Note: Been a month since I last posted. I indicated I would continue to post my works on my wordpress (So far once a week around Friday) and not here, but I figured I might as well throw them up here as well. In the future, I will probably prioritize the wordpress, and when I get a couple chapters, I'll just mass update them here. Probably in groups of four.

Anyways, feel free to ask any questions, complaints, critiques, what have you. I've gotten busy recently so I'll try to respond as best I can.

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Natalya was always the last one awake. It was a chore getting up early each morning, and it didn’t help how her mother, who never failed to get up early each morning, would continuously badger her till she got up. Still, the smell of breakfast was a more effective alarm than her mother.

At the first signs of breakfast, the clanking of pans and the aroma of food, Natalya had to get up; she would rather miss an extra few minutes of sleep then skipping breakfast. From the dim orange glow that greeted her each morning, she knew she would need it.

Almost every morning she would join her mother and father out in the fields. Sometimes she went to the church instead. Her family never could afford the tuition costs for schools, so the basic lessons and teachings the church offered were her only chance at an education. Other times, the weather was just bad, so she stayed in. Besides those instances, she found herself working the land. It was just them three, so she needed to help most of the time anyways.

When the sun had set, their work was done. She and her mother headed back home to eat dinner, rest, and prepare for the next day. Her father seldom joined. She would always ask her mom, “Where is Dad?”

Her mother would sigh and shake her head. When it was time to sleep, her mother would leave the house to look for him. She would always drag him back, usually in a mood as foul as the smell. But it never seemed to be an issue; there wasn’t any arguing or fighting that didn’t burn out quickly. Everyone had to get up early the next morning, so no one wanted to waste the energy.

As the weeks turned to months and months turned to years, the fighting got worse and worse. He used to go out maybe once a week, but it slowly became a daily habit. Even then, her mother would go out and retrieve him every time. But, it all came to a stop suddenly one night. As usual, it was late in the night, late enough where the town was asleep, when her mother dragged in her father. This time they didn’t even wait to get inside the house before they started yelling at each other.

Her father was a quiet man, kept to himself and didn’t do much other than work. When he came home each night, he only responded to the anger of her mother, maintaining a quiet, defensive stance. So that night, he defied all expectations when he raised his hand and struck her mother. Nights were usually quiet since no one was out and nothing was happening, but the quiet of the night never compared to the silence that followed.

The next night, her mother did not go out to get him. He did not come back either. It got later and later into the night, and it was clear that her mother would have no more to do with him. Natalya left the house. She decided if her mother would not do it, then she would.

What was her mother’s labor became her own, and so at night when her father was out in the town, drinking and loitering, she would bring him home. While her mother had little to say to her father now, she would always try and dissuade her from going out each night saying, “Don’t waste your time on him,” or “He doesn’t need you to find him.” At any rate, Natalya didn’t listen to her. Rain or shine, Natalya would go out and get him simply because she felt like she had to. But it was difficult, going out after her father every night, when her mother would deride her for doing and when there were other things she would rather do.

One night, she decided to listen to her mother. She was feeling under the weather, slightly feverish with a headache and an aching body. Every night when her father was out, she had filled in the role of her mother and brought him home. Skipping one night here and there couldn’t be an issue, so she quickly fell asleep earlier than usual, exhausted from her ill condition.

Her father wasn’t there in the morning. Mother did not seem to care on bit, but Natalya didn’t like it at all. Even though she was sick, she felt she should have gone out and got him, and she decided to do so tonight, regardless of the circumstances. It was when she went out to the fields with her mother she found out where her father was. He swayed, hanging from a tree.

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Natalya strided through the elaborate castle corridors. She quickly caught up to the group of nobles and crashed through them to get to Baron Reginald.

“Hey, Baron,” She said, shoving into him.

Reginald almost toppled over, but caught himself in time. “N-Natalya?! What are you doing here?”

“Have you seen Suran anywhere?”

He stopped walking, causing the entire group to haphazardly stop and bump into each other. “What do you mean? Isn’t he somewhere around here?”

“He was, but stepped out during the beheading-thing and disappeared.”

“Disappeared?!” He suddenly grabbed Natalya’s shoulders and shook, “We have to find him!”

“Stop shaking me!” She wrestled herself free from the man’s clutches. “And yeah, that was the plan, but I don’t know where he went.”

“Shit… He couldn’t have gone far, so ask around outside; someone must have seen him. We have to find him.”

“Sure, I guess, but I already asked the guards outside the throne room and they said they didn’t see him…”

“The guards will rarely tell you anything – don’t rely on them.” Reginald grabbed her by the arm and began walking, pulling her along. “We need to find him fast, so here is what we will do: outside should be others, not guards, that might have seen them. Ask them. Meanwhile, I will do what I can and must, gathering what resources I have to finding him should you not be able to find him.”

“Alright, I’ll take a look.” Natalya wrestled himself from the man’s clutches again and widened her paces, taking the lead. She turned around while walking and asked the Baron, “By the way, why are you so worried about finding him?”

“I’m now responsible for him in more ways than one – now go! Go before it’s too late. Find him and make sure he isn’t going anything dangerous.”

Natalya nodded her head, turned around, and picked up speed. She went through the checkpoints, past the guards, and out the gates quickly and easily. Outside the gates, there were much less people then she anticipated. She looked around and settled on asking an old woman who was sitting on a bench.

Approaching the friendly, old lady on a bench, she got straight to the point and asked her if she had seen some brooding brown guy walk through. The old lady had in fact seen someone walk by matching that description, and pointed it out for Natalya.

Like that Natalya, worked her way through, pestering people along the way. Some people had no clue who she was asking about. Others blew her off and didn’t even respond to her. Through persistence, Natalya was eventually able to find people to direct her the correct way. A man selling cabbage pointed her along and then a group of kids playing ball helped her out. Piecing together Suran’s path, she worked her way down from the castle and then around.

She stopped at a picket fence nestled in between two grey homes that overlooked the crags of the mountain and the harbor below. Her last lead, kindly given to her by a mother who was stringing up clothes to dry, led her to this alleyway as the last known place Suran went. The alleyway was bare, leaving little room for anyone to hide, so she looked over the edge.

Rocks and ledges as far as she could see. But, on one ledge down below and to the left, she could see the shape of Suran sitting. There were a lot of ledges, but she couldn’t figure out how he got down there. It was almost as a big of question as why he was sitting on a random ledge on the side of a mountain.

Swinging her leg over the fence, Natalya tried to feel out a way down to get to him. Her foot slipped, crumbling her foothold and sending rocks tumbling down, and she wobbled back to latch onto the fence. Yeah, there was no way she was going to go down there. She took a look down and gauged the distance. Suran wasn’t that far; he was certainly within ear shot. If she couldn’t get down to him, the least she could do is yell at him.

Suran got up on the rock and started pacing. Instead of opening her mouth to call out to him, she stood on the ledge and watched the man.

He feebly walked on the small ledge, teetering back and forth. He stopped at the edge, doubled over, and began heaving and panting, vomiting over it while Natalya recoiled in disgust. Bringing himself back up, Suran stumbled back and caught himself on the wall. His lips were moving, but Natalya could not hear what he was saying. Suran turned around to face the wall and began smashing his head into the rocks.

With each thud, Natalya winced, but he stopped before Natalya could intervene. His head was still on the rocks, and he slid down to the ground, crumpling on the floor. He began sobbing uncontrollably.

Natalya opened her mouth, but no words came out. Suran was distressed, but she had no idea what she could do. No words came to her mind that could alleviate the situation. No actions were clear that could help Suran. She tumbled back over the fence and began running. She was lost.