To Love, Once Again

Thunder rolls in a long, low rumble in the black sky. A rainstorm was coming.

After what felt like an eternity of running, Sera lowers her pace and checks behind her. No one was pursuing her anymore. Her breaths puff out of her as her breaths even out, though her heart still beat quickly in trepidation.

The town around her was gone, leaving only a wide mud path with wheat fields stretching around her, grains frantically waving their heads in time with the wind increasing its momentum.

Stopping, Sera puts her hands on her knees, catching her breath. Somehow, she'd made it out of the capital, away from the man that tried to kidnap her.

It was scary knowing he was still out there somewhere, other assassins like him that were hunting her and Lucien down.

But where was she now? Before her was only fields of grain stretched before her into a horizon of nothingness. There were no streetlights here to light the way.

Behind her, Sera could vaguely make out the tall East Gate almost floating in the darkness, light reflecting off the grey stones that it was made up of. The East Gate was a smaller gate that led out of the capital and into one of the noble Lord's fiefs. Though she couldn't remember which one it was. The East and West gates were mainly used by peasants to bring in their grain tax, as well as the occasional peddler and entertainment troupes.

Only the pale light of the moon lit her way as she spotted a small shack. Maybe there was someone inside that could help her, or at least shelter from the light pattering of rain that sprinkled down from the black sky. Before the moon hides behind the dark rainclouds and takes away her sight altogether, Sera headed towards it, picking her way over the stones and grains. With each step, she winces, the skin wrinkled at the corners of her eyes as her bare foot meets sharp stones.

The rain was falling faster now, pasting Sera's hair to her cheeks and down her back, soaking her thin white shift till it felt heavy on her body.

At least the rain washed the thick blood off her hands. She was used to the smell of blood in the line of work she did here, but to feel it on her hands for so long...it was another detail in this horrifying ordeal.

Sera shivered, rubbing her arms to try and retain heat. Had it been so cold in the night? She'd never known, with her nights spent with Lucien in their bed, away from the rest of the world.

She hoped Lucien was ok.

Two hours should have passed by now. After Lucien's reaction sending out knights to find her when she was a maid, she wasn't sure how he would react when he found her gone from her hiding spot.

Finally, with hobbling steps to keep herself from slipping into the mud that cakes itself between her toes and up her legs, she makes it to the small shack. The pieces of warped wood that made up the home, tied together with straw knots and mud slapped over the surface made it appear

But she could see a dim light pouring out from between the cracks. Someone was inside.

Walking up to the small door, Sera knocks against the wood.

"Yes?"

After a minute or two, the door opens with a creaking sound. An older woman, looking to be in her late 40s, opens the door. The blue-black, deep under-eye circles and straggly hair peeking out under a threadbare kerchief on her head made her look haggard.

"May I-"

Sera speaks with a bigger voice, to make herself heard over the low thundering and shuddering of rain falling in heavy sheets onto the ground.

BANG!

Before she can finish the sentence, door closes, the imperfect wood bound together keeping the door frame and the door from sealing completely shut. But it got the message across. The woman's eyes had looked at her in apprehension as soon as their eyes had met.

She tries knocking again.

No response.

So Sera tries again.

"Go away! We have no place for your kind here!" A hard, quivering female voice, most likely belonging tothe woman who'd just answered the door, responds back to Sera.

"Leave!!Go back to your master, before I run you out with my pitchfork!!"

What master was the woman talking about?

"Please, I have no master! It's much too cold to stay the night, won't you let me in?" Sera begs. If she stayed outside like this, while the rain fell in a thick downpour around her, she would die of a cold before Lucien even got to her.

The door opens again, just a crack, revealing one eyeball that swivels as it looks her up and down. Sera leans forward, seeing the orange fire lighting up behind the woman. It must be nice and cozy in there. A baby cries inside, making the woman's muddied brow wrinkle deeper.

"You're telling me you're not one of the Collector's girls??"

"No, I don't even know who the Collector is." Shaking her head, Sera sniffles, trying to keep her nose from dripping as the wind continued to blow cold rain around her.

The crack in the door opens a little wider.

"Show me your hands" The woman gives a sharp nod to Sera's petite hands hanging at her sides, with red flecks still smattered over her skin here and there.

"My hands?" When Sera lifts her hands up to the woman's eye-level, the woman clicks her tongue when she sees the smooth, plump flesh, with a small knick here and there from her previous fight. She seems satisfied with what she sees, when she gives another sharp nod with her pointed chin. Sera didn't know that the girls the Collector kept all had rough hands. They were peasants used to heavy labor, the ones that wouldn't be missed if one or two went missing.

"You come running from some high-end brothel, then?"

Sera looks down at the ground, not saying a word. What was she supposed to say? That she was a person from a another world, a former Queen, now being hunted down by assassins for an unknown purpose?

The woman takes her silence as an affirmation.

One scarred finger, points back out into the rain where a grey blob sits, blurred by the rainfall.

"You can stay there. We have no space inside, and barely have enough fuel as is. Don't be expecting me to feed you either. I want you gone in the morning, you hear?"

With those words, the woman shuts the door again, and this time, Sera can hear a definitive click of a lock being set.

Sera moves away from the small house, towards the grey blob that morphs into a small shack with an old mule and white goat with long, muddy feathers tethered to one side. There was hay in here, with droppings from the mule and goat littered here and there.

'Again with the hay', Sera sighs. She was starting to hate the sight of it, with memories of being attacked the first thing coming to mind at the sight of it. Wringing out the silk fabric of her slip, Sera gives another heavy sigh to distract herself. Pickers couldn't be choosers. She should be glad she was still alive. She settles herself into a clean, untouched mound of hay. Hopefully, it would help her retain heat, calm her chattering teeth.

A-choo! Digging herself deeper into the hay, Sera curls into a fetal position, rubbing her arms and patting her cold cheeks. She'd done it though. Freed herself from the attacker and even defended herself.

She was not weak by any means. And she would live, survive, to see her man and child again.

Lucien would find her, somehow. That she knew. Now, finding her was only a matter of when.

In the darkness of a roughly built stable, with only a mule and braying goat for company, she utters in a shaking voice.

"Lucien, where are you?"