(Hi! This is my first fanfic series ever. I hope you'll like it!)

Part 1: Adventure Awaits

Every year, the kingdom celebrates an evening festival dedicated to a long deceased woman who saved my mother's life by discovering an herbal cure for her terminal illness. Every year, we raise a thousand floating lanterns and seem them light the dark sky in honor of this woman. It is sad that the villagers do not know her name and always mention her as "that woman from the tower" or "the petulant, old lady" or "she who saved thy queen". This is a kingdom tradition what we have been doing for more than a decade. And every year, I am curious about who she is.

I also wonder what tower they were talking about. It is shameful that I've been living for almost 18 years of my life and I am not knowledgeable about my mother's rescuer. It would be lovely if I could go to her home, pay my respects there and thank her at her rightful place.

What I do know is that her tower is deep into the forest, which is a little far from the castle. The villagers say she did not entertain visitors, and was ill-tempered in the morning, so she decided to put her tower somewhere where people do not go to. And I'm going to find where that is.

With only a few hours before the festival, I wore slack garments and twisted my hair into a knot so that nobody would notice me. I sneaked to the stable, browsed through the slumbering horses and looked for the tall, white, palace horse. And there he – taking his afternoon nap. "Maximus!" I hissed. "Come, boy!" At first, he would not budge, but I gave him morsels of bread I 'borrowed' from the kitchen so he agreed to follow. My mother and father are busy having a lunch and amusing their guests – they would not notice I was gone.

Maximus and I galloped along the tunnel east of the castle. This area is frequently deserted because nobody ever wants to take the long way to the village. Only I pass this path often whenever I want to take a short walk by the garden.

The wind slapped melodramatically against my hair, and my vision was blurred by streaks of brown here and there. I was past the trail of pallid cement, now dashing through grounds of green and brown. A little more and I would be in the depths of the forest.

Where could it be? Maximus's strides mirrored my uncertain guide as we searched for the tower despite the darkness of the forest. "Help me, Max. Where could the tower be?" I whispered. And as if he understood me, he stiffened and began smelling. "What is it, boy?" He continued smelling and abruptly stopped in front of a curtain of emerald veins.

"You sure this is it, boy?" I hopped off Maximus and stood beside him. "Hm…" I went through the emerald veins to get a view of what was beyond it. It took me a few seconds to adjut my eyesight to this brightness, and then there I saw it – a ruin of an old tower.

"You wait here, Max. Okay?" He blinked and I started walking towards the tower. It was beautiful. It was surrounded by tall waterfalls and mountains. The body of the tower was filled with veins of green and brown. The windows had a Roman theme, and the tip was a violet, sharp cone. Everything was mesmerizing…

"Hey! You!"

I could not imagine how anyone could abandon this place…

"Brownie! I'm talking to you!"

If I only I brought my sketchpad… Wait, was there someone there?

"After 10 years! You finally heard me!" I saw a man who must have come from behind the tower. He was a tall, brawny lad, had his eyebrows raised, wearing a green vest and with a brown satchel over his shoulders.

"I am so sorry, the tower is just so… Do you live here?" I walked towards him and realized that he looked exceptionally familiar. "Excuse me, do I-" And then I knew.

He is the most sought after criminal in the kingdom. The man our guards have searched for with constant defeat. The man whose face is posted on almost every post in the village. The man who stole my crown. He was Flynn Rider.