[center][b][i]APRIL, 1256 A.D.
MONTGOMERY WALES [/i][/b][/center]
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/P1GwYdJ.jpg[/img][/center]

The great ash-grey walls of Montgomery Castle cast long shadows toward the west, deepened by the intense morning sun that hung still low in the sky. And the silver birth wood forest took on a heavenly glow as it basked its bark in warmth of a spring morning. Lying between these two climates; the dark western wall of the castle, and the illuminated trees, there was a well-trodden dirt path, beat flat by beast and man, and it served as a bridge between the worlds. A scarfed girl, her steps leisurely as her brown eyes bobbed between the castle and forest, navigated her way from darkness into light. The sun shone through the thin cloth wrapped around her head as she turned to look around, passing a cart of spliced logs. The peasant who drove it had been awake loading the damned thing since the sun’s first whispers of day doused the horizon. He paid her little heed, and she continued on her way pleasantly. 

[u][url=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BsJS_rBbdvo/VNjhMe4InDI/AAAAAAAB2X4/5mqYaIaYC1M/s1600/MEGA%2B-%2BLiza%2BSoberano.jpg]Eira[/url][/u] used to be afraid when she passed strangers out in the open, afraid that they could see that she did not belong there, afraid that they could somehow know with a glance that the girl had no business outside of those ash-grey walls. However, she learned quickly that most people kept to their business, and as long as she acted as if she belonged, very few would question her. Even as she left the castle boundaries, under the guise that she would be visiting the local Parish for morning prayer, not even those who knew her questioned the girl. Instead she walked out without drawing a blink of an eye, and when she came to the crossroad between Montgomery’s Parish and its forest, she took a left instead of a right. 

The noises of a spring forest were just reaching the young woman’s ears, the different birds chittering away as they often did. It was so natural and organic, dynamic in its lilt, and it brought calm to Eira’s breast. Noises in the castle were often so mechanic, echoing down the halls and regurgitating once over themselves. It was the clatter of pans, the shuffle of feet, the repeating of words and the sound was ugly and crass. Though here, there was a peace and openness that Eira found comforting. Every direction but west, the girl was greeted with openness; an open field, an unwinding path, a limitless forest. But then when she looked behind her toward the castle she saw only one thing; a high, dead end wall. Perhaps that was way she risked her father’s rage to visit the forest so frequently, the girl liked the tantalize her fingers across the flames of freedom, knowing there were a thousand opportunities, but always returning to the castle that she felt she hated. 

Why?

It was a question Eira had debated herself, an analytical girl, dissecting even her own wants and actions as if she was a third party, viewing from a distance. Her ultimate thesis came down to the security that the castle provided her. Walls were limiting. They limited the world she could get into, but as well, it limited the world from getting in to her. Off every direction, there was something great, but there was also something terrible, and Eira was a slave to that terror. But she felt relatively safe upon the boundary between her known world and what lie outside it, especially since she’d come to explore the paths through the forest, never venturing so far that she couldn't see the castle rose up in defiance upon its stony hill. 

A leather bounded book in her hand, and a vial of ink and quill stashed in a satchel draped across her shoulder, the girl searched for a lonely spot to sit. A dozen yards or so within the trees, Eira stopped and turned off toward the right, where a path had been carved through the thicket by the numerous deer and other creatures that claimed this forest as their own. She seemed to know where she was going, venturing a few steps, and then creeping behind the thick base of a hazel. Out of sight from the path, though close enough that she’d hear any approach, Eira felt safe enough to sit, withdrawing her ink and quill, and dying the tip black as she began to write.