Thank you very much for reviewing everybody! I'm glad you're liking it so far.

Seems like E) ??? won this time, so we'll go with that.


Sara froze as she felt a heavy hand rest on her small shoulders. Was this it? After hours of hiding, had they finally found her? Would her screams be the next to echo into the night?

"Poor child." the voice behind her whispered, as he gently turned her to face him. Despite her blurry vision, it was quite clear to Sara that this man was different than the ones who came before, as she wiped her tears away, she was frightened for a moment. The man that sat before her had skin as dark as the night sky, long blue lines ran over his entire body, glowing faintly in the light of the moon, they stood out starkly against his dark skin.

She'd never seen anything like it before, were those scars? Or something else?

The man noticed her staring at him in awe and smiled sadly, "Strange, aren't they?"

"Do they hurt?" Sara asked softly as she brushed her fingertips against the lines on his hand, strangely enough, she couldn't even feel them. It was like they were imprinted into his skin, like tattoos.

"They are a part of me, they do not hurt." there was something strangely soothing about his voice, it seemed out of this world. For a moment, Sara forgot all about the situation she was in and continued to stare at the lines on the man's body, completely mesmorized by the blue glow. It was then that the man stood up and pulled her to her feet, he took her hand and lead her away from Oakvale.

Slowly but surely, realisation sunk in. "Where are my parents? Is my sister alright?!"

The man stopped in his tracks and seemed lost in thought for a moment before her turned, kneeling down before her and placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Everything will be alright once we leave this place."

"Wha... no! I want my mom and dad, and Theresa!" she yelled as she pulled out of the man's grasp, without a second thought, she dashed towards the hill, running as fast as her short legs allowed her. She looked behind her, only to find the man missing, her eyes darted all over the place as she desperately searched for him, her temporary black-out caused her to trip over a piece of charred wood from the bridge. Only then did she realize the bridge was on fire, scrambling back to her feet, she stumbled over the bridge, barely dodging the flames that raged on overhead.

She coughed violently by the time she'd crossed it, and for a moment lost her balance, until her hands landed on something.

Looking up, she saw the man again, standing right before her. She attempted to quickly jump past him, but he was too quick this time. His hands seemed a lot less gentle as he tightened his grip around her wrists once she started to struggle.

"Stop struggling," he ordered her as he brought himself down to her level once more, "Listen to me. There is nothing left here for you."

Sara stopped moving entirely upon hearing those words, her eyes widened slightly as she stared straight into his, "What...? W-Where are they...?"

"You will see them again," he reassured her with a smile, loosening his grip. "But not today."

---

It had been 8 long years since that night, and the now 14 year old Sara could hardly remember any of it. She vaguely remembered a blue mist engulfing her, and how it had caused her lunch to come right back up, she remembered seeing the Guild's hallways for the very first time, and she remembered tears, lots of them.

But other than that, the night, and even the day had turned into a dark, empty spot in her memory. No matter how hard she tried to recall it, the only thing that ever came up was a void where images, sounds and smells were supposed to be.

The man that had found her that day had turned out to be a Hero named Noah, who trained the young students of the Heroes Guild in the arts of Will. Over the years, she had come to see him as more than just a mysterious man. With time, she'd learned his name, his true name. His likes, his dislikes, personal stories, less personal stories, none of them were a secret to her.

He'd been the only one she trusted for a long time, the only one who she'd trusted enough to tell about her family, and the only one who knew about her amnesia.

It'll come with time, he'd said, Your mind must've blocked it out, he'd pondered, and in the end, nothing had really changed after their conversations. Still, it was good to be able to speak about such things. Sara's roommate, the ever-energetic Whisper, seemed much too naive and juvenile to be of any help, although she was sure she'd hear her out, if only out of politeness.

"Hey little farmer!" Whisper laughed mockingly as she entered their shared bedroom, "Missed you during training today," she casually strode over to Sara's bed, "Were you afraid I'd humiliate you in front of the entire class?"

14 was such a great age, you were too old to play, and too young to stay up past your curfew. Add to that the raging hormones and the awkward looking, underdeveloped bodies, and you got yourself one hell of a period. And having friends who dealt with the same insecurities and fears just put the cherry on the cake.

When they'd been younger, Whisper had actually been quite friendly, dare she say an actual friend. But time changed everything. Sara had always learned things faster than most, despite being the "farmgirl" with the funny accent, she'd always managed to best her classmates in combat. She'd tried to remain humble, but at times, she just couldn't resist showing off her grades to the people that had always ridiculed her. She'd never outright done it to Whisper, but of course, rumors spread faster than STDs amongst the older students, and sooner rather than later, Whisper had heard of it too.

Still, that hadn't been what separrated them. Whisper's elder brother was to blame... sort of. Whenever Whisper had to fight Sara, Thunder would just happen to be stopping by at the exact time and date their fight was scheduled, and of course, being a caring older brother, you couldn't just ignore your little sister when she had an important battle, right?

Of course, 9 out of 10 times, Sara would easily beat Whisper, if only because her brother's presence distracted her. Other times, she'd purposely let Whisper win in order to save her from her brother's lectures and scorn. Neither had had a positive effect on their relationship. Whenever Sara won, Whisper would get jealous and angry, whenever Sara held back, Whisper felt insulted. Really, there was no pleasing the girl.

And so she'd stopped caring, because no matter what she said or did, Whisper would always end up angry. Blame the hormones.

"What, cat got your tongue?" Whisper laughed snidely, flicking Sara's hair into her face.

Sara gritted her teeth, this was not the time to annoy her, "What the HELL is your problem?!" she yelled as she jumped to her feet, "Don't like me? Then leave me alone! I'm not bothering you, am I?"

Whisper pursed her lips and stood as well, crossing her arms and giving her the most arrogant look Sara had seen in a long time, "Well, I've tried to ignore you... but that horrible farm smell makes it quite difficult... I guess no matter how hard you scrub, you'll still be the little chicken girl, hmm?"

That one had stung pretty badly. All teenagers were self-conscious and Sara was no exception to this rule, she too worried about her looks, about the way people saw her. She'd always been the easy target for bullies, it had taken her a lot of time and practice to get rid of her accent, but in the end, she felt like she shouldn't have bothered. The kind people had been kind to her with and without her accent, the people who disliked her still disliked her and still made fun of her heritage.

Whisper had always steered clear from such topics, until today. Sara could feel an uncontrollable rage, but after the incident of last week where the shopkeeper had wrongfully accused her of theft, punching Whisper in the face didn't seem like the best solution right now.

"Hahaha, oh wow, chicken girl, how original!" Sara laughed, "I guess I shouldn't have expected more from the class screw-up," she took a step towards her dark-skinned roommate and smiled mockingly, "Do you wanna settle this tomorrow, during training?"

Whisper's smile faded, and her arrogant posture quickly shifted into doubt. Despite this, Sara continued, "Oh no, wait... that's not fair of me, that's like asking a mute person to sing... hmm... maybe you can let your brother fight it out for you, at least he doesn't fail at everything he does," she grinned meanly now, adding a final, arrogant "hmm?" to her speech.

Sara tilted her head slightly to the side, leaning back on one heel as she stared at her roommate, "What, cat got your tongue?"

"I hate you..." Whisper said softly as she tried to hide her eyes, feeling hot tears burn in them, "I really hate you!!"

"Yeah? Well the feeling's mutual," Sara yelled back at her, before turning away and walking towards the exit of the room.

Whisper rushed after her, completely ignoring the other students who were relaxing in the common room, "At least I have a brother!" she snarled, "You say I'm a screw-up, but at least I still have a family that cares! Can't say the same about you though, can we? Why else did they dump you here, why else don't they ever visit you?! How happy they must be to be rid of you!"

That did it. All the self-control she'd mustered mercilessly shattered into a million pieces, with barely any control over her body, Sara swirled around and rushed back over to Whisper, who in turn immediately silenced upon seeing the rage in Sara's eyes, before she could move though, Sara's fist had already collided with her nose.

"You... you..." Sara fumed as she rose her fist again. She slowly knelt down and roughly pulled Whisper up to her face, "Mention them again, and I swear... I'll kill you." she hissed before pushing the girl back down and storming off.

---

Harsh stomps echoed loudly throughout the halls of the Guild, as Sara descended the stairs. The funny people usually took this oppertunity to crack terrible jokes such as, "See? TOLD you she was a FIERY red-head!!" but not even they had the balls to speak within her hearing range. Not even the Guildmaster commented on her "peace-disturbing" stroll through the building, and that was rare, because if there was one thing the man liked to do, it was offer useless advise and comment on the painfully obvious.

Without hesitation, Sara burst through the door to the library, causing the two people present to jump slightly. "What's with you?"

Sara inhaled sharply and then let out a deep breath, closing her eyes while doing so. It didn't have the desired effect though; The look in her eyes could still scare the most seasoned of warriors to death.

However, upon hearing Noah speak, she calmed slightly. His voice had always had that effect on her.

"If you're out for blood, I'm guessing this isn't the place you're looking for," he laughed, patting the boy beside him on the shoulder, "Unless you're looking to beat up some innocent bookworm of course."

"It's nothing..." she muttered as she stomped over to the table and hopped up on it, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Yes, you are the joy of the party..." Noah mumbled as he took a seat next to her, "If you don't want to talk, what are you doing here?"

Sara glared at him, but soon realised he had a point. She sighed deeply and hung her head, "I had a fight with Whisper."

"And? It's not like you've never had a fight before." Noah commented with a shrug.

"Yeah, but..." she slowly glanced over at her blond friend, who stared straight back, glanced over at the door for a second before meeting her eye again. She slowly nodded in response.

The boy nodded understandingly and closed his book, "Forgive me master Noah, but I promised the servants to help them with something," he stood up and smiled at the older man, "If you'll excuse me." and with that, he hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.

As soon as the door shut, Sara spoke again, explaining the heated argument she'd had earlier, Noah listened intently, until she mentioned punching Whisper in the face, to which he brought his face to his palm. "Tell me there were no witnesses..."

The look on his face made Sara smirk slightly, "Well, seeing as it happened in the common room, and training had just ended, I'd say there's a pretty good chance someone noticed."

"Listen," he began carefully, sounding much more serious now, "What she said was wrong, but you weren't exactly acting like a lady yourself," Sara opened her mouth to protest, but the look in Noah's eyes was enough to silence her, "You can't end an argument by smacking someone."

"She seemed pretty silent after I told her I'd kill her if she mentioned my family again."

The man rolled his eyes, "Death threats and physical abuse of a fellow student... I'm sure Maze will be thrilled!" he chirped sarcastically.

"She deserved it..." Sara mumbled in her defense.

"She didn't know, did she?"

A long period of silence followed, Noah had already gotten up and was in the process of putting the books that lay scattered across the table back at their right spot when Sara responded, "No. She didn't."

"Then was that punch really as justified as you believed?"

"I'm NOT apologising!" Sara growled quickly, hopping off the table, "She's been annoying me for weeks, she had it coming... that comment was just the last straw, that's all."

The usually calm Will user sighed desperately, "If you don't want advice, why do you visit me?"

"Because I need to vent! I didn't ask for your input! You're beginning to sound like the Guildmaster with your useless advice, you know that?" Sara huffed as she yanked the chair back and plopped down on it.

"In that case, you should've urged me to leave and talked to Elliot if you only wanted someone to listen to your whining, Avo knows the boy has more patience for such things than I do."

"I'm not whining!" Sara gasped.

"Oh come now..." he strode over to the door, "Yes you are." with that, he left the room, not bothering to close the door behind him.

---

That night, Sara couldn't sleep, no matter how often she twisted and turned, the only thing it did was tangle up the sheets, which, in turn, caused her to get annoyed, which ultimately lead to her not being able to relax and fall asleep. It was a vicious circle she'd found herself in quite frequently over the last few weeks, and the fights she'd had with her roommate hadn't helped in solving the issue.

Speaking of her roommate, Whisper wasn't in her bed, which was strange, seeing as Whisper was usually the first one in their room. Sara rolled over and checked the time: 11:32. Their curfew was 10:30, which was a more than reasonable time, considering their first class started at 6:30 in the morning each day.

"Maybe I broke her nose..." Sara pondered, smirking devilishly at the thought.

A few more restless minutes passed before Sara angrily kicked off her blankets, deciding that, since she wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight anyway, she might as well not bother.

She walked over to Whisper's bed, considering putting something in it but quickly decided against it, she wasn't that childish. As she looked up from the bed and out of the window, she noticed sparks coming from the Guild's woods.

"I wonder what's going on there..."


Lord that chapter was hard to write for some reason. Sorry if it sucked, it'll get better, I hope.

I tried to write Sara as neutral as possible, but I'm scared I may have turned her into a little bitch... blame her hormones?

Choice time: What is Sara going to do to entertain herself?

A) Look for Whisper

B) Check out the woods

C) Wake up Elliot (The guy from the library) and have him entertain her

D) Go steal something from the merchant for revenge over the false accusation incident

E) Sneak out of the Guild

I know this one seems obvious, but please choose carefully. Again, all choices have different outcomes. And they all have an effect on future chapters, so think carefully before choosing.

Also, this one doesn't affect the next chapter, but this is for future chapters: I'm thinking of adding characters as team-members for when Sara leaves the Guild, so I'm just going to ask you: Do you want Sara to travel solo, or should she have company?

Yes) She should have company

No) She should travel solo

I hope people are still interested, and I hope you'll leave reviews again. Thank you very much for reading, and have a lovely day!