Willow's Legend - Original Version

Chapter 1

Willow’s Legend

Dedicated to Cleo Kaiser, my first best friend, first reader, and most inspiring person in the world. Her endless support is the only reason why this book is completed. Without her, Willow’s Legend would be nothing. 

 And to all my Wattpad readers! Who've never given up on this story even in it's worst chapters and grammar errors!

Chapter One

        Alicia pulled the string back from her bow and released the arrow. It flew through the air quickly and precisely, just as she had intended it to do. The ‘twang’ of the string as the arrow flew startled the animal, but it was too late to save itself. The arrow hit the jackpot, piercing the Spider's thorax. It screeched and rolled over onto its back, blood spewing from its wound, staining the green moss underneath with a deep scarlet.

 Its life was quick the end, the light in its eyes quickly faded into nothing.

The young girl walked up and yanked the arrow out of its body, spitting on the ground next to the creature.

Her eyes left no traces of pity. After years upon years of being trained in blood and death, it was almost scary how fast and easy she killed, almost without hesitation.

She eyed the creatures limp body and felt a kick of pride in its death. These creatures were massive, their eight legs instantly stabbed, and their poison seeped into skin, slowly killing anything with a heartbeat. It was rare that anyone could kill such a creature, but Alicia had nailed it in a single shot.

"Hey, Michael!" she yelled when she realized quickly felt the emptiness behind her. He had been there watching her not two minutes ago and she wondered what kind of stupid thing he was getting himself into. Michael was one to go wondering about and exploring in things he probably shouldn’t be.

"Michael!" she yelled once again. Her voice echoed through the empty woods. Although sometimes she thought he could be pretty brainless, he would answer to her calls.

Sullenly stomping through the forest, she looked around. "Michael, where are you, you idiot!?" The girl showed no nervousness or faltering. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for Michael, but disappearing like that was Michaels’ expertise. It was why he was always the first one to be asked to spy when enemies seemed to be planning more than a death raid.

"Gaisus," Michael said as he emerged from the trees and his green eyes looked at Alicia with annoyed amusement. As usual, he was completely unharmed, no fresh scrapes to add to the old scars.

Gaisus was a special way of saying “Geez” or “Jesus” in human terms. Of course, the UnderWorld liked to inherit words from Earth, though no creature in the UnderWorld would ever admit that the Earth had much cooler words than they did.

They admired Earthly human ways as much as they feared them.

Michael’s eyes held urgency this time. Not a panic-like urgency, but the type of urgency of letting someone into a secret. He wanted to show her something.

"You might want to see this," he said, voicing what Alicia had immediately thought he would say. They knew each other all too well, it was almost scary.

"This had better be worth my time." She replied, faking annoyance, trying to lighten the mood. She had, after all, just shot a Giant Spider, something that was meant to cause great pride, not urgency.

 He lead her through the woods, not even looking behind his shoulder to make sure she was following. After a moment he stopped, at the ledge of a cliff.  Alicia stood beside him and took in their surroundings.