Under the starry night sky, sits a young girl on a small wooden stool, surrounded by little children outside her small cottage. She looks down at the few children who sit comfortably on a mat, listening carefully to her tale.
Her voice, as she tells her story, is low, merely a whisper and somehow hypnotic. The children who seem to be in a trance, unmoving, watch as she waves her hand in the air describing her every word like an old ancient woman.
"They say...that the magical dragon died thousands of years ago...But, his spirit still lives and posseses heartless humans into doing his evil beeding. The dragon takes advantage of people with full authority and makes them destroy important things mindlessly..." Her eyes widened trying to thrill the children. "It is also said that if you're not good of heart, the dragon..." She turns her head to her back and picks an object from the ground and when she looks at the children...
"will possess you!" She screams in a demonic voice, scaring the children.
"aahhhh!" The children yelled as they flinched back in unison as if awaken from their trance. The kids now looked pale and shocked with widened eyes as if they had been scared by a ghost, but what their story teller wore on her face was more terrifying to them. She put on a dragon mask.
Rose took off the mask and the sight of those cute startled expression, made her laugh and the children calmed down and laughed along with her until the empty Street was filled with their beautiful, echoing laughter.
"Rosette...!" called a woman from inside the cottage making the children and Rose look at the door for a moment, wondering who had the guts to ruin their happy moment.
Rosette's brows pulled together as she looked down at her tiny friends. She sighed and immediately smiled at the children who seemed unhappy.
"Run along now kids." On hearing her sweet voice, the children obediently rose from the mat and waved her goodbye before leaving for their homes.
When she couldn't hear their footsteps anymore, she deeply sighed and stood up from her stool. She turned around and walked towards the door of the cottage. Pushing it open, she emerged into a room lit up with lots of burning candles.
Inside the cottage she spotted her mother folding her arms below her chest, giving her an angry stare.
"mother. I.." She was immediately cut off by the serious looking woman.
"Where you scaring those children again?" The woman's stare was fierce but her tone was normal.
"No...I mean...yes I was." Rose wasn't scared, she was just nervous since her mother had warned her a hundred times.
"You are going to give those children a heart attack one day!"
With an apologetic expression, Rose watched her mother pace back and forth in the room, pinching the skin between her brows. "you might get us arrested." She continued not stopping her pace.
"Mom, they love it." Rose said not letting the words of her mother get to her.
"they love it?!"
"yes."
Mrs Cheng threw her head back, facing the ceiling. "Oh my god!" she said in frustration.
Rose wasn't surprised by her mother's behavior because she has been like this since she told tales of the dragon. Sometimes, she wondered why her mother looked so pissed when she brought up the story.
Rose was her mother's carbon copy, but like the younger version of her. She had brown eyes, brown straight hair that stopped at her shoulders, pink lips, narrow nose and cute cheeks that easily showed red when she was blushing. However, both of them where two different people, she was stubborn and sunny while her mother was responsible and obedient. Sometimes, fierce...
"you..." Mrs Cheng was about to complete her sentence when a knock on the door pulled their attention towards it.
"come in!" She said.
The person obeyed and as the door was pushed open, a brown haired handsome boy emerged into the room.
He was the well known handsome son of the most powerful Baron anyone has ever heard about. He was also Rose' best friend.
"Zelan!" Rose ran towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him close to her. She had missed him, why did he come here?
She then pulled away and looked into his brown eyes smiling
"where have you been?" she asked, earning a gorgeous smirk from Zelan. He was happy she missed him.
"Neiva." He replied.
"what brought you here?"
"guess." He narrowed his gaze at her.
Rose looked at him puzzled, trying to think of a reason but nothing seemed to come out of her head.
"tell me..." She whined while shaking his arm like a little girl begging their father to get the doll they loved so much.
Zelan could only roll his eyes at her silly behavior and sigh.
"remember, when you told me that you wanted to go to Neiva?" His narrow gaze still on her trying to see if she recalled and gladly she did.
"yeah, why?"
"well...I came here to take you and your mother with me." He leaned in closer.
Rose widened her eyes in joy. "what?!" she exclaimed, jumping back to her mother who has been watching them.
"we're going to Neiva mom!" She screamed in excitement. Mrs Cheng smiled and gazed at Zelan.
"But, where are we going to leave?" that question made Rose pause waiting patiently for Zelan's answer alongside her mother. Yeah, where are we going to leave? Rose thought.
Zelan chuckled. "Everything's prepared for you there." He said, smiling handsomely.
Rose returned her gaze to her mother and took her hands, grinning widely.
"we're going to Neiva." She screamed.
"tomorrow." Zelan continued.
Rose turned around to face him. Her smile still on "tomorrow?"
"Yes." He said earning another hug from Rose once again.
Rose spent all night talking to Zelan about their trip and Zelan told her a lot of things about Neiva. Tomorrow was going to be the best day of her life.