1. Saraia Sindarin

"Saraia! Saraia Sindarin! You have chores to do!"
Saraia pulled her nose out of the wild orchid bloom and sighed. She didn't mind chores; she usually performed happily and was a hard worker, but today was just one of those days when she didn't want to leave the beauty of the meadow to work in the stuffy house. The cool winds of spring were active today, and when she lay in the meadow, she could feel the breeze drawing lucid strands of thought along with it, untangling her mind, clearing her head. The mundane tasks of sweeping packed-dirt floors or peeling potatoes couldn't do the same. Saraia's long, pale fingers embraced the orchid and her delicate nose breathed in its sweet scent. She loved lying in the wildflowers and drowning in the warm, milky scent of the grass.
"Saraia! Did you hear me?"
Saraia groaned and sat up. Her mother was standing in the cottage door, her white cotton apron tied securely over her summer-afternoon-yellow skirts. Saraia thought for a moment that her mother looked like one of the yellow butterflies that adored the orchids as much as she did. She revised that thought. Her mother was much warmer, much more solid than the butterflies, which, beautiful as they were, were fanciful and weak.
"Well?" her mother called.
"Yes, ma'am. I'm coming."
Saraia picked up the handful of flowers she had picked and reluctantly returned to the house.
"Honestly child," her mother commented as Saraia stepped over the threshold, "the Creator blessed you with so much beauty, but I think he blessed you with too much imagination as well."
Saraia rolled her eyes at her doting mother. She didn't think she was all that beautiful, but her mother insisted on flattering her. She took a seat at the table and began to peel potatoes. Every so often, she would shake her pale blonde curls out of her deep blue eyes.
She was, indeed, beautiful, and everyone knew it. She seemed to be the only one not in on the secret. She constantly insisted that her height and slender limbs made her gawky and awkward, and for lack of a mirror had never seen the large blue eyes that were so captivating. She swore that her only striking feature was her hair. She loved how it blew behind her in the wind like strands of yellow silk.
As the last few potatoes lost their rough skins, there was a commotion in the next room.
"Mami! Mami!"
Saraia's youngest sister ran in, her silvery-blonde curls, as pale and feather-light as sunlight, bounced wildly on her shoulders. Saraia's mother scooped the little girl into her arms.
"Yes, Eavi?"
"I hurt my finger," she help up the injured appendage, tears leaking from her eyes.
"Oh, poor dear," she clucked, "How did you hurt it?" she took the finger and inspected it carefully.
"Tono bent it," the granite-eyed three-year-old whined.
Her mother sighed and shouted in the direction of the back room, "Tono!"
"Yes!" the nine-year-old shouted back.
"How many times have I told you to be careful with your sister?"
"But mama -." Tono appeared in the doorway, his hair as white-blonde as everyone else's.
"No excuses, Tono, you need to learn to be careful."
"Yes, mama."
"Good," she set Eavi down on the floor, and the little girl sniffed quietly, "now go back and play with your brother, and he'll be careful."
"Alright."
Saraia scooped the potato skin shavings into her skirt and carried dumped them outside in the garden. She fetched a basket from inside the door and turned to her mother.
"I'm going to go into town and get our supper from the butcher. Do we need anything else?"
"No dear, and be sure to have him mark the credit to be paid after the harvest. I think we'll have a good one this year."
"Of course," Saraia smiled.
She stepped back out into the bright sunlight and headed down the beaten dirt path that wound for a mile past empty fields to the town. Barely out the door, a shout caught her attention.