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Dark Blossom
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Subject: Dark Blossom: To find thyself

Dark Blossom

They haunted her. The whole of her life these dreams, these banshee�s of her past wailed through her slumber breaking the blackness behind her closed lids with the sudden awareness of waking in a small, cold and windowless room. This had been her only place of peace, her sanctuary from the emotionless stares and hardened hands of a brutal keeper. These dreams, though haunting her with ferocity, tried hard to show her things she could not make sense of. Nightly, without fail, a series of stilled images would constantly flip through her mind�s eye accompanied by the relentless echo of voices chiming out within the haze of a half woken mind. There had been nights when her body would shake itself from the stillness within a pitched cry which was not her own even though it slipped from her lips. The day that followed nights such as those were harsh and unforgiving.

� Tell me. By god child, you will tell me or I will let the Master beat it from your carcass until it bleeds out your worthless pours. �

Same words repeated to her while massive hands gripped the arms and shook the child into her place. Pale lips would open to say something only to slip closed again in a pregnant pause for the mind to collate the thoughts into some form of coherent structure. This action only sealed her fate as one hand released the upper arm to rise and strike across the stilled mouth. Contact seared with a hiss from the girl as the sting of his hand emanated through the whole of her face.
Years washed past in this manner. She grew from a child to a young woman without knowing why she was treated the way she was. Always kept within the room she slept until she was wanted for something and removed, only to be thrown down onto the stone floor at the Master�s feet. There was no pleading, no asking to stop or even the asking of Why, for every question or word slipped from her mouth only served to leave her battered and broken within that room again.
Forever in the carnal acts of her Master�s hands she learned to separate from her body, slipping into a place that let her live without feeling or hearing anything until she was once more tossed like garbage back into her small room. Such was her life, but was it really? The dreams told her something more and every time her body was beaten for having these dreams, the man repeatedly told her to forget it and that he owned her now. That word stood out within the mind at every moment of thought. She was property, nothing more than something to be pushed around and broken, abused as the Master wished and beaten like a disobedient dog.
There were nights that would pass when all that danced in her mind as she lay awake, were the questions of who these faces in her dreams belonged to. Where they even dreams at all? Honestly, how could they be when they were so personal and vivid? Days, months, years, all would pass her without truly knowing herself. Her age was lost to her, not knowing when it was she had been born or for that matter to whom. This night stood still young before all people, only beginning its journey before once more shying itself for day�s passage. Alone within her room she sat in the darkness. The cold wall to her back and a few thread worn blankets to sit upon that she had known forever and a night.
From the passage outside her locked door she could hear the steady thump of heavy steps. Steel toed boots that crashed upon the stone walkway in route to her. There was more than one coming, she could tell by the echo alone, hence she braced herself for whatever was about to come. No fear in her eyes, no pain or sorrow to be shown. Emotion after having long been lost to this once angelic face. The heavy wooden door swung open with a loud wham that echoed from its collision with the wall behind it. Light assaulted her eyes making her squint until they adjusted. Events happened swiftly and before she could react to the question she never heard, a hand with stoned rings crashed upon her cheek and across her face.

� I�ll repeat myself, child. Where is it? What have you done with it? �

This was the master�s lackey speaking, the one who always did stupid things and blamed the outcome on her as though she could actually do anything. Another hand in the form of a balled up fist made contact with her body. She was thrown against the wall and held there up off the floor by two others as the man once more hit her in the stomach almost causing the small body to curl up into itself as it hung there.

� Come now my Blossom, my little wretch, be a good girl and tell us where it is because if you do not, well let us just say you will not like the consequences. �

Master stepped in through the door and up behind the smaller, rounder man. His eyes burned with anger, his lip sneered with determination to see this through till he got what he wanted.

� I.. I do not know what you are seeking My Lord, I am sorry �

Her voice, a trembled mass, only served to have her lashed with leather across the front of her body and her face meet with another assault. Warmth trickled down the near snow white flesh, her crimson blood seeping from a gash caused by one of the rings the lackey wore. Thrown to the bare floor upon her knees she was whipped with the leather across her back in punishment for a crime she never committed. She never once made a sound other than her breathing which became laboured, but twilight was soon to be shattered by a pitched scream. Her voice rang out for the first time in years, the pain had been more than she had learned to ignore, the lash of that steel cane as it connected with her wrist and hand. Blossom had heard the bones crack, one almost splitting through the flesh that bound them. This one noise put a smile on the face of her Master, for it was the first time in years he knew his punishment would not go unfelt.
It would not be until later that night when her face was swollen and her eyes burned the tears of pain that any would come to her. The wounds would be tended, the now broken hand would be set. Anything needing stitches would receive them. This woman that tended her had been the only kind hand she had known, the only other than the face of the lackey and the Master that she had seen, unless the Master let his friends abuse her as he did. The woman was nameless to her but still she was her saint. Water brought to the lips, laced with something to ease the pain, to help her sleep. The maiden spoke softly to her, only a few words on why this was done. One of Master�s horses had been taken, also there was food and ale missing. I stared blankly for a moment.

� Right, like this makes sense. I am locked in this room and cannot get out, what am I going to do with a horse? Pray tell, where would I hide it? Why do I always get the toads lashings...�

Her voice trailed off as she finally found a restless slumber there upon the floor. The woman would leave after she was done, the door would again be locked. Blossom slept without moving for hours. Noises from the main manor stirred her drugged mind slightly. The sound of running, of screaming, metal upon metal, it was all she heard before her mind was swept under with the weight of the medicine. Day would come and go, still none had come to her room and she remained lost in her haze, half conscience and half asleep. The sounds had faded, now it was almost eerily quiet.
Before the sun�s rise her slumber would be startled by the touch of wetness to her lips. Something slipping past to drip upon her tongue and down her throat as she tried to open her eyes enough to see more than the shadow that loomed over her. There was no defeating the feeling that took hold of her. Sleep came, undisturbed, unhindered and dreamless. The Blossom kept in the dark would not awaken for another three days.
The body was stiff, the hand ached beyond reason, one eye was still swollen shut and her mouth felt like she had swallowed cotton. Things felt odd to her, the floor not so hard, there was a smell all around her and light to greet her sight when she opened the one eye she could. The reaction was appropriate all though painful when she jumped upward and moved steadily backward until her body met the stone wall. Where was she? This was no longer the little dark room and there was no sign of anyone that she had ever heard of within the Master�s Manor.
A man by a fire turned around, laying his book to a table near him. Words beckoned someone from another room as he smiled to the terrified woman in the corner.

� Do not be afraid young one, you are among friends now. �

Friends? The word was foreign to the mind, not understanding it at all. An older woman wandered in through the door only to clasp her hands together and smile at her.

� Oh goodness, she finally came around. I thought we had lost her to the darkness somewhere along the way here �

Confusion set into the eye of the small young woman whose body slid down the wall to sit on the floor. The older woman gasped seeing the weakness in the child�s body and rushed to her, hands coming gently around her to help her up, only at first the quick motion was met with a stiff body that cringed a moment or two.

� Where am I and who are you? Master will be so mad that I am not there. Or did he sell me to you so he could replace the stolen items I was blamed for, the ones I never took �

The man and woman looked at one another, you could see it written upon their faces that this was not the case. The woman taking Blossom�s good hand and supporting her body with the other, helped her back over to the bed she had been resting upon the past few days. Settled within, both people pulled chairs closer to her without making her uncomfortable. It would be the man who spoke as the woman unwrapped the broken hand to ensure it was healing right.

� No child, we did not buy you. We set you free. You see, the Master of that house was not a very nice man, never had been but he was the ruler of this land and many were scared to go against his armies. We knew you were there, but only because the young lady that tended to you when you were hurt, was our daughter, Sonya. Sadly, she is no longer with us because of him. It was the last that any in the city could handle and so we stormed the Manor and killed the master and his closest men. The people here have been planning this revolt for a long time, but the last time Sonya came home she told us of the conditions you were left in. We held a meeting with the heads of the great families in this city shortly after. Liberating you and any other that was held against their will was now the high priority considering the pain he had inflicted. Sonya was killed for telling you why you were beaten and for giving you medicine to dull the pain you felt. �

Her heart ached in that moment, her eyes closed and she lowered her head. Strands of pure white slipped forth over her eyes and face as she mourned the loss of so generous a woman.

� She was the only kind hand I have known, I am sorry she was killed because of me. I submit myself to you now, that you may balance her death with my own. �

The woman dropped the bowl of water she held in her hand. Both now sat before her stunned to think that this young girl would think herself so expendable. The man rose with a sigh and shook his head before retrieving something from the table and coming back to sit.

� No Angel, that is not what we wish to do. �

Staring blankly a moment her face rose up to look upon the man with confusion. Angel? Had he called her that or did she merely think he did? The thoughts must have been apparent on her face as she sat there because he merely smiled a little and opened the book that he held, speaking again with that same gentle voice.

�From your look I will guess you never knew your name. Then I will venture that you also did not know you have a family. �

The shake of a head stopped him.

� No My Lord, you are mistaken. My family was killed by the man because I tried to escape once. He thought I went back to them, found my way home somehow. He told me if I ever tried it again he would kill me by sticking me in the hot sun tied to a wooden stake with slits cut into my flesh deep enough that they would not heal without stitching, and spread honey over me so that the insects would come to eat me alive. I never tried again. �

Both now merely stared at her in shock before he again cleared his throat and shook his head.

� No, he did not kill your family my dear. Sadly your Mother and Father are no longer living, killed in a vicious attack, but there is one member that is still living. �

Dead, they were already dead, why did it hurt when she thought them to be dead to begin with. There had always been some hope though, hope that the man was bluffing to make her think he had done it and that they were still alive somewhere hoping she would come back to them. Vibrant eyes widened as she looked to him.

� Living?�

The man nodded and smiled at the sudden renewed brightness to her eyes. He now holding up the leather bound book to show her before laying it to the bed at her side.

� Read it for yourself my dear, it has everything in it that you could possibly need to know. �

� I cannot read My Lord. I do not know anything, was never taught. �

Only a child who had been broken beyond reality could feel shame for something she had no control upon, yet there she sat, head lowered in shame of herself for not knowing the most simple of things. The man nodded and understood. An almost fatherly hand was laid to her shoulder with a gentle squeeze of reassurance. He told her that before she left them she would know everything a proper Lady should know, and some other things that many would never think a Lady to know.
They made good on their word, more than any could ever think. She was schooled in reading, writing, math, art, music, science and languages. Everything she would need to know was told to her and taught to her by fine tutors and scholars that the family has used for their own daughter. The once frail body now looked more like a woman. Everything had changed for her. She ate as she wished, dressed in fine gowns and other good clothing without holes or patched areas. Angel now knew her name and everything she was capable of knowing. Though the finest feat of this now refined woman was her mastery of sword, bow and staff. Hours upon hours spent learning and finely tuning the arts of war until there was no man, woman or child she could not best in a fight within the city.
It was then and only then that the people who had become like parents to her allowed her to venture to the world to find her only living relative... a twin sister named Shellisa. The dreams made so much sense to her now, the faces she saw, the one in particular that seemed to familiar to her. In a handful of years, life had gone from being property under the foot of another, to being a well disciplined and refined Lady the likes that any court would know.
Given two horses, a guide to accompany her and a few possessions that had become hers alone, Angel set out upon the roads to seek out the sister she could never really remember. Ripped from her twins arms at the age of 5 by a man whom had no claim upon her, now eternally 33, she set out to find Shelissa and reclaim the life she was to have known had it happened. It would take months to track her down after coming to the home their family once shared. Hearing things here and there that never turned out to be true until finally she found someone within a small tavern outside of a larger city, that mistook her for the Lady she looked for.

� My sister is a Queen �

That was going to make meeting her all the more interesting. The plans were made though, to ride into the city at first light. Angel would wear her hooded cloak to keep herself hidden from sight of the people so that no one would make the mistake the man in the tavern had. Her guide would make case to see the Queen the next day, and for any amount of days it took until his Lady was received before the sister she had yet to really meet.
Night would pass and morning swept shades of pink and orange across the wakening skyline. She slipped into her best dress and placed a few gifts that had been given to her, upon her person. A ring that she may never forget those that helped her, a necklace that she may never forget the power within herself and a set of hair combs that she may always know her worth and beauty. With the horses ready they made way to the King and Queens castle. Unsure of the reception that she would receive, Angel mulled things through in her mind. Surely the sister would know her upon sight, although a few things had indeed changed within her. Her skin a soft paled hue, lighter than most people around from the lack of sun for all those years. Eyes that held a mysterious glow to them even in the dark. This woman held a presence within her that lead most to believe she was indeed nothing more than a harmless woman, when the truth behind those eyes could send chills through the most seasoned of warriors.

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