Forever and Ever After (book1)

Prologue

so, this is my new version of forever and ever after and like I said before, I'm just re-vamping it as when I was rewriting this, I realised I left some huge holes in my story line...so I'm hoping to sort that out as well...

So without further ado here's the new first few chapter rewritten .....

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Prologue

Outside of luminous kingdom where people were happy and lived in peace, was a large foreboding forest.

The large forest covered the roads leading from one kingdom to the others was filled with bandits and thieves, all manner of creatures including rumours of creatures of magic living there.

A story of a black market in the middle of the forest was told in the back of taverns or to scare naughty children to behave unless they wanted to be sold as a slave.

The last thing anyone would expect to see from the sad scene was a disheartened hero. Not the sort that rode on horseback in shining armour or the sort that killed dragons or stood against the evil in the world. This hero was a thief who lived in the forest but even though his mind was as sharp as his arrows and his body injured; his heart was as soft as a feather.

One day as he walked through the forest with his wild rabbit dinner slung over his good shoulder when he heard a sound that he hadn't heard since he was run out of the kingdom; the cry of a baby.

He froze to the spot to listen for a moment and figured the baby was north of him. Even though the screams ate at his insides, making him want to find the source of the noise, he was determined to just leave it be.

He was determined to leave, shaking his head as he walked, when he heard the deep rumble of a monster so close to him that it made his insides quiver. He knew what the monster was after and it wasn't his catch over his shoulder. The cry echoed again causing his insides turn cold and a curse on his lips.

He ran as fast as he could towards the rumbles of the monster and cries of the child, throwing the rabbits he caught to the ground. He leapt over fallen logs and the random boulders sprouting from the ground. He dodged brambles that threatened to trip him up and keep him from reaching the screams.

He already had his bow in his hand and an arrow resting ready to shoot before he came to a full stop in front of the monster that was sniffing around a small patch of grass where the baby lay.

The monster was twice the height of our hero; it had brown fur and stood on all four feet. Its face was flattened like it had run into a wall several times, its mouth stretched from ear to ear and when it opened, it looked like it could swallow any man whole and crush his bones with the double row of teeth in there.

Our hero reacted before he could think about what the monster could do to him. His arrow flew straight and buried itself into the side of the monsters neck, making it scream. It rolled around as it tried to get the arrow out of its neck.

As it rolled around the hero sent two more arrows into it before realising he had run out of them, the last thing he thought he would be doing was coming across a monster so didn't make any more arrows than he thought he would need.

Dropping his bow on the ground, he drew his sword and charged for the monster as it tried to remove the arrows from all the rolling around. He leapt up on a fallen tree and jumped high into the air, raised his sword over his head and then brought it crashing down on the monsters neck, severing its head from its body.

Once he was certain the monster was dead, making sure the body wouldn't sprout another head or the head re-grew another body, he turned his attention to the screaming baby. He stooped down and scooped up the baby into his arms.

At once the baby stopped crying and gurgled happily from being held and reached out to her hero.

He chuckled nervously when he met those big blue eyes and quickly looked around him looking for her mother; surly no-one would have abandoned a baby so small to be devoured.

When he saw no-one he knew in his heart and soul that he would never abandon her like her parents did, she would be loved even though he wasn't her blood and he would teach her everything he knew.

As the years went on, he called her Isobel after his mother and he became use to the title Papa.

He was once shunned and run from him home but every time he saw her smile at him, he bloomed with pride and thanked his stars he had saved her.