Mud Queen

She wasn’t afraid…not really. The weight of the body was pressing her down in the mud, yes, but she was on her back, so she could still breathe. And, the dead man was shielding her from the onslaught that was occurring all around her. This was another good thing. She had to focus on the good things in order to keep herself from focusing on the danger and the death and allowing fear to take hold of her soul.

Abigail was never considered brave. Her parents, in fact, had tossed her to the wind and left her to fend for herself, giving her some serious fear regarding acceptance and safety and comfort. She had been taken in by a band of orphans, who treated her poorly until she was old enough to fend for herself in truth and fight off their cruelties. Then, when she was old enough to do so, she found work as a kitchen maid at the palace. That had been difficult to achieve in and of itself, as she had to start in the realm of chamber pots and sewage, but soon she befriended the right people and found her way into the palace at last.

Though being a servant was definitely not a life of leisure by any stretch of the imagination, at least there was warmth in winter and meals that came daily and water to bathe and clothes to wear. Abigail had learned early on the value of being grateful.

So, the castle being attacked had never truly entered anyone’s mind, but the prince had refused the hand of a princess in a neighboring kingdom and now the wrath of that land was brought heavily to the door of Abigail’s little world.

How they had breached the walls still did not register to Abigail and the large guard that had been killed and fallen on top of her was a blessing in disguise and one that Abigail was not quick to ignore. She lay as still as she could, looking out from under his large shoulder at the booted feet running through the mud, the rain falling in a steady pour over the bodies joining hers in the mud, though not as fortunately alive.

It wasn’t like Abigail to ponder her future, for she consider life to be a sad, slow walk to the grave, but at that moment, pressed into the soft earth, death and fighting all around, yet alive and unharmed, she wondered if there was a reason.

She would have been greatly surprised to learn that there was, in fact, a reason and that a great wizard had timed the body falling and her protection with great skill and concern, and that soon time would unite her with the others that shared her destiny, a destiny of wealth and power and might and love, and that she alone would save the world.

But for that moment, Abigail was just an orphan kitchen maid pressed into the mud by the body of a dead man. Nothing more. Nothing less.

- June 14, 2013