(( Originally a small story from KoL forums, that works as an introduction to one girl called Allouette. Hope you like it.
))
Chapter 1: The Garden of Paradise.
The ornamental pictures in the ceiling of her room irritated her today. They were picturing young women riding lions, unicorns and swans. They were all dressed in white garments, with flower decorated honey colored curls as a mantle and jewellery adorning their lithe wrists and ankles. "The garden of paradise" the long haired artist with bushy moustache had named it with lavish admiration in his voice, peering down from the wooden rack where he had been positioned that day to re-paint the ceiling of the young girls quarters.
Back then she was 8 years old and she missed her mother greatly. The lady De Lacroix had passed away with high fever not long ago and they say the priest who was tending to her had lost his life not many days after the young noble woman had drifted into the afterlife. Allouette was for sure not lonely, as her mothers army of chambermaids, musicians and courtiers had been running their fingers along her hair, giving her gentle hugs and kisses and letting her fall asleep in their arms, filling the void of loosing a mother from the very first day. She was not lonely, but she missed her greatly.
And then her lord father had commanded the whole quarters of her late wife to be re-painted with images. Her father used to have dark hair back then, cropped short and neat. He'd walk into the room every hour with his heavily embroided scholars robes twirling around his ankles, brushing his chin with two fingers he'd peer up at the painting like his daughter was doing. He'd answer the painters flattering grin with a frown and tell him: "Re-do the faces. Not good enough." With that he'd caused the painter to re-make the much spoken facial features 23 times, before he was finally happy. And after that, they looked exactly like Allouettes mothers face had looked like. It gave her a little solace to watch at their carefree frolic and pleasure of freedom, endlessly riding on the field of flowers in the high arches of the ceiling.
Another 7 years had passed since the day the ceiling had been painted with 12 copies of her mother in the garden of paradise and she noticed every day how her own features were turning into those in the paintings more and more. The chambermaids would sigh at this when they combed her hair and dabbed perfume to the back of her neck. With the years passing by, she was sure she'd one day ride a lion on a field of flowers, like her mother was doing. But now she was 15, laying idly on her large bed filled with cushions, waist long hair scattered around her in billows of gold. And no matter how much she resembled those pictures, she had never ran on a field of flowers in her life, not to even mention riding any kind of animal.
Allouette hated their freedom today, because it was one of those days when she had asked her father to get her yet another pony and still, after a full stable of well bred, trained horses, she was not allowed to ride one! She plucked at one golden hair hard enough to pull it out. It gave her a small sensation of sting, leaving her grinning smugly. Her chambermaids would be horrified to find a loose hair in her bed though, report to her father and then she'd be drinking revitalizing tea for a week. Allouette sighed and slid down from the bed, greeted immediately by two small dogs that she'd gotten yesterday. She had not had the time to name them, but she was thinking of calling them some exotic flowers or fruits, like all the rest of her pets were called. She was running out of ideas though, since the army of her pets was growing, she'd stopped being creative, calling the last parrot just another 'Berry'.
Somehow the young highborn lady was feeling strange today in the bottom of her tummy. A feeling of something unexpected was going to happen today. As she looked at the heavy tapestries and decorated window frames gazing over Dalaran, everything seemed to be in their place. But something would change today. Perhaps it would be something that happened to Jonquil the beautiful, when she decided to go look for Dante and became the Queen of the stars. Or perhaps like the courageous leader of dryads, Fawneye, she'd turn into a bird and learn to fly. She sighed dreamily the way she had learned to do, placing the back of her hand on her forehead and arching her back. The tight bodice she was wearing today made her head swim for a moment with the effort of her dramatic posture. Her mignon frame trembled and she leaned her cheek against the cold wall.
Resting against the wall like this, her eyes spotted something in the bookshelf. The red outline of 'Princess and the great escape'. Her favourite of all fairytales.
A swarm of thoughts filled her head, most of them including a handsome Knight lifting her up on a horse saddle and riding into the sunset. And then, the image was disturbed by the thought of her fathers archers sending a flock of arrows that hit the Knight in the back, making the whole image pop and disappear like a bubble.
"Oh.." Allouette cried in dismay. Pushing herself away from the wall she managed a small run to her bed despite her already blurring vision. It's there where her chambermaids found the girl, and brought her back from her sweet darkness with Sal Volatile under her nose. She was scolded for messing her nicely done hair.
She did feel slightly ashamed.
