part of the story!!

Okay, as I'm very bored and I have nothing better to do, here's the first bit of the creative writing story. I'm going to post as often as I turn it in (aka once a week), and as I'll probably be turning it in tomorrow or Wednesday, it makes sense.
I do have more, I'm just not posting it. Yet.
It will come, though.

Prologue

All my life, I’ve heard stories of Shyasha Rinkari. She was a legend in her day; she’s still spoken of in plenty of places. The Lazy Dog, the pub in town, boasts that it was the location of the Crystal Quests’ beginning, where Shyasha Rinkari first met up with Faug and Valin Hyatha of Anana, and thus commenced the journey that would change our world.
Of course, it’s been a few generations since then. Although the land has not fallen into complete disarray, it’s not as good as it once was, according to Grampa. He says that Telsiel, the King, is starting to lose it. It would be rather hard for Grampa to judge whether King Telsiel was losing it or not, because we live on a farm in possibly the most boring part of Illindara in existence. Mum says that it’s Grampa who’s losing it, not Telsiel, but I like hearing his opinions, and I love it when he tells the stories of the Crystal Quest. Mum says most of them are made up, but I choose not to believe that. Why would he tell them if they weren’t true?
Grampa says Shyasha Rinkari has died; that she was killed when he was about twelve and he saw it happen. He also says, however, that she could come back to stay, just once, when the world had desperate need of her. Mum says that that’s the biggest pile of Goblin droppings that she’s heard yet, but I secretly wondered if the legendary Ranger could be brought back, and what kind of person it would take to do it. I often hoped that I could be the one who brought around her return, but I knew that was impossible. Mum would never let me go.
You see, my grandmother was an Elemental – a being that channels the rhythms of the earth, water, wind, fire, and ice, and can use those rhythms to their disposal. She was one of the last ones left, and she knew that it was going be a big risk in choosing mortality and marrying Grampa. But as she was an elemental, she could pass down her powers to her children – her oldest son was my father, who had an affinity for earth and water. He passed those traits to me and my younger brother, Jack.
Dad died when I was little, a short while after Jack was born. I’ve had to do practically all of the labor on the farm ever since. I love working with the land (I got the Earth affinity), but I hate the fact that I’m stuck here, barely literate and wholly uneducated, and this is where I’m supposed to stay, because Mum and Jack need me to help work the land and make the crops grow better.
Although I love the crops, I want to see the rest of the world, to actually learn something and have an adventure. By the time Grampa was my age he had escaped a dragon, fought off orcs, and met my grandmother. Although Mum insists that all of it is tosh, when she gets to be his age, she won’t have any stories for her daughter-in-law to call ‘tosh.’ I don’t want that to happen to me, and yet it was supposed to be my fate.
I think Fate has a way of fooling you, though, so it threw me a surprise on a sad day and changed everything. 


Chapter 1

Usually it was either Jack or Mum who looked after Grampa while I worked in the fields, getting browned and freckled by the sun. Every few months, I could be aided by a young man who needed a job, even though we could barely afford to pay him anything.
On my thirteenth birthday, which is in the middle of summer, I was out working in the fields with Mum when Jack came running out from our small hut, looking absolutely terrified.
“What is it, Jack?” Mum asked at once.
“It’s… Grampa…” he panted, clutching the stitch in his side from running all the way across the field to reach us.
“What about him?” Mum demanded, looking nervous. I was listening intently as well – Grampa had had a cough for quite some time, and he was getting to the age where a simple head cold could easily turn into the Blue Fever, and every day I worried that it would be his last.
“He’s… he’s…” Jack stuttered. “He’s going…” was all my brother could manage. My gut translated that into only one thing: death was coming for Grampa at last. My heart pounding, I started sprinting at once towards the cabin, outrunning my mother and brother easily due to the long stride I’d inherited from my father; my bare feet kicked up dark soil as I dashed across the field.
When I arrived in the hut, I had to pause for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Grampa was slouched over in his usual chair near the fire pit, but he looked worse than normal.
“Grampa?” I said hesitantly. He looked up at the sound of my voice.
“Nikita,” he grumbled in his deep voice, “come here.”
I obeyed at once. “What is it, Grampa?” I asked.
“All the stories I have told you are true,” he said, as if every word was costing him a lot. “It is your turn now.”
“My turn for what?” I breathed.
“Your turn for an adventure,” he told me, coughing several times. “Shyasha Rinkari will need to be woken again. I have a feeling…” his voice trailed off.
“Grampa?” my voice caught in my throat. He couldn’t be dead… not yet…
“Nikita, seek out Sparraben of Lianland,” Grampa said with a few more coughs that sounded like he was going to put out his stomach soon.
“Sparraben of Lianland,” I repeated. The name sounded familiar. “You mean… the one who trained Shyasha Rinkari?”
“He lives in the eastern end of the Silvercourt Forest. Tell him Faug sent you in the name of the Scarred Princess.”
“You knew Shyasha Rinkari?”
“Yes, girl, how did you think I learned about Sparraben?” Grampa snapped with a bite in his voice. “Shyasha Rinkari held him in the highest regard. He even gave Rhyda a bit of Ranger training…” Rhyda was the grandmother that had been an Elemental, and had been married to Grampa.
“Seek out Sparraben,” I prompted, nervous that I would miss something important, though I didn’t know what that might be. “And then what?”
“Tell him you need his help bringing Shyasha Rinkari back. He will help you from there. It is of the upmost importance that you do this. I fear the world will have need of a hero soon.”
“Faug, you can’t be telling Nikita things like this with your last breaths,” Mum snapped. I was so focused on remembering Grampa’s instructions that I hadn’t heard her and Jack enter the room.
“She needs to know, Leanna,” Grampa said. “Nikita, find Sparraben.”
“I will, Grampa,” I promised.
“Leanna, don’t stifle her so much,” Grampa told her, coughing again hard enough to actually pull out his stomach or some other vital organ. “Nor Jack. Jack, work hard, all right, my boy?”
“All right, Grampa,” Jack said.
Soon after Jack had made his promise, Grampa had a very hard coughing fit, and when it was over...
Grampa had expired.
I bowed my head so Jack and Mum wouldn’t see my tears.