Royal Plaything

Lilia sat on a pile of hay in the back of an open carriage. She held close a cloth bundle that held all of her possessions, they were very meager. She wore a washed-out yellow dress that had sewn patches on it and her long blonde hair was wild and tangled, it painted a pitiful picture.

The carriage was passing through a bustling market but just as the world ignored the little girl huddled inside a carriage that smelled of horse dung, she paid no attention to the world as well.

It was more of a wooden cart, the shoddily dressed man driving the cart had shown up at her little house that morning. He said very little, only letting Lilia know that her Aunt was the one that requested for her.

Lilias soft blue eyes were clouded over, there were smudges of dirt on her cheek that she didn bother to wipe off. Her mother would have been the one to do it but she didn have her mother anymore.

Lilias eyes clouded over and she roughly wiped at it with the sleeves of her dress. Crying did nothing, she had done nothing but cry for the past couple days and all it did was make her sick.

Her parents had gone on a trip the week before and she was put in the care of their neighbor, a kindly old woman. Lilia was going to miss Holly, she never complained no matter how much Lilia cried.

Her Aunt had been over the day it happened, Aunt Caitlin. Lilia didn see her often but she knew that Caitlin was her fathers older sister who worked at the Kings Castle.

She didn like Caitlin very much because she always had a sour expression on and was always very strict.

Caitlin had been the one to bring the terrible, terrible news of her parents death and she had immediately told Lilia not to cry because it wouldn bring them back.

Lilia knew that she meant no harm but she wished her aunt could be nicer. She couldn complain though, her aunt was already being plenty nice by choosing to take her in, and Lilia couldn make herself a nuisance.

It was in this state that she rode the cart to the castle, even the sight of the huge whitewashed turrets couldn spark an emotion in her.

She always liked going to the market with her mother because then she could catch a glimpse of the castle looming majestically in the distance but now it hurt to remember.

The Kings Castle was at the very center of the capital of the Kingdom of Aedon. Lilia was being brought from the outskirts of the capital so the journey took several hours.

The sun was overhead in the sky and beating down harshly on the twelve-year-old girl sitting solemnly in the back of a cart drawn by a single, old horse.

The driver of the cart took a detour as they got closer and closer to the castle, taking the servants entrance into the castle.

Caitlin was there to receive her young niece and she immediately bundled Lili