Soft, nimble traces of amble, blue light waltzed across the beige-ivory cheeks of a petite woman who appeared to be at the very least half her actual age. Around her was darkness only cracked by the same lights upon her face, as if ink were reflecting water, but the ink was instead smooth, carefully-laid stone.

Exactly seven paces behind her stood four others, one tall, one short, and one in-between. The fourth was another young lady, much younger than Lady Ales, who hid behind the shortest in skittish modesty. The tallest was a slender man draped in an earthy cloak that shrouded his face. His only notable feature was the hazel-blond shade of his nearly-shaved chin. The middle one was a woman with prominent shoulders that hung her amply toned arms. She stood as strong as her eyes were the color of aged brandy. Antonymous to her own body was the clothing she wore- a grey tunic with weathered leather boots and long slops to match. To her right was the shortest. He was also robed, but his hood was down. He was adorned with gold and silver and priceless gems. He clutched the young girl's hand in his own; he was a father. His curtailed, unruly hair was white passed his age, which must have been no more than four after thirty. He had soft cobalt eyes that challenged the light that kissed their skin in graceful waves. The girl who held his hand had these same traits, but a much younger, softer face with much wider eyes.

Before them all stood Lady Ales. She had long, loosely-braided hair that easily passed her knees. She wore all white, though the ornate cuts and folds of her dress and the carefully-laid straps of her sandals were more than enough to turn a head. With her hands clasped tight, she bent her knee, lowered her chin, and prayed to a goddess, to The Goddess, before the radiant light of the colossal Crystal of Water.

Ales prayed for a light to guide, and a solid ground to walk upon. She prayed for the sons of men to not have to so mercilessly pay for their father's debts. She prayed for lives taken before their time. And most of all, she prayed that The Goddess had chosen her warriors.

An old coin was tossed into an unkempt fountain by a child holding the tanned, filthy hand of what appeared to be her brother's. Several thousand miles away a boy sat surrounded by paints and pastels and tattered canvasses in a shallow water vessel. Several more thousand miles was another boy who was counting the unseen stars above his city while trying to forget the number of hours he spent doing so. And on the other side of the planet, a girl absently stared out of her bedroom window, dressed for a school day.

A boy of around her age knocked on her door and entered without waiting for permission.

"Blaine," the girl said to him, "do you ever wonder about fantasy? About the world we live in? What if our own world is another world's fantasy? What if there is another world out there?" She spun around faster than her straightened, blond hair could follow, standing in wisps in front of her light-emerald eyes.

"You've been reading too many books. We're leaving for school soon, are you ready?" Blaine replied, right before he'd been jabbed in the ribs playfully with an academic ruler. He fell to his knees and clutched his 'wound' and grunted loudly in theatrical comedy.

"Ah-HA! I have bested you, Dark Follower! Repent before the light!" the girl held her ruler/sword above her head with a locked elbow.

"M-mi'lady hath defeated me by bad English accent alone!"

She replied with an honest laugh, throwing the ruler in her pack with her books, "funny, funny," she chuckled, hurling her things over her shoulder by one of the straps, "but hurry up, or we'll be late!"

These four adolescent youths would soon find themselves in a world that did, in fact, view their own as that of fantasy.

"If they refuse to lay down their arms," a woman's voice rang over a mass of bloody soldiers under her command, "then I give order to kill the Roses, all of them!" her left hand was straight in the hot air above her, a ring around her middle finger glistening against the dust that surrounded them. To her right was a man of the same height, who wore a similar attire to her own, but of different colors. Their faces were covered by a translucent black glass that curled around their heads, leading into a sturdy metal from their ears back. Intricate armor covered them completely, not leaving a peek of flesh or even a hint of a gap that a knife could find. He wore blue and silver, she was red and golden.

The soldiers, unmoved and unaffected by their injuries, fought as if they were healthy as ever. The Roses, their opponents, were not so glamorous. Young men and women, simple rogues, swordsmen, and archers fought against these seemingly godlike, unstoppable warriors who preferred to ride steel titans into battle. It wasn't even supposed to be a skirmish, let alone this bloody pseudo war. The metal monsters sent tremors into the ground with near ludicrous blasts of compressed magic essence, leaving ashes with no flame in their wake. The soldiers fought ruthlessly until they were forced to death. But against these odds, the Roses were at least pushing the empire's fleet back, pushing them out of Bevelle, a moderately-sized village of peaceful residence and a history of famous thieves. A village said to hide the newly-surfaced Crystal of Earth. This was a rumor that did not escape the ever-listening ears of the empire that now razed them.

The crimson-clad woman in armor hissed in frustration, turning to her comrade, "you, be useful," she spat, "if you don't wish to kill them, scare them! You're capable of that, no?" the man in question drew in a deep breath and nodded with his exhale, clutching the weapon strapped to his right hip with his left hand, and with one movement unsheathed it, letting it unfold into a strange, round sword of sorts. His leap into the field of battle was graceful.

Another man, a Rose in a red cape pulled fire from thin air, aiming at the new opponent before them. Just as flame collided with blade, a voice behind the red-cape called out something about a "runic blade." The flame and sword mingled only for a brief second before the flame was sent back – at the very least six times as large – above and around the Roses, barely singeing few.

Panic swept over them as the blue soldier stood ready to fire again, his blade gleaming a blinding, harsh light. A girl – perhaps half his age – appeared from the smoke and ashes, short blades in both hands, lunging at the soldier. Without a moment's thought, he turned and cleaved her nearly in two through her middle. The only sound from her was that of fresh blood hissing on his scorched blade. Soon after, his flame went out. She lay motionless; lifeless. The same voice that called from before, a young man's voice cut the heavy, littered air like an arrow through glass. He screamed a name, her name, "Cassandra." The sorry soldier met eyes with the screaming Rose, who called the name again and again, swearing on his life and that of his mother's that he would be the one to end her murderer, and watched him carried off kicking and flailing by a much larger man who was calling for retreat. A few long moments later, and the runic blade stood alone in the field. The silence was deafening.

The empire's fleet searched through what was left of the village of Bevelle. They did not find a gem, let alone a crystal. The rumor must have been just that.

( /e9Xdzm7 )

Ten years had passed since the first major loss the Roses had faced in battle, rightfully named "Bloody Bevelle." Many members who had pledged their life to the cause had left, most of those who stayed wished they hadn't. One young man who was known as Crow, stayed while his brother had left after Cassandra's passing. Crow absent-mindedly turned a smooth stone over in his hand while a friend played a familiar tune on some stringed instrument a distance away. He spent many days like this, dangling his feet over the edge of the water, staring off into the sea and to the land beyond it, his head aching, his brother's desperate cries as they both watched Cassandra torn in half, "hy-augh!" the stone was hurled into the clear waters, leaving nothing more than a ripple that subsided only a few moments after.

"Quite alright?" the music stopped.

"I'm fine. As always," Crow called back, standing and stretching with exaggerated groans. He wasn't a tall man, but he wasn't short. Though the way he carried himself made him seem much larger. Of course, his muscle tone did just that enough on its own. Crow had unruly sandy blond hair that barely traced his ears, his eyes were a complimentary deep ocean teal. His nose was rounded at the point, and his jawline was as angular as fresh-cut stone. Anyone who saw Crow next to his brother would know they were related. Robin, as Crow's brother prefers to be referred to as, had retired from the Roses after Bloody Bevelle in nothing less than a tantrum. Crow exhaled slowly, crossing his arms across his chest tightly, glowering at the land across the water as if it were hiding something important from him. By now, the music-player had made his way to Crow. He was much taller than Crow, but stood in a lazy slouch, his worn – yet neatly polished – guitar slung over his shoulder. He wore his hair up tightly with a strip of green fabric; heavy copper trailed down just past his shoulders. "You sure spend a lot of time sulking," he spoke softly, "you have reason to, I know, but there are other things we could think about."

"Yeah," Crow sighed, "like how many fish we have to catch for supper each day, or something like that. Whatever Nimbell said," he turned away to head back up the path. The sun was setting.

"-What's that?"

"Exactly as it sounds," Crow turned back to his friend, "fish, Klen, fish. That's all we eat here,"
Klen shook his head and pointed out over the waters, "no, forget the damned fish, what's that?"

"…The hells should I know?" The two stared off enchanted by a vivid beam of light that shot ever-so-steadily to the earth from the West. No, two lights – three?

"That's just south of New Albion," Crow mumbled under his breath, taking off towards the boats.

"You're going over there?"

"Of course I am! That isn't normal, and what if it's… What if it's something?"

"You're certainly not going alone," Klen called, chasing after Crow, who had already found a suitable vessel to take them over the lake, "what if it's something dangerous?"

"Then even better," Crow had a rare gleam in his eyes, "nothing exciting ever happens anymore. All we do is diplomacy, training and fishing. And the fish don't fight back – not usually, at least," he grinned at his friend, setting the small ship away from its mooring.

The two set off in tense silence for the easy ride over the water watching the lights anxiously until they disappeared from sight. The lights must have landed, but there was no sound of impact. Bringing the ship to the shore, Klen pondered out loud his hindsight of not letting anyone know where the two were headed. Crow reassured him promptly with a, "they have no real reason to worry," hopping away from the water towards where the lights landed, Klen, who never set down his instrument, close behind. There was no true road, only a man-made dirt path through the woods. A clearing – perhaps where the landing was – was not far off.

To the north was New Albion, a bustling city guarded by two-hundred and fifty yalm-high walls. The guards that manned these walls had seen these same lights and had sent a party to investigate the scene. The Albian men were already in the clearing upon Klen and Crow's arrival, scratching their heads, opening their mouths to speak only to shut them again. The two Roses called to the men, first unaware, then took notice of the scene: four figures of foreign clothing lying unconscious in the grass.

"We've no place for them," said one of the Albian men after several long moments, "but surely we can't leave them here," Klen wasted no time offering a sanctuary by the Roses, which was well-accepted by the Albians. New Albion had long accepted the Roses in alliance, and since trusted them whole-heartedly. And so the Albians offered assistance with transporting the four – A girl and three boys of presumably fifteen years of age – to the vessel so Crow and Klen could take them back to their residence in Mist, a tiny island surrounded by a deep lake that was surrounded by land.

Nimbell, a woman of four over forty years, paced the docks with stress-grayed dark hair when they returned. She spent long breaths exclaiming how worried she was, that it was already so dark outside, that the two had missed supper, and then how relieved she was that they'd returned unharmed. Klen spoke for the both of them, reassuring Nimbell that they were fine under her rantings. She was a mother although she had never bared a child. Nimbell was known by most of the Roses as 'Mother Nimbell.'

Once she calmed down, Klen spoke again, "we might need a hand, though,"

"Now, for why?" Nimbell asked, furrowing her brow.

"You see, we've brought home some strays."