The winter air was crisp around Laila as she read from her magick book. Just the way she liked it. There was much that she hadn't learned about magick because, well, she honestly hadn't tried. Lately, though, she'd had an unscratchable itch to study more and more. It made her father, Draenik, proud. Even now, as she sat beneath a young cedar tree, her father looked at her with pride from where he sat on the porch steps. He whittled away at a piece of wood, no doubt in Laila's mind that he was creating another wand to sell. The morning was early, and most of her brothers were still asleep. The only other one who wasn't was Jasper, but he had since ventured off into the woods. He spent a lot of time gathering herbs and other things for his potions that he sold. Most of the men in Laila's family were merchants, and she noticed that the women were typically homemakers. Laila dreamed of being the Royal Mage one day.
As Draenik prepared a bag stuffed with wands, Laila rose from her studying place and marked the page in her book, setting it on the porch railing as she approached her father. "Can I come?" she asked him, looking up at the tall man.
Draenik was a man of few words. He was content to listen rather than speak, unless he was speaking to teach his sons a valuable life lesson. As he looked down at his daughter, he nodded his head with a slight smile, throwing the bag's strap over his shoulder and gesturing for her to follow him. The two walked down a long dirt road surrounded with trees and other small houses and cabins. Along the way, Laila looked around her at the plants that grew underneath the trees. She learned from Jasper some of their names and uses, but found herself stuck at remembering the name of a particular blue plant, which she new was used to revive one's magick abilities once their energy had run out.
Laila and Draenik arrived at the market square, and quietly Draenik spread out his variety of wand sticks about a wooden table. Each wand was hand-crafted, polished, and enchanted. Draenik once had the opportunity of becoming the Royal Mage, but denied the offer, which greatly baffled Laila. She never pressed into the subject.
The sun came and went, and once it was getting ready to dip below the horizon, most people were gathering their selling things to leave while some were just arriving. Laila witnessed an encounter between one man and a strange-looking other, along with a woman. Laila made a face because she felt uneasy, though about which one she wasn't sure. Something didn't feel right, but before she could bring it to her father's attention, the man had shifted into a large cat and darted past them so quickly that Laila could not tell what animal he had shifted into. It had caused a lot of heads to turn that way, and Draenik stiffened, but said nothing. Laila looked back to the other two and gasped when all that was left was a fading cloud of black smoke. Several other people gasped, and some even shrieked.
Dark magick.
Draenik, with his bag once again around his shoulder, put his hand against Laila's back, pushing her toward the road that they'd come from. The journey home seemed long due to the tense aura around the two of them. As they neared their house, Laila could have sworn she saw that same blonde man entering a small, almost un-noticeable opening in the forest. She bid her father a silent farewell, and he let her go. She took off quietly behind the man.
"Hello?" she called out to the darkness.
