The Journey: Chapter 1

             My name is Tyra. I am seventeen summers old, and had lived with an old woman whom I call Gramama. I lived in a small cottage in the middle of the woods, with no villages, no neighbors, nothing. Up till that day, I thought that there was no other humans alive except for me Gramama and Granpapa. Granpapa was a male, while Gramama and I were females. Granpapa had died of a sickness when I was five summers old. I had lived with them for as long as I could remember in that cozy, warm, safe cottage in the woods. Even now, I still look back with warm, fond memories of me and Gramama, a united, safe family. Perhaps one day, when my work is done, I will go back to that cottage where me and Gramama lived. When my work is done, I will.
             I was twelve summers old on that day. The day started the same as usual, with me and Gramama getting up at the crack of dawn to start the chores and get breakfast on the table. Gramama was ancient, with withered skin and long, pure white hair. I was outside, drawing water for cooking and cleaning with.
             I stared at my reflection in the water from the bucket. My face looked back at me, a heart-shaped face framed by flowing black hair and happy iris-blue eyes. Gramama says that when she is feeling down she needs only to look at my face and is happy again.
             There was a loud thundering noise, and I looked around in alarm. What was that noise? “Gramama!” I yelled, as a creature burst out of the woods.
             It was taller than me, and had four legs, and a long neck, with a stretched face. I yelled with fright as two more came out, one of them the same size as the first creature, but the other one was smaller than the first one, but still large enough.
             I threw the bucket of water onto it, and the creature shrilled with fear, and reared up on its back legs. Gramama appeared at the door of the cottage. “Tyra, no!”
             “Swift! Calm!” a deep voice called. I gasped, as I realized that there were humans, like me and Gramama, on top of the creatures.
             The creature calmed down, and I saw that the human was holding onto strings that wrapped around the creature's face. The human climbed down. It was taller than me and Gramama, with short black hair and warm green eyes. I realized that this human was a male, like Granpapa. The other creatures dismounted, and I saw that one of them was a male, but not human. He was beautiful, but had pointed ears. The other one was small but stout, another male. I don't think he was human either. He had strange designs on his face, and long, tangled red hair and a beard to match, braided in some places.
             Gramama hurried over to where I was and put her hands on my shoulders, pulling me away from them. “Tyra, calm down.”
             I realized that I was shaking, shying away from the strangers. “Who are you?” I gasped.
             The man in front, the human, bowed. “I am Danicio, and these are my companions Talut, the dwarf, and Silverleaf the elf. Is this the cottage of the great Emeray?”
             I panted, looking wildly around at all the strange people. Gramama stood proud. “Yes, I am Emeray. Danicio, eh? I knew your father. Good man.”
             “Gramama! What's going on here?” I gasped.
             Gramama looked sideways at me. “Why don't you go inside, Tyra? I'll explain all this to you later.”             
             Silverleaf, the elf, cocked his head, looking at me. He had long blonde hair with forest-green eyes. “Are you related to Emeray?” he asked in a musical voice.
             Gramama stiffened, and I looked at the elf in puzzlement. “What?”
             “Are you part of her family?” Silverleaf patiently explained.
             Gramama's voice was oddly flat. “Cottage. Now.”
             I looked up at her, my young mind whirling with confusion. “Gramama, what-?”
             She pushed me inside the cottage, and frightened, I obeyed. I peeked out the window, and watched Gramama talking with Danicio. The other two, the elf and the dwarf, had withdrawn a little ways, taking care of the scary creatures, feeding them from sacks, and talking quietly.
             Up till then I do not recall disobeying a direct order from Gramama. But this was too important to stay quietly in the cottage. I needed to know what was going on.
             I stole quietly out of the cottage, and stepped softly toward the elf and the dwarf. They turned around as I came over.
             “Yes?” Silverleaf inquired.
             I took a deep breath. “I need to know what's going on. Please tell me. I never knew that there was other humans than me and Gramama and Granpapa.”
             Talut, the dwarf, sighed. “You explain. I need to mend Danicio's sword.”
             I blinked. “What's a sword?”
             Talut looked astonished, and gaped at me. I started to feel nervous. Silverleaf was nondeterred. “This.” He took a long stick with a beautiful handle. The stick had hard leather casing. There was a hissing sound as the stick was drawn from the casing. It was a grey color, and there were sharp points on two ends, and it was flat. Silverleaf held it out for my inspection.
             Wonderingly, I reached out and lightly touched it. It was hard, and cold to the touch. “Don't touch the sides,” Talut cautioned. “You'll cut yourself.”
             “This is a sword?” I asked. Silverleaf nodded, and gave the sword to Talut. Talut put it back in its casing (which I later learned was called a 'sheath'), and walked away.
             I looked at Silverleaf, and he glanced to Gramama and Danicio. “What you seem to not know,” he began, “is that there are thousands of humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, goblins, orcs, among others. Thousands in each race.”
             “What's a race?” I asked, fascinated yet scared. The very foundations of my childhood and everything that I knew was crumbling away, and I didn't know how to hold onto them. I didn't want to. I wanted to know everything that I had missed out in my first twelve years of life.
             “A race is a certain group of peoples,” Silverleaf explained. “My race is elves. Yours is humans. There are certain alliances and grudges between races, like there are some grudges between elves and dwarves. Talut and I, for the most part, get along, but other elves and dwarves do not. However, we are both friends with the humans.”
             “What about the others, the gobblers and the corks?” I asked.
             “Goblins and orcs,” Silverleaf corrected. “They are evil, twisted. We are at war with them, and have been for hundreds of years. Right now, the war has taken a bad turn for us. We need the help of Emeray the Great.”
             “What's a war?” I asked.
             Silverleaf glanced again at Danicio and Gramama. “War is when races fight each other. The elves, dwarves, and humans are at war with the orcs and goblins.”
             Gramama was upset. She glanced over and saw me talking to Silverleaf. “Tyra!” she yelled.
             I flinched. I had never seen her like this. A rebellious instinct surged up inside of me. “I'm not a child anymore!” I yelled back. “You can't tell me what to do!”
             Gramama looked taken aback. She pursed her lips and thought. Finally she came over to where Silverleaf and I was, with Danicio trailing behind her. “Fine. Silverleaf, don't tell her anything....you know....” She looked meaningfully at him.
             He bowed. “I give you my word.”
             I was amazed. I wanted to know what she meant, but knew better than to ask. Gramama turned to Danicio. “I will see what I will do. Please remain out here.” She turned to me. “Don't be a bother to these men, now.”
             “I won't, Gramama,” I replied. Gramama hobbled back into the cottage, and I turned to Silverleaf again. Before I could ask another question, Danicio beat me to it.
             “Who are you?” he asked.
             I looked at him. “I'm Tyra,” I replied.
             “And you're Emeray's granddaughter?” he asked in disbelief.
             I blinked, turning to Silverleaf. “What's a granddaughter?”
             “A daughter of one's son or daughter,” he explained.
             I shrugged. “I don't know.”
             Danicio looked around. “Have you lived here all your life?”
             I nodded. “Yeah. There was Granpapa too, but he died of an illness. What are you doing here?”
             Danicio looked back at me. “The war is failing for our side. We need the help of Emeray.”
             “Why do you call her that?” I asked.
             He looked thoughtful. “It's her name,” he said carefully.             
             Silverleaf quickly interrupted. “Will you show us around?”
             “Okay.” I gave them a tour of our cottage. It wasn't until a couple years later did I realize that Silverleaf had been deliberately avoiding something, probably something important.
             The strangers stayed for three weeks. During that week, I learned more about the outside world than I learned all my life. Danicio taught me my letters, and left me a couple of books to study out of, two of them being history books. Silverleaf taught me a couple of useful things about nature, and Talut walked me through the different weapons.
             They became my friends, and in those three weeks, I felt fond of them. In that time, it felt like I had known them all my life. I came to love their personalities; Talut's gruffness and cleverness with the arts of blacksmithery, Silverleaf's kindness and patience, and love of nature, and Danicio's quiet, studious nature. I was very sad to see them go. They told me that they would return someday soon. All I knew that night that they left, crying myself quietly to sleep, is that it was going to be a very long wait.

Reviews

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A great story, gripping and well thought out, good job, great read.