In a world divided into three races since ancient times, there have been three kingdoms. The first kingdom is the kingdom of the gods and sits in the heavens ruling above the other two. The second is called Amaryllis and filled with the prosperous...
I'm sure you could tell that story better than I by now
Could you tell it to me just once more
As you wish my child. Long ago, in the ancient times...
~Holy Texts of Amaryllis
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"Dawn had always been her favorite time of day."
So, like mornings she awoke when the sky was still a pale blue and the moon had yet to be swallowed by the horizon. She felt warm, despite only having a single, thin sheet protecting her from the bitter chill of the early winter air, due to the body sleeping soundly next to her.
Her brother, only a meager two years younger than her, was snuggled next to her, his chest rising and falling like the ocean waves, despite the wild howling of the wind outside, beating against the firm wooden walls of the small, yet never crowded, home that she and her younger brother lived in.
She got up slowly, not wanting to leave the warmth of her bed behind just yet. Her body was stiff from the long, cold night she had spent sleeping on the hard mattress next to her brother. She finally managed the strength to sit up and push the thin sheet from her body, placing her bare feet on the stone floor.
A shudder crawled up her spine as her feet kissed the frozen floor of the small bedroom that she shared with her brother as she got out of bed that early morning. It was cold enough inside of the house for her to guess that the first frosts of the season must've formed during the night.
She moved slowly, each footstep seeming to take a year, as she crossed the room on soft and delicate feet like the first flakes of snow that had yet to fall, careful not to wake her brother, as she made her way across the room, stripping off her night clothing in trade for a faded red dress, that reached just above her ankles and was tattered and torn at the bottom.
Her father had offered to buy her a new one, but she'd refused. This one was comfortable, familiar. They didn't need to waste any of their meager savings to buy her a stiff, new dress. Besides, this dress was one of her mother's old ones. It would feel wrong if it went to waste.
She ran out of her small home just as the sun began to rise, painting the once simple, pale blue sky, into a thousand glowing colors. Her feet were bare of shoes as she sprinted down the familiar cobblestone path that wove every house in the village together, like a great tapestry, her warm breaths visible before her dark eyes as she ran down rows of colorful houses.
