This is from 2003. Just a bitty rewrite to make it nicer to read. I'm leaving the notes I wrote then as is.
It's my birthday today! Hooray! -does happy dance- I'm 14!
So this is what I'd like for my birthday present if I lived in Valdemar...
No, this isn't my family. This person lives on a farm and has lotsa sibs, not just one, like me.
I tumbled out of bed on what I considered the first morning of true fall, when the leaves began to turn-my birthday. Birds sang outside the window and a crisp chill in the air tickled me as I climbed into my clothes.
I ran down the stairs and found my family sitting around the table-Mother, Father, and every sibling, smiling at me-the habitually latest riser of the family.
The place of honor was empty-I slid into the normally vacant seat.
I ate a delicious breakfast, savoring my first bites as a fourteen-year-old.
Heading outside, I looked at the view from the hill where my house sat-red and golden trees, with a few evergreens interspersed between them, and the fields sun-gold with rippling ripe wheat...
I could smell fresh bread in the oven, the crispness of the air, the herbs from my mother's garden, and just underneath it, the light tang of fall.
It was a perfect day.
I heard hoofbeats coming up the pounded dirt road on the side of the house, screened by a hedge. I wonder who that could be...
I looked eagerly. Maybe it was my cousins, coming for a surprise visit! I stepped outside to get a better vantage point, expecting to wave hello to my cousins...
Instead, an impossibly graceful white horse paced into the yard. Bells chimed gently, a counterpoint to the ring of his hooves as he stepped onto the paved front path.
His mane rippled against his neck as he turned his head to look at me.
I fell into crystalline blue eyes, fell forever and ever into pools of light and love and trust and hope-
:I am Aranthe. I Choose you, sister of my heart, I Choose you...:
-is happy-
Reviews are loved!
-Fireblade K'Chona and Fireblade from 2004!