ȼhɨℓď ๏ƒ ƒɨя€ (ώąţţ¥ ąώąяď$ 2012) OLD VERSION

Child of Fire

Okay no one hate me too much. I decided to make major edits to this story. This is the first chapter edited, I did change some character names so heads up on that. I am also re-writing the ending. I believe there is much more to this idea than what I finished some years ago and I hope you all agree. 

"Gwen!" my mother called opening the door. "You should have left fifteen minutes ago!"

I rolled over to look at her. My mother was told that she was old to have girls my sister and I's ages. I was eighteen and my younger sister Jocelyn was only fifteen. Our father worked dawn till dusk just to put food on the table. But we made due with what was given and were happy as we could be.

"I'll help get your sister ready, now go!" she scolded but it sent her into a coughing fit. She was sickly and had been her entire life. Midwives say it's a miracle that she could even conceive one child let alone bear two healthy girls. As the days pass she grows sicker and weaker. Jocelyn and I try to help out the best we can. Jocelyn attends a local day school, Minerva's School of Gifted Young Women, which supposedly teaches her how to be a proper woman and wife. I had attended from the age of ten to thirteen; I decided to quit once Jocelyn had come of age to attend. The school was an expensive and unnecessary cost to two send two daughters. Jocelyn had always been more attuned to those types of things that I had ever been. She would be the dutiful wife and I would be the old spinster that took care of my parents in their old age.

Our mother is absolutely beautiful, well before her sickness worsened causing her to wither away. She had beautiful blonde hair that looked like spun gold and pale periwinkle blue eyes. My sister Jocelyn was the spitting image of our mother in her youth. I on the other hand took after my father. I had dark scarlet red hair and green hazel eyes that were hinted with blue.

"Now Gwendolyn." Sighing I rolled from my small straw bed that laid directly on the hard packed dirt floor and my sister's bed across the narrow room. Our small cottage was near the outskirts of the city, but it was home and the fire roared warm.

While my mother tended to the house and knitted small articles of clothing to sell at market, I would drop off Jocelyn off at school. Then I would either head to the woods that surround the city to scavenge for fruits and truffles and the occasional game if I was lucky or I would assist mother at home and help her to the market.

I quickly grabbed my usual woolen dress from a trunk at the far end of the room; it was a dark green that had begun to fade. Mother said it brought out the green in my eyes. I tugged on my two other under skirts for extra warmth. It was dead of winter and became quite bitter in the Red Wood. I also tied an apron to my waist for stashing of random treasures I would discover. Exiting my room, Mother already had Jocelyn dressed and ready.

"Come on Jocelyn," I smiled taking her hand. Jocelyn was shy and kept to herself for the most part, she did not speak much not even to me or mother.

"Gwen your cloak," My mother smiled, the light was still in her eyes even though it had let the red of her body, she tossed it over my shoulders. It was red as fresh blood; it had been hers, and her mother's before her. It was passed down from first-born daughter to first-born daughter. I always noticed the envy clear in my sister's eyes. I adored it; but it conflicted wildly with my hair.

"Thank you mother." I smiled thankfully. After that Jocelyn and I were out the door. We had to hurry or she would be late for school. We carefully pushed our way through the thickening crowd. We finally reached the small red house that was Minerva's School for Gifted Young Women. I turned to Violet kneeling down placing my hands on her shoulders.