To Suffer With

Chapter Fourteen - Boredom

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had everything she ever needed. A home, comfort, and a family who loved her. The family didn't have much, but they had each other. Then one day the little girl's sister was taken away by a fearsome beast. The beast promised that him and the girl's sister were destined for one another and that he would always protect her. And so, the girl and her parents let her sister, Kate go with the beast. But the beast had lied, and he was cruel to Kate and continually hurt her. So, the girl's father went on a quest to free his daughter from the beast's prison. He went and begged the rest of the beasts who ruled over the humans of the land to help him free his daughter. He showed them proof that the beast abused his daughter, but the rest of the beasts turned him away. They are destined they said, she will stay with him forever. Unwilling to leave his daughter in misery the father broke his daughter out of her prison and promised to help her escape. But Kate refused to leave. For I am marked she said, and he will find me wherever I run. Instead, Kate begged for her father to end her misery. For in death, she saw her only chance of freedom. But her father would not abandon hope that he could free his daughter. So, he crafted a weapon of purest sliver to slay the beast and set his daughter free. In this quest he succeeded.

But the other beasts would not let this stand. They imprisoned the little girl's father and claimed he was a vile villain that deserved only death. And to him death was delivered. The family was given no other choice but to mourn and move on. But they faced many hardships for no one wished to be associated with the family of such a terrible villain. They were forced to grovel and struggle just to feed themselves. But the three of them took solace in the fact they still had each other. Then one day Kate became terribly ill. They took her to the great healers of the land, but they demanded a vast fortune to cure her. A vast fortune they could but dream about. The little girl, who was not so little anymore set out on a quest of her own, to procure enough wealth to heal her sister. But she knew that just like her father before her the only way to save her sister was by dark means. To gain the fortune, she needed she would have to steal it. Yet the only ones with such a fortune were the beasts who ruled them. But the girl deemed that the risk was worth it for she could not imagine a life without her big sister. So, the girl planned to steal a great treasure from one of the ruling beasts. In this quest she succeeded.

With their pockets filled the healers began the task to cure the girl's sister. But the girl had been a fool. For she did not understand the strengths of the beasts nor their ability to track those who had wronged them. The beasts found the girl and took back what was theirs. The healers stopped healing her sister and the girl was taken away. Like her father she was branded a villain but because she was so young the beasts sent her to a faraway labour camp. There she would work until she was old enough to be truly judged for her crimes. But the girl never made it to the camp. A band of heroes saved her and asked her to join them in their fight to free everyone from the beasts control. The girl would not agree without her family. So, the group of heroes took her back from where she had come only for her to discover that she had been too late. The girl's sister had been lost to her illness and her mother in despair at having lost everything she had loved sought freedom in death's embrace. And so, the girl found herself all alone in the world. And so, the heroes took her back to their camp and promised to train her to fight the beasts that reigned over them. And the girl vowed to herself that she would do everything her power to stop anyone else from losing everything like she had. In this quest she would succeed.

--------------------------------

Kate loved fairy-tales. She had always argued that if werewolves were real, why couldn't magic and the rest of it be real too? So, when Kaiser had suggested I write down my story because I couldn't bear to speak about it, I had written it down as she would have, as a fairy-tale. And I had kept it with me ever since. Roman's file on me was a little more factual. It had everything. The arrest records for me and my father. The coroner's inquest into my mother's death. All my sister's hospital records. When I had first got the file, I had stuffed it into the darkest cupboard I could find because I knew looking at it was a disaster waiting to happen. But I had been stuck here with nothing to do for five days and boredom had got the better of me.