I See Fire

Chapter One - Bloody Mountain

Lillian was already impatient. It has been two hours since she was trying to find that goddamn airplane to that island.

It all had started when she got a letter from her mother, who had been a great farmer in the past, saying that she was in a very complicated situation and decided to give her heirs, Lillian and Phillip Merrywater, a piece of a crop farm in a town with a very strange name called Konohana. According to her, it was a very nice farm, where they could grow a lot of crops. Lillian was pleased, since she always had liked gardening, but her brother had always been an animal person, so he refused.

However, he was standing next to her on that stupid tight chair, waiting for a plane that never seemed to arrive. The reason? Well, turns out that this Konohana town had a neighbor, called Bluebell, who was specialized in animals. Needless to say that he fanboyed hard.

–Just think about it, Lillian! We will be neighbors! We can visit each other every day and... Wow! –he barely could contain his emotion, and she thought that it was super cute.

Since they were babies, the twins already had showed that their personalities were almost the opposite. While Phillip, younger by a few minutes, was passionate, intuitive and brave; Lillian had always been the smart, down-to-earth and patient. However, that did not mean that they couldn't find anything in common. When it came to their families or farming, anything was possible for the two Merrywater twins.

–Flight 1907 is opening its doors at gate 03. –that soft and unique voice of the woman announced.

The two of them stood up almost at the same time, their hand baggage hitting their respective legs as they walked towards gate 03. When they arrived, they were almost the first ones to enter the plane. Once the twins were in there, they found their seats and waited patiently.

It took almost an hour for the plane to gain authorization to take flight. While they were on the ground, Lillian answered the 50 messages she's gotten on Facebook. She was aware that signal was not something she could found easily, so she was trying to use it for as long as she could. As soon as the flight started, Phillip fell asleep, drooling in one of the chairs. It was really hilarious, and if phones were allowed, she would have taken a picture.

The flight was actually shorter than she had expected, lasting no longer than four hours. When the captain announced the landing, Lillian had to wake her brother up, and it turned out to be an almost impossible task. His sleep didn't last long like hers, but nothing could awake him. The long story short, she had to call a lady right next to her to help, using a small but powerful horn she was carrying at her purse.

The plane landed at 7 pm. After waiting for almost everyone to come out, the twins walked away and went to pick up their baggage. Surprisingly, nothing was stolen, unlike her other two airplane trips, in which she won almost three thousand gold for refund of her lost items.

The trip was not over, though. After getting out of the airport, they took a taxi and went to a small port near a wonderful beach, so they could catch a boat to the two towns, which were located in a really isolated part of the world. According to their mom's letter, the boat trip would be longer, since they had to stop for filling the boat with people in another port.

It turns out that the machine had a problem during the trip and they had to spend the night on the boat. Lillian fell asleep in Phillip's chest, where she was used to sleep when she had nightmares as a kid or had another heartbreak during her teenage years. Even though she woke up with back pain, it wasn't a bad sleep night.

Around 6 am from the next day, the boat arrived at a small beach, where a long river was releasing its waters. The instructor told them that there were two horses prepared for each one to climb that mountain while following that river, and when they reached a curve to the west, followed it and wandering north for the rest of the road until we've reached the top of the mountain.

Lillian and Phillip nodded to the instructor, who wished them a happy life there and left with all of the other people to another port.

When the twins found themselves alone, they decided to take a look around the place. It wasn't a very big mountain, about 2000 meters or less. There were tons of trees filled with small colorful dots, where the flowers would bloom in the next couple of days. The beach had almost no sand and the sea was as calm as it could be. However, they found it odd that no one besides them were actually there. Those towns couldn't be that small, could they?

Anyways, they climbed on their horses, which were almost the same: two small ponies with white fur and a long brown tail. With a small nod, Lillian tapped her horse's neck so it could move, followed by Phillip. The two of them started the trip to the top of that mountain.

...

Almost one hour had passed and the two of them haven't even found the curve. Why? Because they decided to become explores along the trip.

They played on a swallow river near by, they dived naked on a lake (its not like they haven't seen each other naked since they were born, and none of them was actually "pure"), they watched the butterflies flying around the hours were taking by without them even noticing it.

When Phillip checked his watch, he realized that it was noon, and they decided to keep on with the trip. Another hour took by and they found the curve. Following the instructions, they have turned west, and the path showed lower trees and less thicker grass. The mountain was also less steep, so their horses could take some rest.

As they've been told, they followed all the way up, slowly, so their horses would not be too tired. Along the trip, she and Phillip talked about their family and what were they expecting from us. As usual, my father was more concearned about me being 29, single and not virgin (seriously, she lost it 13 years ago, he should have moved on) than if she would be comfortable with farming life, since it was more serious than the gardens she and her mom would plant on hollidays and weekends.

When the two of them reached a part of the mountain, Phillip's stomach grumbled, and so did Lillian's shortly after. Her brother checked out his watch and realized that it was past two o' clock.

They decided to rush a little bit. With determination, they told their horses to start running or at least walking faster. They obeyed the commands, and now the twins were moving fast as the wind on their hairs.

Along the ride, they would enjoy the view. Pretty birds, small flowers blooming into the grass, insects jumping and flying around, trees growing tall and beautiful, full with solid trunks and green leaves.

But their mother has Always thought them that beautiful things had to come to an end, sooner or later. Lillian made a brutal break when a fox intermediates their way, and Phillip an even more brutal one, because he was behind his sister. The two of them started falling down, hitting their heads, spreading their blood until there was nothing they could see.

Just before Lillian felt like dying, she heard footsteps ahead of her. And that's when she realized that they weren't alone after all.