A Walk Among the Roses | Pascella & Drago.
Pascella was wandering around in the chambers that Andromaque had set her up in during her stay in Queensgarden. They were indeed a lot different than the rooms in Winterhaven. There was no need here for a large open fire to create heat, or for numerous furs to lavish the bed on a cold night. Instead she had a balcony that sent in warm air, where flowers curled up the stone pillars and entwined themselves neatly for the warm breeze to catch them. Flowers in Winterhaven was a rare sight, the snow there had settled on top of everything and stole life away, and she was no different. The cold icy weather of the north had frozen her heart and turned it to stone, until all the thoughts that filled her mind were bitter ones, full of hate and scorn and self pity that no one else dare give her. Even Andromaque, her proud sister was viewed higher than Pascella ever was in her own Court. Simply because the Court of Wintehraven loathed their Queen because their King wanted it so, and if Deston was unhappy then of course everyone else had to be. Pascella would sooner see his head on a spike, yet to voice those thoughts out load would result in her head on a spike faster than she could get back to Winterhaven.
I will not please them, Pascella thought, to like it here. If she even admitted for one second that she enjoyed the warm airs of Queensgarden more than she did Winterhaven she would be admitting defeat, to admit that Andromaque had won the game they were playing, that she had it all, whilst Pascella had to make do with what she had. Her sister was allowed to pick and choose everything she ever had, whereas Pascella was merely given something and told to make do with it. One of those things had been her husband, a man she grew to loathe entirely over time and it was no secret to anyone else. Oh, how she hated the Winslows, how she hated the North. What terrible thing had she ever done to deserve such a life? And when would her suffering end and for once feel the thing of happiness? It seemed she never would.
But alas she could not sit in her chambers all day and mope like she would much prefer to do in Winterhaven, she was to go and enjoy herself. yet however much she loved it here, the thought of the cold winds of Winter would call her back soon enough and remind her that life was not kind to girls who let their mind wander too far.
Pascella moved off her bed and went to the door of her chambers and left them, winding down the small staircase until she came to the Courtyard. Where the same flowers that curled themselves around her balcony began. It was lovely out here, she thought as she walked down a small pathway lined with short hedges that went no higher than her calf. She was examining a pretty rose that was a mysterious shade of pink when she heard someone interrupt her solitude. Her eyes glanced up to find it was her brother. A man she had not seen in quite some time and if truth be told, she cared not to see him at all. He was like Andromaque, he gloated too much of his pretty things and reminded her she had none.
"Drago." She said, once she knew that avoiding this situation would be impossible. Immediately she felt awkward and uncomfortable, like she did when she was around the King of the North. Drago, she had come to realise, was hardly a brother to her and Andromaque was barely a sister, family did not abandon family and that w a truth Pascella wouldn't forget easily.