BANNER BY FRENCHDREAMER
Title: Of Secrets, Healers, and Fae
Author: Shadowlynxbehr
Disclaimer: Roswell and its associations do not belong to me, so please be kind
Pairing: M/L
Rating: ADULT
Summary: Liz, a young maiden who believes there's more to life than what her father and stepmother want for her often wanders into the nearby forest to use a gift she was born with which she hides from the rest of the world. There she meets a stranger who is more than he appears to be.
Author's Note: This is my first 'fairy tale' of sorts that I've ever written. For those who know me, you know I tend to write more supernatural or everyday kind of stories. Also, for those of you used to my other stories which included all of the characters of Roswell....this one ONLY has Max and Liz. None of the others are in this one. There are brief appearances by Jeff Parker and Max's parents, but that is it. Yes, another first for me to concentrate solely on the Dreamers
. So, here we go....Intro
Once upon a time, in an alternate universe where things are not always what they seem, comes this little feel good story. Here there are things that take on appearances that are so opposite from what they really are. Even behaviors and emotions are hidden deep beneath the false surface.
Here one can dig deep within to find courage buried within the meek. And here one can find the strength in friendship, the wisdom in innocence, and the truth in deception. But most of all, if one has faith in the unknown, they may even find love within the magic.
Part 1
Our story begins within a very nice, large manor where a very nice, fair man lived with his second wife and his daughter. The nobleman, Jeffery Parker had remarried nearly five years after his first wife had died in childbirth. Since five years was more than enough time for Lord Parker to grieve over the loss of his beloved Nancy, he finally decided to take another to wife for the sake of having a mother for his beloved daughter, Elizabeth.
Lara had been the perfect choice for all concerned. A woman who loved to tend and care for all children regardless of their birth, Lara could have no children of her own. Luckily for her, she was of the right age to marry Lord Parker and help raise his only daughter.
Even after her father remarried, Elizabeth Parker never wanted for love. Raised and cared for by both Lara and Jeffery, Elizabeth was surrounded by people who took joy in her presence. A happy, energetic child she was spoiled unmercifully by her father and allowed to run free with the local children by her stepmother.
True, both parents taught her right from wrong and she was punished if she did something so wrong as to endanger herself or others around her. However, she wasn’t taught to believe she was better than those around her. She was taught that everyone and everything had a place in the world and most of them had earned their right to be there.
Of course, the world wasn’t all perfect and Elizabeth knew that. She knew there was a mix of bad and good things in the world whether it be human or otherwise. All that mattered to her family was that she live her live as best she could and to treat others as she would have them treat her.
As much as her elders tried to instill a good dose of conscience and intelligence in Elizabeth, she was still allowed some liberties that most of the nobility often frowned upon when it came to how a child should behave. Unlike many of the more stodgy noble folk and their kin, Elizabeth was allowed to run around barefoot while wearing threadbare dresses or breeches.
With her hair loose and flowing free, she was allowed to run through the meadows and play out in the rain. She was allowed to make mud pies with the children in the village and chase frogs in the fields. No one in the manor ever complained with Elizabeth returned home from play covered in mud and whatever else she’d managed to crawl around in. For they all knew Jeffery and Lara both had said there was no harm in play if all it took was a good washing down to get things looking clean again.
For her part, Elizabeth was a dutiful child. Always listening to her parents when they told her she couldn’t do something at that particular time. She knew to listen for the time being because in the end, she would be allowed a reprieve for good behavior. She never complained or balked when she was asked to help her stepmother in the care of the manor.
Even as she grew older, Elizabeth continued to love both her father and stepmother unconditionally. Always there to lend a helping hand to her parents or one of the servants and maids of the manor, Elizabeth never took anything for granted. With a smile and eagerness to try anything once, she loved helping others knowing she would often come away having learned something new or simply with the knowledge that she’d been able to lend a hand.
For over a decade, life at the Parker Manor passed by with relative ease and gaiety for all those who lived there. Then just weeks past Elizabeth’s eighteenth birthday, things started to change.
Suddenly, those that had once allowed Elizabeth to run among them found excuses not to be able to spend time with her. Finding it hard to come across anyone willing to run free with her as they once did, Elizabeth had no idea that her parents had been the ones to put them up to it. She wasn’t aware of the fact that word had gotten out that no one was to encourage her to act like one of the villagers as she’d once done.
And just when she was about to inquire as to what was going on with those she’d considered her friends, her parents both took her aside and told her she was to start taking formal lessons. Lessons on how to behave like a proper lady of the manor.
Almost overnight, Elizabeth was made to dress in nothing but elegant gowns made of the finest lace and silks money could buy. She had to wear delicate satin slippers on her feet and she was no longer allowed to wear her hair loose and wild. Most of all, she was not allowed to play outside where she could get mud on her clothes or dirt under her nails.
In spite of all the new changes and stricter rules, Elizabeth never felt like her parents no longer loved her. They simply seemed to impose new rules on her and had a hand in enforcing the new changes themselves. Nearly every day found Elizabeth with one of her parents as they taught her the things they believed she needed to know as a proper lady.
From her father, she learned how to dance and how to stand at a man’s side as well as some of the other etiquette that was proper between a man and woman. From her stepmother, she learned everything else a lady of the manor needed to know. It didn’t take long before she began to see less of her father and more of her stepmother as Lara began to take over most of Elizabeth’s training.
When that started happening, Elizabeth began to invent more and more ways to get out of her lessons. She knew Lara’s heart was in the right place and that she was only doing what Jeffery had asked her to do, but that didn’t stop her from wanting things to go back to the way they once were. Elizabeth didn’t want things to change. And the more her parents tried to change things, the more she found ways to escape.
Nearly a year had gone by and still Lara had her work cut out for her as Elizabeth continued to elude her lessons time and again. As the months to her nineteenth birthday began to pass by, Elizabeth was growing more and more restless and unhappy. Now she was beginning to feel out of place within the walls of the once cheerful manor.
Standing on the small stool in front of a mirror, Elizabeth frowned at her distorted image. Two maids and her stepmother fluttered around her as they constantly hemmed and hawed over the new dress she was being fitted with. Shifting from one foot to the other, she gave a soft sigh prompting Lara to tsk at her.
“Must you keep putting your weight on one foot my dear? We cannot possibly get a straight hem on the bottom of your dress if you cannot stand still on both your feet!”
Elizabeth raked her hand through her hair, forgetting that it was neatly pinned up on her head. With a grimace, she answered her stepmother. “I cannot possibly stand still when these slippers are trying to squeeze my feet!”
The slippers in question happened to be a brand new pair made to match the new dress she was being fitted with. They had wanted her to wear the slippers with the dress so as to make sure it was the proper length and not too high as to show off her ankles.
As Elizabeth shifted once more, causing one of the maids to accidentally prick her own finger, Lara placed her hands on her hips and glared up at her.
“Really Elizabeth! If you could hold still for just a few more moments we will be done!”
Elizabeth pursed her lips and refused to say anything as she forced herself to stand straight on both feet while the maids worked on finishing the dress. Turning her head, she looked out of the window at the bright world that beckoned her.
Ever since she was a child she’d had a thing for the outdoors unlike either of her parents. She’d once overheard her father say that her birth mother had also loved the outdoors just as she did. Never having known anything about her mother, Elizabeth had held that one thing close to her heart. It was the only feeling of kinship she had for a mother she would never have the chance to know.
She’d asked her father about her mother when she’d been younger, but Jeffery had never wanted to speak of her. And when she’d tried to get others whom she knew had lived alongside Nancy to talk about her, they would quickly change the subject. So Elizabeth had grown up never knowing but a single thing about the woman who had given birth to her.
That was why she held on to the knowledge of her mother’s love of the outdoors with everything she had. And that was why she had made a silent vow to always have a way to escape to the outdoors. For it was there where she believed she could feel her mother close by. It was as if her mother lived out there where nature ran free. Elizabeth even believed she could hear her mother’s laughter in the wind that blew across the land and ruffled through the hair she always wore loose when she was out there.
Lost in her daydreams, she wasn’t aware that the dress had been finished until Lara spoke up again.
“Elizabeth, child! Where are you now?”
She blinked a few times before looking down at Lara. “I’m standing still! I am!”
Lara huffed daintily. “Yes well, it is done. Now come down off that stool so that we may remove the dress before you ruin all our hard work.”
She did as she was told and stepped down with the help of the two maids. The dress was carefully removed before one of the maids cautiously carried it out of the room so that it could be sewn by a seamstress. The other maid remained behind to help Elizabeth into another one of her dresses.
“Why do I have to get dressed in this? I am not going to do anything important today, am I?” she asked Lara.
Lara gave her a scolding look. “It matters not what you are doing, child. You must always present yourself as the lady of the manor. That is the way it is.”
“But I’m not the lady of the manor. You are.”
“One day it will be you, Elizabeth. And your father and I have been remiss in making sure you are properly trained to take up that duty.”
She ran an agitated hand through her hair once more, yanking at the now disheveled do. “But what if I do not want to take up that duty!”
Lara gaped at her for a moment before she remembered her place. “You are the daughter of Lord Jeffery Parker! And as such you were born into nobility. You have no choice but to take up that duty one day!”
Elizabeth shook her head with disgust as the maid gave a slight curtsy before leaving the room. Once she was gone, Lara moved closer to her stepdaughter and gave her a sympathetic smile. Patting her on the arm, Lara spoke softly to Elizabeth.
“I know it is not easy to learn all these things, my child. Your father and I have only ourselves to blame for the difficulties we have to put you through now. But for what it’s worth, you have been learning things with more grace and dignity than either of us could have hoped for. We only hope that when the time comes, you will be able to put all of your knowledge to good use.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly as Lara gave her a small hug and kissed her on the cheek.
“Now then, why don’t you try to finish the embroidery you are working on while I go see to getting our supper started.”
Once more Elizabeth nodded as Lara made her way out of the room.
The moment the door closed behind Lara, Elizabeth made a beeline towards the chest she kept beneath one of the windows. As quickly as she could, she got out of the dress she had been made to wear and tossed it onto the bed. Opening the chest, she pulled out the worn dress she’d rescued from being discarded by one of the maids.
This dress was of a dirty brown color with a hem that barely reached her calves. Still the skirt of it was wide enough to allow her the movement she would need to climb down the trellis that ran along the wall from her balcony to the ground.
Once she’d donned the simple dress, she fished out the worn shoes she’d managed to convince a stable hand to part with. The soles of the shoes were thick enough to allow her to run fast without worrying overmuch about damaging the soles of her feet, plus they would provide good traction on the climb down the trellis.
The last thing she quickly did was to braid her hair until it was one thick braid down her back which she tucked into the back of the dress so it wouldn’t snag on anything while she climbed down. The moment she was ready, she shut the chest and walked out onto her balcony.
At the far left side of it was the trellis she always used to climb down when she wanted to escape her lessons. Grasping the side of it, she leaned over the edge of the balcony railing and slung her legs over it one at a time. With grace that showed years of practice, she quickly scurried down the trellis until she was on the ground.
Glancing left and right to first make sure no one was around, she took off at a run heading straight for the woods at the very back of her father’s land.
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Jeffery barely glanced up as he heard the door to his study slide open, then close just as quietly. He didn’t even look up as Lara made her way to his side and leaned down to kiss the top of his head.
It was another few moments before he finally glanced up at her. “How was the fitting?”
Lara sighed. “As good as it could possibly be given the circumstances.”
He sat back in his chair and ran his hands over his face in agitation. “I should have never let her be so free as a child.”
Lara ran a comforting hand over his shoulder. “It is not your fault for loving her so much, Jeffery. She is your only child and a lovely one at that. Who could blame you for raising her the way you did.”
He shook his head. “I blame myself. I knew she would have to grow up someday, but I kept thinking I could put it off another year and then another one. Then before I knew it, the time had passed by. Now I’m only praying she’ll come to her senses and realize that she has to follow a set of rules just as you and I do.”
“I’m sure she will,” replied Lara.
Jeffery looked up with a hopeful smile before patting her hand that was resting on his shoulder. “Well, I am most glad she has you for an example. So long as you continue to teach her and give her the guidance she needs, I can’t see why she wouldn’t be influenced by you.”
Lara gave him a smile and watched as he leaned over his work once more. As he shuffled through his papers, she moved to stand near the window. Just as he spoke up once more, her eyes spotted movement just along the outskirts of the woods.
“I still count my lucky stars for having found you before Elizabeth could get too old. She needs a mother’s love and guidance to become the proper lady she must be one day.”
As she sadly watched the tiny figure disappearing into the woods, Lara softly replied. “Yes, she does.”
Unlike Jeffery, Lara knew just which mother had the ear of the young Elizabeth. And as her eyes scanned the line of trees that had swallowed up all movement, Lara knew it wasn’t her.
TBC...
