A woman stood at the window, looking through the small portal to the outside world. The room was cold; the fire giving little of the heat her body so desperately needed. Hair fell around her in thick ropes of curls as a raging wave of tears rushed over her face. Sobs threatened to escape her throat as the shrill wail of an infant rose up from the corner of the room.
There was another in the room. A male child no more than two years of age. He was sitting next to a basket, his left hand inside of it and encircled around another, tinier fist. His face held unimaginable pain as he looked down upon the babe, watching as the tears stopped on its face and a small, baby grin formed.
This baby was his sister. Skylar. The boy had been very so caught up in the excitement of a new baby, despite his young age. He wanted a friend to share his things, a friend to share a room and help him keep warm in the cold nights...But this friend was supposed to be a brother.
Instead, there was little Skylar.
The boy felt a fierce devotion to the infant, no matter what her gender. He thought already that it was his sole responsibility to keep her safe, since the others in their family had been discussing sending the little girl away.
But why would they want to do something like that? She looked normal enough. Her hair was a soft, downy crown of silvery hair and her skin was already very white. The irises of her eyes were blue, as all baby's were supposed to have...But, there was something wrong with her. It was in his father's voice, in his mother's voice...Something about power.
The door swung open and there was his father standing tall, a scout at his side. His mother was trembling from her with-held sobs as the basket was lifted from the table--breaking the boy's hand from his sister's--and placed in the arms of the messenger.
"Shall I take her now, my king?" asked the scout. The boy shook his head furiously. He understood many things about what was going on--save the reason his sister was leaving--and knew that there was not a single one that he liked...Why didn't Mother and Father like her? She was a very good baby, crying only now...and she had every right to do so.
His father smiled, taking a bronze metal from his pocket, two individual leather straps hanging from it. He ran his hand through his silvery hair and showed the boy how the medallion split in two, placing one string around his son's neck, the other in the blanket's around his daughter.
"As long as you have this, Skylar will always be at your side. She may be gone in the physical form, but her love will fuel you in the toughest of battles. She needs to be taken somewhere where her...talents can be supervised, properly..." He waved his hand, bidding the scout to depart..
The boy nodded, fingering the cool metal. He heard something as his father left, something he was not meant to hear. "She would have been the death of the kingdom. Girls are not meant to be warriors..." His eyes grew huge as he heard the door close behind him....
But thoughts began to form in his head. Maybe Maybe, if he could be a good warrior, maybe good enough to make up for Skylar, then maybe she could come home to him someday...
