1 Chapter 1: Pilot

In my world, magic is not uncommon. Anything you can imagine will exist in my world. Anything from enchanted forests and magical objects, to mythical creatures, kingdoms, and dragons. But with the good things, there is still evil to balance the world. Those who take advantage of our world, and use magic for selfish ambitions.

My name is Silvera. And I am not the main character of this story. It is impossible for me to be important in my world. I am only an orphan slave with no friends or family. But I work for the main character. She is princess Mary and the most beautiful woman in our entire kingdom, and she won't let anyone forget it. I am her personal servant, and punching bag apparently.

Princess Mary is an only child and heir of the king and queen of the kingdom of Ora. I live here in the castle attending to Mary's every need. It sounds better than it is. Instead of a room, I sleep in the stables and never have access to clean food or water. When I work, the only thing princess Mary ever talks about is herself, and how she has beautiful golden hair and bright blue eyes, while I only have brown hair and brown eyes. And since I've never gotten a second opinion of my looks, I've always just assumed I was ugly.

Not only did she just insult my looks, she looked for every excuse to hit me or yell at me. Ironically, me and her are the same age, and she is turning eighteen tomorrow afternoon. I've been eighteen for a few weeks, but I still feel smaller than her. And now that she is going to be of marrying age she is even more cruel. I never thought it was possible, but she did it.

Her story is about to start, and I am nothing in it. Just a simple extra girl always second best, in my case, last place, in her story of a new life. I am sleeping in the stables after a long day of work, unable to do anything but worry about the horrors that will come tomorrow. I toss and turn restless in my prickly stack of hay I use for a bed, laying beside one of the black and white palace horses. I turn to my side and see the horse, who I nicknamed Bruzey; because of his dark spots, eyes open and looking back at me.

"What are you looking at?" I occasionally talk to the animals because they are the only ones that listen to me when I wish to speak. Bruzey huffs at me, his exhale blowing my hair out of my face. I sigh, and look down at my tattered clothes and dirty skin, showing bone from my lack of food. I was skinny enough to be a skeleton, and I was getting weaker everyday. "Do you think I could ever be pretty?" I whisper, hoping that nothing would crush my dreams as soon as I said it. Bruzey blinks slowly, and closes his eyes. I sigh once more, and curl up into a ball. "Me neither."

I wake up to the birds chirping and the sun beaming down into the stables onto my face. I sit up slowly and yawn until I hear Mary screaming from inside the palace. "WHERE IS THAT SLAVE???!!!" I jump and realize what day it is. 'Oh no! It's Mary's birthday today! I can't believe I forgot!' I thought. I quickly get up and run inside the back door and up the stairs as fast as I could hoping to not run into Mary, making her even more mad than she already is.

But knowing my luck, she is already at the top of the stairs waiting for me. "Where have you been??!! Do you know what time it is??!!" I start to shake as I see the rage in her eyes increase. "A-Actually, n-no." She screams in anger. "Of course you don't!! You're a stupid slave who can't even follow a simple order!!" I was about to apologize when she slapped me in the face and grabbed my ear. "Ah-!" She then started to drag me to her room. "Of all the days for you to be a worthless human being, you had to be the most worthless on my birthday!!"

After struggling to keep my ear attatched to my head, she lets go once we're in her room and I find my voice. "I-I'm sorry. M-Malady." She walks to her vanity and looks back at me. "You're always sorry. Can you for once, try not to ruin everything? My other servants have their share of screw ups, but they have never been so utterly humiliating to have ever been called my slave besides you. Now don't just stand there like an idiot! Brush my hair and make me a new dress for tonight's ball! Which by the way, you are not invited to. I won't be seen with filth such as you."

I sigh, and nod heading towards the drawer of combs and brushes. She sits down and scowls at me through the mirror. "Oh, and don't touch me or my hair with your diseased hands. I can't get your germs on such an important day. And I want my dress to be made of the finest silks of all the land and the softest material from the sisters shop in Mavington. Blue and orange." I looked up from her hair surprised. "M-Mavington? But that's all the way across the kingdom! It would take hours on horseback just to barely enter the city!"

Mary's scowl turns into a smirk. "Then I guess it will take all day on foot. So you better get going." She then placed a sack of coins in my hand and my mouth dropped. I couldn't believe she was making me walk all the way to Mavington without any food or money other than for the dress. I looked down and put the brush back in the drawer, and left the room. "Right away your highness." I said as I walked out.

I went back to the stables and looked to the path behind the palace. 'How am I going to do this? Even if I manage to make it to Mavington without dying of heat stroke, starvation, snake bites, bug bites, muggers, disease, thirst, suicide, how am I going to make it back in time to make an entire dress before tonight?!' I thought. I looked down again trying to think of a solution to this impossible task, when something bumped me from behind. I turned around and saw Bruzey. He somehow got untied and rubbed his head against my back. That reminded me. Bruzey is the fastest horse of all of the palace horses. If I rode him to Mavington, I would be back just in time to make the dress.

The way I saw it, it was my only choice. I had never rode a horse before but that couldn't matter right now. I pulled the reigns and put my foot into the stirrup hoping I could lift myself in one motion. I jumped up and on the horse, almost losing my grip, but managed to stay on. "Okay, I've never done this before Bruzey, so, can you help me out here? I need to get to Mavington as fast as possible." Without another word, Bruzey immediately started to run on the path faster than I have ever seen him go. "Whoa!" I almost fell off again because he was running so fast. 'Ow! My butt is going to be SO sore after this!!' I thought.