<Diana>
I didn’t know for how long we’d been driving but the steady rock of the wagon set me to sleep.
When I woke up, it was only because the movement had stopped. We’d halted.
Sunlight streamed in through the bars of the door and I yawned, stretching. I blinked against the light and looked sideways at Mariette who was fast asleep and Dave-the old man- who was sitting up.
“Mornin’,” Dave wheezed, nodding at me. “We’ve stopped.”
Around us, our fellow prisoners began to stir. A tall man with straw-coloured hair and deep brown eyes began to cry when he gathered his bearings. Another woman dressed in pink wailed and rocked herself back and forth.
Mariette lifted her head from beside me and rubbed her eyes as she sat up, groggily. “Where have we stopped?”
“No idea,” said a girl about my age who was sitting in the corner with a stony expression on her face. I recognised her as the local fishmonger’s daughter, Terra.
She offered me a small smile as I took in her dirt-smudged face and her short choppy black hair.
“Would someone take a look out the door?” the lady in pink sniffed, looking up from her knees with red eyes.
Mariette got to her feet and bending over to avoid hitting her head, she peered out between the bars of the door. “Looks like we’re on a path…asphalt I think…Forest on either side of us…Every carriage in front of us has stopped…I can’t quite see behind us…”
“Where will they take us?” Terra asked, a hint of fear in her voice.
“Don’t know,” Dave put in, gruffly. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
As Mariette resumed her seat next to me, footsteps made their way to our wagon and Niall appeared, followed by a few others.
He unlocked the door, inching it open ever so slightly to slide a plate with about a dozen slices of bread and a large pitcher.
“Eat up,” he said, solemnly, before shutting the door and locking it. We distributed the bread fairly among us and then passed around the pitcher, each of us taking sips of the warm, stale water.
“This is disgusting,” the lady in pink complained with a sniffle.
“Well, it’s all you’re gonna get, lady,” Terra shot back, taking the pitcher from her and sipping it.
“I am not lady,” Pink lady replied, haughtily. “I am Lois Evans, Commander Evans of 1st command’s wife.”
YOU ARE READING
snow // h.s
RomanceShe was fierce. She was strong. But she was a beautiful dreamer, the kind of girl who kept her head above the clouds, loved above the stars, left regret beneath the earth she walked on and took everything she wanted with a smile.
