Monster Stories (Melancholic Euphoria's Tumblr Stories)

Demon Knight: Odel

[I plan on making a part 2, I just needed to write something, to begin with!]

Ad Laetitiam et Pacem

"It is set in ink. I will not hear anymore else of it," your father, the King declared. "You will marry Lord Meriweather's son by the arrival of spring."

Perhaps in the hopes of pleasing your father, you would have heeded to words, to remain dutiful as princess of the realm and make your family proud.

That same night when you heard of your fate, you prepared to dress comfortably in a washerwoman's ensemble, before slipping out the high window.

To hell with the arrangement, I would rather live a life of celibacy. This fate will not ruin my life.

The third daughter out of six and the eighth out of eleven living children, you had many brothers and sisters older that would be set for better matches from well-known lords and ladies. Yet, you were not put to become queen or to be married off to a wealthy lord, you were assigned to marry a minor lordling, his youngest son feeble and health ailing.

Of all the four sons of Lord Meriweather's brood, you had to be matched with one with no proper destiny. Hugh was sickly and frail, not a knight or the heir to his father's land, he was predestined to nothingness, and upon your first meeting with him, you snidely advised he was better suited to abstinence than to displeasing his future wife.

To your dissatisfaction, it had to be you that would be disappointed.

The moonlight acted as your only guide as you run blindly through the streets of the capital. Dead of life with only a few patrolling, you were able to squeeze into dark shadows, ducking and weaving before you found yourself on the outskirts of the capital. Its high, towering walls were manned, but you covered your face with your hood, ducking your head as you run out, away from the life you knew.

The adrenaline pumped swiftly in your chest, and a sense of freedom was overwhelming as the smile broadened on your face, racing your body as fast as you could through the woods.

Months of planning had come underway, and the only place you knew would be deserted; was Whitehaven Hold.

Your other option could've been to stay with your older sister, Alinor. Eight years your senior, she was married at eight-and-ten to a well-known and comely lord, giving him babes a year into their marriage.

Father will know I will go to her. You knew it would be a rooky mistake. He knew how much you loved your sister, how you missed her dearly after she was sent away to live the rest of her days in someone else's castle.

Your older brother, Cassius was four-and-twenty, acting as a scholar in the south, but they did not accept women to the life of academics. No, it would've been harder to dress as a man to be accepted into his school.

It was a day or two away, and you spent your nights by a fire, rummaging for food and keeping what stale biscuits you hid in your dress pockets. You lay, wide awake, with no knowledge of where exactly you could go next.

The morning came easily when you arrived at the sight, a smouldering heat and smoke billowing from the mess in front of you.

Whitehaven Hold was a twisted, horrid sight. The battlements for a two-hundred-year war, its walls were burnt and destroyed, the stone had crumpled as it burnt and melted like candles, thousands burning inside. It acts as a haunted sight for travellers, with no Lord or Lady sane enough to reside there.

You entered through the battered doors, cold and damp easily enveloped you as you shuddered, looking around. It had been quickly looted of items by travellers, with not a sight of heirlooms or gold in sight. What remained was tattered and worn furniture, rooms dark and clammy and all the very same.