A/N: This is a redo of my first fanfiction from a few years ago. It's going to be a slow burner. I had started this off in a totally different style and I wanted change it up/ challenge myself, so it's been rewritten again. Sorry for the confusion to those have already read it. And sometimes the bold lettering works and other times it doesn't.

This story takes place after the last season of the 2012 universe.

Read on fellow readers

Surrounded by the crisp autumn air, a long drawn breath freshens in my chest. It's the kind of air you feel deep in your lungs, the kind that makes you notice every gap in your clothing as it reaches your skin- especially when you move. It burns your cheeks and makes one want to retreat their hands into warm pockets. Refreshing and awakening at the same time.

My dog's gorgeously eager blue eyes meet mine. "It's a great day for hunting isn't it, pup?" I joyfully say to my husky, Dovender. Her face, beautifully framed by her red color, only brightens her eyes. She gives me a wagging tail and I brush my fingers between her ears.

Just below the peak of the mountain, there sits a ledge where we currently stand. From here our farm house can be seen. The log siding is a rustic orange topped with a dark green metal roof, smoke waves out from the chimney and crosses the horse pasture before dissipating into the trees beyond. The house fits with the land, cushioned by the fields and then surrounded by hemlocks. Forming the valley for our whole town are several mountains that meet sharply with the sky. Their jagged rocky peaks are void of trees and freshly peppered with snow.

Certainly is a breathtaking view no matter how many times one saw it. Of course the view is different everyday. Currently the rising sun spices the land with an orange hue, even the air seems to take on the color. The snowy peaks will soon reflect the light like a bunch of beacons.

What a place- I am lucky to have grown up here. Thankful to my ancestors for having chose this place. Some of them indigenous and some of them prospectors from the east; they chose quite a home no matter what.

We started our roots here back in 1896 when the Alaskan gold rush started. My great-great grandparents were heading to Alaska in a horse drawn buggy from Boston. They didn't have much to their name; with little money and an unblessed marriage, they headed into the untamed Wild West.

As its been told my great-great-grandfather and grandmother, Arnold and Ruth were madly in love. He was from the inner city of Boston working as postage boy and she was a simple farm girl out by the Berkshires. The two fell in love at first sight on one of Arnold's longer postal runs from the city. Shortly thereafter, a continuous flow of letters were exchanged between the two- some of which have been saved and laminated, stored to boxes in our attic.

When it came down to it, however, Arnold's parents didn't want their son to marry a dirty hillbilly, and Ruth's parents didn't want their daughter with a man who didn't know how to hunt. So the two ran away at seventeen years old on Ruth's horse. How they acquired the buggy and other things has always been a questionable story. But we all know they ran wild with the cowboy gangs of the West for a while. We have an old black and white picture proof of them arm in arm with several notorious gang members! Regardless, with minimal skills and a dusty old map that's now framed on our living room wall above the fireplace, they made it here to the panhandle of Idaho. They only stopped because Ruth fell pregnant with my great grandmother, Mabel. So they settled down, built a big house, had six more kids, sheltered traveling outlaws and frontiersmen as a town raised up around them. They started a farm, even had a tavern at one point.

Today, there's us: my mother, father and four brothers. Painfully, I am a middle child.

My mother, like many of the people who took this land, is mainly English and German but still a down to earth American mutt of many heritages. She has this gorgeous orange-blonde hair, although greying, it adds the beauty of wisdom to her appearance. Her eyes are whisps of blue, nearly grey in their appearance. A somewhat long face completed by a sharp jaw gives an air of sternness about her. She is sweet as apple pie though, very contrary to her look.

My mother inherited the house and farm as her mother had done before her. She then married my father who is half Nez Perce and a skilled surgeon from Boise.

He travelled for work a lot but he spent many days teaching us the ways of the woods and making sure we respect the land the way our ancestors had. He is opposite in comparison to my mother in many aspects: he has a shorter round face with fierce cheekbones and a soft but dark tone to his skin. Brown eyes the darkest shade of chocolate. He looks like a sweet approachable man and at times he could be but he is strict and strong in his will. You could not sway his decision like you could mom, he is the stern one. He was very good to us kids, but if you screwed up, boy you'd know!

Then there is the rowdy crew of my brothers and me. To make this as short and simple as possible, here they are, from oldest to youngest:

First there's Brady, he's the big brother, self proclaimed protector and professional doofus. Freshly twenty one years old as of yesterday, attending the local community college under his "precious" football scholarship that he boasts about. Yet he does take his studies seriously- wants to be an accountant and yes we tease him over that. He's tall, rather slender for his sport of choice but still built for it. Light brown hair, comparable to the color of the underside of a raccoon. His pale blue eyes are almost grey like our mother's. Great kid sure, but we disregard with a passion any rules or directions he gives simply because irritating your older brother is great fun.

There's John, my twin against my will. Eighteen working on nineteen. He somehow got the pale skinned and red-head curse gene which matches his hot headed temper. His light skin burns to a crisp every summer. Got these blue-green eyes to boot, so to piss him off we call him Irish John Mcgee.

I'll just throw myself in here because that's the order we're going in here right? Well, name's Dakota, although not once have my brother's said my full name since I was five so it's just Koda. Which I prefer, it's like the mischievous bear from that animated kid's movie we watched growing up, honestly I think that's where it came from. Although not a full red-head, some of the ginger gene peaks through in the form of natural highlights amongst my dark brown hair. I'm not pale like John though, I'm more tanned. My eyes are a deep blue, almost indigo.

Vance is the smarty. Intelligent far beyond our comparably simple minds. He started college early at the same place as Brady. Two years younger than I, he is sixteen and many universities are after him. He has dirty blonde hair and honey colored brown eyes and freckles that span his cheeks across his nose. Nothing but a twig, he somehow is taller than Brady.

Finally we have James, he is thirteen and the outgoing goofball. He is the precious one to our parents, spoiled rotten. But we'd all die in an instant for him. We never let anything happen to him. Not one kid has ever dared bully him. The legacy that us Carver kids have left throughout our school years has kept our youngest brother safe. Like my father his hair is jet black but he has the innocent baby blue eyes.

Other than some slight difference in our eyes and hair though, we all are definitely related. With short round faces like our father but sharp jaws from our mother, you can't mistake that we are siblings. And a family. Which always comes first. At the end of every day we are all blessed to be able to come home to a beautiful place.

Although we're practically never home, always in the woods up to something. Usually that something is fishing, hunting or foraging, finding ways to bring food home. But sometimes it's no good tomfoolery. Not to be a tattle-tale; but James may or may not have been the goofy fool that started last year's small forest fire by bringing tiki torches to the school bonfire party.

But that's us and this is our home. Whether the day is spent tending the farm, looking for Indian spirits in the mountains or all sitting by campfire under the northern lights- this is my world and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I smile at the landscape below me like Simba in the Lion King looking down at the pride lands, knowing one day this would all be mine.

Oh I forgot to add that part. Yeah this whole place is going to mine some day. My family follows this tradition of always passing down the deed to the house and land to the oldest and or only girl child of the family. A tradition once scrutinized back in the day. But obviously my family didn't care for typical customs.

This place, it's history, the house and the story of how it all came to be would be for me to pass down someday with my brothers by my side.


I just wish I had known how quickly it was all about to change.