No school today! Usually that means I get to sleep in, but I actually got up at eight this morning. Bleh. Just in case you're wondering, ten to twelve is my typical wake up time on the weekends. What can I say? I love my sleep. And yes, I'm aware of the consequences of oversleeping. I do my best not to. To me, the perfect schedule for a day would be to wake up a little before sundown, have all night, and then the first few hours of morning. Although I love staying up late at night and sleeping through the morning, I actually really like the first few hours of sunrise. It'd probably end up being something like sleep from 8 am to five pm. I would love to live like that. And then I'd have a couple acres of land, a horse or two, and I'd go riding through a small forest on my land right before going to bed in the morning. There's me, and my elaborate dream for a perfect routine. Oh, and my house would be Victorian style.

Now, let's get to the real fantasy, shall we?

The swaying fields cut us off from the rest of the world, only the blue sky hinting of the connection to earth. As normal of a scene that it is, it almost feels similar to the enchanted forest. It's like a completely separate place, another planet, if you will.

Mud sucks at my feet. The rain last night hasn't had time or heat enough to dry. Unfortunately for me, that means I'll be picking bits of soppy brown out of my shoes for the next week.

"What are these plants?" Kyoya inquires, running his hand over the stalks.

"Corn. It's about the only thing our village has to trade," I explain, sighing. If I do get a job, it'll probably be something like working in the fields, and this is not a place I'd like to spend my hours. Especially after it rains. "We're lucky the soil is good here, or we'd have nothing."

"What does it do?"

I crouch to the ground, pushing aside a bunch of brown leaves leaves that have ripped from the cornstalks due to wind. "It doesn't do anything. It's food. Trust me, we've tried to find medical value in it, but there's nothing it can do except fill a stomach. Ah, found some." I tug at a greyish green vine, its leaves pointed like arrowheads. "This is a grassvine, although it's not the one we're looking for. This one is smooth." I snap a chunk of it off, straightening. The girls love smooth grassvines for weaving crowns.

I wonder what they're doing back home. The twins wanted to come along, but the children begged them to stay behind. I wanted them to, anyway, just in case Mr. Eto comes by while I'm out. I haven't heard from him since he came with those thugs. It's not like he lives here, so every time he comes to see me he has to travel. I'm sure it's a pain to ready the horses so often, and the servants at his house must be exasperated with his coming and leaving.

Servants. There's no doubt a man like him has them. I guess they are payed, but such a life scratches at one's pride. When we first met, he offered me a job at his mansion. The money was tempting, but when he mentioned it was as a maid I turned it down immediately. Perhaps if he'd been looking for someone to work in the stables I would've accepted, but I have no desire to tend to his every whim. I wonder what it'd be like, to have people working under you. What would it be like to live in comfort everyday?

Kyoya breaks my train of thought. "Are these what we're looking for?" Shaking the thought from my head, I turn around to see him kneeling at the edge of the path. His hand carefully cradles a dangling vine with rough fuz coating the stem.

"Y-yeah, that's it." I hold out the basket and he drops it in. "Is there any more?"

"It looks like there's quite a bit of it around here," he nods, glancing around. I drop to the ground, yanking out a vine by my feet. This is what I get for daydreaming of foolish things like that. I would have missed this batch entirely had Kyoya not pointed it out. I stop when I realize Kyoya's just standing there.

"What're you waiting for?"

"Why don't you just use magic?" he asks. "Wouldn't that be much easier?"

I return to picking the grassvines, hiding my face. "I may be a witch, but I'm still in training. My magic isn't very powerful. The most I can do is heat something up, and that's only because that's the blood I have. I haven't been able to go outside of my bloodline's specialization before."

"Then why don't you find a mentor to learn from?"

"Are you kidding?" I scoff. "I can't leave the orphanage, nor do I want to! Mother's getting old, Kyoya. In a few years time she'll likely fall ill, and no one will be able to take care of the children. She's already getting fatigued much quicker than before. When she's no longer able get out of bed, I'll be taking over for her. And if you haven't noticed, I'm the only witch in town. There's just no mentor available. Even the books I've been able to get my hands on are extremely limited." I sit back on my heels, wiping the mud off my hands. "And besides, there's nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty every now and again. At the end of the day, blood, sweat and tears are the most rewarding."

"I see." After a moment longer, he gets down to help. We work in silence for a while, the basket slowly filling. The sun eventually rises above the tops of the stalks, beating down fiercely. After a drop of sweat drips from my nose, I pull to my feet.

"Let's go find shade."

He looks up at me, not a bead of sweat formed. "Oh, it has gotten hot, hasn't it?" He takes off his glasses, wiping them on his shirt as he stands. I stare at his face in disbelief. He really is pretty, isn't he? Maybe I shouldn't say that about a boy, even if he is an elf, but he is. His black hair framing his pale skin is a beautiful contrast, his dark oak-colored eyes adding a natural element to his surreal appearance. His pointed ears perk out from under his hair almost cutely.

I twist away as he replaces his glasses on his face, seriously hoping he didn't notice me looking. "This way is the quickest way out from here," I notify him, facing the fields. "It's not a path, but there are a few trees where we'd come out."

"Let's go, then." He plunges in without waiting and I hop to catch up with him. Only having one arm to move the stalks aside with, the other holding the basket of our findings, Kyoya sometimes has to assist me through the field. One time, while I'm passing under his arm, my hair catches on one of the buttons on his sleeve.

"Ow!" We both freeze as not to pull, my hand going to my head as the feeling of pain settles. "Sorry."

"It's fine, Mari," he assures me, reaching over with his other arm to detangle my hair. Not even a minute has passed before I'm free again and brushing my fingers through my hair. I pause, though, when I meet Kyoya's gaze. "Mari, have you always had that red in your hair?"

"I have. If you're going to bring up Chiyoka, I already talked with Kaoru. I know we're related, and I don't care."

"Is that so?" he mutters.

His thoughtful expression piques my curiosity, and, despite my efforts to write it off, I blurt out, "Who was Chiyoka? What did she have to do with the forest?"

"She was a witch that came a long time ago," he tells me, his eyes wandering to the sky. "I wasn't here at the time, but I've heard all about her from Tamaki and the twins."

"Haven't there been other witches, though?" I wonder. "I mean, she's just one among many, right? Why do they remember her specifically?"

He chuckles. "Because she was beautiful. Witches aren't inherently the most attractive beings, but she was. Tamaki says she went beyond even human beauty. They remember her because they all liked her."

"And so what? Now they all like me because I have some of her blood?"

He purses his lips. "No, I don't think it's that. I think they're curious. They don't know who the father is."

"So what?"

"They were all in love with her."

I choke even though there's nothing to choke on. "Are you saying one of them, the twins or the unicorn, might be my father?"

"Of course not!" he laughs. "She never took any of them as a mate. Whoever he was, he was human. At least, he didn't live in the forest. Besides, from what they've told me I can guess that she came around a very long time ago. Unless she had a spell of prolonged or eternal youth, she'd have been long dead before your mother was born."

"I see," I breathe out. For a moment there, he successfully had me terrified. Although, now that he mentions it, the twins did tell me the other day that they were over a thousand years old. Really, it's hard to believe with the way they act. "Well, if that's true, they're not going to find the guy now. He has to be dead, too. And it's not like I have a family pedigree on me or anything."

"No, you wouldn't, but I mentioned earlier that those two wanted to be familiars. You're a witch, so you can fulfill that."

"I don't particularly care why they wanted to be my familiars," I admit. "I'm just thankful that they did. Honey acted so hostile towards me last time, and no one else seemed willing to volunteer."

"They thought you wanted them for selfish reasons. I heard you told them you wanted absolute power, to be the most powerful witch. You should have added that you were doing it for your family."

We come to the edge of the field and I come to a halt, Kyoya realizing a second later and looking back. "You're kidding! That's why they wouldn't be my familiars?"

"They may not seem like it, but the twins have trust issues. As does Tamaki, but the twins have it worse."

I hurry to catch up to him, collapsing onto the ground when we reach the shade of a nearby tree. "Why's that?"

"I don't think that's for me to say," he leans back. His eyes close as if asleep, and I find myself unable to tear my eyes away. His head lolls to the side ever so slightly, causing his hair to fall over his eyes. I wonder where he got his glasses from. It's not like he can just waltz into town and buy them, being an elf and all. What's it like, living in the forest? From what I could tell, he lived alone. But then again, there were two beds in his house. He said he was driven out by an elf named Renge. I wonder what she's like, for him to abandon his own home because of her.

"Marrriii!" I look up, blinking. Hikaru and Kaoru lean out from around the tree in opposite directions, their faces identically devilish. "Are we interrupting your date?"

"Since when was this a date?" I set the basket on the ground beside me. "And weren't you with the kids?"

"Honey's with them," they shrug, coming around and standing in front of me. Their habit of talking in synch still strikes me as somewhat odd.

"We got bored," Hikaru fake yawns.

"So we came to play with you!"

I can't help but grin. "You two are such kids. Aren't years supposed to make you wiser?"

Kaoru smiles. "But where's the fun in that?"

"So, will you play?"

"I'll play," I giggle. "What game is it?"

"We should go deliver the vines to Nekozawa," Kyoya realizes, opening his eyes. When he sees the twins, he sighs. "Or I could take them myself." He waits for me to hand over the basket, but I follow him to my feet.

"No, I'll go too!" I have to get my pay, after all.

"But Mari!" Hikaru complains.

"What about us?"

"You guys can come, too, if you want," I shrug. They came to find me, so there's no harm in them coming along. As long as the kids are taken care of, they don't need to go back.

As we walk to Umehito's house, the twins keep me between the two of them and Kyoya at a distance. Kyoya said they have trust issues, but to me it feels more like a childish possessiveness. I don't really care. I deal with children all the time. The only difference is they're just a little bigger, and much, much older.

So, we learn a bit more about Chiyoka. I think she'll be an interesting character, even though she's sorta long dead. In case you're wondering, only Tamaki and the twins actually knew her. No one else had come to the forest, yet. Honey came soon after, Mori coming with him, and Kyoya is the most recent inhabitant. Elves don't have as long a lifespan as dragons or unicorns. They're able to live for over ten thousand years, at least in this universe. Mori can live about as long as whatever tree he was born out of. Since the tree species is unknown, I can't give an accurate estimate, but some trees can live pretty damn long. So, we can assume he's fairly old at this point, since he came with Honey all those years ago. I must wonder if Honey really is still in his foal years, or if he just never really grew. Maybe I should write a list of all these minute details just for my entertainment.

Till then, Kisses from SnowyNeko! :3 MEOW!