• Darkness
    That’s what I woke up to. No light whatsoever. My hands were shaking and sweat made my hair stick to my forehead and the back of my neck. I looked around my room and I could see the slightest bit of shadows moving out my window. Dark clouds had covered the sky and the moon was concealed by a black, menacing veil. I set aside the covers to my bed and Goosebumps ran up my arms when my feet touched the cold, wood floor. I slowly approached the window when there it was, the black crow that had been there since this morning. Its eyes the color of crimson blood and its wings as black as the darkness in my room.
    It was perched on the 300 year old cherry blossom tree that my great grandma had planted for the sake of good luck. The birds whole being made the tree tremble with sadness. How could I possibly know that the tree was overcome with grief? Well that’s a mystery to me too but you my mother used to say that it was a sixth sense of mine. That I could sense the feelings of beings borne by sheer goodness or something like that. I opened the window with a creak and inclined my head out the window. The crow just sat there, looking at me, waiting for something to happen. Anything at all.
    I stretched out my hand toward the crow. My fingers touched the black feathers attached to its wings and body. They were cold as ice. Its feelings welled up inside of me like a tornado ready to burst out into the air, but there was something soft. Deeper within itself all it really wanted was to be accepted, to be loved. The wind blew and the crow flew off. The clouds moving away, unveiling the sliver moon. The crow’s wings cut through the air, the darkness of them making black streaks cut into the moon and sending black rose petals from the sky. Black snow which could never be purified but only to live with those borne of the moon maiden.
    I on the other hand am of no sort of moon child. I was borne of the maiden of white roses. The daughter and successor of the rose garden. There are other rose children out there but I am the true daughter of my mother and father. Destined to someday marry and continue the line. But of course I refused to marry some guy I have never met before. My mother tries to always set me up with a lady’s son so we could make deeper ties and become even richer. But why should I marry someone I don’t even love. It always ends up the same, either I reject or the guy changes his mind thinking my mother is my sister and confessing that he wants to marry her except me. And why is that? Well you could say that my mom is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has black curly hair, eyes blue as the ocean, skin so pale it could burn from the slightest glitter of light, average in height and very skinny. She is and maybe always will be the maiden of white roses.
    My mother is always gone either doing business with some people or out pleasing her own greed. She used to be a loving mother until one day a letter was delivered saying that my grandfather had died after being alive for 300 years. She was overcome with joy and immediately purchased the best house in the country. Spending over millions of dollars of grandpa’s saved money.
    She said that even after spending that much we would always have enough to last us for a lifetime. I have come accustom to all the luxury but I would rather have a normal life than being surrounded by money and people who resent you for your title and wealth. My dad is the only understanding one in my family. He doesn’t try to stop what mom is doing but he just ignores it. He meets up with some counts and lords. Makes big contracts and trading deals but he never goes too far. Sometimes we’ll go riding, have tea together, talk and practice magic. But when it comes time for mom to have some fun they disappear for more than two days and even when they come back she hogs dad to herself. It’s not as if I think my dad only belongs to me but my mom’s always trying to drag the attention to her.
    She showers me with gifts and the finest of jewelry only to make me go somewhere where I won’t drag enough attention myself. She has to have it all. Everything. Greed. It’s the thing I absolutely hate the most.