dawn light they wrestled their prizes into a thicket of trees and spent the morning erecting the best shelter they could manage. It wasn't pretty nor was it wind or water proof but it was relatively solid and gave them some sense of shelter. By the time they'd finished the wind had dried the long dune grasses and they pulled up as much as they could manage and piled them onto the floor of their shelter. Exhausted, they had both collapsed and slept for several hours until their stomachs woke them.

Their first bit of luck came when Killian opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by something very bright. The sun had risen hot after the storm and it was reflecting off something embedded in the plank near his foot. In the bright day, Killian recognised the plank as being from the aft store room as it held the strange knife marks that the cook had made in it. Cut into the plank were small holes and two of them still held a small silver coin each. The rest had been lost to the sea, paying the cook's way into the after life.

Understandably the boys had been ecstatic at such a fortunate find and had made their way into the village in search of food, clothes and work. They asked all over the village, avoiding the tavern and the butchers where they recognised several of the wreckers, but no-one would offer them work. It was while they were tucking into a plate of cheese and bread from a market stall that they overheard a conversation from a man who turned out to be the foreman of the coal mine that was situated a mile from the village. He was lamenting to a colleague of the lost profit from the shafts where the coal was squeezed between the hardest rock.

Liam had approached the table and talked the foreman into taking the two youngsters on. It required the man to turn a blind eye to their ages since they were both under the limit set for child mine workers by the Crown, but he'd been so impressed with Liam's good manners and the fierce determination and desperation in their young faces, that he couldn't turn them away. It was clear they needed work.

They were small and they could get into the tightest of the nooks to ensure that no scrap of coal was left behind. It was a filthy sweaty dangerous job in suffocatingly cramped conditions, but they were grateful for the work and the wages were enough to get them some food in their bellies and to buy some rudimentary essentials, such as a blanket they could share and very basic cooking equipment.

Killian hated the work, he hated the claustrophobic walls of the mine. Every minute he was in the black pits, he felt as though he was trapped. He never complained, though. He didn't want Liam to think less of him or call him a baby, so he toughed it out; never letting on how the air choked his soul and burned his eyes, blocking out all the light and any dreams he may have had for a future life on the sea. There was no port in this village and at the present rate of earning, they may never have enough to travel to one. Both brothers yearned to be at sea again, but that life seemed far beyond them as they crawled through the dimly light mine shafts.

Any other day Killian wouldn't have been anywhere near the Lucas bakery. Instead he would invariably have been up to his neck in coal and dust, but as it happened, the day that Queen Snow and Princess Emma had come to the village was the day the mine foreman had needed to get a message to his wife. Not wanting to leave the site he sent Killian off on this errand for him. Before he went on his way, Killian dunked his head in the stream so as to be partially presentable to the foreman's missus. Liam would have expected no less, as they may be down on their luck but 'standards, little brother'. He took off at a run, grateful for the reprieve of fresh air. There might have been a quicker way to get to the foreman's house, but if Killian accidentally took a wrong turn that resulted in him going past the bakery and getting a nose full of delicious pastry smells to clear the stench of sweat and coal from his lungs, then where was the harm.

He hadn't bargained on seeing the sun personified.

The girl in the bakery was the prettiest thing Killian had ever seen. Her hair was light itself, her eyes the brightest and the most mischievous, and he was sure once she could actually get her mouth closed, since it was over full with cake at the moment, she would have the loveliest of smiles.

He stood outside the bakery wearing a ridiculously dreamy expression, completely enthralled. When she managed to swallow down her cake and smiled at him while she offered him her leftover crumbs, Killian felt a welcoming warmth expand from his heart to his fingertips. Reaching his hand towards hers, utterly unaware of how grimy his hands were, he felt like he was reaching for something so much more than cake. Her smile bathed him in joy. His world was no longer black as pitch.

Then the guard grabbed him by the neck and the blond angel of light hurled herself into battle on his behalf. When the princess, for now he knew she was a princess, had liberated him from the guard, his first impulse was to run. Sharply he remembered the manners his older brother had drilled into him and he made a bow towards the warrior princess who had secured his freedom and the Queen who was watching him with great interest. Knowing he had already pushed his luck, Killian hightailed it out of there as fast as he could to complete his errand.

He didn't know if he was going to tell Liam of the events of the day. He thought perhaps that this was something just for him. That night while his stomach ached with hunger, his dreams were alive with fancies of golden hair and bright smiles and brave deeds done in service to a princess for which he was rewarded with more cake than two boys could eat in two life times.