When Lara first stepped from this planet, she arrived in the middle of a cold, rainy, summer night. At the time, she was seven years old. Not knowing where she would end up, for better or for worse, she stood up, and took her very first steps toward suburbia. Her steps were weak and shaky at first, but slowly became stronger the more she walked. Using trees' branches and rocks, she pulled herself through the forest, and watched as the trees became spaced farther apart, the rocks became smaller, and the rain poured more heavily on her, soaking her to the bone. Her teeth began to clatter, and her long, dark, brown almost black hair began to stick to her naked body. It was all very new, very strange. She slowly descended into a row of seemingly never-ending fields, all of them empty, except for one. She walked faster, and much quieter as she snuck closer to the herd of creatures, she was still at least twenty feet away from them when they saw her and started to bray angrily at her, their ears flattened against their heads. A few of them pawed the ground anxiously, and screamed loudly into the cold night air. Lara froze, pretending to be part of the background, knowing that if she didn't move they wouldn't see her. A large white one went up to her, and slowly extended its long head, it gave her a sniff before snorting and galloping off back towards the herd.

When she finally found a house, the sun had almost risen. Taking two steps at a time, she dashed onto the front porch. She stood there, unsure of what to do. Sitting down beside the door, she hugged her body to her, teeth chattering, a cold wind blowing her skin to the freezing point. Her eyes began to close, feeling like they weighed a ton. Her breathing became slower, more paced, and her mind began to drift away. Suddenly, the door smashed open on the other side of Lara, making her jump from her sleep. A little girl around her age leaped out with a teddy bear in her hands. Laughing and leaping, the little girl pranced down the stairs in a yellow dress, with a matching yellow bow at the end of her long braided hair. A woman with the same coloured hair chased after her, grabbing her and pretending to chew on her belly. The little girl shrieked with laughter and squirmed happily. The woman swung her around and around herself, until they fell on the soft ground, soaked and covered in mud. The little girl was still giggling uncontrollably, and the woman was smiling. The little girl stopped giggling as she saw Lara crouched beside the doorway.

"Mama, who's that?" She asked, her mother, who also stopped laughing, and looked in the same direction.

And that was how Lara found a family.

At the age of eight, she was declared mute by the very first doctor that gave her a full physical. According to Dr. Tam, she had no vocal cords, which was very, very odd and had to be the strangest case of muteness that she had ever seen. Lara was then sent to a private tutor who taught her to speak Sign Language. It took Lara about half a month of full day lessons to learn it all, but she could speak it fluently and precisely. The only ones in her family who knew what she would be saying was her 'sister', Taylor, and her parents never could get the hang of it, but they ended up learning half of what Lara had learned. Taylor was an outgoing child. She was playful, happy, and (To Lara's outmost annoyance) nosy. Whenever Lara was about doing things in the early years, Taylor would always sneak up behind her and ask the same, obnoxious question;

"What'cha doing Lara?" She'd ask, hands behind her back, her little face jammed very close to her sister's. Lara would sigh deeply and sign;

"No idea."

Taylor mellowed out when she was around the age of ten. She would no longer pester Lara, but would leave her to her own devices. In fact, she never even went into the room to see what Lara would do.

Lara got sick of her hair and cut it above her shoulders, almost to her chin, and put on the glasses her mother had nagged her to wear, as her eyesight needed improvement. Lara went to her room and sighed heavily. Her sister no longer wanted to play with her, she had no friends in the town of Pearl Mountains, and she wasn't allowed to go near the forest, HER forest.

Lara sank into a deep depression, which was another odd thing about her, because ten year old girls don't usually become depressed. At least not like that. Her parents decided to get her involved in something.

They decided to get her an instrument.

Lara gripped her mother's hand as she went through the large music store. Lara sullenly looked at all the people there. She saw strange looking people near the guitars and drum kits, young jazzy-looking folk near the Saxophones, children younger than her around the pianos and……

"What's this?" she signed quickly. Her mother gave her a quizzical look, and asked her if she meant this. Lara nodded.

"Oh… It's a violin."

Lara walked up to it, her head cocked thoughtfully. She slowly picked it up from its stand and placed it under her chin. Grabbing the nearest bow, she placed the soft part on a string. It flowed to her, it was tricky, yet so much fun! Her mother stopped talking to a man beside her and looked around at Lara. The man stopped and looked at her. A few women turned around and looked at her. The whole store became quieter and quieter. Lara quickly pulled the bow off in alarm, and looked around in embarrassment.

"We'll take it." Her mother said, quickly doling out money to the man, who seemed to be in a trance, staring open-mouthed at Lara.

Buying the Violin had brought a lot of financial stress to the family, which was already in a deep debt, and thinking of no other way for them to make ends meet, they decided to move when Lara and Taylor were twelve.