Rosentale

Prologue: A Crow Song

A silly little girl sits silently in a silly little rose garden. She sings for the soaring crows above that one by one swoop down to dance to her song. It is a silly sight, because birds do not usually dance to human songs. Their dance is odd and awkward, far from pretty and far from silent as they caw to the occasional syllable leaving the girl's lips.

The girl does not care that their dance is odd and awkward or far from pretty or silent. She does not move when they hop closer and closer with their fluttering wings and dark eyes. Only keeps singing her silly tune and mismatched rhyme that seem to have the large birds circle around her.

"Dee!" a voice calls out from an open window behind the wall of rose bushes. On cue, the crows scatter in a cloud of feathers and caws that ring through the air. Left sitting silently on the ground still is the little girl watching her feathered friends leave with large doe eyes.

"Silly thing!" the voice calls out again, now closer. As the girl turns around she comes face to face with the man she knows as her father. An impossibly tall figure with tousled hair and a short pointed beard that always tickles her forehead when he leans in to kiss her forehead. "Dah!" the girl squeals joyously, breaking out of her silent trance and running, almost stumbling, into her father's open arms. His chest rumbles with laughter that makes her giggle too as he swoops her up from the ground and hugs her tightly before putting a bit of distance between them. He mock-frowns at the feathers entangled in his daughter's hair and gently boops his forehead to hers. "Were you singing to the birdies again, Deedly-dee?"

The girl, still suspended in mid-air, hanging from her father's arms, puffs out her cheeks and stares defiantly at the gentle giant in front of her before huffing and covering her face behind a curtain of curly blonde hair. Her father, too, huffs but it is followed immediately by another rumbling laugh before he pulls her to his chest again and gently starts detangling some of the feathers.

"Surely I can't stay mad for long at a cute goblin like you," he sighs and resigns himself to putting his daughter down on the soft grass before grabbing her tiny little hand and leading her inside.

The inside of the cabin is quaint, peculiar in the way it seems almost stuck in a time period that has already passed or designed in a fashion that never quite came to pass at all. Beige linen curtains framed the little windows in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen to which any visitor immediately entered through the flaking blue painted wooden door. Cooking utensils, plates, mugs and a lone jug all made of wood were scattered on surfaces all around the room. On a simple white chair sat the now wistfully smiling little girl kicking her legs while her father methodically brought a brush through the messy hair in a valiant attempt of taming the stubborn curls.

Finally her father puts the brush away and crouches down in front of her, arms resting on the girl's shoulders. "See?" he smiles, "All better. My little girl no longer looks like a bird about to fly away into that far, far away sky, does she?" The girl huffs indignantly at the accusation but soon lights up in a beaming smile as she meets her father's gaze. "I wouldn't do that, Dah! I like you too much!" The childlike reassurance has the gentle giant return his daughter's smile with a soft one of his own. "I'm glad my little Deedly-dee won't be leaving me anytime soon," he murmurs before settling on a more serious expression. "But," he pauses, "what have I told you about running off without telling me? See how messy your hair got? If you had just told me before going off to explore I would have tied it up so it wouldn't have gotten in your way."

Standing up, he walks off with a pat on his daughter's shoulder to find the little green ribbon they always use to tie up the unruly curls. Left behind on the kitchen chair is the little girl whose expression keeps switching between sulking and contemplation. As far as she was concerned there was little difference between the way her hair was before and after her father brushed it through. It was always curly and would get in her eyes either way. She was glad, however, for the ribbon they still used although it felt like an eternity since she had picked it out at a stall full of glittering ribbons full of pearls and jewels. It was hers for all its simplicity.