The Blade and The Bird

She'd spent many years playing in this forest as a child. While Selene had enjoyed her novels in the warmth of the house, a blanket wrapped around her narrow shoulders, Sidra always came home covered in mud and scrapes from hours out in the wilderness. She'd take an axe out into the forest and pretend to fight off monsters, the terrifying Mystics that her grandmother had told her stories about. She'd pretend to fight Lycans, knocking out their massive teeth one by one. She'd stand atop rocks and throw her axe at the trees, pretending they were wood nymphs come to steal her away. She'd always return home and tell Selene about the monsters she'd fought that day, spinning together a story of courage and bravery for her little sister.

She felt that pain in her heart again as she thought of those times. Through the years, she'd stop going into the woods to play, and she'd instead find stories for Selene. Books of all sizes and shapes, no matter the content, because it made her feel close to her sister just as she had before her parents died. She thought of her family now, how she was all alone. Her parents had been gone for years, her grandmother, and now even Selene was missing somewhere. She needed to find her sister, she couldn't lose the last bit of her family.

**