A dragon’s roar echoed throughout the normally peaceful valley. The ancient trees shook with the quaking Earth as the dragon Carina took her anguish out apon it. She and her life mate had been attacked by humans. Though her wounds had healed, her mate had died of them. Her reptilian body heaved with gigantic sobs, cursing every human that had ever caused pain such as the one she felt. It wasn’t long before a lake took form around the beautiful red dragon. It also wasn’t long before she too closed her eyes for the last time, the cause, her heart cracking and braking in two. The ancient power in her flesh was then absorbed into the soil, making the valley magical. As for the lake, if a near dying creature drank from it, it would be rewarded with full health. The drinker would also walk away from the bank with newfound powers. So naturally, this lake became the goal in quite a number of quests. But the Elves of the Mountains and Northern Valley’s quickly learned of this and made it so only those they deemed worthy may be permitted to drink from the Lake of Tears. And so! Our story starts, on an another very sad day, in a village very far from Elvan-valleys, mountains, and the Lake of Tears…

Ena’s heart was breaking, but no tears would shed. She was too proud for that. It was the funeral of Kevin the village musician, one of people who had ever cared for her. He taught her how to play musical interments. While his twin brother, Galvin, taught her to fight against the older boys (and a couple of the other girls too…) in the village that picked on her, and to talk to the animals of the Everglades, the forest beside her village, Lavena. Kevin and Galvin was the closest thing she had to a family. She wasn’t an orphan; her mother and father just didn’t care about her. Ena could jump off a cliff, and they could complain about having to pay for her burial.

"Oh…!" said Brian, her father, surprised when he saw her walk through the door of their cabin in the late afternoon. Ena had spent the majority of the day’s hours kneeling beside Galvin and Kevin’s graves, wishing she could join them. It had been four months since she had actually come face to face with her parents. Ena had a habit of sleeping in the shack that Galvin and Kevin shared. But when Kevin forced her to go home (saying that family bonds were important), Ena snuck in late at night and always left before sunrise. "You’re home, well Kevin was buried this morning wasn’t he?" He looked over at his wife for confirmation of this. Fiona nodded, who was making dinner while her father sat at the table. Ena looked nothing like her parents. She had dark-red hair with white streaks through it, and she was fairly tall. But the most notable thing about her was her scarlet irises. Fiona was blonde-haired with brown eyes, where as Brian had black hair and deep blue eyes, all of which Ena’s four older brothers had inherited; both of them were fairly short.

"Is it any wonder I spend hardly anytime here…" Ena muttered, shaking her head.

"What was that missy?" asked Brian sternly.

"Nothing…!" hissed Ena back.

"And this is the thanks we get!" raved Brian, raising his arms and eyes to the ceiling. "For feeding you, putting the clothes on your back, raising you-," but he was cut short by Ena’s snarl.

"You never did any of those things!" Ena’s expression was furious. "I could’ve been eaten by wild wolves and you wouldn’t have cared! Kevin and Galvin fed me, put clothes on my back, raised me, not YOU!" To Ena, it was an insult to Kevin and Galvin’s memory (Galvin had died a year before) that they claim to have done any such thing. They barely fed her and they turned a blind eye to the bruises the boys in the village and her ‘loving’ siblings gave her.

"Well you know you don’t have to stay here, your of age," snapped Fiona.

"Fine! I WON’T STAY HERE A MINUTE LONGER!" shouted Ena.

"Don’t talk to your mother like that!" yelled Brian.

"I DON’T HAVE A MOTHER! I DISOWN YOU BOTH! I NEVER NEEDED EITHER OF YOU AND I WON’T EVER NEED ANYBODY ELSE EVER AGAIN!" roared Ena and stormed off to her room. She quickly packed her belongs into a travel bag. She shoved in her blankets; she attached her long sword and dagger to her belt, which she had hid underneath her bed (she wasn’t leaving them behind). She shoved the small amount of gold coins she had into her purse, she threw in her tinder box, and some rope she had stolen. Fiona had made it and Ena didn’t see why she shouldn’t take it…

"Running away?" came the voice of the youngest of Ena’s four brothers, Lee from her doorway. He was two years younger than her.

"Nope, I’m going on a quest, to the Lake of Tears. You know how I’ve wanted to go, and now I am!" said Ena defiantly. Lee smirked.

"You had a blue with mum and dad didn’t you?" he asked softly as he walked into the room and stood beside her. Ena sighed and stopped her packing. She nodded, then resumed it immediately after a few minutes.

"We all knew it was coming… One of these days…" he said with a sigh. Ena paused in her packing to look shrewdly at Lee.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked slowly. Lee shrugged. He was training to become the town’s healer. He was very good at it, and he knew he had a place in the village Lavena, unlike Ena.

"Well…" started Lee uncomfortably. "They kinda… egged us on," Ena raised an eyebrow at the ebony haired boy, hoping she wasn’t hearing what she thought he was hearing.

"Egged you on?" Ena repeated.

"Well, they told us to give you a hard time. So you’d leave," said Lee, apprehensive of what Ena’s next actions were (his highest suspicion was that she would lash out at him). But to his surprise, Ena nodded.

"It all makes sense now," she said with a heavy sigh. She had then realised she had packed all of her things. Then she realised she’s need a few more blankets from her closet, it could get mighty cold at night. Ena grabbed the map she carefully hidden under her bed. She unrolled the scroll an and gazed at it. Galvin and Kevin had given it to her on her last birthday, she remembered it with great fondness.

"Happy sixteenth birthday!" said Galvin, ruffling Ena’s hair with his right-hand. "We have a present for you," the elderly man handed her a scroll which had been tied up in purple ribbon. Ena sighed.

"This is too much for just me," she said in mild protest. "As well as the fact as I haven’t done anything to deserve it, you guys shouldn’t have," the last part was said with extreme meekness.

"Nonsense!" said Galvin sternly, crossing his arms across his chest. "Hurry up and open it,"

"But-," said Ena, still protesting.

"But nothing," said Kevin calmly, but with slight authority. "I’ll willing to bet Brian and Fiona haven’t even remembered what today means to you," Ena nodded and even though she had grown used to her parents behaviour over the years, it still didn’t stop her from feeling at least slightly hurt by their neglect. She then sighed, in defeat this time, and pulled the thread of the scroll off she could see what secrets it with held. It was an updated map where all the Nymph and Elf tribes were, but most important of all, a map of how to get to the Lake of Tears. Ena turned and looked at Galvin, a happy broad grin on her face. Galvin’s lungs were suddenly devoid of air for a few minutes as Ena hugged him fiercely, thanking him over and over. When Galvin could finally breathe again, he chuckled at his young charge’s delight. She then quickly did the same to Kevin.

"I’m guessing you like it?" he asked with a smirk.

"How did you know?" asked Ena, releasing Kevin from her embrace to resume sitting on the floor of their shack. Kevin blushed guilty.

"Umm… A little birdie told me…" he said, but he was grinning from ear to ear anyway. Ena eyed him with suspicion (whilst a grin toyed with her lips).

"There’s no doubt in my mind he didn’t," she said.

Ena was brought back to reality with her youngest brother’s voice echoing in her ears.

"You have a choice, you don’t have to go," said Lee, his baby blues stretched to their extent. While Ena was around, Lee didn’t get picked on. But now that she was going…

"You right Lee, I do have a choice," said Ena, pausing in her packing. Lee dared to hope that she might actually change her mind. "But I do have to go," she said with a sigh, tied up her bag, and swung it over her shoulders. Lee’s whole body sagged with disappointment, and his eyes began to well up with tears, which he quickly blinked back. Ena turned and stood in front of him and wiped away a tear that had leaked out. She then kissed him on the forehead. Lee suddenly felt the sadness wash away, he was then filled with a feeling of serenity and a small amount of happiness, as well as feeling rather drowsy. Lee lay down on Ena’s bed and fell asleep. Everytime Ena kissed Lee on the forehead, he fell instantly asleep, and she had no idea how that happened and she’d been doing this ever since he was a baby. Ena smiled, she was looking at the one thing she would miss from this small village. Ena then walked into the room beside her’s (Lee’s), grabbed a couple of blankets, walked back into her room and lade them ontop of the sleeping child.

"Sweet dreams," whispered Ena and closed the door behind her, and indeed he did. Ena quickly walked out of the house, looked at her map to see which way would be the quickest to the Lake of Tears and set off on her perilous journey.

"The reason why we have requested the need for a council, is that news has spread around the Village, and it is most important that it is either confirmed or dismissed," said Bridget, wife of the miller Brennan. Brian was the head of the village, but he was teaching his and Fiona’s son, Cedric, to follow in his footsteps. He nodded to his son, who stood beside him, to indicate that he was to handle this. Cedric nodded and rose from his seat.

"It depends on what the news is," he answered in a clear, strong voice.

"That the girl who has been living in the chief’s house for seventeen years left last night," asked Brennan as he stood up beside his wife. The air was thick with anticipation.

"Yes, she did," said Cedric with an air of smugness.

"What are you smirking at you stupid oaf? You obviously don’t realise what’s about to happen," said a croaky but strong voice from the back off the hall. They all turned to see Kathleen, the village’s resident crazy old person. But despite the doubts of her actually having some remaining sanity, she was very good at giving, usually correct, advice. So it was no surprise that all eyes, and ears were open to her direction. "Without the likes of her around the crops aren’t going to be as good, or there won’t be any crops at all!" said Kathleen, raising her walking stick to the ceiling. There then was a murmur of panic interrupting from all around the hall, which was situated in the centre of the village. Cedric raised his hands for silence, and a hush quickly fell.

"That is just an old wife’s tale, being told by a very old wife," he said with a reassuring smile. Some of the young girls in the first few rows sighed, for Cedric was quite a handsome young man. Kathleen then started cackling, her wispy white hair escaping from her bun at the nape of her neck.

"You even more stupid than I thought boy, to ignore my words," she said, her cackling became quite evil. "For I am never wrong," she then smiled at Cedric, who noticed her teeth were rather yellow and mossy. She then decided that the meeting, for her anyway, was over and decided to walk back to her tumbledown shack on the out-skirts of the village. There was then a murmur of panic that seem to spread like wildfire yet again, for Kathleen the Crazy was never wrong. Cedric turned to his father for help. Brian nodded for Cedric to sit down.

"People please!" said Brian as he stood up he raised his hands for silence. "We have always had good crops even before she arrived on the doorstep of this very hall," relief swept through everybody.

"But we had Galvin and Kevin then, and now they’re both dead," said Angus, one of the village farmer’s. Whispers interrupted like hissing vipers all over the hall.

"They were the last of… them?" asked Bridget, the town weaver, anxiously.

"We’ll try and get one of their kind to move into the village," said Fiona, standing up and addressing the ensemble. "We’re in need of another musician anyway, for who will teach the children how to play instruments and the words to our village’s songs?" Her words of logic restored calm to the people’s minds. Fiona smiled, but she saw the look on her husband’s face, and sat back down. She would have to pay the consequences of forgetting her place later.

"Fiona is right," said Brian, smiling at his wife. "We have families to look after, meals to cook, and fields and animals to tend to. Those would b much more productive than sitting in here worrying about things that may or may not come," the sea of people nodded, and row by row, the hall dispersed.