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Author: Scarlett
Title: Round Robin Introduction
Adrianna
Adriana stopped to sip from her water bag as
she made her way home from the meadows. She hoped that her papa would
not be too upset that she was once again late. As she made her way over
the rolling hills, she saw black smoke rising from her homestead.
Lifting her skirts she ran to the top of the next hill and quickly laid
on the flat of her stomach, watching several men mount their horses and
ride away. She cried for the scene that lay before her, her home burned
to the ground and she could not see her parents anywhere. Fear tingled
along her spine as she waited for the men to get out of sight before
rushing down the hill.
Adriana stopped short of the burning house and gasped, a scream of
despair rushing past her lips before she could stop it. Before the
house, lay her parents, both dead. She could not bear to see them in
such a terrible state and turned away, tears streaming down her face
unnoticed. She heard horses returning and rushed into the nearby woods.
Trying to catch her breath she watched the men who killed her parents
begin to search the area around the house, they must have heard her cry
out.
Crawling deeper into the woods until she could stand without being seen,
Adriana prayed that they would not find her, in fear that death would
not be her fate. She heard a horse walking near the woods and took
flight. She never looked back and that was many years ago. While sure
that these men never saw her, she had no way of knowing if they had
entered the house and seen her things about, so Adriana stayed on the
move. From town to town, she worked for food and maybe a bit of shelter
in the colder stormy nights. She had even found a few widows kind enough
to allow her to stay inside their houses on their floor, in return she
would clean the floors, wash out the laundry or hall in wood.
Now she made her way toward Northumberland by way of the wall of
Hadrian, in hopes of finding a more steady way of living. She was so
tired of running, she felt so old and worn, much older than her nineteen
years. A strong wind blew in from the north bringing with it the cold
evening air that bit at her bare arms and feet, an almost bitter chill
that brought tears to her eyes. Straitening her back stubbornly, she
pressed on, in hopes of making it to town before nightfall.
Northumberland was a very rural area and most people there were running
from someone, be it the authorities or some that weren’t sure whom they
were running from, just trying to start over. Spotting a near by well
Adriana made her way to it in hope of quenching her thirst and easing
the gnawing hunger in her stomach. She had not eaten in days finding no
one along the way that needed her help. After drinking her fill she
continued on her way to the docks of the River Tyne, hoping that someone
would give her an honest job…
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