OOC: Tags to
@visualspice !
Their mother had gone insane. They'd seen it in her eyes once the draft had been announced. They'd known things would be bad after that, but they never imagined it would come to this!
It had started two months prior. Raejh announced a nation-wide draft. Ever man, "man!" their mother had scoffed in disbelief, over the age of fifteen who had not yet served in the military was obliged to enlist. Effective immediately. They had all known what that meant. The pronouncement of the draft had come only weeks after Milo Gray's fifteenth birthday. Milo was the eldest child of Dahlia Gray and - now that he was legally "a man" according to the new laws - Lord Gray. Dahlia had used all the influence she could muster, pulled every possible string, and arranged for Milo to be a clerk to a colonel. Not
immediate cannon fodder. It was all she could do, and it wasn't enough.
Dahlia had started looking differently at her younger two children, Lily and Riley, immediately after that. They could tell she was planning something, had tried every way they could think of to get her to tell them what it was, but Dahlia shook them off every time. And when she finally did tell them, they were horrorstruck. What did she mean? Serendipity? Boarding school? Trading contacts who would help the once they arrived? Arrived? In Serendipity? Leave Connlaoth? And what was worse, in two days! She told them only two days before she was going to send them away! To Serendipity!
She was mad.
It was Riley who had come up with their plan. Lily hadn't liked it at first, but even she had to admit it was better than the alternative. They left a note, saying they wouldn't go, they wouldn't be sent away, and they would come home once their mother agreed to their demands. Then they packed what little things they could carry, paid fare on a public coach, and made their way to Highheart.
That was how the two children, now 10 and 13, ended up at the front door of Lord Edward Draven's Highheart Estate. They looked ragtag in assorted traveling clothes they'd picked themselves. And unkempt from the journey. And, oddest of all, was their 'traveling companions.' On his own, Riley might have looked like a noble, if ruffled, boy. A sleek deerhound trotted alongside of him, and perched on his shoulder was a hooded hunting kestrel. His sister, however, was another story. Perched on one shoulder, peeking out from behind her cloud of red curls, was a large, white-and-brown rat. On the other shoulder was a little screech owl. Peeking out of a deep pocket of her traveling cloak were the bright eyes of a ferret, and the croak of a frog came from the cloak's breast pocket. In a bag that looked like I ought to be used of clothes, the ears of two large rabbits could be seen, one white and one red. And tied to her other bag (which, in addition to clothing, held an unseen tortoise) was a small wire cage that held behind its narrow bars a goldfinch with a broken wing, perched precariously on a twig pushed through the cage.
"Are you sure about this?" Lily asked her brother with a sideways look. While she'd grown to tolerate the strange place the master of this estate had found in their family, she'd never warmed to him.
No, coming here was Riley's idea. And it was he who nodded assuredly and said, "Yes, I'm sure. Lord Edward is my friend. He'll help us."
With that decided, the boy stepped forward and with a hearty tug, pulled the bell rope.