The Pendants Curse - Chapter 1

Scarlett POV

"... you never know! Anything is possible. There are creatures all over!" I exclaim while I wipe my forehead with a towel.

"Well, if anyone had that power, they would have to report to the castle." My best friend, Randal, argues back. We've been training since early morning for my big event at the castle tomorrow. I'm excited to show off some new moves I've learned from training.

"Are you even listening to me?" He asks. He was talking? Whoops.

"Yes."

"And what did I just say?" He crosses his arms and leans back on a tree. We're in the middle of the forest. I live nearby so we're safe from the annoying gnomes. They're everyone's worst enemy. Terrible creations of mythical creatures!

"You said I was right and that you love me very much and that we should stop training now and eat some food."

He stares at me with his scary eyes. Randal is a human with gifts just like me. I would have preferred if I was a specific creature but I'm not.

The closest thing I would say I could be is a wolf. I have the hearing, the sight and other things wolves have but I can't turn into one. I also have my own wolf, but she only likes to come out once in a while. Could be to bully me, alert me of a possible danger, or when she sees someone she's attracted to.

When I first met Randal, she wouldn't stop howling and prancing around in my head, it was weird since we were kids, but anyways, my human side wasn't attracted to him as a potential future boyfriend or something.

Apparently, he didn't find me attractive in that sense either, or any woman in general.

Randal is a well-built guy with black short hair and beautiful tanned skin. His eyes however, creep me out sometimes. His eyes are completely pitch black, almost as if he didn't have any, with a bright white iris.

"Wrong! I said if you'd have to report it, it's world domination. You're right in the sense we should stop with the training for today, we've been at this for hours. Your place for lunch?" He asks while putting his hands in his pockets and slightly tilting his head in question.

"Sure, Flora misses you anyways."

"She saw me this morning when we had breakfast together."

I pack my daggers away along with my water and towel.

"True, but she always wants to see you. I swear she loves you more than me."

"That's not true you're her mom," he straightens up and grabs his bag as well. "I think she just loves seeing you happy when you see me."

"You flatter yourself," I start to walk side by side with him to where my cottage is located, "but you're right."

We walk in silence for a few minutes.

"Oh, and I do love you, you were right about that too." I look up to him just to see he's already looking down at me. "I love you too."

After a few minutes of silently walking, we made it to a small opening in the forest. "Do your thing, witch." Randal says as he stands back and waits. I concentrate for a few seconds and shut my eyes.

"That gets me every time."

I open my eyes to see my cloaking spell has been lifted from my tiny house. "It gets me every time too, now come on."

I open the front door and set my bag down next to the door. Randal is right behind me.

"Flora? Baby, mommy's home!"

A few seconds later Flora flies straight into my face.

My kitten doesn't know how to use her wings properly yet, so she always flies straight into me, luckily, I catch her before I'm smothered with her black fluff.

"Did you miss me baby?"

I walk in and Randal shuts the door behind me. "What would you like for lunch?"

"Well, what do you have?" He asks while walking over to the kitchen after giving Flora a kiss on the forehead.

"Already made, nothing. Ingredients, no idea. I'm running low so I will have to go to the marketplace maybe later today."

Randal hums while checking my cupboards and fridge. "You have ingredients for shrimp soup, would you like some?"

"You're cooking? I thought I was."

"It's alright," He says while taking out the ingredients, "you go ahead and shower while I prepare the food."

"Okay, thanks, I owe you one!"

"Don't stress about it Scar, now go. I'll make sure Flora doesn't fly into the soup too."

"I love you!"

"I love you too, now shoo."

"This is really good Randy, husband material."

Some time has passed now, Randal even got to take a quick shower as well, he didn't need it though, he barely moved a muscle out there. He just stood most of the time with his arms crossed while watching me fight the air with my daggers. We sometimes both do hand to hand combat, but it gets a little scary since the daggers are real. Using the plastic ones just aren't the same.

Today, I was blindfolded while Randal shouted at me what my opponent would be doing at the moment. The blindfold helps me think there is someone actually there, without it I'd see that I'm just swinging at the air. It also helps me focus instead of looking at some random leaves falling from the trees.

"Thanks Scar, now I just wait to find my husband to feed."

"And I have to wait to find my future partner." I stop and wince slightly. "Although I can't cook."

Flora was flying around hitting her head across the walls and then viciously shaking her head right after. That doesn't remove the pain, baby.

"Has Kassidy contacted you recently?" He asks while finishing up the last of his soup.

"Yes, she wants to meet up at Neon Pixies later for a possible new mission, don't know yet."

"And do you feel ready for a new mission?"

I get up and take the ceramic bowls to the sink and wash them up.

"Of course, the last mission wasn't the best I know, but I feel ready to go back. I miss the adventure."

My last mission was a couple weeks ago, someone was putting wolfsbane in medication and hurting the pack. I had to go and figure out who it was. The person was eventually caught but they didn't go down without a fight and they ended up taking the life of an innocent bystander. Unfortunately for me I have a wolf and felt the loss but not as strong as them since I'm not officially part of the pack.

My father used to be part of it so maybe that's why I feel the loss, but I live alone in the West while the pack lives in the South West.

The Pristine Realm is like a map. It's separated into 9 sections. North, South, West, East, North West, North East, South West, South East, and Center. Then we also have the Clouds which are divided into 4 levels and the Underworld. Overall, 14 sections where creatures can live.

Each section has its specific creature and their homes. The realm is also pretty large so it can take a few days to travel through. Some sections have portals to the castle to make travel easier.

The North section has the pixies and fairies. The South is pretty much an ocean which has our mermaids, sirens, and a loch ness monster named Carl. West is my home which has the elfins and the humans with gifts. The East has ogres and centaurs, North West has pegasus', griffins and unicorns. North East has the vampires and across the realm at South West we have the werewolves. In the South East there's our dragons and finally the Center has the castle with our queen, knights, assassins and warriors. I'm a warrior but I decided to live in my cottage.

We also have our Clouds which are separated into different levels. The highest clouds are level one which has our Gods, level two has our guardian angels, level three has the regular angels, and level four has the fallen angels. Last but not least we have the Underworld which has our cerberus, demons, and ghosts who need help crossing over. Over to where? I don't know, I'm not dead.

Since the realm is like a map, there is an edge, but we can't fall off. There's a reflective border around that keeps us here.

Randal helps me by drying the bowls after I'm done washing them.

"What should we do? What time do you have to meet Kassidy?" He asks while grabbing Flora. I turn to look at the clock. "In a few hours, we could train some more or head to the market maybe? Then it would be easy to just slip into Neon Pixies for the meet up afterwards."

"Sounds good, want to race or do you want to ride on Bolt?"

"Let's ride Bolt, I need my energy to do some shopping. Oh I could get food there too!"

"Wasn't that what we were going for?" Randy asks while playing with Flora's whiskers, making her meow at him.

"Well I was going to just browse for anything that caught my eye. Some new daggers could be nice too."

"You should get some with a purple handle so they match your eyes."

I spin around and grab my boots along with a belt for my weapons. "I should, I only have the plain silver ones."

After Randal and I finish getting ready and leaving some food for Flora we ride Randal's black horse, Bolt. He also has a small cerberus named Cesar but he doesn't like to leave his house.

A few minutes later we made it to West's town. Neon Pixies is also located here closer to the Center's border. Randal and I walk around for a while passing by some elfins. "Want an apple, Bolt?" I ask while facing the beautiful horse.

"I think he could go for one, where's the apple stand?"

"Right over there," I pointed in the distance a few feet away, "come on boys, let me buy you a treat."

We head over to the lady selling the apples. "Good evening miss."

She turns to look at us with a large smile. "Hello dears, how are you two doing?"

"Very well thank you," Randal answers with a small nod. "We wanted an apple here for our wonderful companion."

"Ah very well, how many and in which color?"

"We'll take two apples please," I walked over to the different colored apples. "Which one would you like, boy?"

Bolt walks over to the stand and nudges a white apple. "We'll take a white apple please."

"And you, Randy?"

He grabs a black one from the stand.

The lady takes the white apple and holds it out for Bolt to take."How much for them?" I ask while taking out my coin pouch.

"Oh they're free darling, don't worry about it."

"Are these apples from Blake?" Asked Randal while taking a bite.

"Oh yes. She conjures the best apples. Had to travel far to ask them if they wanted to sell them to the people in the West but, they said just give them out since she makes them unlimited. He also gave me every color which was nice."

"That's amazing, I'll be sure to thank them if I see them at the event tomorrow."

We finish our goodbyes and keep walking around. A few hours later Randal is holding a few bags with some new clothes, belts, a pair of boots and a few purple daggers.

He looks up to the sky. "Shouldn't you be heading to Neon Pixies now? Kassidy might be there already."

I look up and see that it's getting dark. "I should head on now I guess," I turn to look at him, "I guess I'll see you at Elenora's coronation?"

Randal turns to look at me like I have grown another head.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not Cesar."

"You're crazy if you think I'm just leaving you. I'll be waiting until you finish your meeting. How will you get home? We made it here in half an hour and that was with Bolt." He responded.

'He's too good for this world.'

'I know Celeste, I know.'

As I enter Neon Pixies, I see a lot of different creatures visiting from different sections dancing or having a drink at the bar. I take a seat on a stool and turn to the bartender.

"What can I get for you, gorgeous?" She yelled over the music.

"I'll take a potion level 3 please."

She nods and walks over to the counter to fix up my drink.

"Hey Scarlett." I hear someone next to me say.

"Kassidy, hey! Did you just teleport here now or have you been waiting?"

"Nah, just teleported now. Elenora was keeping me away with her non-stop rambling about how nervous she is for tomorrow," she mutters while raising a hand out, "can I get a level 5 please?"

"Woah a level 5. Rough night?" The bartender questioned.

"You have no idea."

The bartender hands me my drink and quickly tends to Kassidy.

"She shouldn't be nervous. She's already been acting like the queen and fulfilling her job perfectly; I'm surprised this event hadn't happened months ago." I say while taking a sip from my drink. The bartender places Kassidy's drink in front of her and she begins to greedily drink it as if she hasn't had any liquid in years.

"Tell me about it," she places her glass down, "that's exactly what I told her, but the lady won't listen to me, but if I was in her shoes, not gonna lie, I'd be freaking out as well."

"Makes sense. I'll talk to her before she goes out tomorrow, she needs support."

"I'll be there too; not like I would be anywhere else anyways."

"You love her deal with it." I say, finishing up my drink.

"It's my job to stick by her at all times, I don't love her." She lies.

'Sure she doesn't.'

This girl has been crushing on her since we were kids.

"Anyways, enough about her," she sets her drink down and faces me. "You have a new mission, are you up for it?"

"Of course I am, what will I have to do?" I ask.

She takes out a few papers from her bag and hands them to me.

"We have taken notice that a few of our creatures aren't accounted for in the realm. We have checked the monitors and we see that they all disappear near the camping grounds of South East's Forest."

"My mission is to find them I assume?" I ask while looking at the papers. They're images of the monitor in the castle. They show multiple dots which shows where the creatures are along with time stamps.

They would see a moving dot when a creature is walking around. The images show the dot visible in one minute and completely disappear in seconds.

"Some of these are from years ago." I exclaim while looking up at her.

"We hadn't realized that there was a situation like this until just recently when a guard was watching the monitors and happened to see it happen in front of his eyes. We wanted to see if there were other cases and lo and behold, there were more."

"How many have gone missing?" I huffed while looking back down at the images.

"So far three that we know of-"

"That you know of? There could be more?"

"Correct. Are you up for it?" She asks with hesitation.

"Of course I'm up for it. When do I start?"

"After the coronation would be best," she looks at me somberly, "that is only if you're okay from the last mission. I just wanted to give you this one since you're the best we have."

We're okay Kassidy.

"I'll do it."

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