-Prologue-

The date was June twenty-second of the year seven hundred and fifty-eight of the northern calendar. The summer sun was high in the sky as it shone down on an old stone tower atop a grassy hilltop clearing in a verdant pine forest as a breeze blew a few poorly grown needles off of the pine branches and across the clearing. The tower was well maintained as the stone was clean and its chimney blew soft clouds of smoke up to the sky where it dispersed in little puffs.

Closed double pane glass windows stood as a bulwark against the needles that blew across the clearing. On the top floor, one of the windows was opened outward, letting the sunlight in. Its soft white fabric curtains were fastened to their ties on the side of the window.

Sitting at a table in the tower's semicircle top floor room was an elderly woman with long white hair that had a tinge of pink, the only thing remaining of her Valliere heritage. She wore a simple black robe with a black cape on her back. Her face was sharp, showing the years that had gone by in her life had taken their toll on her. Her dark pink eyes had softened from her younger years. Her face was sharp in concentration as she sat in a red wine-colored cushioned chair and leaned over a dark brown wood desk, writing a book with a silver Inkpen.

Turning the last page to the back cover of the book, she let out a content sigh. She had finished her story. Her long and rather intense writing. It was what she had written for the past year in her private tower on her estate. It had been four years ever since she decided to leave her estate's management to her daughter Sasha and recluded to her tower to write and reminisce.

Looking up from the desk, she turned her head to the wall in the middle of the room separating her private room from her lounge. On the right of the oak door was a large portrait of a man in his fifties surrounded by a golden frame. It was the portrait of Margrave Ivan Peterhausen, her husband she had dearly loved for many years. He had short, well-maintained blond but graying hair, light skin, and sharp blue eyes the color of the deep sea. He donned a silver-plated breastplate as he stood with two flags flying behind him. An arming sword and rapier at both sides of his waist in black sheaths. The wall around it had cream-colored wallpaper with red roses lined across it in long rows.

Louise whispered something under her breath as she put the pen down and snapped the fingers on her free hand. Shortly after, someone knocked politely on the room's door.

"Come in Sasha" She said to the person at the door, not bothering to look at who it was. There was only one person she allowed in her private quarters. Her daughter Sasha.

Sasha was a woman in her late thirties with pink-tinted blonde hair, a full buxom figure, and bright pink eyes.

"Hello mother, I take it you've finished the book?" Her daughter politely asked with a straight face, but a hint of a grin could not be suppressed on her face. This was what she had been waiting for all this time. Her mother told her stories of her past before, but she never spoke too in-depth. It had become clear though, now that she was finished with her work.

It was the greatest gift she could give to her daughter. The estate paled in comparison to this. Sasha had longed to hear the stories her mother would rarely tell, preferring the spend the night listening to anything and everything her mother said than training her magic on her own.

Now, she could finally read what she had wanted to hear for all these long years.

"Come, sit down. I'm sure you know why I called you here" Louise spoke, her eyes softening even more as she looked at her daughter with love and compassion. She was a mother passing on her final gift to her daughter she loved so dearly.

"Yes, mother. I do" Sasha said as she sat down at the chair across from her mother, her eyes locked on the book. She couldn't help it. That book was the product of a year of painstaking effort from her genius mother's mind.

Louise laughed, seeing through her daughter's stony face to her sheer excitement.

"Well, don't let me hold you back for too long. I hope you enjoy this gift" Louise said as she closed the black leather-bound book, the gold embossing shining brightly. Reaching across the desk, she handed the book to her daughter who could not keep in her smile and laughed jubilantly while bringing the book close to her chest and holding it tightly.

"Thank you so much, mother! I shall cherish this for as long as I live" She practically sang out of joy.

Seeing this, Louise smiled back and waved her away.

"Well, give me a little bit of rest while you read. I'm feeling quite tired now. Writing has taken a lot out of this crabby old woman" Louise said as she leaned back in her seat with a sigh. Age had really been catching up with her and she doubted she had too many more days before she kicked the bucket. After her daughter left the room, she got up and walked over to the couch in the room. It was a carved wooden couch with blood-red cushions that puffed out and were soft like how a child might believe clouds were.

She lay there and closed her eyes, happy she had gotten to give her daughter her final work and greatest gift. Eventually, she drifted peacefully off to sleep for the last time. She died peacefully on that couch fulfilled and with a content smile. She had managed to stay alive through sheer willpower and some applications of magic in order to write her book for her daughter. Now that she had passed that on, it was her turn to pass on.