"It's incredible, seventeen years and not a trace of her! She couldn't have vanished into thin air. Are you sure you searched everywhere?"
Sorceress Edea stormed around the main room of her wicked castle, perched high up in the cold, desolate mountains. Before her stood her two servants.
"Yeah, yeah, anywhere, everywhere…" Seifer said, as though it bored him just to talk.
"Yeah, yeah!" a tattoo-faced boy chimed in. It was apparent he had excess energy and then some.
"We searched mountains, forests, houses, and let me see, in all the cradles…" Seifer began listing all the locations, counting on his fingers, but was silenced by the witch. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Cradle?"
Zell nodded. "Yeah!" he exclaimed, jumping up and down.
"Every cradle?" she questioned.
"Yeah, yeah, every cradle," Seifer replied.
"Cradle? All these years you've been looking for a baby? Oh, ha ha ha..." she chuckled. Her servants nervously joined in her laughter. Edea sorceress stopped laughing abruptly. The sorceress went into a fiery fit of rage that would scare the Devil himself.
"Fools! Idiots! Imbeciles!" she cried angrily. Zell cowered as she stormed towards them, scaring them out of the castle. In the distance, the call of a raven could be heard. It became louder and louder as it approached. Suddenly, a black bird flew in the window of the castle and onto Edea's arm. She stroked its head.
"Oh, they're hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil. My pet, you are my last hope. Circle far and wide, search for a maid of seventeen with hair of black onyx and lips pink as the fair rose. Go, and do not fail me." The raven squawked at its mistress, then flew out the window and into the gray skies above.
