1 In The Beginning (1)

In a world of pure magic and uniqueness there lived an average woman.

At the age of 25, Caeli was the most ordinary person that existed. At least she believed so. With long auburn hair, tan skin, and chocolate brown eyes, she felt she was the most ordinary being to walk the planet.

Caeli grew up in a village not far from Flumen, one of the biggest cities on the continent of Ausia. Close to the equator of this world, many of the people on this continent looked just as she did. Dark skinned, dark haired and dark eyed. As a young girl, Caeli was told how ordinary she looked and that it would only do her injustice, and thus far, that had been true.

At a very young age her mother and father passed away from an illness that swept the country. Hundreds of thousands, lost to a disease that strangled its victims until death took them.

By some miracle Caeli was spared. In being spared, her whole life changed. Her aunt and uncle took her in, and raised her from the age of 5. With little joy, the couple opened their home to her and in turn, shared the burden of running a small merchant stand with her.

Aunt Tora and Uncle Vayne grew vegetables and traded with nearby villages to sell at their merchant stand. Although they were not rich they lived quite comfortably compared to many others.

At the age of 25 Caeli was practically a spinster. Many girls in this continent were married and bearing children by the age of 18, if not less. Perhaps it was her plainness that discouraged suitors, perhaps it was her sharp eyes and quick temper. Or perhaps it was her uncanny ability to read others and their true intentions. Maybe, even, it was her willingness to get her hands dirty and do the hard work, making others look lazy in comparison. No one liked to look lazy although many enjoyed being so.

Over the years Caeli had many suitors much to her aunt and uncles surprise. Her lack of husband was not due to a lack of pursuit.

Most were initially intrigued by her laughter and her wit, always curious, but an intelligent and brazenly honest woman who spends her days in the wood with the spirits does not a wife make. Her strong hands, swift tongue, and love of nature often discouraged suitors. She was inspiring to spend time with, but not a woman to make into a wife. What would people think? A woman speaking so forwardly, a woman with more curiosity and drive to learn than her husband? A woman who loved the land like her own blood. What would people say? A strong womanly body and big almond eyes would not excuse her other short comings. A feral fairy will bring intrigue and awe but never will it secure a proper home life.

So working for her relatives and spending her free time reading and tending the forest was what Caeli had resigned her life to. It was a happy existence and one she looked forward to continuing until her death. Caeli was quite content to work and do the things she loved in her free time without concerning herself with others, especially men.

Men were often only trouble or troublesome.

Caeli would spend every day working for her relatives in the garden, tending the crops and the animals.

On a continent without a true cold season, she would eat lunch in the wildflower field far from the village and pick flowers to bring home for the merchant stand. She would slowly make her way back and share food with the woodland creatures, speak with them and learn things. She would tend any failing foliage or creatures along the way. Once she returned home to the cottage she would make dinner for her aunt and uncle, clean up, and go to bed. The next day would be exactly the same.

Although her routine was very consistent it was rarely boring. A friendly old man in the village named Demetri would always bring her new books from the city. Books about medicinal or cooking herbs, alchemy, the healing arts, history, mythical creatures and sometimes fantasy books about far off places and risky adventures. And if Caeli didn't have her nose in a book she was speaking with the creatures of the forest, asking them how their day was or playing hide-and-go-seek with the young ones.

Sometimes she would find herself helping the creatures search for their lost hats or helping them unload their gathered foods. Sometimes Caeli thought that the only ones who were her friends were the creatures of the forest. Nymphs and fairies, elves and golems, it did not matter. There were few, if any, creature of nature that did not like Caeli for she loved the forest like the fairy folk did. She heard its cries when fires would break out and burn the plants, she felt its happiness when spring rain came and brought vibrant life to the land. She loved the forest.

And so she lived her life happily and content.

Until the dragon came.

Caeli awoke to the smell of fire and people shouting. Quickly she pulled on her tattered robe and sprinted outside. Above the village she saw a giant dragon sweeping fire across the village. The fire was so hot that within seconds, homes burned to the ground and quickly exhausted the flammable materials involved in their arcitechure until only smoke remained. Crops crumbled into ash with a flash of red hot light and only scorched ground remained once the fire went out.

"The dragon! He's burning everything! Quickly, head for the tree line!", shouted the village leader Adair. He held a marble augment stone with a hole in the center. Speaking through it, his voice rang clear as a bell through the town. Everyone began fleeing to the tree-line of the forest.

Caeli whirled in a circle, where were her aunt and uncle?

Quickly she burst back through her cottages doors. Stumbling quickly to the back yard, Caeli freed her aunt and uncles animals, swatting their back ends and shouting, praying that the fear and sting of her strike would encourage the animals to seek safety.

Back into the cottage she went.

"Aunt Tora! Uncle Vayne! Are you still in here?!", she shouted into the smoke filled farmhouse, her voice cracking from the dryness of the air.

Frantically Caeli ran through her home. She attempted to think of what to grab in the few seconds she had before her everything came crashing down around her. Moving through the house she began stuffing things into her leather bag: a dagger, cloth pants and a blouse, her worn and weathered leather boots, flint, and a flask of water infused with healing hollay root. She quickly donned the evergreen cloak that was once her mothers and Caeli fled.

Exiting her cottage she swung her head to the north and saw the forest and where it began. She could get there in time, she told herself. As she headed for the tree line she continued to swivel her head quickly back and forth, where could her relatives be? Had they made it out of the village in time?

The forest began about a mile and a half from the northern edge of town, many would not make it. As she ran she saw animals left behind. Even children separated from their parents and frozen with panic and fear.

As she ran Caeli would occasionally stop and attempt to free as many animals as she could. If a gate was on her way to the tree line, she would unlock and fling it open. As she passed children she would usher them towards the forest making swift and short promises to reunite them with their family to get them moving. Promises she knew in her heart she likely would be unable to keep.

Despite getting closer to the villages edge, she could still hear the faint shouting of Adair doing his best to urge the villagers to evacuate and still the fires came. Each breath unleashed slammed into the architecture and landscape hard enough to make the earth shake. The sound of the fire coming from the dragon was not unlike an eruption from a volcano.

As though the dragon were toying with the villagers, it kept spewing small strips of fire, lighting one house on fire then coming back around to do another, blocking the exits for many of the people still in the center of the village.

Why wouldn't the dragon demolish the village in one sweep of a breath? It certainly was large enough to do so being the size of Flumen castle. The dragon itself could land on top of the village and cover most of it with its body.

So why aim and control its attacks the way it seemed to do?

As she ran a word rose from the depths of her soul, swiped through her heart like a dagger, and slammed into the walls of her mind like lead.

Revenge.