How I met your mother

Gasps filled the room loudly once more. Most of the elders started saying prayer and the adults questioned "How has he come back again?" while the children and babies sat in confusion at the scene in front of them.

"What's a litch?" Turilla whispered to her sister but did not push further after witnessing the face her sister had at that moment.

The girl held her sister's hand closely as Haerim continued the tragic story of the horrible possibility of things going to a worse turn.

The guards around the royal family in the capital that is 3 towns over have sinificantly increased and the royals are all under house arrest. Some of the most powerful winged people have turned their back on their kingdom and were allying with the enemy, supposedly the litch fellow.

After the briefing was done everyone silently left the room. It was a little bit of surprise to Turilla to see Owen tightly hugging a crying Maria. She knew he was in despair but chose to tend to his sister first.

Umari took Turilla to her room and sat on the make-shift bed made of hay. The girl didn't utter a peek and stared so hard into the ground that Turilla thought that a hole might form. She held the girl quietly in her arms, rubbing her back soothingly, Turilla hummed a lullaby.

It was something that always stayed at the back of her mind she never knew where it came from nor its lyrics. She once tried to figure them out to no avail. It was a very nostalgic song of no origin.

Umari suddenly shot up and grabbed Turilla's shoulders, shaking them violently she asked "Where- who- when-... How do you know that song?" she stopped, and dropped her arms.

"I don't know where that song is from, it's very familiar but I don't know, how. I'm sorry Umari…"

The other girl got up from where she lay and went over to a bookcase and picked up a book just as worn out as the shelf it sat on. It seemed like the book was used so much that the pages were about to tear away. Its cover had a beautifully embroidered golden insignia of a woman.

Umari handed the book to Turilla and carefully flipped the pages. She stopped at a chapter, taking the book from Turilla the girl sat down and began to read the contents of it.

"And finally, the heroine arrived home to her kingdom. She ran through the heavy doors and found her stepmother weaving. She was as lovely as the first day they met 3 years ago.

"Mother! I'm home," She said running to her mother's arms and sinking into them.

"Ahh my daughter, I have missed you so much." The lady said touching around her step-daughter's filthy face. She placed a careful kiss on the girl's head.

The girl looked up at her mother and cried, her dear mother had become blind. She hugged her mother tighter and wept.

"Oh no, why are you crying, my love?" the woman asked sweetly wiping the tears away. "I know a great remedy to cure you." She smiled. The smile, that enchanted the king and enchanted the girl.

The woman started singing, the song that the heroine kept close to her and whispered to herself everynight during her jounery, it brought her complete comfort.

"When the wind blows left to knock you down, I will be right here to protect you

Oh my love please be happy for the world is far too cruel"

[I am not a poet -_-]

Turilla sat mesmerized at the lyrics, she felt the tears well up but Umari beat her to it and started crying immediately after finishing.

"M-Mother… she used- she used to sing it to us all the time… You were in her belly at that time" she replied slowly, wiping away the tears. "This is her favorite book, she read it so much that it's pages started coming out"

"Woah…" it was all Turilla could muster for she never knew what kind of person her mother was. "What was she- what was mother like?"

Umari smiles softly, fiddling with her hands to find the right words.

"Mother was an incredible woman. A valiant warrior and the captain of the knights in our kingdom. She won many battles with just a spear in hand and came home victorious from many wars bringing glory to our nation.

But these are just whispers and gossip I have heard, she stepped down from her position when she found out that she was carrying Haerim and had many children after. I also heard that she was one of the most feared generals in the nation; they called her the fiery redhead of doom or something like that. She had the shiniest and more red hair I had ever seen and earthly green eyes to compliment her skin.

Father loved mother so dearly that he had killed people for her. It was love at first fight, I asked father how they met and told him with a bright smile on his face. They met when they were children, grandfather was on one of his hunting rounds and they found a small hut engulfed in flames. After they put it out the guards discovered a tiny dark girl sleeping quietly in one of the hidden sellers under the floorboards.

Grandfather took the little girl into his kingdom and taught her many things such as basic ettiquite and womanly things but mother had no interest in those princessy things. She loved to learn to fight, so grandfather sent to a knighting school in hopes that she would fail and come back to the castle. However, mother exceeded grandfather's expectations and came at the top of her class…"

"So wait… what does this have to do with mother and father falling in love at a fight?" Turilla interrupted.

"If you didn't interrupt me you would actually understand." Umari laughed. "Anyway…"

Dylon, father hadn't seen the girl yet because he was still studying in another country but when he came home one day due to wreckage in his school, father saw mother dressed fully in amour and he hated that.

Umari laughed heartily while reminiscing the story that her father had told her.

He hated that Areille, a woman, had to wear a customized armour with the most expensive metal. At the time his thoughts on women were that they were only on this earth to bring up children, do household chores, and satisfy their spouses.

Dylon was enraged but before he could say anything to her, the king came to the knight quarters to inform to them that the remaining soldiers had no choice but to go onto the battlefield because the previous ones were either held captive or massacred.

In moments they had to be ready to march out. Dylon got on his stallion upfront and mother was beside him. His patience ran thin but he had to get his priorities straight and moved her a few rows behind him.

When they arrived at the battlefield, it was a horrible nightmare. No one knew the enemy was so strong. There was blood everywhere but Areille, kept on that she right next to Dylon again, while many of the men fell back, puking their guts out.

The army reached the blindspot that was right in front of the enemy base camp and stayed there to degroup. However, someone decided to be an idiot and give away their position to the enemy.

And so the war continued, the enemies quickly got out of their camps and started firing arrows at them. With only a small hill to cover them some of the soldiers at the back had gotten already wounded, Dylon was in a bind, he hadn't gotten to figure out a plan and his men were wounded at that moment his hero arrived.

Areille pushed him aside and leaped out of the hill. She ran at full speed dodging all the arrows that were shot towards her and since some of them were magic the ones that got missed, turned around and followed her. She jumped over the enemy's hill and swung her sword.

Left and right the enemies fell at her feet with no way of fighting back. It was at that moment that Dylon fell for Areille. Her movements and the way her sword danced across necks, it was so beautiful to him that he was stuck in a daze.

"'I could stare at her murder and massacred people, all day.' is what he always says." Umari chuckled.

And so they fought together in their first battle together, mother was his shadow carving a way for father to get to the enemy general and reclaim their head. They left the battlefield in victory.

And after that was hell for mother.

Father's consistent method of wooing her was off to a terrible start.

"She used to tell me that he use the most oddest techniques."

There was the constant staring at mother, when she trained with the other knights, father would be there pretending to feed the horse, when she would study outside father too would be there behind a tree or on the stairs spying on her from above or whenever mother would sneak out into the capital to play with the street kids, father would be there.

It was way too obvious for Areille not to notice, it was almost hilarious the way he would get his hair eaten by the horses or when he would get stuck on a tree and try to act cool when she notices him. She found Dylon very amusing that she too tried to get close to him.

"The pining wasn't as mutual as father always told"

Areille was too strong for him, once when there was a pack of wolves in the forest and mother was cornered but Dylon couldn't intervene because Areille was already petting them and playing around.

"How did they like to start talking to each other?" Turilla asked.

"Wellll…"

Father finally decided that would talk to her after his friends laughed at him for the way he was around her. It took him so many days to get the courage to speak to her, his name having the meaning of "a brave lion" totally didn't refer to talking to the girl he like.

They spoke for the first during the summer festival too with the help of Dylon's friends.

Umari was interrupted by Haerim bursting through the door, shouting for Turilla.

"I guess the story would have to wait," Turilla replied dejectedly. "What's the issue, Haerim?"

"You will have to go back up, do the exam, and meet the litch."