Story of Elizabeth Von Copperbottom

It was a less then dreary late day, morning overcast broke into a cool sunny midday. Elizabeth, after her morning mathematic lesson decided to take a walk out to the far rose garden. This garden, which was a favorite escape destination of Elizabeths’ was, unbeknownst to her, planned by her mother. in the middle of the garden was a beautifully carved stone podium with a large iron Sundial resting on top . Roses bushes where planted in a spiraling pattern out from the sundial. In order to reach the center sundial, one would have to walk in spiraling circles growing smaller until the center was reached. The rose bushes where never so high that it felt like a true hedge labyrinth, but if one wanted to cut to the middle; unforgiving thorns would be in their path. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order in which the roses where planted, and it seemed to Elizabeth that the roses where never in the same order one day to the next…

With her bound notebook and a charcoal pencil she started the walk towards the sundial. Walking slowly she studied each rose as she passed. Once in a while she would stop to breath deeply in their sent, or run her fingers gently over the plants feeling their waxy leaves and sharp thorns. Elizabeth could never quite quantify the emotional reaction she felt when deep in this rose garden, but it was strong, deep and powerful.

Elizabeth set at the task at hand, choosing a rose to sketch, the previous page on her notebook was of a full rosebud with little tips of petals trying to push through, burst if you would, into the world. Elizabeth decided look for a rose on it’s last leg, bloated and heavy, being pulled down to the earth by the fullness of it’s own beauty. She found a perfect specimen about midway though the path. The rose at the height of it’s beauty must have been as lush and bright as a fresh strawberry, but now due to age it was a deep nearly bloody red, with bits of brown curling the edges.

Elizabeth sat on the soft grass and started to sketch what she saw. She was not an expert artist, but her study of the shapes of these flowers tended to yield reasonable results. Each sketch took a long time, with long stretches of time where she would stare as if transfixed into the heart of each rose. In this manor time passed and the sun rose higher across the sky, lost in her attempts to truly understanding this one rose, Elizabeth didn’t notice her paper growing darker. A yell in the far distance shook her out of her trance, where upon she found herself in a very large shadow. Looking up she thought she saw a dark storm cloud that held an unnatural shape, upon closer inspection it was in fact an airship.

Everything happened very quickly from this point, 3 ropes jettisoned towards the earth, before she had even blinked 2 bodies where sliding down said ropes and where next to her with in an instant. Frozen in fear and wonder Elizabeth merely stared up at the forms nearly as they landed earch a few feet away from her. A large and muscular women in pants and a loose fitting top grabbed roughly at Elizabeth’s arm, this shook her into alertness. An attempt at resistance was met with brute force of an adult holding her in place. The women managed to tie Elizabeth’s arms behind her back and reinforce it with a loop of rope around her waist.

The 2’ed pirate to descend down the rope had landed only a few feet away, yet a large overgrown scary looking rose bush stood between him and the 2 females. Off in the distance alarms where sounded and the sound of yelling bodyguards grew closer.

“Time to get moving!!!” shouted the women to the man, who looked at the bush, at the path, back at the rose bush and then at the women. With a grumble and biting his lip he plunged though the center of the bush. A thousand thorns grabbed him, dug into his flesh and held his long hair as he keep pushing.
Seeing the rosebush that she had just been in deep communication with being trashed, Elizabeth released her 1’st real scream. This surprised both of the pirates greatly, but not enough to slow them down.
“Have a thing for roses eh’Lil’lady?” asked the women, who at this point was holding the struggling Elizabeth with one hand and reaching fore the 3’ed unmanned rope which dangled a few inches out of her reach.

“Gonna just stand there and watch me do all the work!?!” the women roared to her taller male companion, who had just managed to free himself from the thorns. He snarled something unintelligible as he grabbed the rope. With one hand, and Elizabeth with the other. Elizabeth found herself being lifted into the air, she thrashed vain attempt to fall to the ground.

“Lil’lady, we aim to do you no harm, but if he unable to tie that knot proper-lie, I can’t guarantee that you will make it all the way up.” Said the women who just been holding her.
Reality hitting her, Elizabeth twists her neck to get a look at the distance between her and the floating airship, it looked like hundreds of feet, and the thought of being a victim to gravity at any point on the accent was not appealing. Stopping her struggle she used this moment to look around at her situation. Still in the distance she saw men running toward their location. But the rose garden was at the top of the hill, and they had a long way to run before they reached her. While Elizabeth was being tied to the hanging rope, the women reached into the damaged rose bush and picked a rose that was still in one piece. “I’ve always been known for my generosity…” The women tucked the rose into the rope that held the young lady tight.

Suddenly Elizabeth felt herself being pulled upward. The two pirates which had captured her, where slowly and staidly climbing up one of the ropes. The rose garden where she had just been sitting a few moments ago, grew smaller the higher she rose.
With eyes that had never seen anything outside of manor grounds, she hungrily looked around at the view. Her house, seem grand on a large area of green grass, different gardens appeared to be patchwork on the landscape. As she soar upward, her eyes down at the earth, dangling on the end of a rope, the gravity of this situation hit Elizabeth. She was be petrified with fear, butt her eyes would not shut, they refused to listen to her brain and couldn’t stop watching the world slowly fade away from her. Though tied with hands behind her back, it was not beyond her awareness that she had never been freer.

The women who goes by the name of Elizabeth Von Copperbottom is a sham. That name was pulled out of a book she fancied in her youth. Her real name along with why She is always moving, always on the run is a mystery to those who did not know her. Lucky I knew her and can share with you a history that a very rare few are privileged to get a glimpse of.

Elizabeth (for what would be the point of a secret if i give it away in the beginning?) was raised in the laps of luxury. Protected as if a princess in a tower. Her father was a great man.. a dark, and powerful man. Head of an a relatively powerful crime syndicate, he primarily specializing in the import/export of illegal weptends and research into technology deemed unsuitable for the masses. Their name, his family name once stood for something, it was esteemed and respected, now it was only feared. The man himself was somewhat of a technology genius, his interest in these weponds powerful ideas was not purely for profit.

Very little is known about Elizabeth's Mother, even by myself. What is know is that she was a free spirit, wild at heart with a sharp toung and an even sharper mind. She was not from money, Royalty, or even a high class. But her beauty and her wit are often still spoken up in certain circles. She disappeared When Elizabeth was very young. Weather she died, was taken, ran away, or simple returned to a place yet unknown reminds a mystery, even to Elizabeth. Though despite her nativeatay, Young Elizabeth was aware enough to recognized that not all of her mothers positions "fit" with everything else. In long dark hallways, She could catch snips-its and 1/2 conversations of the servants about witchcraft and faeries...

Whatever the Stories and rumors are, the truth was, Elizabeth's mother ceased to be present in her the life and home of Elizabeth when she was still a very small child. Her father as his business grew shader and murkier himself grew more and more protective and paranoid. Elizabeth was never allowed to leave the grounds she was born on. Her childhood was was a parade of tutors and lessons. She was given more dolls and games then an entire orphanage of children could have dreamed of. She was versed in literature and languages, arts and the sciences. Her father even made time to teach her the basics of machines and all known power generators. As far as she knew, she was the only child on the earth and everything around her was there for her pleasure and distraction. She loved her father, remembered little of her mother, and was content in her Ivory tower.

that all changed a few days before her 14'th birthday.