Chapter 1
Heloo yall
Ch. 1:
Draft 1 completed
A bleak landscape stretched on; the ground was a dark mist highlighted with wisps of white, with dark colored bushes and trees that looked like the slightest breeze could whisk it all away. But in the distance, she saw, shrouded with shadows, a cloaked figure with a sliver of light in its hand.
Miri sat up in her bed, confused. She rubbed her eyes and turned to the left, reaching for her lamp and tugging on the string. The sphere flickered a little, lit up, and floated up to her side, casting away the shadows in her room.
She slid out of her bed and stood up, gazing around at her room, half-expecting something to be wrong. However, she noted that everything still looked the same as it had yesterday; the square-shaped room had everything in it the same, so she let out a tired sigh, and walked over to her mirror by her dresser to fix herself a little before she went downstairs, and she looked at her reflection, stubborn messy brown hair and hazy sea glass eyes from the dream last night. She tried to comb out her hair a little without much success.
She stepped downstairs using the oak stairs whilst leaning onto the rather pretty, old, worn, railing that was laced with flowers in full bloom, and stepped (rather grogily) into the kitchen, urged onward by the smell of her Dad’s most delicious chocolate waffles.
“Morning, Mom, Morning Dad,” she said rather grogily with honestly zero energy.
“Hey Miri! Merry Morning!” her Mom was sitting in one of the revolving chairs in the kitchen at the island table, facing her, right in front of the main kitchen; the lights floating above her were lighting up her professional, messy half bun and twinkly green eyes. She was drinking a hot mug of Rosemary-Hot Basil-Peppermint Tea- a homemade specialty. in a white t-shirt under a cream cardigan and black sweatpants. “I brewed a fresh batch of R-H-P Tea in case you wanted any!”
“Ok,” and she groggily made her way across the freshly polished tiles in the rustic dining room to the main kitchen, where her Dad was working on baking fresh, fluffy chocolate waffles, a village favorite if they could ever get their hands on some.
His steady hands grasping a spatula and carefully flipping pancakes with precision. He bounced along to a quiet rhythm, with a towel draped over his shoulder and many plates of pancakes stacked high beside him. Miri remembered with a jolt that the Pancake festival was coming up in a few days in the capital.
“Morning, Dad,” she said again for the second time
“Morning, Sweetleaf!” He grinned, “Would you like some pancakes?” he gestured to the overwhelmingly big stack of pancakes dominating the counters beside the stove. The pancakes themselves were made of tantalizing chocolate and vanilla, and were as fluffy as logically possible with bits of dark chocolate scattered within.
“Sure!” She served herself a few pancakes and sat down at the island counter table next to her Mom, who was musing over something as usual, sipping her Rosemary-Hot Basil-Peppermint Tea. Miri set down her plate with her pancakes on the Island Table and stood up again to get some Stevia Syrup from the Ice-House downstairs. She grabbed the Stevia Syrup, walked back upstairs to her chair, sat back down, drizzled some Stevia Syrup onto the pancakes, grabbed her fork, and took some bites of her pancakes.
“Oh! Dad,” she perked up and looked away from her pancakes, suddenly remembering something. “Could I bring some of those pancakes with me when I meet up with my friends?” she asked. “It’s my day to bring treats.”
“Sure! All the bakers in Villeasca are baking pancakes, so I'm sure I have some to spare,” he said with another grin.
She stood up, walked to the sink, cleaned off her plate, grabbed her knapsack, carefully filled it with some chocolate pancakes in bags, and started moving toward the front door to leave.
“Miri!” Her Mom stopped her before she could leave, standing in front of her, “Before you go, could you wake up your brothers for me?”
Miri inwardly sighed, although her two 7-year-old brothers, Mark and Maverick, could be unwittingly funny most of the time, getting them to wake up was a hassle. The time right now was a little after 8:00 AM. The average time her brothers woke up when going to sleep at 8:30 P.M was… around 10:00 in the morning. So she probably wouldn't have much luck.
“Sure,” replied Miri as she made her way across the living room of her house to her brother's bedroom.
Inside was a mess. Toys were scattered everywhere from yesterday across the cream-colored, fluffy, plant-fabric carpet. Ink pictures made by her brothers adorned the spruce, chocolate-brown walls. In the two twin-sized beds pushed against the walls opposite each other were her two younger brothers, both fast asleep and snoring loudly.
So Miri walked to the middle of the room to the window that was between the two beds and yanked the curtains open, letting in bright light into the whole room, but her brothers kept on snoring, stirring only just a little. So she went on to plan B. She grabbed both the cups on her brother's nightstands, went over to the bath-room right next to their room, and filled both cups with a little bit of water. She made her way back to their room and splashed the water in the cups into both her brother’s faces, and they both awoke with a start.
“Ahh!” Mark sat upright, face and hair a less than soaked
“Walll-Meiart….” Maverick got up a little more slowly, mopping up the minimal amount of water using his fluffy dinosaur blanket
“Why’ed you have to awaken us up like that?!” asked Mark, pouting
“Yeah!” Maverick piped up
“BECAUSE, Mom needs you for something, and I gotta run,” she explained with a grin while tucking some hair behind one of her ears.
“Fine.” Mark said, crossing his arms, still pouting a little
“Dad made pancakes,” she said in a sing-song voice
They both gasped in unison, finally fully awake, and rushed past her to the kitchen
Miri spun around, walked out of her brother's room, grabbed her bag, and walked out of the threshold of her house.
She took the 1-hour 30-minute trek from her house through the quaint little village that was Villesca, right into the middle of the woods.
The woods could only be something out of a fairy tale, with oaks and pines so tall that it seemed like they could touch the clouds. During the day, all kinds of woodland animals lived here, some normal, some not. As she hiked on, her bag thumped against her side on each step, a quiet rhythm. The foliage on the ground was a bright green, with massive ferns everywhere that were as tall and wide as the combined heights of both her brothers. The grass was soft and fluffy that it didn't even feel like grass at all- but more like the fluffiest cotton candy you could ever imagine.
She stopped at her destination- a massive flowering tree that resembled a weeping willow. It was taller than a house and three times as wide, with low vines hanging like curtains. The tree was a light oak color with all of the knots and edges giving it a worn look, and long, wide branches that looked like they were reaching for the sun. The leaves had a sort of transparent look that filtered light through them, and the flowers were as big as both of her hands put side by side. Each of the petals on one flower was a swirling mix of light blue and purple. Sometimes she felt a little worried about it, as it was the biggest and oldest of its kind (that Miri knew of) and only seeded every five years. Queen Pluvia, on her annual “Village Check” Around the kingdom had seen the tree and decided to take a seed to plant in her palace. From what Miri had heard, it was growing nicely, but that still didn’t stop her worry. She owed the tree.
“Heyy, Miriiii!!!” Yelled Josie from the base of the tree to her. In one hand, she had a sketch book, and the other was waving excitedly
Miri snapped out of her reminiscing and looked at her friend, grinning. Her friend still looked the same as at the last meet-up. Her strawberry blonde hair was waving behind her, and she looked like a character staring out of her sketchbooks- vivid and full of energy.
“Hiiiii, Josie!!!!”
She ran over to the base of the tree and plopped beside Josie
“Who are we waiting for?” Miri asked, turning her head from one side to the other
“Ummm….. Just Kale and Sage.”
“Well,” she said proudly, opening her knapsack and fishing out the pancake bag from all the knick-knacks, “I got the treats!” She raised the bag with pancakes out proudly, “It’s enough for everyone and then some!”
“Ooooo, Juniper would love those!!” she exclaimed
Miri raised one eyebrow at her with a teasing smirk
“Is this the guy who you’re NOT with?”
“Well, in my defence, he’s really cute!” Her whole face blushed to a deep scarlet. “He told me he really liked me 3 months ago, and yeah! I was like “well, I like you too” and went to hide somewhere to die of embarrassment!”
“THREE MONTHS ago?!?! It took you three. Months. To Tell me about this development?!” she said without any judgment and a grin
“Well, it's not like I can just slip ‘I have a sorta boyfriend now’ into a normal conversation.”
“True though” she agreed tapping her finger on her chin as a joke then started bellowing “JOSIE AND JUNIPER” Miri watched out of the corner of her eye Josie coming to understand what Miri was singing about and her whole face blushed a bright red “SITTING IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-“ Miri sucked in a breathe, Josie took that time to get out a piece of duck tape and unroll it “I-N-G!!!!” Josie cut off a piece and slapped it on Miri’s mouth, keeping her from bellowing
“Good,” she said, a little smugly brushing off her hands by clapping them together, her face still a little pink. “It’s the special kind, it's pretty painful to take it of,f” she said matter-of-factly
Miri glared mischievously with a smirk behind the tape at her best friend, already planning her next prank for revenge.
She ripped off the tape, rather painfully as expected, and out of the corner of her eye saw Josie sketching something.
“What are you drawing?” Miri asked
“The view.” Josie pointed to the woods with the trees that were not too far from where they were, under the Blossom Tree.
30 minutes later…
She heard a rustling coming from the woods. Her two other friends emerged: Kale, a brown-haired boy with lean arms and a grounded stance. Sage, with calculating, calm blue eyes, and an unmoving presence. Both looked worn and tired but otherwise unharmed.
“What happened to you guys?” Josie asked, teasing them
Kale grinned, “Well, this thorn bush decided to pick a fight with me,” he explained dramatically
Sage turned to him, “You're the one who stepped right into it by yelling out that you could fly,” she rolled her eyes with the corner of her mouth twitching up a little.
Kale looked at her a bit sheepishly, but it faded as he gave her a teasing grin and as he started to climb the Blossom Tree.
Sage turned to Josie and Miri, plopping down beside her, “So, how have things been with you guys?” She asked, her voice calm as always
Josie shrugged, “Nothing much, I’m still deciding what I want to be apprenticed to. I’m thinking of professional painting.”
“Nice idea, don’t the rich snobs in the capital normally pay a lot for paintings?” Sage asked
“They do normally, but it depends on the painter's reputation and what the painting is.”
Miri stood on the side watching them converse politely, listening without interrupting, watching the flocks of birds in the Felilde stretch their wings at take flight toward the sea, a tiny little spec in the backdrop, and the pristine grass in the field overgrown and tall, with lots of tall beautiful flowers mixed in. She watched Kale up above, climbing the Blossom Tree, trying to get the best view of the soaring birds. She turned her gaze and watched from the foot of the tree under the falling petals next to her friends, the whispering pine trees next to the field only a short distance away.
“Miri!” Josie exclaimed, snapping her out of her musings, “Do you still have pancakes?”
Miri grinned, “Of course!”
Josie turned her head up above to the fluttering flowers, and she cupped her hand to her mouth and shouted, “KALE WE HAVE SNACKS AND YOU BETTER BE FAST BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO EAT THEM ALL!!!”
The branches rustled above them, and Kale came crashing down, probably not from very high because he landed on his stomach and hopped right back up.
Miri turned to her knapsack and pulled out the other tinier bags with pancakes in them. She opened one and passed out a pancake to each one of them except herself. She already had a lot of pancakes this morning. She watched her friend feast on the pancakes beside her, next to the tree, chatting and sometimes asking for more.
Suddenly, the Blossom Tree behind them shuddered violently. Miri felt it vibrating loudly, and a jolt of terror went through her as she saw its flowers up above them shuddering, even though there was no wind to move them. Suddenly, a burst of fast gray wispy light echoed inland, tearing through the air. It pulsed outward from a distant point, sending violent gusts of wind across the clearing.
“Uh!! anyone else think this is’nt normal?!” Josie said with alarm, putting her arms out as the ground beneath them shook rapidly
One beam came just before the tree and was stopped by a purple force field, like light that surrounded the tree. The beams coming from the one spot far away stopped, and the tree and ground stopped shaking.
They all stood there for a second, astounded by what they had seen, a ripple of unease snaking through the air.
Sage stood up quickly, brushed off the top of her puffy coat a little, her hair waving in the breeze a little.
She looked alarmed, “Im-going-to-go-check-on-the village” and she treked back in the direction of the village
Josie yelled after her, “By the way, it’s your turn next to bring treats!!!”
Kale looked at both her and Josie with a worried smile on his face, “ well I’ll see you guys next meet up” and walked away back to the village.
Miri’s heart beat faster as she felt the tree shake pitifully behind her.
She saw Josie turn to her eyes wide with alarm, “Let’s go, we need to find out what that was.”
