A Warrior's Daughter

So here's my entry for the final round of the fantasy smack down! I used pics 3 (Warrior woman with sword), 5 (Lady with crow on her head), 8 (Creepy island gateway temple), 10 (Dragon man with tattered wings) and 11 (Crows on dead trees) 

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All of her life, Jenna Leary looked forward to the one day a year when she realized magic had taken over. It was that first day in the beginning of autumn — right before the trees shed their dead and useless leaves — when she looked up and noticed that there was not a single trace of green in the branches of the old trees that stretched out over her street. Jenna loved that day. She would look up at the canopy of red, yellow and orange overhead and be reminded of a world of magic and fantasy. One where anything could be possible.

She loved the fall, it felt mysteriously like home.

This year, she was walking home from school when she realized that day had come. Jeremy Michaels had offered to walk her home, he was a senior and that fact alone made her heart skip a beat. He didn't have many friends but that didn't matter, Jenna didn't either. She just liked that he was taller, older and quieter than her.

As she wondered at the beautiful foliage she thought about Jeremy walking beside her, carrying her books, and realized she was right. Anything could happen on the day that magic ruled the world.

"Um…Jenna?" Jeremy asked, looking around the street they were on. "Are we going the wrong way?"

Jenna looked around her, the houses in this neighbourhood were run down and old — though beautiful in their own right. Built mainly in the late 1890s, the houses were wondrous in their day, but now their paint was chipped and some of them slanted at odd angles.

There was a large, angry looking crow with one eye staring down at her and it cawed quite threateningly. As they made eye contact Jenna was amazed with its appearance. Its feathers were ruffled and it looked to be in bad shape, it must have been in quite a few fights in its day. Jenna thought for a moment that it was about to dive for her head but it simply dipped off its perch and took off with another loud and territorial call that echoed in the street. Her street.

"No…" She blinked at Jeremy through her large glasses.

"Oh…" Jeremy said, his eyes wide. He'd grown up in the South End of town, the child of two members of a wave of rich 'spirituals' who'd flooded the small city in the 70's. He'd never known anything but a life of luxury and Jenna was suddenly embarrassed by the fact that she grew up in such a poor part of town; embarrassed that she lived in the same town her parents and grandparents had grown up in. What a boring life.

"It's really not so bad," Jenna shrugged. "I mean…it gets cold in the winter time — all those old leaky windows and stuff. But I don't know, it's quaint."

"Yeah, for sure," Jeremy went quiet and they both looked at the ground while they walked.

"Thanks for carrying my books," Jenna said after an awkward moment of silence.

"Yeah, for sure," Jeremy said and there was silence again.

They passed a couple more houses and Jenna stopped at a tall set of stairs that led to the attic apartment of a faded red house. It's shudders were falling off and a couple of the wooden steps were broken. She tried to make herself smaller as she burned with shame, adjusting her glasses with one hand.

"This is me," She said and held out a hand for her books, not looking up at Jeremy.

"Yeah…I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow?" Jeremy said, handing her books to her.