A Story of Blood and Fire

In a kingdom by the sea - the same kingdom as the Dragon’s keep - where the water swelled and crashed against a jagged coast and sheep roamed through rolling waves of emerald green, lived a poor fisherman and his three daughters. The fisherman  may have been a poor man but he was noble. He raised his daughters to be headstrong and fearsome for the world was not kind to meek maidens. He may have been only a simple fisherman but he would not stand for his daughters being damsels in distress. This fisherman, Caderyn, raised his daughters on his own - their mother had been taken from them much too soon. Every morning while his children still slept Caderyn would brave the squalls off the coast to haul in a meager catch. Whatever he caught would be sent to market while he and his children ate only fish head and cabbage stew - the head was the only part they could not sell. Every morning before the sun had crested over the horizon Caderyn would kiss his sleeping children on the forehead. The sea had tanned his skin as tough as leather but inside he was as soft as sheep’s wool. His oldest daughter, Zíva, slept near the hearth so that she could tend the fire late at night when the flames had died to keep her sisters warm. He brushed the flaming strands of hair from her forehead and gently kissed her goodbye. The passion in Zíva’s heart burned as bright as her flaming red hair. Caderyn made his way carefully across the room to where his middle daughter, Rhiannon, slept fitfully in the corner. Rhiannon’s beauty shone through the grime on her face and ragged clothes but her fitful sleep troubled Caderyn. He patted Rhiannon’s honey hair to soothe her troubled mind. He leaned down and kissed the sleeping girl on the forehead just as he had done her sister before. Finally, he turned to the other corner to bid his youngest child farewell. She was not there. Morzanna, his youngest daughter with hair as black as a moonless midnight, was not sleeping on her straw pallet. Morzanna was a smart child but sometimes her mind was more trouble than good. 

Zíva and Rhiannon, dressed in their threadbare cloaks, headed to the dilapidated lean-to that they used as a makeshift stable. Their beautiful steeds stood stomping the ground and flicking their tails underneath the failing structure, curling tendrils of their hot breath wafted through the cold air. Zíva’s horse shone in the dim light of dawn; her regal steeds mane was the orange of a fall squash in the dim light. But in the sunshine, it burned as bright as Zíva’s own. Rhiannon’s equally regal horse stood snorting as the cold wind whipped her face. The mare’s beauty was equal only to Rhiannon and she was just as stubborn. Their sister’s black mare was noticeably absent.