Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I jumped in a puddle, splashing my, as of now, not-so-happy sister. She didn’t say anything, but just frowned as she tried to wipe the water off her cloak. Neva and I giggled, looking away innocently when Maya looked at us with a glare.

“You better be good when we reach the market,” Maya lectured.

“Yes, mother,” I joked, putting my hood up over my head.

She just sighed and shook her head.

“Can I get a new dress?” I asked curiously.

“We’ll see how much we can make. Or how much I make,” she said knowing that I’d probably run off once the booth was set up.

I grinned at her, proving her thoughts to be correct. I glanced down at my right arm, the bandage still wrapped tightly around it. I felt it for the millionth time with my left hand, my face going pink thinking about the close contact that guy and I had. How I hid it from my crazy sister, I’m not too sure but I’m glad I did.

“Okay,” I said happily and opened my small bag for Neva to stay in as we approached the market.

We walked to the empty tent that was proclaimed our vending space. We didn’t go to the market everyday, just about once a month and no one ever touched this one vending spot because some ‘rumor’ went around saying that it was poisoned by us and anyone would not receive any income if they sold here. I guess it was a good thing for us, though totally bogus.

Maya put the big lantern on the floor and I placed the basket of fruits and herbs onto the table in front and began organizing them by their name, alphabetically. It was rather rare to see people buy our supplies without any treatment from us, but we put them out for people to browse anyway.

Xo

“Can I go nooow?” I pleaded after the billionth person that approached us for aide.

“Fine. Don’t go far, or for long,” she said, looking at some man’s arm wound.

“Yay!” I cheered, and with that I left the small tent area, leaving my cloak behind.

I walked around the marketplace, admiring all the clothing that the venders sold, seeing if there was any that I would want to buy if Maya made enough money. I passed a vender shop that sold dresses, but then paused and went back to it, staring at one dress. It looked about floor length and started with a light color then flowed to a darker color. I suddenly felt an arm wrap around my waist, pulling me away from the beautiful piece of cloth.

“Whats a purdy gurl like you doing here?” I spun to see one of the ugly market boys holding me in his grasp.

I immediately shuddered and struggled to get out his grasp.

“What do you want?” I inquired, wiggling out of his grasp.

“For you to be ma wifee,” he said.

“Uhh… no, sorry,” I said, my cheeks flushing a bit.

“Why? Your hair is so purdy..,” he said stroking my hair. I smacked his hand away, somehow feeling violated.

“I don’t want to.. um.. marry right now..,” I said, wishing someone would save me from this creep.

“But your so purdy..,” he mumbled, like he was sad or upset or something.

“Thank you, but I don’t want to marry.. right now.” I said.

He took a step closer so he was standing right in front of me.

“Your hair smulls nice today,” he complimented with a smile, showing his crooked teeth.

“Thanks…..,” I paused and whispered to myself “I think.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to go..,” I stated and turned to leave the awkward man.

“NO!” he yelled and I jumped, almost having a heart attack.

“You not go!” he said, now angry for what ever reason.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going home now…,” I said and began to walk away.

I heard him begin to walk but before I could turn to see where he was going, he already had my bandaged wrist locked in his hand tightly. I quivered at the pain that shot through my wrist and nerves, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream. He didn’t seem to take notice though.

“Y-You’re hurting me..,” I managed to mumble through my lips though he didn’t let go.

“You not go,” he repeated, my eyes beginning to water from his strong hold.

“Let go of her!” a voice yelled that I never thought I’d be grateful to hear.

I felt the creep let go of my wrist and I saw him fall to the ground, like he had been punched in the face. I brought my wrist up to my chest and massaged it to get the pain to stop. I looked back up to see the guy that I somewhat disliked standing in front of me, almost in a protective position with one arm extended, keeping me behind his back. It looked as though the creeper was about to fight back, but he soon realized something, probably the fact that he was one of the Dark Lord’s henchman, as his eyes grew wide and he ran away.

“You okay?” he asked turning around to face me, now that the creep guy was gone.

I nodded, wiping my eyes clear of the tears. It had been a long while since I last cried – or had tears in my eyes, the last time being when I first was blind, in the Dark Lord’s camp four freaking long years ago. I felt him wipe a tear off from my cheek with his thumb and I brought my hands away from my face to stare at him oddly.

“Sorry,” he said and took a step back, embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I said, giggling at his gesture and wiped the rest of the tears away.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“Get what?” I questioned back.

“That. The bandage,” he said pointing to my wrist.

“I. uh, found it in the forest?”

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I shrugged with a small smile on my face.

“You were that bird weren’t you?” he asked grinning.

I looked at the floor as my face flushed.

“Maybe,” I paused to look at my wrist. “If you want it back, you can have it,” I said and began un-wrapping it.

I placed it in his hand, but he shook his head and took a step forward, wrapping it around my wrist again. I stared at his hands as he tied the bandage around my arm, my face feeling hot with how close he was standing to me.

“You can keep it, I don’t use it for anything,” he said and I smiled, though still not looking up at him.

“Thanks,”

“So, does this mean you don’t hate me?” he asked with a smile and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t get a head of yourself now, buddy,” I stuck my tongue out and turned to run back to our vender booth, leaving him in my dust.

I made it back to the booth and quickly wrapped my cloak around my body and put my hood up, covering my flushed face from Maya. She looked at me oddly, but I shooed her away to keep herself occupied with the customers that were in front of her.

“Hello” I heard someone speak to Maya and looked up to see it was the warrior. I looked back down at Neva on my lap, pretending to be playing with her but listened into the conversation.

“Hi,” Maya said simply, almost as if she didn’t want to say too much.

The warrior opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a harsh cough... or rather about five harsh coughs.

“Are you okay?” Maya asked and I raised an eyebrow at her question. She usually never asks if a person is doing okay, just starts aiding them as soon as she can… Unless…

“Yeah, I have a bad cough from sleeping out in the cold and was wondering if you evil witches had something I could use,”

Maya just sighed and probably rolled her eyes but handed him something, that was a liquid judging from what she said.

“Drink this until your coughing stops,”

“How do I know you witches didn’t poison-” he began to ask a question but was interrupted by another fit of bad coughs.

“Take.it.or.leave.it,” Maya said through what sounded like gritted teeth and I chuckled.

“Would it make a difference if I was still sleeping outside?” he asked.

“No, it wouldn’t do much of anything, then,” She replied and an idea came into my mind.

I thought of that dress that I saw at the vender’s shop and just knew I had to buy it, somehow.

“We could give you a place to say,” I said standing up to face the two wide-eyed people.

“WHAT?!” They yelled at the same time, then looked at each other and looked at the ground the next second.

“We have a spare room where we live, that we don’t use,” I said looking at the tall warrior.

“Candace, what the heck are you thinking!!” a distressed Maya yelled at me but I just smiled.

“Dresses. Pink dresses, blue dresses, purple dresses, yellow dresses!! And don’t forget the orange dresses!!” I thought back.

“Uh,” the warrior said unsure to accept the offer or not.

“Or you can just stay sleeping in the woods, with crazy animals and in the cold,” I shrugged.

“Okay, fine,” he said and Maya slapped her forehead.

“There’s going to be a rent fee, but of course we can talk about that later,” I smiled sweetly, not that he could see my face anyway.

“If you have to get other things here, we’ll be leaving in,” I paused to look up at the sky and noticed that it was probably around early afternoon. “About an hour.” He nodded and looked at the bottle of liquid again.

“That’s fifty pounds of gold dust,” Maya stated as he plopped a bag of dust onto the wooden board as Maya took it and put it with the rest of the income we had made. He left with the potion and a pissed off Maya turned to face me.

“Candace what the hell what that?!” She asked and I grinned.

“I saw a really cute dress that I just have to buy! And we will have enough money for food and a larger wardrobe, besides, it’s not like we use the spare room anyway,” I pleaded and she groaned and slapped her forehead again. I smiled in victory. There was no way she was getting out of this one.

“I can’t believe you,” Maya replied and shook her head in disapproval.


Xo

An hour passed surprisingly fast. At least, for me it did. I couldn’t really say the same for Maya. When ever she wasn’t helping someone, all she’d do was groan and groan like she was dying. It made Neva and I laugh every time she did it, but I guess she had reason to. I opened my bag to let Neva sit in as we were about to leave the marketplace.

“I’m here,” the warrior announced as Maya and I were packing up the supplies that we weren’t able to sell.

“We have to go around and buy supplies until our next trip to the market,” Maya said, obviously avoiding eye contact with the man.

“Fine,” he said and with that note, we were off.

We finished buying all the things we needed soon enough, and we began to head back to the secluded hut. As we got deeper into the forest I took off my hood and took a big breath of fresh forest air.

“Y-you’re the other witch!?” The warrior yelled and I just smiled at him. Maya rolled her eyes at the question.

“Yep!” I replied joyfully and opened my bag to let Neva out.

“What’s that?” he asked pointing to Neva.

“Neva, she’s a butterfly,” I said as she sat on top of my hair.

“God you’re just as evil as she is,” he said motioning to Maya.

Maya whapped his arm and began to walk ahead of the two of us, angrily. He rubbed his arm and frowned and I rolled my eyes but beamed. The conversation came to a stop as we finally reached the hut

“Welcome to your new home,” I opened the door for the warrior, Maya entering first and the warrior close behind.

I chucked to myself as those two had no idea what I had in store for them.