The Keys to Katharine

After knowing Katharine for years in my head, today I share a bit of who she is. 

Katharine is a teenager living in a fictitious feudal city (yet to be named; please send suggestions), vaguely based on medieval England, which has been relatively peaceful of late. I have debated many times whether this should be set in a made up world. My reason for choosing an imaginary one is purely selfish in that I get to make up how people acted instead of following historic trends, actions, gender roles and actual events. 

To picture Katharine is more than just a few physical traits on a page. She has long red hair and witchy grey eyes, wrapped in a fiery, intelligent and kind spirit. Freckles dust her cheeks and her skin is golden-tinged because she spends more time outside than in being the daughter of the stable master.

She helps her father with the horses and rides better than most men. Her way with horses is well-known throughout the country. When she was eight-years-old, she calmed a prized "untamable" horse that even her father failed to control. Crawling cautiously under the paddock fence, she held out a filled honey comb to the horse and whispered sweet words to him. After a tense moment, the horse lay next to her in the grass as if he were a foal. The king, witnessing this, gave her the steed. He said to her, "One remarkable creature deserves another."

Her father, while good at raising horses, was not quite sure what to do with his 9-year-old daughter after his wife, Pru (short for Prudence), was murdered. Pru was a healer, often called upon to heal illnesses in the castle. Katharine learned about healing from her and took over her mother's role for the townspeople at a young age, as well as helping in the stables. 

Katharine's life holds many secrets, but I don't want to reveal too much as they are tied into the story itself. Time to focus on writing the story instead of my blog... Wish me luck.