The Golden Waves

         Her face was hidden behind the gray tattered cloak she wore. She wore it because she had something to hide, and something to protect. The air was misty and a blanket of fog loomed over the hills that cradled a kingdom. Also, like the cloaked woman, it faced an evil unwelcome in its heart. The woman was heading for a house not too far from the majestic stone palace which tall towers caught just enough of the moonlight to be visible in the ominous fog. The woman came to the doorstep of the house and knocked on the wooden door. She was greeted and let in, for she, unlike you, the reader, is not a stranger here. This was the house of her sister, also a maid in the royal king’s palace.
         The house was lit in a way that was comfortable and welcoming, unlike the damp dreariness outside the door. Tea was served and the woman and her sister sat at the table quietly. The woman noticed the bags under her sister’s eyes. She solemnly figured that her poor sister wasn’t getting much sleep since her recent miscarriage. The woman knew she had not left that house since. Living without a single cent of income for a month now.
         The sister spoke. “You shouldn’t have come tonight.” 
         “Tonight may be the only night.” answered the woman.
         “The weather could harm a newborn.”
         The woman emerged her arms from her cloak. She had just given birth to a baby girl twenty days ago. The baby in her arms was well bundled, safe from the cold. Then the woman pulled down her hood to reveal golden hair that seemed to glow in the dim room. The sister jumped up and ran to her window and pulled the curtains together frantically.
         “Not wise Ella. What if someone saw you? You’re going to be whisked off behind cell bars as is, just like all the other sorceresses and sorcerers, are you trying to get executed?!” snapped the sister. As angry as her words were, her eyes spoke worry and sorrow. Ella looked up at her sister, her eyes emotionless.
         “I know that the cruelty of that tyrant of a king has brought you more pain than you deserve, well as I, but this is about my daughter.” She looked down at the baby, who was suckling on its time thumb, blue eyes twinkling under the light.
         “I fear for her too, but I don’t think sympathy is given to a sorceress’s daughter. I can already see her hair is golden. She has magic in her blood.” She bit her lip and then sat back down across the table. Ella smiled, the smile of a mother, and rocked her baby gently as she spoke.
         “But only we know that. Also, the only ones who know of you miscarriage and my child being born are here in this room.” The sister’s eyes widened. She knew what Ella was up to, and she wasn’t going to take it well.
         “You want me to pretend this baby is mine? That you’re the one who had a miscarriage!?” 
         Ella nodded. “No one knows how far either of us was along. We are mere common folk.”
         The sisters bickered for about an hour. In the end, Ella left without her daughter, and the sister was left with a little girl with a big destiny.

         Our Kingdom in the hills is ruled by a man who is feared by all below him, and said to be evil by all in the village outside the regal castle from which he rules. After eight awful years into his strangling rule upon the people, the King craved to be the most powerful being in the land. One type of being stood in his way; the sorcerers and sorceresses. They all had different types of powers to control almost anything. Some could heal, some could see the future, some could create elements, and so on and so forth. The only thing that gave the King power over his kingdom was the crown upon his head. Not even that had any special powers, only a mark of who he was, a normal man who happen to be born into a royal family. The king ordered all the magic folk to be imprisoned.
         “Only I and those who do my work shall know what’s really going on. The peasants can rumor all they want, but they won’t ever know the truth. Kill their leader and anyone who tries to do anything funny” The King had said to his trusted General.
The people needed the magic users. They’re the ones who heal them and help them in times of need; they are the ones who keep the economy together. Without them, they shall suffer. The king did not care one bit. He was going to get what he wanted, and give nothing in return.
          Magic people are easily spotted. All of them are born with magnificent golden hair that seems to give off its own light and if often wavy. Not to long ago they created a council of the magic users, dedicated to do there share for the kingdom. Every year the leader of the magic people in the land gathers the sorcerers and sorceresses by summoning them instantly with a beautiful magic quartz crystal about the size of an average adult’s palm. Only the magic users and their closest family members know of it. When the leader discovered he was to be killed and his fellow magic users locked up, he hid the crystal in the mountains, hoping that one day it could be used to set the others free.