The day's were short and cumbersome, full of nothing but waiting and the bitter,sweet cold. It seemed this winter would be far worse than imagined, yet she tried not to let it strain her face, for fear more creases might show or another grey lock of hair. Pulling the brush through her blonde curls, she stared at her face, her expression placid, lashes hanging low, and lips just with the slightest of pout to make them appear fuller. It was after she pulled the brush through for the thirtieth time she did pause to stare back at her face, which seemed to grow more gaunt and hollow as the winter progressed. But with such limited food supplies after her house had been ransacked, the fact she was prisoner here and could not leave- in fear of both death from the elements, and from the few men stationed nearby to over see her imprisonment, Lady Helaina Boehman, only surviving blood child to the currently deceased Duke of Ajhfeld, found herself in the grandest of tombs- for the small palace her father once ruled, though decadent and grand, felt more and more like her stifling coffin as she fitfully lived, day after day.
It was too cold to bathe, but bathe she did, in frigid waters to keep her self fresh, and afterwards she had powdered her nose and wrapped herself in so many cold towels until her lips were less blue, but then they would become painted over when it was time to decorate her face. And though her supplies for eye painting make up and rouge and powder were dwindling, she tried to live day to day as close to the ritual of her life from before as she could.
They had taken most of her wood, leaving her with limited supplies for herself, and she had not yet grown desperate enough to use the furniture of the house as fuel. What lumber she did have she used sparringly, and only at night, on the coldest of days. But even still, the hours ticked on mercilessly until even the grandfather clock in the hall ceased, and cobwebs seemed to grow more wide spread, and her palace, nearly buried in snow.
It was the worst winter yet, not only for the fate of Ajhfeld duchy, which fell to the army of Turgall, no less! But the temperatures were well below freezing, and there was hardly a day that passed where it didn't snow.
Several feet were piled high all around the castle in which she lived, making some doors impossible to open, and she wondered if the snows would ever cease. How many months had it been since everything collapsed and went to this frozen hell? How long when she had sent out the letter, begging her brother to come rescue her- begging him to return home.
But as the weeks went on, she grew desperate, and thought for certain she would die here- and there was no convincing herself other wise. So one night,s he penned a letter by candle light, her last candle light (minus those of the chandelier's she could not reach) and wrote an epic to the man she had once loved- Lord Havvick Mason.
It might have been foolish, he was still wed to her sister, yet being so captured in dire straights she even wrote to him- confessing so many things how she loved him, wanted him, missed him and wanted to let him know this before she died. She wasn't even sure if he were alive, but attempted to send this last letter for help-
So that somebody, anybody might find her here...
Alone and trapped inside her family's palace...
Not a soul in sight, just her...
the howling wind...
And the snow.