Lyra Malis never saw herself becoming anything extraordinary, and she never really wanted to. She was perfectly content with her family on their farm in the Highlands, learning magic at the school just on the other side of the forest. Seeing how fam...
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"YOU MUST BE A WAYS FROM HOME."
There was something alluring about the Malis farm - something magical, yet not magic at all. She'd never known another place like it, and though she was born and raised there, like her mother before her, she had no desire to leave it. She'd heard how her grandfather, who had died well before she was born, had called it his little piece of heaven on earth, and she was inclined to agree with him. It was her home in every way it could be.
"You sore?"
Lyra Malis turned to her cousin, just a year older than herself, and smiled, reaching out to adjust his goggle-like glasses. "Yes, Casey, I'm sure," the young girl said, deciphering his unusual speech patterns with ease. "Your mum is completely okay with us exploring."
"You sore?" he asked again, his tone different, playful, as he tilted his chin down. His eyes were a deep blue - the only thing to remind people of his father.
Thirteen year old Lyra giggled, nodding her head with her cousin. "I'm sure!"
His smile slowly began to widen, and soon enough, he was clapping his hands, stomping his feet, and shaking his head, all with the brightest smile on his face. "Explore!" he called out, and though it sounded more like 'eh-plore,' Lyra admired his spirit, following his lead as he ran off towards the fields, startling a couple of sheep not far away.
Lyra was happy to be out with Casey, exploring like they heard their mothers did when they were young, before they had lost their father, but each time she took Casey out, she was slightly fearful. The first time they had played without adults around, Casey had fallen into a seizure that rivaled even her mother's. If it had been just the two of them, she knew that nothing good would have happened. Luckily Ari, the oldest of the cousins, was there as well, taking control of the situation with ease, taking care of his brother while he sent Lyra to get an adult. They didn't have Ari now, as at fifteen, he had friends of his own. As much as she loved just being with Casey, she missed the three of them together.
"Look Lyra!" Casey called out, happily pointing to something in the distance. "Fo-wes! Fo-wes!"
Lyra's heart sank when she saw what her cousin saw. "We can't go to the forest, Casey," Lyra said solemnly. "You know that."
Her shoulders drooped as she watched Casey disheartedly lower his arm. Though he's been told of the dangers of the forest, Casey didn't fully understand why the forest that bordered the Malis property was so forbidden. For the longest time, Lyra hadn't either, but then she had turned eleven, and had been admitted to the school that lies on the other side of the Forbidden Forest. Truth was put into her mother's warnings by the classes she had attended, and while she tried to reinforce this with her cousin, he, a Muggle, couldn't quite understand.
