Something bad was going to happen. I could feel it.

Something… really bad was going to happen. Everyone was out again: all of the children and Jessica and Aster. They all left to work and I sat home like a beggar, a servant. I thought again to my "prophesy." I felt confident that it wouldn't happen. Prophesies changed, you know.

All the time- for one, I hadn't met any dwarves, and dwarves are not the same as children. Nobody had sold me apples. So I could just sit here not dying and such.

It sounded good.

There was another note from Jessica asking if I could make dinner again, and there were shillings on the table for food, also, there's a small ham in the kitchen could I make that too? So that's what I did.

It felt good to be outside, even though it was cold. I looked around the stalls searching for food worth the gold I held. Fruit would be a fine dessert. No apples. No apples, I promised myself.

"Two loaves for a piece." I bargained with a heavyset man, offering baked goods.

"Nay, sweet. A shillin' each aye." He was a stubborn one.

"a'caint afford!" I argued, and feigning disappointment. I looked at the loaves longingly and turned away, knowing he'd do anything to make a sale to feed his little ones.

"Hold!" He shouted after me, his great black beard wagging. I stopped and faced him again slowly. I'd have to play my cards right, a difficult thing indeed.

"Sir?" I asked, innocently.

"Do thy have two pieces, at least?" He begged. But I wouldn't budge.

"For wot?" I asked suspiciously.

"I'll a'sell thee two loaves ain' an apple pie for a'how bout two shillin's?" I nodded, but then shook my head no.

No apples, no apples.

The man looked halfway to desperate. "A fistful of rolls?"

Rolls and two loaves here was excellent. I agreed happily and left.

I tried bargaining for fruit here too, but not much was looking good, and the vendors were grumpy.

So I went home to prepare another meal like I had so many other times before.

So prepare a meal I did. I don't know why, but I felt that this meal should be as good as a banquet, and I wasn't the daughter of a Duke for nothing.

I prepared a delicate soup from turnips I found in the overgrown garden, which had managed to survive.

There were some spices left, though I admit not many at all, the ones left were bland. I found dill in the back, which I mixed in with butter for our loaves. While the soup was boiling, I cut some napkins from one of the dresses that didn't fit me anymore from a few months ago.

Polishing the plates took me an hour, and I had the vague feeling of Desdemona again, so I stopped after the sixth plate and rinsed the last two only.

By now, the ham was roasting on the fire, and every so often I'd have to remember to rotate it so it wouldn't burn on one side. It was disgusting, spearing the slab of meat on the pole, and every time I tried to turn it, it was roll back the way it was leaning, because the weight was unbalanced. But soon enough (Thank Heavens it was a small ham) it was finished and I could rest.

Aster would be coming home soon, the children not so behind after. I would have to ask her how to teach me how to roast the fruit. How it had some kind of medical effect, I forgot, but before I could wait for her to come home and ask her, I passed out on a tiny chair in fatigue.

I woke up to two things- Dracon prodding me awake and the delicious smell of food. Even though I had been preparing, I hadn't eaten all day. The children each sat scrubbed and fresh at the table tentatively holding their forks.

"Oh, hello." I said sleepily.

A chorus of hellos replied back.

"Eat." They did savagely. Aiphen even spit out a piece of ham cartilage into the napkin of my dress. It was the grossest breach of manners I had ever seen, and I tried my hardest to not show it.

After all, I was the daughter of a Duke, and they were not. Only Aster ate calmly, and Jessica, trying to be as ladylike as she could, tried to copy her as much as possible.

You would think I was used to this, but I realized how much I missed the way things were. But I couldn't go back even if I wanted to. Desdemona was probably still at home. I could see even Aster was nostalgic about her home too- she must have been to a lot of banquets as well when she was still home.

Dracon and I headed to the table to eat before everything was gone. I did better than I thought I would. Everybody left the table full and I apologized that I had no dessert for them.

Aster stepped up. "Don't worry, I saw you with the vendors and horrible bargaining skills," She said. "So I bought some fruit myself and roasted it the way I like to do while you were sleeping and I smelled the wonderful aroma. I reached for one of her golden roasted delicacies.

"Where did you buy these? They're excellent!" And popped it into my mouth. My eyes bulged and I sat down to steady myself.

"I bought these apples from an old woman. She didn't want to sell them to me, but I said there was not harm if I only bought five, she had six left anyways and she said she needed one."

My arms stiffened and I felt so tired again, even though I had just slept. I wasn't allowed to eat these, my conscious nagged. But they were so good. I swallowed the piece I had in my mouth with difficulty.

I needed another one. But my head lolled to the side and my eyes closed. I fell from the chair onto the hard wooden floor and the children watched me in horror, not knowing what to do.

Was I dead?

I felt like I was whooshing out of the top of my head. For several seconds, I floated above everybody's heads and my own body, crumpled on the floor. My body was uncomfortable; I could still feel it and I watched it. My hair was greasy and unwashed and I still had food on my mouth.

"Hello?" I tried to use my voice, but my voice was with my body and here I was, without it.

But how could it be that I knew what I needed to live again? I needed life at my lips again, but I didn't know a food that would be full of life, unless a medicine was put into the fruit the same way the apples had poison in them.

Poison. Desdemona was not an old woman.

And Aster wasn't Desdemona. Besides, I knew she was telling the truth. But poisoned apples for me to eat weren't coincidences.

She was here.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Hope you like it. It's short but I know where I'm going with this now.

Love you.

BrokenIce