Teaser 1 for Story 5

Natalia crept up behind the girl she had once called a friend. Amelia looked around as she sensed Natalia and spotted the other girl. "What did you do?!" Amelia yelled at Natalia. "What happened to you?!"

"What happened to me what happened to you?!" Natalia screamed back. She pulled out her wand and cast a spell at Amelia. Amelia deflected the spell easily, her own wand out now.

The girls continued to duel sparks fly as each of them were deflected potentially deadly spells. Both knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. Amelia was strong and had the stamina to keep casting spells for hours but she was impulsive and though she could be clever she often didn't use her brains in a fight. Natalia was much better at making rational decisions under pressure but her anger was a problem. It caused her to miss things in her spells that she wouldn't have under normal circumstances.

"I don't want to hurt you Nat!" Amelia screamed.

"I don't wish to hurt you either Amelia. That's why I'm going to do this." Natalia said calmly. She cast a spell that she had learned on her own free time. Amelia tried to deflect it but the spell was more complicated than she had originally thought and she couldn't account for all of the effects.

Amelia started to age backwards. Losing both height and the structure of her face that she had developed as she got older. At the end of it all Amelia was just a small toddler barely a year old. Natalia picked up her former friend as Amelia fell asleep in her arms. "You know you're adorable at this age." Natalia said to the sleeping toddler. Little wisps of blond hair curled around Amelia's face. "Now where to put you? I don't want you to die persay but I do want you away from here." Natalia thought of the farthest country she knew of from her home. "I guess I'll just have to drop you off in England. It seems to be the best place for you little Amelia."

Natalia crept around the English countryside a cloak covering her body. She stopped at the back door of a medium sized house. She lay the bundle containing the baby Amelia on the steps to the door and knocked on the door then disappeared.

The wife of the house, a pretty blond woman, opened the door and saw the bundle. She picked it and saw what was inside. She called for her husband, a tall man with black hair as she brought the child into the house reading the small card hanging around the girl's neck, Amelia.


"Amelia! Matthew! I'm home!" Alice called as she walked into the small cottage she lived in. Matthew came around the corner and gave his adoptive mother a hug. "Matthew where is Amelia?" Alice asked concerned that her adoptive daughter hadn't come and given her a hug too as she always did even though she was almost twenty.

Matthew looked at her sadly. "Amelia isn't home yet mummy."

"Well then let's wait for her. Maybe she's just running a little late." Alice said bringing the boy to the couch and sitting down with him. She didn't voice her true concern.

They sat for hours until both of them fell asleep. In the morning Alice determined that Amelia was in fact missing.

Teaser 2 for Story 5

Eight year old Amelia grabbed her adoptive mother's hand. The blond woman continued singing as they skipped through the meadow. Amelia joined in singing in her child's voice. "Lavender blue dilly dilly lavender green. When you are king dilly dilly I shall be queen. Who told you so dilly dilly who told you so? I told myself dilly dilly I told myself." (A.N. If you've seen the new Cinderella you know this song just maybe not the second verse which I included. If you don't know this song it's called Lavenders Blue and it's a traditional English folksong.)

Two fairies, still getting used to being able to use magic even though they had had it for five years watched the two from a tree. Elizabeta started to hum along with them.

"You know that song really works for you." Gilbert joked earning a playful punch on the shoulder from his wife.

"We are supposed to be observing idiot. Shut up." She hissed at him.

He laughed quietly. "Fine, but you need to stop humming." She glared at him but stopped humming none the less. "Also I am awesome I'm not an idiot." He smiled at her as she rolled her eyes.

The blonde woman had started a new song up. She cradled Amelia in her lap playing with the young girl's hair. "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy, little baby. When you wake, you shall find all the pretty little horses. Blacks and bays, dapples and greys, coach and twenty little horses. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy, little baby. When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses." (A.N. This song is Pretty Little Horses which is an American folk song.)

A few days later Amelia's new mother collapsed, falling ill. The doctor couldn't save the woman and she died. Amelia grew up happy and healthy. Her new father treated her like a princess bringing her back expensive gifts from his business trips to France, Germany, Norway, Italy and even once a glass beaded necklace made by the natives of the new land the Spanish had discovered across the sea. Amelia wore that necklace everyday no matter what.

They were happy with just them until Amelia was about sixteen when her father met the Lady Olivia and her two daughters. He married the lady thinking perhaps her daughters' would help Amelia become more social as Amelia rarely went out without him.

Soon after marrying Lady Olivia he went on a trip Greece. Before he left he asked each of the women in his household what they wished for him to bring home for them. Olivia asked for a Roman coin to add to her collection and her daughter both asked for jewelry from Athens. When he asked Amelia she looked at him and said solemnly that she wanted the first branch his shoulder brushed against while he was on his horse on his way to the port cities.

One night during a giant storm a man knocks on the door with grave news. Amelia answered the door with a smile but the smile disappeared as she listened to the man's story. Her father had died. His horse had gotten spooked and he had fallen off over the edge of a mountain. The man handed her a stick that he said was found in her father's bag with a letter to remind him to give it to her.

After that Amelia's life just became a living hell. Her stepmother was given the entire estate in her father's will. She spent most of the money on beautiful dresses for herself and her daughters. Amelia was pushed up into the attic and once the staff was dismissed she took over for most of their jobs.

A few days after the death of her husband Olivia went to see the man in charge of her husband's will. She knew that her husband had left the estate to Amelia but she intended to change that. Olivia walked into the man's office her almost pink hair pinned up under a black hat. No one could say that she didn't wear grief well. "Ah Lady Olivia what can I help you with?" The small blond man said with a bow.

"Enough with that Flavio. I want you to change my husband's will." She stated her British accent making the words sharp.

"Nope sorry my lady. I'm honor bound to not change anyone's will without their living consent." Flavio emphasised the word living.

She smiled slyly. "Not even for some coins worth a hundred pounds each." She said holding out some old coins.

"Seriously?" Flavio asked reaching out for the coins but before he could grab the coins Olivia moved them out of his reach.

"Oh no. Not until you do what I want you to." She said clucking her tongue.

Flavio sighed knowing she wouldn't change her mind. "Fine." He pulled out the dead man's will and opened it up. "What do you want me to change?"

"Make it so I inherit the house and fortune. Leave any bobbles that he left to his daughter as hers but give me the house and fortune."

"Don't trust Amelia very much do we?" Flavio said with a chuckle as he made a list of what she wanted changed.

"She seems impulsive. And I would rather I could use the money to support me and my biological children. I don't know how much help we would get if she was completely in charge if the money. She doesn't seem to like us very much." Olivia said as she left. "You will receive a small sum of money each month for your silence and maybe once in awhile a gold coin will somehow find its way into your reward."

The next few months continued with more and more sadness for Amelia. As soon as the traditional period of mourning was over she had been moved to the attic. Olivia's excuse for the move was that Olivia's second daughter, Amy, had run out of room for her things in the room she shared with her older sister Mariette. "I mean you do have the largest room child. It would be good of you to give it up. Now move your things child." Olivia had said to her with a sickly sweet smile. When her stepmother had pet her on the top of the head Amelia had grabbed the slender wrist with a strong grip. That had angered Olivia and earned the girl a slap.

Amelia had disgruntledly moved her things to the attic with the help of one of the servants, a fourteen year old boy with pink hair named Oliver. He had been kind to her, one of the few who had been since her father had died. "You know miss, it might not be so bad up here." Oliver had said when they first opened the door to the attic to find a large room full of broken furniture. "You could move most of that stuff out of the way. Put a bed against that far wall. A dresser on one of the other walls." As they cleaned up the room they continued to plan out her new room.

A few weeks later Oliver and the rest of the house staff was released on the excuse that they cost to much to keep. Amelia replaced them.