Danette Blevins

It was late one night in the Barbarous village, and the waves were restless. A nearby boat is being prepared for a long journey, filled with different kinds of armor and weapons, food, tents, and blank scrolls. Three siblings were standing watch with hooded, black cloaks as the boat was filled with it's occupants' things. The eldest of the siblings stood up amongst the other two and started walking towards the boat, the middle child(a proud, and very strong member of the Barbarous village) stands as his brother walks to the boat, and
says to his brother in a manner of a disgusted aristocrat," what do you think you are doing, brother?" the eldest, hesitant, looks down at the ground, then at the black, starlit sky. "Do you truly believe that it's right to have other people do our work for us?" he turns and faces his brother with a look of discontent, "no, but the locals did volunteer to help us load our things" replies his brother, "but what are we doing that needs help? Surely not sitting around and doing nothing."
The eldest heads back for the boat, when he is interrupted by the sound of a war horn coming from the village. "What is it? Not the invaders I hope..." says the youngest sibling. "N-not now. We must hurry! Brothers, it's time!" the youngest sibling scrambles to the boat, and unties the ropes holding it to the deck. The other two bid the locals good-bye, and are quickly pulled on to the boat by the youngest sibling. "let's go...we have no time to spare, we must get to these "hidden" villages of our neighboring land" says the eldest as he grabs the oars," no more tears now sister, the village will be fine, for we are the tribe of the dragon, none shall overcome us, and be sure not to look back."
As they rowed their way through the black waters of the ocean, they couldn't help but to look back at village, and through her teary eyes, the youngest did not look away, not even for the slightest pause. An insecure feeling of fear and loneliness came over the three siblings as they drifted away from their home, not knowing of the trials that awaited them at the distant land. Tears overcame the eldest as he rowed the boat towards the horizon, for he could not look away from the village either, now isn't the time for tears, he thought, I must be strong, I can't let the others know I'm afraid, he pulled his hood over his face, concealing the the tears as they rolled down his cheek. "Brother, look!" the youngest exclaimed as she pointed a finger towards a small island with a sign on it's shore," what is it?" said the middle child with a puzzled look on his face," it's a boundary sign, we must be entering their country."
After hours of drifting on the ocean waves, the siblings began to slip silently off into a deep sleep, caused by the hypnosis of the waves softly brushing up against the boat. The two brothers, after their sister had fallen to sleep, began to get drowsy from the sound of the waves as they sequenced a pattern, almost like a lullaby, when they gently rose the boat, and brushed up against the side of the boat. The middle child quickly fell to the power of this lullaby, and dosed off to sleep, while the eldest(still rowing) was still trying to fight the trance of sleep, for it was his duty to get his siblings to the shores of the neighboring country.
It was some time later that he saw the sun rise just off of the horizon, and with it's warm embrace, he too was feeling the effects of the oceans' power of hypnosis. Minutes later, he was asleep, for he was no match for the watery trance that was put over him as he rowed towards the horizon.
The eldest soon woke up hours afterwards to find out that the ocean had guided them to the shores of the country sought out so desperately by him. It was very foggy, and so he could not see very good, but he could hear extraordinarily well, so well, that when he closed his eyes he could hear the soft breathing of a deer that had been in the bushes far off from the shore, he could also hear the sound of a sleeping bird nestled high above in a tree. Standing up, and relying on faith alone, he stepped out of the boat and walked up to the forest, and from where he could stand, he could hear the sound of feet, frail, and small, someone was coming...and fast too. He hid in the bushes adjacent from the deer, and as he did, he listened for the footsteps.
The footsteps began to get louder and louder, until they came to the point of a fork in the road just a few yards away, then they stopped. Just as quick as they came they vanished, all just about as big of a mystery to the eldest sibling, but why would anyone so small be running around this early in the morning? The sibling had to find out, so he jumped as quickly as he could to the opposite side of the trail, where the trees and other vegetation would provide him with more cover. He ran as silently as he could to where the fork in the road was, but when he got there he didn't find anyone, or anything. More footsteps were coming from a distance, this time they were big, heavy, and from the sound of it, numerous.
There were five big men running east as if they were tracking something, so the sibling followed them to see if he could figure out what they were doing. He chased them for what seemed to be miles before they stopped to get a reading of whatever they were tracking. One of the big men pulled out a scroll from his pocket, and he placed it on the ground. He bit his thumb, drawing blood, and laid his hand on the paper and said some kind of language that the sibling could not understand, like a serpent had uttered some kind of evil word from its mouth. Then a cloud of smoke appeared, and from the smoke came a large snake, about six feet long and about three feet tall when it stood its head up sniffing the air with its forked tongue.
Once the snake had gotten a scent from the air, it whipped its head around about ninety degrees and started slithering north-east towards a big oak tree. The snake coiled around the tree, and broke it in two with a tremendous grip. A scream came from the tree as it fell, a high pitched scream, like what a woman would do in a position of fear, then the men raced for the broken tree with daggers in hand, and started cutting away at the branches. The sibling saw a rustling in the branches, as if someone was struggling to get out, but none of the men could see it. A girl came rushing out of the fallen tree, she was small, had black hair, maybe in her teens, and by the looks of it, she was cut up pretty bad. As she ran, she managed to utter a whimper from her mouth, but she tried to hold it in so that the men couldn't hear it.
One of the men got tired of cutting the tree, so he stopped and stood up to wipe his forehead with his sleeve. He caught sight of a shadow in the fog running west, back from where they had come from, he squinted his eyes to get a better look. He whispered something to his comrades in that strange language and pointed his knife west. The others quickly caught on, and they all joined each other on the road to go chase this shadow. The sibling ran back to the boat once the men had gone far from his hiding spot, and grabbed a sword from the boat, he ran west once he had gotten back on the road.
After running for several minutes he caught the trail of footsteps headed west. He could hear the sound of the footsteps again once he had regained ground, but the small footsteps were in the mix of the others, which meant trouble for the girl. His sword was making too much of a loud clanking noise which gave off his position, one of the men turned around and was running straight for the sibling swifter than ever, as if he were preparing to deliver a silent, but deadly blow. He could see the man as clear as day now, which meant that he could prepare to defend against the man's attack. The sibling did not draw his sword, instead he moved his sheathed sword in front of the man's dagger, stopping the attack, and he pushed back with a great force that flung the man back into three of the other men that were running twenty yards away.
The sibling kept running west until, at last, he could see the last man and the girl ahead of him. Tired, the girl fell to the ground and relinquished what she thought was her final breath, but she didn't notice the sibling running behind the man. The man stopped in front of the girl, and uttered that strange language again, he was poised to strike, so the sibling mustered up enough energy to hurl himself at the man who was only ten feet from where he was running. A direct hit, the man fell to the ground with the sibling on top of him, the man was on his back, and the sibling on his chest with one foot on top of his right hand and the other on the ground next to his thigh, then the sibling grabbed the collar of the man's shirt and began to pummel him with a barrage of blows from his fist. The man, now beaten, bloodied, and bruised, started pleading in his strange language to the sibling, begging to let him go, so the sibling let go of his collar
and said in a ferocious tone, "Why were you chasing this girl? Why? What has she done to you? She's about half the size of you, and yet you need four other men to capture her? How pathetic!" The man was confused, as if he didn't understand him, so the sibling told him again," why were you chasing her?" the sibling began to think that he was getting nowhere, so he got up and let all of the men go.
As they were running away, the sibling warned them to never come back, and he turned to face the girl, who was exhausted, and passed out from her escape, and began to walk towards her, then she shot up, shaking, with her knife in hand, and uttered the same strange language from her mouth, but hers wasn't in the tone of a serpents'. He raised his hands as if her were surrendering, and said," whoa! Didn't mean to scare you like that. It's OK, I won't hurt you." She tilted her head like she didn't understand him, but she knew that he wasn't going to hurt her, so she stood up, brushed of the dirt from her white coat, and her navy blue pants. He noticed that her eyes were blank, as if she were blind, and that she was cut up pretty bad, probably from that tree...wait, they are pretty deep, better get her bandaged up, he thought as he continued to walk over to her. When he had walked over to her he saw her pouch that was on the ground, so he
picked it up and opened it, sure enough, there was a first aid kit in there, she grabbed it from him and started to take out medicine and bandages from it to wrap her cuts with.
Once she had finished, the sibling asked if she knew where a village was, but again, she had no clue to what he was saying, so he gave up and drew a picture with lots of houses clustered together. She caught on fast and pointed northwest, towards a gathering of extremely large trees, and then she leaped up on one of them, and started leaping from one tree to another in the same northwest direction. The sibling had begun to run in the same direction, when he remembered about his brother and sister, so he marked the path with his foot and ran back to the boat to wake his siblings. When he arrived, the other two siblings had already woken up, and were about the beach, making sand castles, and throwing rocks into the water, then the middle child saw him coming and shouted to his brother," what took you so long?" the eldest replied," I was out exploring the place, we've seemed to have arrived at our destination."
The youngest replied," well let's get going then, we must find shelter for the day...I sense a storm coming." "I know where a village is at, come on!" said the eldest as he turned and ran back to the path. They gathered their things, and followed their older brother on to the path, where he had marked the trail leading to the village," here, let's get moving" "shouldn't you get your stuff first?" said the middle brother," of course! don't be silly." He jolted back to the boat and back to the path again," Brother, when did you get this energy?" said their sister," it's a long story." replied the eldest," but you only get energetic whenever you feel heroic, what did you do?" said the middle brother, "like I said, it's a long story." As they walked along the path, the eldest brother told what had happened that morning, and who he had met, and defeated, and of the language that they spoke. "that was pretty cool,
Greis." said the youngest," Thank you, Adalena" replied Greis. "Truly remarkable! I can't wait to get me a piece of action!" said the middle child, with a grin on his face," just be patient, Thias, you'll get your chance soon.
After they had got done talking, it must have been hours, because their feet began to blister from walking on their sandals too much. Then, at last, they saw the outer gates of a rather large village of this dense forest, the walls looked damaged, as if it were attacked a while back, but the repairs on it were taking rather slow. "Ah...civilization!" said Thias," finally, we can ask someone for help" replied Adalena," yes, all of our efforts have not been in vain, let's go." The three siblings Greis, Thias, and Adalena had reached their destination, and they are now one step closer to save their village from all possible invaders, and to warn the people of this land the dangers that are riding ever so swiftly to their village.