Past dated: Cloudreach 15, 9:48 (A week prior to the Celebration of Love)
Franziska may have been raised royal from the age of four or five, but that did not mean that she forgot how her earliest years of childhood were. Surprisingly her childhood before her Papa had been like this; trapped in a dungeon in nothing, filthy, hair matted and in disarray. Master, that's what her biological father had her call him—that, or "My Lord". At a very young age she had learned to respect titles, even if that person had not earned your respect. Crying, or disobedience, meant he'd keep her mama from her. And they were all each other hand in those years.
She had, once, asked her mother how she had been with that man for so long. Franziska had been born as a last-ditch effort to make the Lord treat Eularia nicer, but prior to the child's birth, she had been with the Lord alone for a decade and some change. Her mother's response had been: I was heartbroken. I thought it was what I truly deserved. And, in the end, if I'd disobeyed, he would have sent me the Circle as an apostate.
The words haunted Franziska.
She had sat in the cell, frozen out of fear and expecting the Lord to find her. If she was a good girl, if she sat in the corner and quietly made no sounds, he might let her out. Every time she heard footsteps, heart heart lurched. And... every time she heard footsteps, it was just the guards bringing her food. She was silent, staring at them with the feral look that one might expect to see in a heavily abused child's eyes. Her Papa had never raised his hand against her and she idolized her father. He'd taken her and her mother in, he'd treated Franziska as an equal to his biological children...
She shouldn't have taken off.
No note, nothing to tell them where she had gone. She'd fled in the middle of the night, using every skill her mother had taught her to leave very little trace. She could already hear her mother's disappointed sigh, but see the pride in honey-brown eyes. Too many of the Campana children both pleased and annoyed their beloved mother. Fran remembered the day that she had been informed she was being betrothed, the look on her father's face, that pursed-lip neutral look that her mother had done. Neither of them had been pleased; and they'd dealt with her tantrums... The idea that she'd never, ever step foot in the same room as her betrothed...
And here she was, caught while breaking into his home. She was lucky she wasn't dead.
Five days turned to seven, and eventually the young woman decided the guards posed no real threat to her. Nobody had entered her cell, or raised their voice with her. She was just existing in their dungeons, and they doing their jobs. So she finally worked a pin out of her mess of a hairstyle, and crawled towards the door of the cell to pick the lock. Franziska leaned into the slime-coated cell door, one arm through the door, fingers deftly working the lock. She held her breath until she heard the 'click' and heard the metal scraping as the lock disengaged.
Her Papa would be proud.
She'd have to tell him.
Footsteps echoed down the dungeon steps and she froze, debating on whether she could slip past the guards or if she should just wait... But her decision was stalled when she saw someone more finely dressed than a guard had the right to be, staring at her, as the lock finally fell free of the door. She stood up, nearly slamming her head into a bucket hanging above her head, ducked at the last minute, and confidently flashed a smile.
Franziska Lovette-Campana, Royal Child of the King and Queen of Antiva.She stepped out from the cell, like he'd not just caught her breaking out, and offered her hand out to him, regardless of the fact she was positively filthy.It's my pleasure to leave your dungeon.
07-24-2022, 10:26 AM
