Legends of Belariath

Cameela

He arrived home from work that night to find a baby resting at his wife's breast. A tiny and pale thing that they would have thought still needed time in a belly.. her skin was white as a fluffy spring cloud and her hair darker than any ravens feathers, almost blue in the right light. He leaned in to kiss his daughter first, taking in her scent before moving his lips to that of his wife.

"She smells of chamomile and lavender." His sweet woman said, and he couldn't help but agree. "Her name should be Cameela." A name soft and sweet and easy to say. Fitting in so many ways.

The child grew as any other would, though she seemed more gentle than the others. She spoke soon enough and there were none that could help their smile when they heard the -pleases- and -thank yous- spoken in her sweet and pitched tones. Her compliments came genuine, curiosities innocent. Rules were obeyed without question or falter.. she did not walk on the grass, a lie never passed through dark lips and even as a tiny thing, she always offered her help to the elderly.

Her years came and went; she learned fine things. She studied cooking.. watched as the towns chef made plates beautiful, colorful and clean; spiced and simmered soups and stocks. She would stare with intense interest (and a turning stomach) as whole pigs and goats were brought in, skinned and broken down for cooking. By her teen years, the sounds of crunching bones and squealing rabits didn't even bother her (though, truth be told she never was fond of how Chef would throw cups at her head when she over salted a dish).

Her mothers and the maids taught her to keep a house. They showed her the secrets to fine scrubbing, the best ways to keep windows and mirrors spotless and without streaks and how to keep a floor so pristine that her face would shine back at her.. all without bruising her knees or palms. She learned to sew the tiniest of tears in both shirts and dresses alike, how to scent and hang garments so that they would never touch the grass beneath and would smell of sun and lavander for weeks to come. They gifted her with manners, lovely words and posture befitting a queen. She knew to cross ankles instead of knees, knew to stand with hips cocked just to the side to leave legs seeming thinner, longer. She knew to brush her hair one hundred times every morning and ngiht to keep it shining and growing and free from tangles should anyone ever choose to run fingers through it.

Of course, never did she know the reason for such things. She didn't understand that she was the only girl who knew such things, who spent such time inside.. so many hours being pampered and educated.

Only once did she ask, just after her sixteenth year started. Never would her parents lie, never would the maids spout false words. Their mayor, the elected.. had come, so many years ago, and spoken to her mother and father about her future. The one, he said to them, that could change everything.. would be her. She could bring fortune, she could bring trade. They would go to a King when a son came of age and offer the girl to him. With that marriage, their small town would prosper. She would be a Queen, and her home would always be kept in her heart.

"We hesitated, my love." Her mother said through falling tears. "We did. It took a hard winter for us to agree."

"A hard winter that we didn't think the most of us would make it through. Sheets for shirts, grass for tea. You were a baby.." Her father added, shaking his head as his hat was taken in his hand and pressed to a thin chest. Neither of them could seem to find her face.. though she stared at them both with wide eyes and a tight jaw.

"I.. I may have.." There was pause, her nerves catching her voice in her throat as it so often did. Even lovely words could not hide a fearful stutter. "Would I have known for all of these years, I would have practiced walking in a heel."

That was all it took for a marriage contract that had yet to even be drafted to be celebrated. She took her leave from her faithful Chef and chose to work in the kitchen at the town Inn. Learning to please the masses (or so called masses) was her excuse, when really she just wanted to know something foreign before she was sent to another land. What she had not anticipated was backlash. The Inns owner had his own daughter, and though that girl could not match Cameela in manner, words or beauty.. he felt she was just as good, just as -able- to be the Queen as Cameela Kile. He was never so kind to her as the chef she missed so badly, but the work was work and kept her in her comfort zone.

A group of travelers moved through town one summer.. more strangers than the citizens had ever seen at once. Coin and wine alike flowed freely, some even spoke of being sad to see the group of them take their leave. It was an early morning, a day for making stock.. a day Cameela always left home before the sun could break over the fields. Every other time, she strolled.. she lsitened to the birds, she watched the rabbits scatter and the chickens peck at the path she took. She would stop and cut several roses to put in small vases on the Inns tables and toss carrot tops to the does that gathered along the fence. But it seemed all of her furred friend were absent that morning.. something that brought furrow to thin brows and her teeth to her lower lip. There were loud voices and the sound of shuffling feet.. sounds that grew louder as she got closer to her work. Two men fought just outside the door.. a local and a traveler. Had they still been in conversation, she woudl have interjected. Instead, she stayed back from them, not interested in letting the dust they kicked up settle onto her skirts.. and slipped through the door to the kitchen the very moment she could. Of course, by then, then sun had risen and she was more than late. Without so much as a "Hello," a plate whizzed through the air, shattering against the wall just next to her ear.

She yelped, she ducked. She blinked and baffled at the cook, stammering as he screamed his profanity at her.. let in to her about how his own flesh and blood was just as good as she was. How she did not deserve what she'd been given. It was the final straw, as they say. the one that broke the camels (whatever that was) back. She turned on her heel without a word and stormed back out the door, intending to move to her home and weep on her mother's shoulder before going back to her Chef and asking for her old work back.

But she would not make it home.

Her folk, a man now but a boy when she'd met him first, had lost the fight. He lay on the ground with bloodied nose and lips. Her skirts were taken in her hands and pulled back so she could find a knee next to him, could offer her help.. get this man to his feet and to her table for nursing. A hand on her elbow stopped her, yanked her from her bend. The smell of wine hit her nose before words could find her ears, and in the slurring all she could make out was one word. "Mine."

She whined and cried while she was being dragged away, but never thought to actually scream. It was unkind, poor of manner to have her voice lift in such a way, after all. He dragged her from town borders, brought her to the caravans and pushed her into the one he called his own. for the very first time in her life, she raised a hand to another person. Trimmed and shaped nails raked down his face and an open palm was shoved against his cheek. No matter her years of lifting stock pots could give her the strength needed to hurt a man of his size, though.. and it only took one firm swing of his fist to leave her unconscious in his room for the rest of that day. She roused to the feeling of his hands on her legs, dirty fingers moving up her skirts to take his reward.

"I beg you to wait!" She cried, turning her face towards the doorway as if someone might have heard. as if someone might come and save her. but there was no such luck. "A night!" She begged, letting the tears move down her cheeks and leave their ugly red welts behind, no effort given to wipe them away before they could marr her skin. "A night to prepare! To be ready for you." Somehow, and she would never knwo how or why.. he granted it to her. Maybe he would not be so trusting next time, she thought as the moon tipped high into the sky and he snored next to her and her fingers slipped into the pouch under his belt. He would pay, this strange man, for what he'd done to her face and to her kin.

Sneaky and quiet as she was, gentle and slow as she moved.. he still woke. Not enough wine to keep him from feeling his waist. The fight would be something she would never remember.. she would never know how her fingers came to curl around the knife at his side. She would not remember how she pulled it free from it's sheath - the sound of metal against leather would send shivers down her spine for years to come all the same. What she would always remember, what she would always hear in her sleep.. was the sound of a blade sinking into flesh. A wet popping sound. She would always remember the awful smell of copper, the heat of the blood as it flowed out over her hands and pooled at her knees. She would remember looking at her aprons, hours later as she ran from the town, and wondering when she'd taken on one that was not plain white - but rather patterned with red petals. Red petals that would later become stiff and brown.

It was only after stumbling into Nanthalion with nothing more than a rusted, dirty knife and a pocket of coins that she would realize she could never go home. Who would want her there now? A murderer is all she would ever be. Never a queen, never a cook. Never the sweet, lovely hope for her folk that she had always been.

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