Astra's Tale

How Astra became a Huntress.

Astra's Tale

I was born in my family's manor in the countryside in Yorkshire, England, on 16th May 1650. The first sixteen years of my life were fairly uneventful, I sustained few injuries from falling out of trees - I recieved more scoldings for having climbed them in the first place. I was to be married in the spring of 1667, though I had never met my betrothed, but he sounded awful. The tales I heard about him from my elder brother James - I won't repeat them. Well, they were frightening.

So my father, (Mother had left soon after my youngest sibling was born), James, the twins - Frederick and George - and little Sarah traveled down to fix up the final arrangements in late August 1666, and were not expected back for at least a fortnight. The plan was that it would all be sorted out before the winter storms set in.

They departed one crisp autumn morning, dressed smartly, as if for church. They drove off in a hansom, a beautiful carriage, pulled by four grand chestnut horses. I waved them off with a white handkerchief from my bedchamber window, for I had been ill that week and so was not fit to travel. That was the last I saw of them - Father, hair neatly parted, smiling and waving with Sarah sat on his knee, wagging her chubby hands gaily, James, at eighteen a married man, and Frederick (Freddie for short) and George, the mischief makers of the household at seven. Little Sarah was two years of age. She was too young to die. They all were. For as you should have guessed by now, they were in London as the Great Fire took place. My siblings were just four of the eighty seven children that perished. Sometimes, how I wish I could have been there instead of them, or even with them, holding their hands, singing Mother's lullaby.

When the news reached me, I ran. I ran to the forest, to the trees I knew so well. I ran until I could run no more. I did not want to own my father's estate. It was not mine by heritage. It should have been James'. It felt wrong to take what was his. And that is when the Hunt found me. I swore my oath to try and forget. I never did. I swore to try to fill the holes in my heart with new siblings. They have yet to be filled fully. I swore to try to escape. That I did, in part. But I shall never forget. Not if I live to see the twenty fifth millennia AD.