“Come on now, hurry up!” Esme scolds. “I’m not wasting my coin for you to saunter at the pace of a snail.” The coachman’s blistered fingers from the cold tighten around the reigns, and Esme watched in cruel delight as he debates what to answer. “Yes ma’am.” Ma’am? Esme repeats the word to herself. He can not be older than her, probably barely out of school! Though, it’s wouldn’t surprise her if a boy like him hadn’t gone to school at all. When the carriage stops at her fathers old manor, Esme lifts the trail of her warm red gown, careful not to let it drag on the snow. “Make yourself useful and wait a bit” Esme says with the wave of her hand. The coachman opens his mouth and then closes it again, as if whatever words he thought to say were not worth crossing Esme. “Of course” he finally concedes, attempting to hide his shiver by wrapping his navy coat tighter around his frail body. Esme wanders deep into her fathers garden, scowling at the manors dead flowers and piled up leaves. She’s come back for the first time in five years since the war ended. And though her family left with three children and two parents, only she came back. It was a shock to everyone who survived in her childhood village, how cold hearted she had returned. Once a little girl who would tell stories to her maids children, everyone believed her to be the only one of her family that carried an ounce of kindness. It was all lost in the front lines. Her father was the general. She grew up in strategy and death. Her heart was bound to freeze in the endless winters of war. Deep into the garden in a corner she never cared to pass before, she finds a well. It’s small and probably frozen, but when she further inspects, there’s nothing at the bottom. It seems to go on forever. “What a stupid thing” Esme mutter to herself, looking down the well. There’s no question her mother built it. She was always fond of whimsical structures where she could pretend she was not cut from jagged stone and ice. “Don’t call it that, I believe wells can have feelings to” a voice echoes from deep in the well. “At least, the enchanted ones do.” Esme startles backwards, until her legs press against a bush of thorns. She hadn’t expected the well to talk back. Especially when her family hated magic. Fought against it. So she refuses to believe where her mind wanders to. Even as her eyes catch the runic symbols on the brick. “Are you stuck down there?” Esme yells into the well, but lowers her voice when she remembers the girl on the other side heard her whispers. “Because if you are, I don’t think there’s very much I can do to help.” The girl on the other side of the well snickers, a sound so foreign in this garden. “Perhaps you are the one stuck in the well, and I’m looking down on you.” Esme hates her questioning tone. Hates the unknown girl for intruding the only place she has left. “I demand you tell me what you are doing in my fathers garden!” Esme says, leaning closer to the well. She tugs on her dress stuck on a throne and it rips. Pity. “I am not in your fathers garden” the girl says, sounding bored. “I don’t even know where you are.” “Quarstia” Esme is quick to answer. “Valendia” the girl responds. Esme frowns and considers leaving right then and there, pretending she never encountered a magic well. “Isn’t magic outlawed in Quarstia?” She asks, her tone seeping of curiosity. “I don’t know much about nations in the South, so pardon if I’m wrong.” “You should know” Esme answers bitterly. “Ignorance is a pitiful thing. And yes, it is outlawed.” “Oh” the girls voice lilts. “So we have a rule breaker. And a rude one at that.” “I am not rude, nor a rule breaker!” Esme flinches when the words leave her mouth. She certainly seems rude in that tone. “Sure” the girl says. “And I have wing made of candy and clouds.” “I am going to leave” Esme announces, her cheeks growing pink even in the cold. “But I was just graced by your company” the girl says, and Esme detects a mocking smile, even if she can’t see the girl. “I don’t waste my time on fools.” Esme hears the girls giggle as she trails back to her carriage. “Take me to the nearest inn” Esme demands. She’s in a foul mood, and even the hiding sun can tell. “Now drive before I find a better coachman.” The boy nods and Esme watches as the garden fades further and further in the mist. ╚══ ≪ °❈° ≫ ══╝ Esme finds herself draw back to the well, every morning. And every morning, the girl is already there. Sometimes she’s humming, or silent. And sometime she greets Esme with a snarky joke, knowing it would irritate her. “I don’t know why I keep coming back” Esme sighs. Her legs dangle on the well she’s perched atop of, as she plucks a dead and shriveled flower watching the petals float into the depth. “Because of my charming company” the girl says. Esme has not come to learn her name, and she doesn’t want to. Calling her the girl makes it much easier for when she will never come back. “I have met toads with a better personality” Esme snaps. The girl feigns a gasp. “And you didn’t kiss them? Don’t you know you could have had a Prince Charming.” In the gods names, Esme always hated that story. “It was a frog” Esme corrects. “I would kiss any frog for a Prince Charming.” Esme pinches the bridge of her nose, but the laughter that bubbles up escapes. They fall into a silence, once their laughter ceases. Esme has visited dozens of times by now. And as rude and arrogant and pompous as she knows she has sounded, the girl comes back every day to listen to her complain. Rage. Cry, once. That was the day she recounted her families brutal deaths. “Listen” the girl on the other side of the well says, the cheerful tone in her voice now gone. “Yes?” The girl falls silent once again and Esme worries something’s wrong. She hasn’t worried much for another person in years. “I have to go.” Esme nearly falls off the well, catching herself by the rope hanging the bucket. “You what?” “I have to go” the girl repeats. “Your nation might have finished the war, but mine hasn’t. My brother enlisted, and so have I.” Esme’s heart seems to stop. Why does she care, why are her eyes blurring, why does she feel anything but hate for the girl who will fight as a soldier she would have killed in the battle field? “You can’t go” Esme says. “Your the only person who cares for me. I have no one.” A sad laugh comes from the well, echoing through the cold winter air. “Maybe others would deal with you if you gave them something to care about. Showed them an ounce of kindness.” “You’ve dealt with me” Esme whispers. She sounds pathetic. Weak. Desperate. “And I have a particular fondness for those jagged around the edges.” Esme clutched the sides sides of her furred lavender dress, hateful words dancing at the tip of her tongue. The war will eat you alive. No Quarstian will make it with the Goddess’s wrath. You will die. But what she end up saying, is “I will miss you.” She hadn’t even said those words to her father, before being sent off to his death. A girl like her wasn’t meant to have those words in her. “I’ll miss you to” the girls responds. Esme gets up to leave, tears brimming her eyes, but halts when the girl says “Scarlett. My name is Scarlett.” “Esme.” The silence is enough to know the girl left, and would not come back to their secret well for a while. With her head hanging low, and strands of brown hair sticking to her wet face from her braid, Esme silently slides into the boys carriage. He looks at her with fear, as he asks “where to go ma’am?” Esme doesn’t want him to look at her that way. Not anymore. Not ever again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Beau” Esme says, leaning closer to him from the backseat. “I’m sorry for being cold and careless, and making you do things I had no right to.” He seems to be in a daze, shocked, and a little confused. She decides to take the time to notice how young he is. How his hair is curled of brown with frost, how his eyes and cheeks are hollow. Like her, he is barely an adult who has to manage the weight of his world on his own. Guilt settles like a pocket full of stones. Then, in an odd turn of event, he smiles. “I accept. Now where are we off to, because if you allow me to say, it’s quite cold and I don’t want you freezing.” “Take us to the cafe” Esme says, falling back into the cushioned back seat. “If you don’t mind, I think I owe you some explanations, and a little bit of tea.” The coachman smiles, and she imagines Scarlett looking at them with a grin from ear to ear. “That would be lovely” he says, as they drive off to the winters roads. Even those with a cold heart, can melt at the touch of warmth.