Thank you so much to all who reviewed the previous chapter! It really means a lot to get such a positive response when starting a new story ;-)
Merle could still remember the first time she placed her wooden stool beside a cow. She had been six years old and the large, black, hairy beast had planted one cloven hoof straight on her foot. The nail had never grown back again, but at least her toe was no longer blushing in a vivid purple as though someone was strangling it.
Sometimes when she wriggled it, she could imagine that the hurt was still there; a sharp pain followed by a dull throbbing that seemed to reach all the way past her knee. It was a good pain, a pain she did not want to go away, ever. It was a reminder of times she never wanted to forget; a reminder of the first time she met Van.
He had come dashing into the cow stalls from the horse-stables when he heard her scream, all wild raven-hair, maroon eyes and a friendly voice. The golden specks of dust had fluttered and danced around him, caught in the spears of light that fell through the ill fitting rafters in the roof, shrouding him in their brazen glory. She had thought he was an angel sent to protect her now mother and father were gone.
With the noise she made, he had probably thought that she was being murdered.
Merle could remember how he squatted down beside her in the dirty straw, looked at her toe before scooping her into his arms and carrying her to the workers' infirmary, where the old doctor bandaged her foot while Van held her hand.
All the while, he had talked to her, reassured her and afterwards, he had carried her back to the milkmaids' quarters. He sat with her until she fell asleep.
One day she found a large black spider in her milk jug. Its legs were long, thick and black, and she thought it was disgusting, but Van had picked it up and placed it in the band of thick, untrimmed grass behind the stable. There had been a ladybird on one of the broad grass straws and Van had said that a spider was just a ladybird with ugly clothes on.
She still remembered feeling sorry for the spider.
Five summers passed, she remained a milk-maid in the King of Asturia's stables, Van remained a stable boy. Sometimes he would leave and be gone for days, sometimes even weeks, and Merle would worry, ponder where he went. But he always came home again, and never told her why he left. Then the war came and the Zaibach Empire invaded Asturia's borders; and Van remained at home.
Merle was glad. Over the years childish dependence had soon changed to friendly adoration and that in turn became something more.
Van did not know of course. She had never told him. Merle treasured their intense friendship and personal conversations too much to willingly risk jeopardising it.
As a stableboy, Van had his own quarters behind the haystalls, but Merle was just a milkmaid and her bunk stood in the dark corner of the musty room she shared with seven other girls.
Sometimes Van would let her sleep in his room. Then he would read to her, tell her stories of magical places far away, fairytales of knights and dragons to which she would listen, enchanted. Van knew all the letters and even taught her to spell her name, but the numbers she did not understand. Two was a little, ten was a lot and Merle saw no real reason to know more than that. She was paid five drumas a month; that was the fingers on one hand and all the numerical knowledge she needed.
Van disagreed; both were equally stubborn but Van possessed a little more tact than her and had in the end simply abandoned the topic.
'I'm not a philosopher or a scholar,' Merle had vented furiously, throwing the sticks she had been counting aside in disgust. 'I'm going to be milking cows until my hands fall off, so who's going to care whether I can count or not!'
Van had picked up the sticks, shrugged and been silent.
A party of five men rode off at dawn the next morning. The sun remained hidden behind the mountains, and a thick, wet fog had settled outside the city walls. A young man with unruly, raven-black hair stood leaning against the white stonewall, watching as the figures disappeared into the murky mist like ghosts melting into the grey misery of the early dawn. The cold dew that clung to the rough wall soaked his dirty red shirt but he did not seem to care.
Somewhere the melancholic song of a bell sounded once, twice, again, and then fell silent, the echo resonating in the thick fog that clouded the city like a woollen rug. He sighed and rolled his shoulders, as if to loosen the tense muscles; then he turned around, head lowered with black locks of hair hanging before his face like a ragged curtain and with his gloved hands hanging indifferently down his sides. His pace was slow, his steps unhurried as he made his way back along the deserted cobbled streets. Once or twice a soldier would come hurrying towards him but he held his head low and each time they would pass without a word or a backward glance.
Some light was beginning to pry through the heavy blanket of fog in the east by the time he reached the stables behind the castle. Habit carved the path his feet followed and he paused beside a wooden stall, leaning silently against the wooden door.
A girl was sitting spread-eagled on a small wooden stool beside a black cow's hindquarters. Her hands worked with the efficiency that came with years of practice, and her rebellious red hair was strung back into a tight ponytail.
'I wondered where you'd gone,' she said, not looking up.
In the other stalls, the rustling of straw when the cows moved mixed with the hushed voices of two milkmaids' conversation and the jangle of milk jugs. There were few horses in the king's stables now. Van remembered the time before the war; their numbers had seemed incessant then.
Each time they returned, more stables were left empty. It always made him seethe with anger. To think that they could win a war against the Emperor's artillery on horseback was madness, a madness reflected in their dwindling numbers and yet nobody had acted.
Until now.
'I think the Zaibach army is coming,' he began, his voice dull and absent-minded. 'Dryden and a group of others set off this morning.'
Her blue, near-feline eyes fixed on him, a thick lock of red hair shielding half of her face.'Ooh. How come?'
'I don't know.'
'Hrphm,' Merle snorted and returned her attention to her milking.
Van watched her work in silence for a while.
'D'You want a hand?' he said in the end, but Merle just chuckled from somewhere behind the smelly mass of black hair.
'You mean you actually know which end is the back? No thanks, I'll deal.'
'I'll quote you on that,' he warned but Merle was unaffected by the challenge.
'Do,' she just said.
Sometimes, at night, Merle would lay awake and feel alone. She would stare into the darkness above her, and the smell of cows would reach her nostrils from the aligning stalls. It was a familiar smell, so much so that she hardly noticed it anymore.
The darkness did not bother her either. It cloaked her and shrouded her and she could hide in it. She could not remember why it was so important to hide, but the deep shadows felt like home and safety and she preferred them to the nightmares.
Sometimes she would lay awake, blinking hard and re-enacting her and Van's conversations from the preceding day, just to defer the moment where her eyes closed and the dreams came.
The loneliness always gnawed relentlessly at her chest, drawing her ribcage tighter around her lungs, and she would scold herself for being so childish and selfish. She had Van, she would remind herself. He was all the family she needed, all the friends she needed and more than a brother could ever be. But all the hours she spent alone, without him there, talking, laughing, being irritable… all those hours were empty and lonely. The other milkmaids avoided her, and she heard them whisper about her in the cow-stalls as she passed. She would rank her bank and raise her head in defiance and stroll past them, her face a stoic mask to prevent the tears from falling.
The war was raging in its seventh month, and every day Merle woke to the terrifying prospect that Van had been sent with the army beyond the city walls and away from Asturia, perhaps forever. And every morning she would run to his room and find him there, the relief that flooded her never dulled, and she would fling her arms around him and cling to him until he pried her off, usually smiling, and handed her some of his breakfast.
That was the routine, and it had never changed until that morning. She had run to his room for only to find it empty, and in that short moment Merle's world had come crashing down around her ears. Frozen, she had stood in the doorway, staring into the small room with unseeing eyes, as a block of ice cemented itself in her stomach and chest, choking her.
A couple of milkmaids passed her, giggling and with their milk jugs jangling noisily, but Merle neither heard nor saw them. It was not before the stable master, Aston, had delivered a stinging blow to the side of her face that she snapped out of her stupor, staggering back to the milkmaids' quarters for her stool.
When Van had appeared at the cow stall Merle had wanted to laugh, fling herself at him and never let him go again. She didn't, but remained sitting, shielding her face as she milked. She was fully aware of the blazing handprint the Stable master's blow had left on her cheek, and she was also quite certain as to how Van would react should he see it.
His protectiveness touched her, she savoured it and loved him for it, but she did not want him to get in trouble with a man the size of Aston because of her.
Not again.
So Merle milked her cowand did not look up.
Oh, I love my characters, can't you tell? ;-)
Well, I intend to bring them together in the next chapter, and I should have it out in a couple of days. So in the meantime, please review and let me know what you think! I can live with criticism, just please don't flame me needlessly...