The Region Of Rosa

The Arrival.

My name is Kaela. For as long as I can remember I've lived in the forest in the Rosa region with my grandmother and my older sister Sam. Ever since I was young, I learnt magic from my grandmother one of which is a healing spell. Sam never was as good as me and grandma when it came to magic, instead she excelled in the art of fighting, she practiced everyday with the dummy that was in our garden. Since we lived in the middle of nowhere and the ground wasn't very suitable for crops never mind with the barrier surrounding our land, grandma went out with the horse and cart to get supplies every now and then and would come back the day after.

One day though, grandma fell ill. Really ill. I remember waking up late one night, Sam wasn't there and when I opened our bedroom door, I heard grandma asking Sam to end her life. At the time I was 15, I put my hand over my mouth and as I heard Sam crying on the other side of the door mixed with a "I'm sorry Grandma." she had covered my grandma's face with a cushion and smothered her. I never knew until that point my grandma was in so much pain she didn't want to live anymore. I heard Sam walking back to our room, so I jumped in bed and pretended to be asleep.

I knew what Sam did was best for grandma, but I couldn't get over it, for over a month I ignored Sam and then when we were almost out of food. Sam decided it may be best for us to move to a village as her barrier magic wasn't as powerful as grandma's was. She had me train with a sword as she worked out where we were to go. We decided to go to the village Narcissus, the closest village to us. And so, we set off, leaving what was once our home behind without the barrier. We travelled for almost a week, all our food and water were gone and just as things were looking meek, we reached the gate of Narcissus. After being questioned by the guards at the gate, we were let inside.

The village despite being rather small was beautiful, the slabs on the ground shone in the sunlight, the houses of various shapes and sizes all had beautiful daffodils and roses in the window boxes. Fields of golden wheat stretched to the edge of the village and children played cheerfully as their parents waited for the baker to finish their loaf. It was a peaceful little village, not a single person was unpleasant. Except maybe this guard who was holding a sword to Sam's neck.

It all worked out fine in the end, once he realized who we were everything was fine. The guard had mahogany brown hair and hazel eyes, he was called Geoffrey; he had just been a bit uptight since there had been robberies in the village recently. Understandable why he was uptight now that I think about it, he was the head guard and he was sworn to protect the village people as well as the lord. He led us to an area of the village in which we could set up camp, after finishing setting up camp, we bought some food and water and took a little gander around the village before the sun started to set. We lay in the tent, the sky as dark as that of a crow's wings. The soft light of our lantern illuminated our tent showing Sam was writing in her book again, I didn't know what she was writing about, she'd always just say that it was a secret or that it isn't time yet for me to know.

I woke, the moon was still risen high in the sky and I heard noises from coming outside the tent, I woke Sam up and when she heard it, she went to investigate, I stayed in the tent with my sword. The night grew quieter and quieter, the lantern grew dimmer and dimmer. Sam was still not back, as I waited there for her. Something started crawling up my back, I could feel every step it took and in that moment I screamed.

Not too long after that Sam arrived out of breath with Geoffrey, as she was panting, I told her that about the thing crawling on my back and as I turned around Sam and Geoffrey laughed. I asked what they were laughing at and Sam just said "On your back is a squirrel Kaela, here I'll get it off you." she picked up the creature off my back and indeed it was just a squirrel, it's ears were twitching to every sound and its tail was raised up as Sam carefully put it on the ground. When it was safely on the ground it looked back at us before running off into the trees. We watched the little squirrel leave with smiles on our faces and after that. Geoffrey headed back to the main part of the village and we got some sleep.

The next morning, we went to town and as we were wandering around we was approached by a citizen, she was asking whether we knew where her son Milroy was. We apologized since we didn't know where he was but decided to help her find him. We asked around but no one had seen him and as we were passing by a bunch of houses, we saw a little entryway between two of the houses, there was a path leading towards and through that wooded area. As we were looking down the path someone said "that's where the traitor lived." From right behind us, we spun around to see Geoffrey standing there. We asked about it a bit more and found out the lord's son tried to kill his own father so he could be in control, however his plans were spoiled and he was beheaded. His house was left here as a reminder that no matter what family you come from if you commit treason you will be executed like everyone else. He took us down the path and there was an incredibly old almost completely broken-down house, it was missing parts of the roof and the walls looked as if they could collapse at any moment. Sam wandered towards the house carefully entering the building in hopes of it not falling down on her. A few minutes later she called our names. We rushed in to see Sam standing in a pit where the floor boards above must of broken crouching down, we asked what was down there and she put one finger up to silence us before saying "They're still alive. Both of them are." She stood up and there we saw two children lying there unconscious. I ran to get a ladder or something and when I returned with it we got the kids out of there. Sam and Geoffrey each carried one of the kids on their backs and as we were taking them to the hospital, the lady from before came up to us and thanked us for saving her son. The little girl however wasn't as lucky to find her parents. It turns out her parents was both guards and they went out on a dangerous mission. Unfortunately, they never returned.

That night I was trying to convince Sam to let us keep her, she kept refusing since we didn't have an actual place to stay and that's when Geoffrey said to us that we could build our own house and he'll let us stay with him for now since he has a spare room.

Sam still wasn't too sure about it but she accepted anyway, and that was when we decided to stay for good.