Summer sunlight dappled bright green light on the floor of the grove as it shone through the leaves of the canopy above her head. In some places, where the leaves were the thinnest, golden rays of light peeked through, and in the center of the grove, where the roses soaked up the sun, all was a golden haze of honey bees and blooms.
Margaery laid on the grass a few yards away from the outermost circle of rosebushes, watching her mother work. Theirs was a peaceful life, every day spent caring for their flowers and their family and the critters and fruit trees that kept them all afloat - but something was also missing. It was something that she had been worrying over for some time, as she listened to her mother's stories, her brothers' stories... Even the stories that her father told to her from time to time, those his had always had some deeper meaning, or been meant to instill some kind of courtesy or understanding in her. All the stories were tales of grandeur, of knights and princes and charming stallions doing great deeds and rescuing fair maidens, though every once in a while, there was a fair maiden doing a great deed, too. Some tales were about their ancestors, and those were the ones she enjoyed the most: more than anything, she knew where she came from.
What she didn't know was where she was going.
Almost from birth, Margaery had known the virtue of selflessness - though her selflessness was partly selfishness, too. The satisfaction she found in helping others, in carrying water for her mother or collecting fruit for her family, was something that had been carried with her, too. But somewhere along the line, her desire to help others had met another path that ran parallel to it: the desire for adventure.
Her home, the rose garden her parents had named Highgarden after one of the richly lush regions of the Cerynei Lands, was all she had ever known. She knew its outskirts, she knew the wide gurgling stream that burbled to the east, and she knew every in and out of the routine they kept to maintain the health of their environment, but the outside world was a mystery, an enigma. Whatever was out there was beyond the place where the open fields met the edge of their forested territory; it was so far out there that it was beyond her sight, over the hills of long green grasses and the river that wound lazily between them. She had never been to the other side of them, but now she wanted to see it. She wanted to see the mountains where the chivalrous stallion rescued his lovely maiden fair from the clutches of the fearsome dragon, and she wanted to see the oceans where the sea nymphs called passerby into the depths to talk with them.
Heaving herself to her feet, Margaery leaned against a tree, its presence steadying, its bark rough on the skin hidden by the thin layer of brown fur that had been passed through her family for generations. This is where I come from, she thought. She had come from these trees, from these flowers - it was something that she believed with the whole of her heart and her mind. Her heritage was rich with legend: the Cerynei had emerged from the trees, who still watched over them, and the Flutters had been born in their tiny forms, folded up in the flowers and released when they bloomed.
But again, the question picked at her: Where am I going? There were no nearby herds that she had met, nor a wandering traveler (that her parents had trusted) for her to journey with. Perhaps it is time I made a decision for myself. She had been raised to be a good daughter, to find a good stallion one day who would care for her, who would carry on the family line - but none had come by. Maybe its time to go out and find one for myself... An adventure and a prince, both.
"Mother," she called, and her mother's creamy head rose up over one of the rosebushes, the handle of a water basket clutched in her mouth. She had only inherited some of her mother's coloring; the ivory belly and muzzle, the socks. The golden hair and blue eyes had passed her by and been bestowed on her older brothers, though the whole family had the Cerynei and Flutter traits. "The next time a caravan comes through, I'll be going traveling with them."
The rest of the night was spent with her parents trying to convince her not to go and her brothers insisting they would go with her, but she shook her head.
Adventure waits for me, and I will find it alone.
