Hara and the Witch

Prologue: the beginning

Seventeen.

Hara could feel her heart shifting, falling, cracking. This... wasn't what was supposed to happen. This- she held back a sob, dropping her head as a group of women nearby turned to look. No. No no no no. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the way her life was supposed to go. They had made plans! They were going to take the sword and have so many adventures - they had promised. They had promised! She looks up in time to meet the eyes of her favourite person in the world, the woman she had loved with every atom of her soul, and there is so much weight between them, so many words unsaid in that momentary gaze, questions she never thought she would have to ask and now no longer has the time to. She feels the tears tracking down her face, but Hara isn't the one who turns away.

No. She stands still, watching until both figures are out of sight.

Twenty-one.

The forest is dark, trees clustered in tight formation, keeping outsiders well away. The sky shone through in dappled light, glints of sun, blue sky and ridiculously fluffy clouds peering through without warning, giving tantalising glimpses of the world outside.

It had been ten days, but to Hara it felt like she hadn't properly seen the sky in weeks, her eyes now so adjusted to the gloom that any rare patch of sun blinds her for a good few seconds before she can see anything at all, let alone attempt to enjoy it.

Still, as much as she groans (and she knows she groans a lot, Plim makes sure of that) Hara feels at home in this forest, more at home then she ever felt in the small village she grew up in or any of the bustling markets and trading towns she visited these days.

It was strange... as a child the village had seemed so huge, the way the land stretched off as far as the eye could see both delightful and a curse. It had been her entire world, all she could see. But now... it seemed so small. So close and stifling and-

Hara exhaled, closing her eyes and letting herself fall back into the present. Plim landed on her shoulder and let out a soft trill.

'Hara?'

'No. Don't worry.' She smiled, nudging Plim with her cheek and feeling the soft, warm feathers press into her skin. 'I'm fine. Now, where's this beast we're after? I don't think we'll get good pay if we take a year, and you and I deserve ruddy good pay after all this mud.'

Seven.

Hara loved running through the fields. They were endless, the sky stretching on forever and land out to meet it, glistening crops and flowers and grass on and on and on so that she could never run long enough to get out.

She wanted to get out. There was nothing she had ever wanted so much as to see the end and march into it, leaving the fields and the people behind forever. Like her mama had done. Like her grandmother before her. They must have felt the same way Hara did, the way she had felt her entire life.

Hara had lived with her aunt, her mother's disgruntled younger sister, ever since she was three. Charvay had come to ask her sister something or other but she would never get to asking for there was Hara, alone and vastly more content than she soon would be, snoozing away her morning in a patch of sunlight.

Charvay had screamed (as she was wont to do). Hara had wept (she had never liked her aunt very much and crying had always worked to send her on her way before. Alas, not this time). Hara's mother was nowhere in sight.

Although at times she wished she had not gone away, Hara grew up full of admiration for her mother. She had felt a longing Hara understood and in the end even her baby hadn't been enough to stop her from chasing it. Charvay didn't quite share Hara's point of view, but she rarely did.

She loved her home, she did. It was beautiful, a place of sunlight and blossoms and stories and dreams. But Hara found she had two general problems: she wasn't taken seriously and... well, it wasn't that she disliked other people, specifically (although she did), it just felt as if they used up all her sense of self, so that it was hard to actually enjoy the presence of others. That and, after a few years wherein she enjoyed practicing to be a child detective, people didn't really seek her out, as such. Toddlers were known to run away from her in tears, certainly, and even older children and, yes, the occasional adult did their best to steer clear, but Hara found this quite alright.

A little rude, perhaps, but it meant she got her peace and quiet so she really didn't mind at all.

Hara was going to have adventures and no one was going to stand in her way.