Moonrise

Chapter One

Just as she was about to shift her wooden staff from one hand to the other, Ellette felt something soft yet firm hit her in the center of her back. She stopped immediately, but did not turn around. At least not right away.

If she had been paying a bit more attention seconds prior, perhaps she would have noticed that her sisters' footsteps had stopped. If she had not been so consumed by her thoughts, she probably would have heard the shushing and mischievous fit of giggles from the twins. She may have even heard the object soaring through the air, slicing through the silence and making its way towards her. Maybe she could have even stopped it before it made contact. But she had not been paying attention, and, as a result, war had just been declared on the youngest sister.

With a strong thrust, Ellette dug her staff into the snowy ground. Slowly, she turned around, hardly surprised at the absence of her sisters. But her eyes did not need to dart in every direction in attempt to locate them; she only needed to listen. She only needed to feel. She would let them expose themselves because once they did, they would soon regret it.

With a smile on her face, she lowered herself to her knees and began gathering a pile of snow. Quietly and to herself, Ellette closed her eyes and began to hum the melody of her favourite song. She opened her eyes at the exact moment her three sisters jumped from the trees they hid behind. Their battle cries echoed throughout the silent forest as they ran towards her, armed with snowballs and the fiercest facial expressions they could display upon their soft, delicate faces.

Gathering her own snowballs in her arms, Ellette rose to her feet and, without a care nor battle plan, charged towards them.

For over a quarter of an hour, snowball after snowball had been thrown. It was a mystery as to how any snow remained on the makeshift battlefield, for all four sisters had been completely covered from head to toe.

Freya had been the first to yield, not because she had been out-snowed, nor because, as the eldest, she no longer had the energy to keep up with her younger sisters. Ellette knew it was because, as the eldest sister, Freya had learned a long time ago that if she did not take on the role as mediator, even in something as harmless as a snowball fight, it would not be long before tears were spilled or bones were broken. So, as expected, she had bowed out of the battle but kept a watchful eye on the twins and Ellette.

From behind the tree she was using as a shield, Ellette looked at Freya, who was off to the side taking coverage behind a tree of her own and shaking the snow from her hair and cloak. Despite the smile her sister wore, Ellette knew it would not be much longer before Freya called off the fun.

Normally, she would have been content with her sister's interference, but the distraction the snowball fight provided for Ellette was far to enticing to give up so soon. She was not ready to return to the thoughts that had been plaguing her mind, nor was she quite ready to return home, where she would undoubtedly be met by the suspicious glare her Father seemed to only reserve for her. So, with a firm hold on her staff with one hand, she dropped the remaining snowballs in the other and took off running deep into the forest.

"Come on, Raisie, she is getting away!" Nissa yelled to her twin.

"Do not go too far, sisters! We must be returning home soon!" Freya called out.

Though she had no clear destination in sight, Ellette continued to run. It did help that she knew the forest like the back of her hand. She and her sisters had grown up inside of its protective embrace, and it served as the playground for most of her kind. She ran past trees she had passed hundreds of times before, jumped over their fallen kin and delighted in the knowledge of being the first to grace the freshly fallen snow with her footprints. In the back of her mind, she knew she had probably gone too far and that she probably should have stopped and turned back. But her determination to keep going only seemed to make Ellette run faster.