SHADOW LAND:

Book One

The Chaos Begins

By:

Guardian Midnight Raven

A/N: This is something I started writing for my school paper, as such it WILL change to reflect what I want it to be. Please be nice about reviewing, I hate flames and cry when I read them.

Prologue- Ur, home and not

Once, long ago, there was a place. Now, this place could have been thought of in two different ways: 1- That it was a wholly wonderful place with creatures unknown and unreal; or: 2- that it was home, and therefore utterly mundane and uninteresting.

But before I get too involved in this place and all the wonderful beings that inhabit it, we need to zoom out and refocus; almost like a camera lens. If we pull back far enough, we can see that a full third of the main continent of this place, this world as it were, is covered in forests. If we were to zoom in on the largest forest, Ur, we would see a path cutting through it. Now, if we were to follow this path, we would come to a small village, named Ur-town (the villagers were not a very imaginative lot, I'm afraid) Ur-town consists of an inn, a tavern, a blacksmith's forge, the carpenter's workshop, 13 huts, 1 pigsty, and the hedge-witch's herb garden, which happened to be fenced in with stinging nettles.

The only person who stands out in the town is a small-statured girl, if you can't tell her apart, I'll tell you where she is- she's the small, dark haired one outside of the inn, and she has a small, brown-leather satchel attached to her belt. This is the hedge-witch's daughter- Aura. Aura inst just the hedge-witch's daughter- she has the makings to be the most powerful magic-user in a century, and she doesn't even know it, yet. The reason Aura stands out isn't due to her dark hair with almost navy-blue highlights, it isn't due to her shabby, knee-length cotton tunic and patched wool trousers, or her soft hide slippers. It's due to the half-grown panther standing next to her, with his head under her hand, completely placid, and yet at the same time eminently dangerous. Let's see what she's doing and thinking now, shall we?

1- Aura

"Huh, nothing ever happens here. Its not just that I don't look like everyone else, it's that I always feel useless whenever mama's helping Mara, the midwife deliver babies, or doing other magical things." I look back at Chauncey, my only friend here in this tired little hamlet. Chauncey just happens to be a panther, not that I mind, or even notice half the time. "Well Chauncey, what do you say, wanna go ditch mama and leave her to birthin' Missus Weavley's new brat?" Chauncey gave me a look that could have been either- yes, let's! Or- your mama's gonna get you if we do. I went with the first one, since I couldn't stand another minute in this place.

I went back to our hut, and found a piece of paper to write a note on, with a bit of charcoal from our stove I wrote

Mama, I'm leavin'. I can't stand staying here a moment longer. Sorry for not tellin' you meself,

~Aura

I left then, with only some food in the pack I used when mama'd have me go out and gather mushrooms in the fall, and the ironwood staff that I had made over the last winter in my hand. I patted Chauncey's majestic, inky-black head and scratched his equally majestic ears. "Let's go have an adventure, shall we?" I said, motioning to Chauncey to follow me.

Little did I know, an adventure was exactly what I was going to get.