She walked onto the hard wood oak floor that smelled of pine due to her previous scrubbing. The sun peered out behind the small square window. It was new morn, and tiresome. Usually she’d stay a rest ‘til mid morn, but today was special.
Mid morn would be too late to arise, or maybe too early. It all depended on how well her studies surmised. She would either prove capable of the Hen-daro test or not. If not then today would be the last day walking in her mother’s kitchen The last day of dancing among the morn lilies, The last day of this breath.
She had been trained how to act, how to speak, how much breathing was proper to take in the presence of the Distinguished One. The mother of the snow. The mother of the fire. The mother of all that grew.
The Distinguished one was more then a simple ruler of the Aldian Clan, her clan, but a mother to all those to take the Hen-daro test. The test of freedom.
The Hen-daro was to tell which abandoned would be the true Decreed. The blood daughter of the Distinguished One, yet what if she was not?
Lifting her maroon cape around her pale and almost starved nude body, she stepped onto the frozen pathway.
This was all the cover she was allowed, the cape. It was a bit further than mid winter. Colder than the biting frost, the white snow crunched beneath her bare feet.
Fear was beyond the girl now as she glanced upon the leafless trees. She was taught that as the wind blew and vanished so did life. The appearance of life would come again. The cycle of the world ever run. Life… Death… Rebirth… Life… Death…Rebirth. No end and no beginning. When fear slips into a mind it is engraved into soul and heart. When heart came chance was lost.
The girl’s clear hazel eyes stung the open sky. Was she to die soon? No fear, she reminded herself, ridding the smallest fragment from entering long forbidden territory.
She clung onto the cape tighter, as tight as she could muster. The snow was deeper now, as she furthered herself along. Nearly two feet freshly laid the eve before. The hem of her robe draped against the chilled ground, gliding across all she stepped.
Her bare ankle tripped upon something. Within one heartbeat she fell. Her long rust hair tangled around her narrow face, she may have sworn were it early in her training days.
Picking her body, she carried onward, features, though small, threatening to cramp and freeze.
As she crept on her legs were weary. A few miles by now and not long to go, she forced herself to move forward.
She was moist, from tripping earlier, and bumps rose out from the white petal.
Although ever limb ached for rest then, she dared continue on. Her face lifted with much arrogance and looked only forward.
The field was ahead. She was never here before, so the mighty gaze upon destiny awed her, almost.
She walked forward. One woman sat in a throne of pure gold. Two others stood beside in coat of arms. She knew the middle to be the Distinguished One, draped in while unable to see her weary face.
Within the center of the field was a bonfire and a head man’s cage. Other woman stood in the nude. Ten in all arrived before her.
She walked with little ease to the bonfire. Releasing the clasp to her cape, she sung the material into the bonfire.
Then turning to the Distinguished One, she dropped her body into the frozen field of snow.
Lifting the hem of the Distinguished One’s dress, she kissed repeatedly.
“Who have we here.” An alto’s voice rung.
“An abandoned, who wished not to remain lower than filth for longer.” Careful not to make eye contact, she rose to her feet.
“An abandoned!? I waste my time on one with no parents?” She demanded harshly.
Making her voice as meek as possible she replied, “An abandoned, yet candidate for the search of your daughter.”
“You dare to call yourself more than an abandoned?” Rage steamed through the Distinguished One.
“No answer can be told but that she will be an abandoned.”
The Distinguished One replied, “Then join those among you.”
The last time she dived down and kissed the hem of her dress.
She lifted herself and joined the other as was ordered.
No abandoned was named as was not their right, nor to touch anything apart from the ground.
The other girls were all a challenge to out do, all except those that came with bare emotions. It was told to all emotions would kill any of them. This was a test of physical and mental capabilities not love. She could choke on the word.
A few more filled in behind her as some taken away, none returning.
The one directly behind her was shivering with fear, another anticipation. She just felt content nothing more. Content to let it go on or pass. She did not care.
Two were left in front of her. She gazed at the heads man. He was on another. The girl would begin again in a life not thins. A life she should deserve.
A muffled scream echoed through her. The girl before her eyes did not succeed.
“Your turn.” A harsh female woman came before her, dressed in the coat o arms.
She followed as any dog on a leash.
“Kneel.” She obeyed.
Hands pressed against her skull. Shock and jolt. Her body was on fire. Jerking from one side to the other, she could feel nothing but excruciating pain lancing through her entire body.
It stopped suddenly. So sudden her body kicked forward.
Nothing could have been worse than that, nothing.
The woman paused a long moment while she caught her breath.
Everything was suspended in time. A breeze did not sound, nor a grasshopper leap.
A statement of dead cold washed over her, “she’s not the one.”
Sure just then that her heart stopped, she forced herself to inhale.
The lance pointed her in the back. Death… calm, then rebirth.
She watched as fastens were clicked around her head, the next candidate took the test.
Her pale skin glowed a golden glow as her body jerked under some bone and wire object the female in black held. Who was the woman? She had not seen her.
“She’s the one,” echoed throughout the plain, “The Decreed, Vandarsa!”
She closed her eye waiting for the latch to fall.
So, the abandoned, Vandarsa now, the one with bare emotions succeeded were all else failed.
She smiled, the laughed for the first time, as the ax fell.
