Dawn of Destiny

It was a race against time.

Ashton Ward concluded this as he furiously sketched out the sight of the tiny finch sitting atop the three-tier fountain. It could fly away at any moment, and he would have to draw it from memory; and his memory was awful.

While the other children in the market chased each other around, Ashton stayed kneeled in front of a bench with his large arms drawing pad awkwardly placed in his lap. He couldn’t care much for play when there was much to be drawn before he had to return home. He kept his tongue stuck out in concentration as he continued. His fingers were stained black with all the charcoal he’d used, but his best drawings were always the messiest ones.

Almost finished. He worked on sketching the fluffy cloud that perfectly outlined the finch.

“Big brother!” a young girl squealed into his right ear.

Ashton fumbled with his drawing pad, dropping the piece of charcoal in the process. Then he clutched his chest and took a deep breath.

He stretched to retrieve his things, and he gasped as a small group of children trampled over it, blissfully unaware of what they were doing. Once they were gone, Ashton quickly crawled over and examined the damages. The charcoal had been smashed and smothered over his drawing, covering what he’d just done.

“They ruined it!” his sister cried. Then she stomped her foot and shouted at the children, ordering them to come back and apologize. Of course, the children were already halfway gone and couldn’t hear her over the ruckus of the town’s musicians.

“It is alright, Amity,” Ashton told her, ducking his head.

"No. They ruined your hard work!”

“I can draw another.” He chanced a glance upwards, and his frown deepened. The bird was gone, and the cloud had already passed on.

“Mother wants you back home,” said Amity, already forgetting his woes. “She needs help with supper.”

“Oh... yes.” Ashton gathered his belongings and stood. She led the way through the market as he trailed behind.

“Don’t be sad, Ashy,” Amity said to him over her shoulder. “Remember that we are celebratingyoutomorrow! Are you excited about turning eleven-years-old?”

“Yes,” he lied. What was there to be ecstatic about? He was finally—unfortunately—going to be of age to begin his knight-training. That was nothing to celebrate.

“Then smile!” Amity threw up her hands. “You look better when you smile!”

“Fine.” But he still did not smile.

The adults were bustling about, gathering their unsold items from their shops. Most had to make various trips since not everything could be carried in their baskets. That was a mistake, Ashton concluded once he noticed a small boy sneak up to one of the tables and snatch something off it. The boy then stuffed the item inside his vest and scurried away from the stand before anyone else could catch what he’d done.

Ashton halted in his tracks, gaping at the boy running toward in his direction. The boy locked eyes with him and held his forefinger up to his lips. Then he carried on as if he hadn’t done anything. Ashton blinked a few times, coming back to his senses. That wouldn’t have been the first time he had witnessed thievery. However, itwasthe first he’d seen someone so young committing the act.

He looked ahead, spotting Amity beyond the crowd in the alleyway. He couldn’t imagine her—or any of his sisters for that matter—having no choice but to steal to survive. His family was fortunate enough to not have to, and he suddenly felt guilty that not everyone could relate.

His home was located at the end of alley—a tall and wide townhouse built from brick and wood. Its door had been recently painted Amity’s choice of burgundy—the pride color of the Aristol royal family. Ashton wondered if his sister’s obsession with the royals came about because their father’s role as the Queen’s Guard. Either way, it sometimes got out of hand. Last week, she spent half an hour talking to their mother about Princess Beatrice’s favorite flower.

“Sunflowers,” Amity had stated, raising her head high. “Father told me so.” With all the time she spent talking about the princess, Ashton almost felt like he knew Princess Beatrice personally. He supposed he should’ve been taking notes, considering he would one day be at her side...all the time. Yet another reason he dreaded his upcoming training.

Ashton opened the front door, and Amity rushed past him to get inside. He shook his head and walked up the three steps. He then hovered in the doorway as he heard their mother scolding her for running.

“Aw, Mother, I wasn’t running,” Amity whined from the kitchen.

“Ashy!” Ailith, the youngest of his three sisters, shouted as she scampered down the staircase against the right wall.

Ashton kneeled and opened his arms wide, allowing her to run right into them. She was tiny, almost alarmingly so. She ate and ate and never gained any weight. He often heard their mother discussing this with their father.

But Allister Ward was a man of strong religious beliefs. Any issues involving his family could be fixed with a prayer to the Great Holy Deity. And if that did not work, he would dwell on the bright side and say things such as, “Well, if there were something truly wrong with the child, she wouldn’t eat at all.”

“Ashton?” he heard his mother call. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Mother,” he answered, releasing Ailith and smoothing out the tangles in her blonde—nearly white—hair. She skipped off afterwards. He stood and dragged his feet toward the direction of his mother’s soprano voice.

If his father saw him like this, he would receive a nice smack to the back of his head and a reminder that good-mannered people never dragged their feet. He could already hear him saying, “You’re not a dead carcass, are you? Then do not move like someone is forcefully pulling you!”

Ashton peered into the doorway of their kitchen. His mother had her back turned to him.

Despite him not making a sound, she said, “Quit standing there and come cut the loaf of bread I bought at the bakery.”

Ashton took a single step inside before she whirled around and added, “Ah-ah. I almost forgot. You must wash up first. You’ve been outside all day.”

“I’m not filthy,” he said, shielding his charcoal-covered hands behind his back. His mother could never be fooled, though. She snapped her fingers and pointed toward the staircase. Ashton stayed still for a moment, taking in all the similarities between her and Amity: their copper ringlets, green eyes with specks of blue, and freckled foreheads and chins. Although, Amity was the only child who didn’t have their mother’s shade of light brown skin.

Ashton kind of wished he’d gotten more of her looks, though. He’d gotten her freckles, too, and he had beauty marks throughout his arms and some on his neck like her. But that was as far as their similarities went.

Then there were his eyes, which he clearly hadn’t gotten from either of his parents. Thanks to Amity, though, he knew he wasn’t the only person in Aristol with rare brown eyes. Princess Beatrice apparently had them, too. His father had confirmed this. He sometimes found himself wondering why such a plain color was the rarity. Before Ashton learned that Her Highness shared this strange trait, he had an idea as to why—

“Ashton, go on,” his mother urged, snapping him out of his musing.

Reluctantly, he turned and went on his way.

“Ashton!” Anice, the second oldest Ward daughter, joyfully cried from the top of the steps. “Hurry! Hurry!” She bounced on the tips of her toes. He couldn’t even imagine what had her so excited this time.

"Hurry!”

“Alright, alright,” Ashton responded, jogging up the steps.

“I wanna see! I wanna see!” shouted Ailith from behind him.

“Not without me!” Amity cried.

Ashton moved aside as he heard their thundering footsteps catching up to him. They happily passed on by and waited for him to reach them. Once he was standing in front of the three girls, Amity and Anice grabbed him by the puff sleeves of his black shirt while Ailith led the way, holding her little head high and humming.

They rounded the narrow corner where a single door led into the old storage home they hardly used anymore. Therefore, Ashton didn’t understand why Ailith reached up and grabbed the doorknob and smiled back at him like she was about to reveal her biggest secret to everyone.

She opened the door, and Amity assisted with holding it open while Anice gently pushed Ashton forward. Ashton looked around at each of them. They simply grinned in return. He walked onward, and he felt his mouth fall open as he took in the sights of the once crowded and disorganized storage.

The rubbish was gone.

The white sheet covering the window on the right had been removed, allowing sunlight to bleed in and drench the darkness.

The floorboards had been swept.

A wide and wooden easel was set in the center of the room with that white sheet laid out underneath. A waist-high table was placed beside the easel, holding a painting palette and brushes of varies sizes and style. Blank canvases and buckets of paints were stacked against the wall. And Ashton had to remind himself to breathe.

“Do you like it?” questioned Ailith, in that adorably curious tone she loved to use.

Ashton blinked hard a few times, willing the moisture away. Then he turned to face the three of them and was stunned to find their mother had joined. She stood in the back, arms crossed, and a wide smile plastered across her face.

“We didn’t do this alone,” Amity admitted, shrugging. “Mother helped us clean out everything.”

“Ashy!” Ailith called, rushing past him to get to the buckets of paint. She pointed down to one in particular. “I made sure we got your favorite color! Green!”

“We would have waited until tomorrow,” their mother spoke, moving up to stand next to him. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer. “But we figured there was no harm in receiving your gift early.”

Ashton beamed up at her. “I can’t believe you all did this... for me.”

“I’m aware that you aren’t ecstatic about beginning your training because that’ll give you less time to paint and sketch. But for when you do have the time, I wanted you to have a private space. Which means...” she peered around at the girls. “Whenever Ashton is in here, nobody comes in to bother him. Understood?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said Amity. “I’m not too sure about the little ones, though.”

“I’m not little,” Anice shot back, glaring at her.

“Alright, girls,” their mother said, stepping in-between. “Let us get back into the kitchen and finish up supper.” Anice and Ailith whined. Nonetheless, they followed suit, leaving Ashton alone to admire a room he was certainly going to spend every moment of his leisure time in.

The corners of his lips rose. Perhaps becoming a knight wouldn’t be as terrible as he assumed. If he could still manage to do what he loved most, he could get through it.

---

After supper was eaten and everything had been put away, the girls rushed upstairs to prepare for bed. Ashton waited until their mother was distracted sewing a button onto one of Anice’s dresses before sneaking out the front door.

At this hour, the liveliness of the town and market had been moved into the tavern across from the inn. Ashton’s curiosity inched him closer. He peeked into one of the small windows, spotting the crowd inside, talking and laughing with each other over pints of ale. A group of four women were up on a short platform, performing a song Ashton recognized. It talked about the first ruler of Aristol and her struggles against the people who rebelled against her. The song discussed how she prevailed and with what methods. Ashton didn’t know how accurate the tale was. Then again, he’d heard many different versions. At this point, there was no telling which, if any, were real.

Ashton moved on. He hadn’t come out here to watch the adults make fools of themselves.

Every night for the past four years, he’d made wandering the streets of Aristol’s capital, Starset, a job... of sorts. A secret one. As he reached the end of the path and entered the market, he spotted a potential patient lying beside the fountain.

The gray striped feline couldn’t have been older than a few months. She was curled into herself, bits of her fur near her tail matted with crimson. Ashton approached cautiously. When he got close enough, he held out his hand and spoke calmly to her until she raised her head.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help you feel better.”

The kitten hissed at him, her fur sticking straight up. Yet she didn’t run or even move an inch. His heart ached. She was frightened, but her wound prevented her from fleeing to safety. All she could do was hiss and growl in hopes that he would leave her be.

Ashton crouched in front of her. Fur was missing in patches along her back, revealing deep claw marks.

“Aw,” he breathed. “Who did this to you?” She put her head down as if in shame, and he reached out and scratched behind her ears. The gesture seemed to ease her tension and nerves. And while her eyes began to shut, Ashton moved his hand over her wounds. Her head shot right back up and she stared over at his hand.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said again. “I’ll make you better. I promise.” Then, closing his eyes, Ashton put forth his strength and focus on the assaults the kitten had endured.

He imagined the wounds being healed, imagined taking the pain away from the feline.

Then warmth surged through his body and gathered in his right arm. When it reached his palm, he dared to look, and he grinned crookedly.

The golden light transferred over to the kitten, enveloping her wounds and, after a few moments, closing them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything about the fur that’d been torn off her back. He figured she wouldn’t mind, though.

After the light dwindled, he withdrew his hand and she stood. Nearly good as new. She then turned to him and meowed, and Ashton chuckled. She walked up and nuzzled his arm.

“I told you I would make you better,” he cooed, scratching her head.

“Anything amiss?” he heard an older man’s voice.

Ashton peeked over the fountain’s bottom tier, finding a few royal guards communicating with one another.

The female guard shook her head and said, “All clear.”

They nodded to each other and went on their ways.

Ashton lowered himself even closer to the ground as if that would make him invisible. He held his breath and waited for the man to walk into his view. Once he did, it took him less than a minute to catch Ashton sitting there on the ground.

“Young man,” the guard addressed, raising an eyebrow incredulously. “It is quite late out. Shouldn’t you be at home with your family?” Then his expression saddened. “Or, ah... with Lady Rupert?” Before Ashton could answer, the guard gasped.

“Ah, little Ashton Ward,” he said, nodding. “I thought you looked familiar. I couldn’t quite see your eyes in this lighting. Were you searching for your father?”

“No,” Ashton blurted, furiously shaking his head. “No. I-I...” He glanced down at the kitten and lifted her into his lap. “I couldn’t find my cat. I thought I had lost her.”

“Ah, I see. What is her name?”

“I don’t know yet. She is a new addition to the family.”

The guard laughed at this. “Well, head on back home, son. You wouldn’t want to worry your mother.”

“Of course not.” Ashton slowly rose to his feet, holding the kitten against his chest. “Goodnight, then.”

“Yes, sleep well.”

Ashton awkwardly stood there, unsure which one of them was going to turn away first. The guard nodded toward the alley, so Ashton faintly smiled at him and walked off.

When he reached the front door to his house, soft purrs drew his attention down to the small feline again. He supposed they now had a cat.