Peacock killer!

The horse carriages pulled into the wide arched entrance of Thorin manor, the homestead of the Thorin family in the capital city.

Sigrid eyes were captivated by the sheer large size of her family home. The manor was built like a mid sized castle, smaller than that of the royal family but nevertheless, just as impressive and very secure.

Two guard towers stood tall on opposite sides of the wall, armed knights and guards that were employed as watchmen were on duty.

The grand stone manor stood tall with wide arched buildings and purple and pink ivy creepers on the walls which drew her eyes, their beauty under the afternoon sun was marvelous and worth a thousand pictures.

"I have always wanted to live in a house like this." she whispered.

It looked like one of those beautiful bed and breakfasts that you found in a nice quiet countryside.

"You will not be living here much longer." Cosmos reminded her.

She ignored the pessimistic guard and stepped out of the carriage, aided by Lanai that took one of her hands, holding it as if Sigrid was so precious.

When her feet touched the cobblestone ground, another maid appeared by her side, standing to her left while Lanai stayed to the right.

The other maid was called Lama and she took Sigrid's left hand, holding it as carefully as Lanai was holding the left one.

Sigrid turned her head from left to right, for a moment she felt lost, puzzled as to why her hands needed to be held while she walked.

"What is this?" she asked them.

Lama let go of the hand and fell to her knees with fright in her skittish eyes.

"I am sorry Lady Sigrid, my hands are a little sticky because I saved a jar of your honey from falling down. Please don't cut my hands off, I promise not to touch you carelessly ever again." she pleaded.

"Huh!" Sigrid's jaw gaped in astonishment. 

Was the original body truly that bad? How could she have someone's hands cut off for something so minor?

"Get up." she spoke to the maid that was weeping inconsolably.

Sigrid bent to help the maid up, she felt the poor woman's body shivering with so much fright as if she had been caught out in the rain all day.

"I do not intend to cut your hands off Lama." she tipped the woman's chin up and smiled. "Unless you steal from me then its a different story."

She turned her head and looked at the two other maids and waiting knights, someone among them was a thief. The identity of that thief had not been revealed in the novel, this individual had stolen Sigrid's painting and given it to Emmah.

At the painting competition for young ladies which was held by the queen, Emmah had unveiled the same flower painting and the original Sigrid had gone nuts.

The event was somewhere down the road but Sigrid wanted to warn the thief anyway in the hopes that they would think twice before crossing her.

"Let's go." she said coldly.

She folded her arms together, holding them close to her mid rib like most of the noble women of this era tended to do when they were walking to appear graceful.

"I do not need anybody to hold my hands from now on." She announced.

"Yes lady Sigrid." The maids answered uniformly.

The one benefit of the old Sigrid's tyranny was that her maids and all of her servants were quite well behaved, fear for their lives kept them in line.

This lasted until Emmah came with her gospel of equality and she started a revolution in many households. The king had put a stop to it just in time before it made it to his castle.

Even though it had failed, it had changed the way servants were treated in the houses of the nobles. It also made Emmah the most loved woman in Eldoria among the commoners.

"I will never understand why nobles here raise peacocks." Cosmos commented.

Sigrid glanced side ways at the three peacocks which were wandering the grounds freely. They were coming around the corner next to the hedges that were being trimmed by one of the butlers.

The entire manor was being renovated and decorated ahead of the wedding so people were walking or running around, attending to their tasks.

"I have never actually seen a peacock before." she answered.

Sigrid had never been to the zoo, it was not part of her education, nothing normal children did had been.

She stopped for a moment and smiled softly at the birds, to her great surprise, they turned and run in the opposite direction, making loud noises.

"What have I done, I just want to take a closer look and pet them." she asked a little loudly. Sigrid turned to Lanai for answers. "Why are they running away from me."

"They are just hungry my lady." Lanai croaked out.

Sigrid shrugged, turned and restarted the walk to the house. Behind her, the servants were quaking or wiping away sweat from their foreheads.

None of them could believe that Sigrid was asking why the peacocks were running away when she often captured them forcefully if she was in the mood to paint them. If a bird resisted, it was killed or slapped.

The poor peacocks had developed a sense of wisdom and knew to stay as far away from Sigrid as possible.

This very information was being relayed to Sigrid by the system and she was in disbelief.

"Stupid author, why didn't you include any of this in the book?"

"I told you host, the percentage of the lives of the characters captured on paper is very microscopic, little, tiny, minute.."

"I get it." Sigrid ground out. "Of all people whose bodies they could have thrust me into, they sent me into the peacock killer's body. I was wrong, this is hell, just a different kind."

Cosmos guffawed, Sigrid turned her head to the knight that was walking beside Lanai and she glared at him. He was equally to blame for the position she found herself in at the moment.

"Welcome back Lady Sigrid." Norm, the butler of the duke's manor greeted her.

He opened the doors widely to let her in.

"Thank you, might I trouble you to divulge the whereabouts of my father?"

"In the great hall my lady, he is not alone. The wonderful news of your impending nuptials has already traveled and the relatives are pouring in to celebrate.

Might I be the first to offer you my congratulations, crown princess?" Norm put one hand around on his stomach and lowered most of his upper body in a polite bow.

"Thank you Norm." she answered.

Sigrid was polite to the old butler, he was one of the people that was loyal to the Thorin family to the very end. When the whole family was executed after being framed for treason, he drunk poison, taking his life. He died right in the doorway where they were standing.

"My lady," Norm called out hesitantly before she could walk further. "Miss Rosalind is here, she came in the company of Lord Oliver Ye, your former fiance."

Some of the maids gasped like they had just heard something incredibly scandalous.