"Hayley!", the innkeeper yelled at the top of her lungs. "Where is that ungrateful girl?"
Hayley was bent over in the street scrubbing dishes in the blistering heat. " I'm here Miss! I'm on my way!" she responded exhausted from all her current labour. "What does the old hag what now?" she muttered under her breathe.
Every day and all night, the innkeeper Mrs. Clutterbuck would work her, Hayley rarely ever got enough sleep. "Fetch this!" Mrs. Clutterbuck would order. "Fetch that, clean this, clean that, sweep this!" It was a never-ending list of chores and if Hayley dared not move fast enough to see them all to completion Mrs. Clutterbuck would threaten to kick her out with a swiftness, all the while heralding Hayley as the most ungrateful human being on the planet.
" I swear after all I've done for you, this is how you repay me!", Mrs. Clutterbuck came out shouting with earsplitting fanaticism. " With laziness, and lollygagging around!"
Here she goes again, Hayley thought to herself. Despite the fact that Hayley always moved as quickly as any person could considering all the chores that needed to be done and always left the inn sparkling clean after finishing with her chores, Mrs. Clutterbuck was never happy. It was almost as if the woman enjoyed ranting and raving all day, seeing as she never did anything else.
" I should throw you back out on the street where I found you!", the old woman ranted on. " I feed you, clothe you, and you can't even manage to do simple chores!"
The chores were far from simple. Several times Hayley had to climb up to the roof with the half broken and unstable latter and clean muck from the gutters, and all the times she nearly fell and broke her neck. " I'm moving as fast as I can Miss" Hayley responded politely.
"NOT FAST ENOUGH!" the old woman yelled, turning red with rage. " Move you skinny behind and get to cleaning the inn! I don't feed and clothe you out of the goodness of my heart!"
"Didn't think you had a heart", Hayley muttered under her breathe.
"What was that?" Mrs. Clutterbuck screeched.
" I said I'll move faster Miss", Hayley lied.
Despite the old woman's claims Hayley was barely fed and given mere rags to clothe herself. She was always tired, always hungry, always living in want and fear. She was an orphan; her parents had died when she was but a small child and she had lived on the streets of London ever since fending for herself and trying to survive. It wasn't until Mrs. Clutterbuck saw her begging for scraps on the side of the road did Hayley ever have a roof over head.
Back then, Hayley thought she had been saved and she wouldn't have to worry about surviving any longer now that Mrs. Clutterbuck had taken her in. Hayley had no idea how wrong she would be. Life with Mrs. Clutterbuck was so hard and strenuous that at times, Hayley thought it would be better to go back on streets and take her chances there, however ultimately she decided that having food, water, and a roof over ones head no matter how little, was better than nothing at all.
"See to it you have everything done by midnight or you're out on the street! I don't have time for ungrateful scroungers eating me out of house and home!", the old woman badgered on again.
Hayley sighed and depressingly answered " Yes Miss"
She knew that life with Mrs. Clutterbuck may seem like hell itself, but nothing was worse than life out on the streets of London for a young girl. Hayley had lived that life for the past 14 years, when she was orphaned at 4 years old; and now at 18 years of age she knew that she would endure anything to not go back to the streets.
"Stop your daydreaming and move your behind!" Mrs. Clutterbuck yelled once more.
" I'm on my way Miss.", Hayley answered. "I'm on my way" And with that, Hayley was on towards the next item on the list of endless chores, toiling away till midnight wishing and hoping one day that she would be free of all of this and simply for once in her life, be happy.
On the other side of the city, high in a castle in the sky, as if their souls had called out to one another in the night, a boy named Klaus was wishing for the same thing.
"NIKLAUS!" King Mikael ruler of England called out. Once again barging in and intruding on his thoughts
Klaus sighed, " Yes Father", the young prince answered, dismayed at what he knew his father had come to say.
"Ahh there you are", the King said looking proudly at his heir to throne. " Cheer up my boy, tomorrow is the ball. You at long last get to meet your soon to be bride", the King said jauntily.
"I can't wait", Klaus said sarcastically.
"Oh no more of your whining!", King Mikael boomed. "The Petrova's are a good royal line to merge with. I hear miss Katrina is a beauty, and will birth you nice and healthy princes when you become King one day"
Klaus groaned at once again his father's complete dismissal of his own wants.
"But I do not love her father", Klaus said pleadingly. " I don't even know her!"
"Exactly!", Klaus's father countered. " And until you get to know her how can you say you will not learn to love her, like I did your mother"
"I do not want to learn to love someone Father", Klaus opposed. " I want to fall madly in love. I want the woman I marry to be the one…"
"Ahh rubbish!" Mikael interrupted. " Your mother read too many fairytales to you as a child. She should have known better I told her not to fill your head with such nonsense"
"Love is not nonsense Father" Klaus rebuffed. " Finding true love is not a fairytale."
"IT IS FOR YOU!", King Mikael declared. " You are to be King of England! Ruling armies, conquering territories, and having lesser men kneel at your feet, not worrying about mundane things such as love!"
" But what good is a life without love Father?", Klaus questioned. "Mother would understand", he sulked.
"Your mother understood her place and her duty to her family and to her country!", Mikael roared. " It's come time you understand yours"
And with those final words King Mikael left with nothing more to say. He was the King and what he said went, whether his son liked it or not. One day when Klaus was King, he would thank him for being stern with him and telling him to let go of ridiculous notions like true love. He had more important things to worry of, and marrying a Petrova would build an alliance so powerful that no army, not even the French could dare ever threaten theirs. Klaus would see. He was still young and had much to learn about life and his duties as a future King.
Klaus turned around and went back to balcony, staring out into the night far and beyond to the vast country he would someday rule. Perhaps his father was right he thought to himself. Perhaps for him finding love was simply a fairytale.
But unbeknownst to him, as fate would have it, true love wasn't so out of his reach as once presumed.