Lilly sighed as she leaned against the railing of the tower balcony as she twirled a blonde ringlet in her finger. Her 18th birthday was already 6 months in the past. She thought being an adult would change things. It hadn't. She gazed out beyond the walls to the forest beyond. What was out there? Only she seemed to be curious. But of course, she could not go. No, she was stuck here in the palace. She sighed. How could no one else want to know what was beyond the city?
Sure, they had everything they needed here. Small gardens and a tiny lake inside the wall fed the city. A well gave clean water. Hunters from the walls occasionally managed to shoot a deer with harpoons for furs and a variety of food. A small mine fed their need for resources. Everything else was delivered by bird. Except adventure.
It was so boring here. The same people, day in and day out. There were around 1,000 people in the city and Lilly had met them all. Multiple times. She'd grown bored of people. Now she just wanted to be... out there. Among the trees. Beyond the mountain range. Anywhere but here.
No one could leave the city though. There wasn't even a gate. The wall was solid all the way around. You could get up onto it from inside the city but there was no way down on the other side. And it was at least a forty-foot drop. Lilly had looked.
So... She just watched and took notes. She thumbed her journal absently as she gazed at the skies outside the city. She sat up straight as she saw a speck in the distance. Another bird! That was the third today. Lilly hated that no one else was curious where the birds or their packages came from. Who sent them? Where did they get the things they sent? How did they make them?
Lilly jotted down notes as the bird flew into closer view. It had come from the direction of the mountains. Most did. Red. That meant a bath supply bird most likely. Probably bringing soap. She sighed. How was soap made? What was it made of? Why was she the only one to care?
What if the birds stopped coming? No one would listen to thoughts like that though. "The birds have always come and always will come," her father, the king, had said. She watched as the red bird flew over the hay field and dropped its package. The package thumped softly onto a bed of hay set out to await it. The bird wheeled and headed back out of the city. Towards the mountains.
What was- Lilly's heart jumped into her throat as the red bird jerked in flight. Something shiny had flown through the air from the forest below and hit the bird. The bird crumpled at the impact and fell out of the sky, falling below the treeline. Lilly's heart was racing as her hands trembled. She memorized the treetops the bird had fallen behind in her mind and quickly flipped to her sketches of the landscape in the directions of the mountain.
There... She marked the location on her drawing. That's where the bird had fallen. She jumped to her feet. "Father!" she called as she ran through the palace.
It took several minutes to find her father. She burst into his meeting room after forcing her way past Peeves, the scrawny scribe guard. There were four other men in the room with her father, all looking surprised in her direction. Her father looked exasperated and disappointed at her barging into his meeting room. She didn't care. "Father! A bird was shot down! It fell into the forest and-"
"Lilly!" Her father shouted. "You do not interrupt me in my meetings! You bring shame to yourself and to me!"
"But father the-!"
"Silence!" The king said. "I have told you I will hear no more of your talk of the outside. Now return to your tower without supper!"
Lilly opened her mouth to protest but there was a fire in her father's eyes. She wilted and turned from the room, running back to her tower. It wasn't fair! Why did no one listen to her! She was an adult! Eighteen years of age! She should not be treated like a child anymore.
This was ridiculous. That bird needed to be investigated! Something shot it down! What if that bird was never replaced and they never got a shipment of soap ever again! What if other birds were shot down? Someone had to do something, and clearly that was up to her.
Lilly huffed and set into motion a plan she had had for a long time. She pulled her pillowcase stuffed with bread out from under her bed. Then she stripped the bed of sheets. She then pulled down the curtains. She set to tying knots. Sheet to sheet to curtain to curtain. She wrapped the lengths of her makeshift rope around the room. Yes... that would have to be long enough. Then she piled them all in her arms along with the bread pillowcase and marched out of her room.
One guard questioned her as she left the palace. She told him her father was punishing her by making her do her own laundry, and she was talking the sheets to the pond to wash them. He shook his head with disappointment, buying her story hook-line-and-sinker.