In The Off Hours [open!]

[Ophelia Garrett]

As soon as she had finished the duties that she had been assigned, Ophelia had headed down to the dungeons to look around. She had always enjoyed walking around deliciously creepy places, and since the dungeons were usually just that, she decided to have a look-see. Though she had been at the castle for a while now, Ophelia had never really gotten a chance to explore it. There were few places that she went, as she usually stuck to only the rooms that required her, such as her bedroom or the general servants' quarters; however, the dungeons were calling her, and she couldn't refuse them.

Ophelia entered the dungeons silently, though the creek of the door as she closed it spoiled the mood a bit. By chance, she found a lit torch on the wall, and took it with her as she made her way through the small-ish labyrinth of cells. Never would I want to be locked in one of those, she thought, though she knew that it might be a fun time if her husband came back to find her lying sprawled on the floor, the moon shining from an unknown window on her hair, making it sparkle. Oh how sorry he would be then...

She continued through a ways until she thought she heard a sound come from one of the vacant cells. She had always been one with a wild imagination, and it was known for getting the better of her. Save for the torch, there was no other light source; not even the 'unknown window' that she'd made up. Ophelia turned to look into the cell in which she'd heard a small noise, but the light of the torch revealed nothing. Perhaps it was a rat, she thought, although she was hardly convinced. Another thing about her imagination was that it required visual proof to put it at ease. Since no such thing was likely to happen, Ophelia continued on her way, cursing herself under her breath for not having used something to guide her back- like a rope, or a trail of pebbles...

Ophelia sighed as she turned the next corner. It hadn't seemed like it could be very big, but at the moment, she was helplessly lost, and though the thought of them finding her down there years later, (much in the fashion which she'd thought of earlier), was tempting, Ophelia thought she might rather live through that evening and see another day. So, with no more knowledge than that her torch was dieing out, she slid down the nearest wall and sat there, hoping somebody might find her.

[Kaitlin-Rose Brown]

Kaitlin-Rose was restless. Today had to have been the most boring day of her life! Nathan was busy serving the king, the queen had been absentminded and dismissed her early, and there was no way she was going back home. That was the last place she wanted to be right now. She couldn't resent her mother and sister anymore than she already did. It was unbearable! Alani this and Alani that. She wasn't that great. She was too polite. Too formal. It was disgusting. Now as she vented to herself she made her way to the dungeon. She had been here once or twice just to think or be alone. It had been uninhabited for years. She sighed as she reached the door. Curiously, it was open. Wide open.

Kaitlin tilted her head to the side looking at the door. She had heard no news of anyone being punished. Could someone else be down there just to be down there? She peered in and felt around for a torch on the bench a few feet inside. Her hand came across the slippery oil of the lighting site. She felt for a flame started and found one just as quickly. Soon enough a warm light surrounded her. She sighed as she saw the dusty, cob webbed covered dungeon. It wasn't appealing to most people. But to her it looked misunderstood. Like herself. Coming here helped her think. It was quite, peaceful, and you never had to worry about someone disrupting your peace. That was until now. Someone was here. But who was crazy enough to come down here alone, other then herself, of course.

Kaitlin looked around. She knew the way of the dungeon. It was maze like, at first. But once you knew where you were going it was just like any other castle corridor. Winding and twisting, but there was always a way out. That's when she saw a figure. A lone women slouched against the wall. Kaitlin had seen her once or twice, but the women looked like she wanted to throw daggers at anyone who came her way. That was the hint Kaitlin took to stay away. If she wanted company she wouldn't look so....ferocious. She walked gently over to her. Her feet barely making a sound.
"Hello? Are you alright?" she asked gingerly.
This women looked lost. Not that she could blame her. She, herself, had gotten lost her first time to the dungeon as well. If Nathan wouldn't have come down after realizing her absence she would probably still be down here. She turned her attention back to the woman, wondering if she would bite her head off or not for talking to her.

[Ophelia Garrett]

Ophelia remained where she was, contemplating her life up to that very moment. When she went back as far as her childhood, she realized that she had come to find it rather pointless. She'd not been one to play outside like some of the others. No, she had always been interested in what her mother was doing. If her mother was sewing, that was what Ophelia was doing; if her mother was cooking, she would be there. It had given her a sense of pride at the time to feel 'wise beyond her years', to be more educated in adult-related things than the other children. However, now that she was taking time to reflect on it, (she didn't have anything better to do, after all), she wished that she had been outside with the other children. Not perhaps playing in the mud, but out with the wild things. Although Ophelia had never been one easily fobbed off with fairy tales, she had always found something mystical about the out-of-doors. It had called to her, in fact it still did, asking her to seek out the answers to the mysteries that lay within a tree, or on the wings of a butterfly.

When Ophelia was certain that she could take no more memories of her childhood, she saw a torch, along with a person, approaching. It wasn't fair to say that she wasn't glad that this woman had found her; it was rather the contrary. However, for a reason that she didn't know, Ophelia was rather annoyed with the woman for trying to aid her. "Congratulations. You found me. Your prize is the sense of accomplishment that comes with rescuing somebody from their doom," she said thickly, not bothering to smile, answer the question asked of her, or even thank the woman.

"I'm Ophelia, what's your name?" Ophelia asked as she brushed by the woman. She had no intention of sticking around to find out what her name was- it wasn't something that she cared to discover, or that she had any interest in knowing. She immediately started walking in the direction that she had seen the woman coming, even though she had no further knowledge of which way to turn, or if she even had to turn anywhere.

"What, pray tell, is the quickest way out?" she called over her shoulder once she was a little ways down the passage. Under normal circumstances, Ophelia would never have spoken to this woman- she looked important... a bit too important. She was definitely somebody that a servant shouldn't associate with. Though she had only posed the question of which way to go a few moments before, Ophelia was already tired of waiting. When she demanded an answer of somebody, she wanted it right then, not a whole minute or two later.

[Kaitlin-Rose Brown]

Kaitlin looked at the women whom she had found and possibly saved. Then she spoke words. Words thick with sarcasm and not even a trace of a smile. This woman had a big attitude and it wasn't rubbing off well on Kaitlin. She could at least be a little more grateful. Maybe she should've left her here. Then maybe, she would be happy and alone in her own problems. She rolled her eyes as the woman passed. What was her problem? Ophelia. What a name. A pretty, rare, name for such a distasteful woman! She watched as the woman tried to lead the way out. This should be amusing. If she wanted to find the way out she needed some manners and learn respect.

Kaitlin slouched against the wall with the torch watching Ophelia. She laughed to herself watching her. She shook her head and mocked her as she spoke.
"I don't know. she said dully shrugging.
Being annoying and stubborn were other traits that she had when people didn't treat her right. It was the exact same way she acted when her mother got mad at her. Until she learned to treat her like a person she was a total brat. That was the exact same way she planned to act now.

Kaitlin messed around with the bracelet on her wrist. It was a simple chain but it was her grandmothers. It was her most prized possession. Her grandmother loved her, and was the only one in her family who did. She remembered when that wise lady told her the story and history behind her name. It was her great grandmothers name, and her great great grandmother's. They were noble ladies highly respected in the court. The kings had loved them and favored them. They were envied by other girls for their beauty, and had many suitors. Everyday they had a fresh red rose set in their lavish hair styles. They wore lovely jeweled gowns and danced at many important balls. Oh, how she wished she could do that. To have a rose in her hair, to wear gowns, and to dance with men at balls. Especially Nathan.

Kaitlin broke out of her day dream totally missing what Ophelia was saying. Not that any of it was important. The woman was grating on her every nerve. She tried to be nice, but she wanted respect in return.
"You seem like you want to lead, so I'll let you lead the way out." she replied smirking in the darkness.
Game on, she thought.

[Ophelia Garrett]

Of course, of all the other people in the castle, Ophelia had to get the annoying, seemingly stuck-up one. She gave a small sigh of annoyance, hoping that it was audible to the woman that was now a few feet behind her. For a moment, she simply stood there, willing the woman whose name she had not heard, (nor cared to hear), a moment ago to lead the way out. She was fully prepared to run away the moment they set foot outside of the dank dungeons, but she realized, getting ahead of herself, that they actually had to get out first.

When a quick, undesired reply was all she received, Ophelia huffed and turned around abruptly, stalking back to the woman. "Thank you for finding me," she said in the nicest possible way that she could, finding it hard to not grit her teeth. "Now, since you seem to know so much more about the passages of this place than I do, I would greatly appreciate it if you would lead the way to the nearest exit." Ophelia could hardly believe that she had just apologized and asked for help in the past few seconds. She didn't even do that with the higher-ups, let alone this lady whom she'd only just met and knew nothing of.

It was not in her nature to be kind- in fact, it never had been. Ophelia, even as a girl, had always been a bit 'stiff', though she supposed that it had come from all the hours she'd spent sewing or cooking with her mother, once again, instead of playing with the children outside. However, once she'd married, she knew that she had changed; she'd been sweet, then. But with her husband's departure, he seemed to have taken with it her little shred of kindness. She had always been the girl to take pleasure in what most others considered to be displeasing, and so that little shred had been out of place for however long she had been married to him; Ophelia couldn't even remember if it had been a month, a year, two years...

Now that the brittle, unforgiving shell was all that remained of Ophelia, she found such memories as her husband and the length of her marriage to be impertinent in her world. Snapping unfortunately quickly back to the reality of the situation at hand, she realized that she was staring at the wall to her left, and not at the woman. "You didn't answer my question. I asked you what your name was," Ophelia said quietly and sincerely, for once, instead of snapping the way she usually did. She turned her gaze back to the woman, and noticed that she, herself, was a little shorter than this lady. Though it didn't 'dampen her spirit' (or what was left of it), Ophelia made a mental note to try to be straightforwardly polite with this woman from that moment on, as she sensed that she would get absolutely nowhere with her usual attitude. "And I suppose I didn't answer your question from earlier, either. I'm not alright. I've been terribly far from 'alright' for years," she said in a polite, but blunt manner. Hopefully it might earn her a bit of... something like respect, and they would both be out of the dungeons and each others' sight before long.

[Kaitlin-Rose Brown]

Kaitlin was picking at her nails when she heard an unfamiliar sincere tone come from Ophelia. Was she just some-what nice to her? She looked up from her nails, her large brown eyes wide. It came as a shock to her. She had heard about this woman. She was very reclusive and, as she had found out, very unfriendly. But the tone she was using now seemed....dare she say, nice? Kaitlin pushed her self from the wall and stood straight and proud.
"My name is Kaitlin-Rose Jackson. I am a mistress in waiting to the queen." she said.
She took a few steps forward and looked the woman up and down. She was becoming...if she didn't look like she was ready to stab you at any moment.

Kaitlin was about ready to lead her out when she heard her speak again. This time she sounded a bit, sad. She looked up and saw the slightest change in her facial expression. She looked burdened. Alone. Miserable.
"Well, if you are ever in need of someone to talk to I am here. It looks like you could use a friend or something. she said honestly.
She didn't know how far to go. She felt a little pity for Ophelia. She looked like she had been alone for a long long time. She knew exactly how that felt. It didn't feel nice at all.

Kaitlin shrugged and decided that maybe it was none of her business. She started walking in the direction of the door wondering if the woman would follow or continue standing there. Though, before she had seemed so anxious to get away from her before, the woman would most likely be right on her heels.

[Ophelia Garrett]

After hearing the woman's name and position at the castle, Ophelia nodded curtly and said, "Of course you're one of the Queen's mistresses... I don't know why I was expecting something else." She had already reverted back to her 'comfort zone', so to speak, of thinking as she sighed quietly, though not at all in a nice fashion. Ophelia had never had any use for the upper classes, or so she called them; she had always spoken of them with great dislike, and for a good reason, she'd thought.

Ophelia could remember vaguely conversations that she had had with her husband over supper about the higher-ups. Even though, then, they hadn't been commoners (in fact they had been quite wealthy), they were still below the Queen and the residents of her castle, save for the servants. It made Ophelia cringe just a slight bit to know that she was now one of those whom she had looked down her nose at, one of those dirty, filthy vermin that weren't even fit to see the light of day (which she found she rarely did, though perhaps more out of her own will than that of another). However, Ophelia had always prided herself on how she had been able to make her appearance more suitable than some of the other persons of her same class- it was nothing glamorous such as she had been accustomed to in her marriage life, but it wasn't bad, she had to admit. No, she thought, Not bad at all...

Pulled from her memories by the sound of Kaitlin's voice, (Pretty name, Kaitlin-Rose, she thought), Ophelia jerked her head up as she found herself staring at the floor. Looking to Kaitlin, she felt kindness edging towards her; something she'd not felt in years. However, she once again found herself out of her comfort place, and so she burned whatever kindness was still floating around Kaitlin's head with her stare. "A friend?" she posed, disbelief and hatred spread at once all over her features. "Friends are good for nothing. All they do is fawn on you when you've got something they want, then abandon you... betray you when you need them most," Ophelia spat, thinking back to her old friends.

They'd always arrive on time for tea. They did so because they knew that the tea was an import; something few could afford to even look at. Nonetheless, they'd flocked to Ophelia and her husband's house from the neighboring village. It made Ophelia want to cry as she wondered what had presently become of her gorgeous little house.

The moment they'd open the door, there would be about five people waiting to be ushered in, and over a period of about a quarter hour, four more would arrive. Every five days they would arrive and have their tea and little cakes, or whatever Ophelia had felt like cooking that day. She'd chosen to cook. They could have had servants, but she wanted to remain down-to-earth and approachable, not snobby and incapable of doing anything for herself.

The day her husband left, they were scheduled to arrive for tea. Ophelia had dried her tears and had prepared everything as it always was. However, on the mark of twelve in the afternoon, nobody showed up. By seven that evening, she knew that nobody was coming. It felt to her that they'd all known, some way or another, that he'd left, or that they weren't to go to tea.

Ophelia remained by herself until she'd run out of everything, and when she ventured down to the village, nobody answered their doors, nobody opened their shops... So she'd had to go to the castle and seek out a job. Fortunately, they'd needed servants, and though it pained her to have to demote herself as such, she knew it was her only option.

After reminiscing for far too long than was comfortable or acceptable for her, Ophelia realized that Kaitlin had gotten a little further ahead, and so she ran to catch up with her and fell into step right behind her. She said nothing, and no longer glared at the back of Kaitlin's head, willing it to catch fire or something equally horrible. She realized that she was jealous of the girl, and that was why she shot her so many awful looks. Kaitlin clearly had more than Ophelia ever had, even when she'd been wealthy and with a (so she thought) loving husband.

Ophelia thought a moment as she followed Kaitlin, that perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to have somebody to confide in; just one person that she would be genuinely nice to. "I wonder," she started gently, "how much you are aware of what life is like outside of this castle."

((OOC: Wow... I'm really sorry that's so long! Don't read all of it! ))

[Kaitlin-Rose Brown]

Kaitlin watched the woman as they walked. Then she saw something in the woman's eyes. A flicker of...kindness? Of it could've just been the flame of the torch dancing in her eyes. No it couldn't be. Ophelia's whole face softened. Her eyes looked burdened. some betrayal stood underneath those dark eyes. Her face looked less put together, sadness taking over. Then she felt some kind of energy. Like the woman was now radiating soft kindness and likeness to wards her. Could it be? Kaitlin blinked. The feeling, the look, everything she had just felt was gone. Gone back into the depths of the shell the woman had built around her.

Kaitlin wondered just what that had been about. What had made Ophelia drop her guard for but a split second. What intrigued her more was what made her that way. What made her so resentful of everyone? What could have possibly happened to the woman to make her so bitter? Then in the dim light she saw the woman's eyes narrow. Her mouth was a fin line and her snippy little voice reached her ears. Great.

Kaitlin rolled her eyes and looked up a the ceiling while Ophelia gave her lecture. Blah, blah, blah, blah was all she heard. As if she didn't get enough of this at home. If something ever went wrong back in the family's apartment, it was her fault. Every time. Ophelia's voice was replaced by her mother's voice. She heard the sharp words in her ear as if she were actually standing next to her. Her mother was screaming at her about doing a sloppy job at her sewing, for wrecking dinner, for not being more like her sister. It hurt. It stung. The words stung. She flinched away from them, as if a person was ready to strike her. Just make those voices stop!

Kaitlin-Rose looked back at her companion, a nice name for such crude manners. She had stopped talking an just staring at her rescuer. The golden flames of the torch flickered around them. The warmth of the fire reached out toward her hair. The flame licked the space in between her and soft pale flesh. She stared back at Ophelia. Why did she have to be so mean? All she was trying to do was help.
"The door is down this last stretch and to your right." she instructed the woman in a monotone.
She continued her way down the dark, damp walk way of the cells. All were bare. There weren't many trouble makers in the kingdom; yet.

She reached the doorway and pulled the heavy wooden door. Sunlight flooded the dark dungeon. Rats scurried away from the vicious light and into the dark damper corners. Kaitlin doused the torch and put it back on it's mantel. Blankly she turned back to wards Ophelia and motioned out the door.
"Freedom." was the only thing she said before starting her ascend from the dismal place called the dungeon.
In doing son, she escaped the crude presence of Ophelia Garret.


INVOLVING: Ophelia Garret, Kaitlin-Rose Jackson
STATUS: complete
WORD COUNT: five hundred seventeen
NOTES: im so sorry for the wait. i'm never this slow =(