Life at the Liddell Academy had a simple and fairly steady routine.  About half of a day was devoted to classes.  The other half, the children were left to their own devices, within reason, though there were class assignments and practice to do as well.  When not studying, many of them occupied themselves with sedate and respectable pastimes, as was expected of the nobility.  Only the youngest ones ran wild, and Amuné sorely missed the freedom to do things that might get her clothing dirty.  At least she’d learned how to keep more or less clean when wandering afield, allowing her a broader range than most of the others cared to have.

So while the girl had places to go when she wished to be left alone, when she was truly hurting and didn’t want to have to deal with anyone, even the people she liked, she fled the campus proper, scaling the wall using a tangle of ivy when she was too distraught to shift.  Today was such a day.  It hardly mattered what had started it, but a few particularly vicious comments had hit their mark, past the thickened skin she’d developed over five years of teasing.  She’d choked back tears long enough to walk away with her head held high, but as soon as she was out of sight she’d broken into a run and fled outright.  Through the halls, taking a detour through the kitchen to avoid as many of the other students as she could.  Amuné got along well with most of the servants, including the cook staff, and they wouldn’t tell on her.  She couldn’t answer the couple people who spared the intruder enough attention to see the tears streaking her face, so she shook her head and kept moving.  Out the door, through the kitchen garden, up the ivy and down the far side of the wall, then across the few yards of open grass and into the forest.

Once in the shadow of the trees the child slowed her pace and stopped trying to hold her tears in, now sobbing in earnest.  She crossed her arms in front of her chest, as if that would somehow lessen the hurt, not paying attention to where she was going as long as it was away.  Her feet knew a number of the trails, and she ended up under the branches of the old willow tree, not far from where the creek ran through the woods.  Amuné leaned against the trunk, letting the bark dig into her forehead.  Being called names she could handle.  Them saying she was a bad noble might even be true.  And she was a very minor noble, and she didn’t see anything wrong with commoners so that wasn’t even an insult.  But saying her parents would have disowned her, for her creepy magic -- or that they’d gotten themselves killed just to get away from her...they could hardly have said anything worse.

[@TheMinorFall]