Baby Steps (Akatsuki No Yona)

First Step

She didn't quite know when she had gotten used to this existence. This lethargic, meaningless lifestyle that she had known her entire life. She had never known her parents; the village elder had once told her that they had wanted nothing to do with her, because of what she was. Though interestingly enough, they always refused to clarified what she actually was.

She had nothing to her name, except that. A name. It seemed when her mother had given birth to her, she had muttered a word that would become her identity. Yue

She always knew she was different from the other little children that ran around the village grounds, the degree of freedom they had told her just that. How their parents would lovingly stroke their hair when they'd discovered something new, the gentle scolding they'd receive when they were caught stirring trouble just accentuated the large gap that lay between her and these people. One thing that always confused her was how these seemingly loving and caring people would turn to her and would display an emotion she was all too familiar with now, disgust.

Something about her brought out those expressions from people, for since the beginning of her time, for as far as memory held her, she was faced with those emotions and was all she knew. She was none the wiser to the positive and joyful happiness that surrounded her but was never directed to her, and that was how she was raised, in the confides of the run-down cabin just outside the edges of the village that was isolated from the world.

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Yue sat on the floor of her room, the frayed rope that bound her to the wall during the night had become a permanent ornament she had come to live with for the 18 years she had been alive. During the day, she would be freed from her confines though the rope would remain a fixture upon her wrists and the watchful eyes of the guards that kept the boarders of the village 'safe'. A statement she had concluded long ago, to show her that she would never be free. Not from them.

She gazed out of the iron bars that barricaded her window, the metal having rusted long ago, a gentle touch would seemingly cause the bars to crumble into dust. Another statement more than anything, the message clear as daylight. You won't ever leave.

Her dull surroundings seemed to be a contradiction to her very presence, her silvery hair reflecting the setting sun and lightly tanned skin glowing in the last light of summer. Her warm hazel-brown eyes watched the sun continue to set over the horizon.    

The young woman had sat there for most of her life, watching the days pass and the seasons come and go. She had seen children grown into adults, forming bonds they seemed to cherish with all their hearts. Yet where was her part in life? That was a question she had asked herself many times for she knew it wasn't this pitiful existence the people had damned her to.

She was smart enough to know that the life she lived was abnormal, for no one around her seemed to be living the way she did. She had once questioned it when she was younger, her naivety earning her a lashing for her apparent insolence. From that moment on she had known how dangerous her actions could be, for they only seemed to be repaid with pain, the scars on her back served as a reminder. For every lesson learned though, the scar count grew.

She turned to look at the rope that bound her wrists and feet, she could not remember a day when it had not been there. And she had come to loath it, loath it with such passion that she had almost cut of her own limbs in an effort to rid it out of her sight. That was one of the many low points she had reached in life.

Her gaze turned to linger on the longbow and the single arrow that rested behind the door of the cabin. Something her memory always failed her, when the longbow had come into her possession. She knew though that if she had ever planned to leave this place she would have to be able to fight for it, her freedom. So she had practised with the weapon for as long as she could remember, her once large supply of 12 arrows being brought down to one.

That was another problem she faced. She knew with all her heart that she wanted to leave, escape and leave everything behind her, but her courage would fail her every time and would continue to fail her.

I want to leave; I want to leave so badly that it hurts. Yet what would happen if I were caught, I fear I would die for the punishment would be that severe. But...

"I can't keep living like this" She whispered into the night, the cool breeze carrying her words away, and for the first time, she felt her resolve harden.

She was getting out of here, and she was going to do it tonight.