The sun was burning bright in the sky as we started our journey towards Belleville. Emily led the party as Wilbur and I started to fall behind. My legs and arms were still sore from yesterday’s escape. I raised my voice and complained to Emily, “Would you slow down?”

“You can’t be tired already, we’ve only been walking for an hour.” She answered while she looked towards us and saw how far we fell behind.

“An hour? It feels like we’ve been walking much longer than that.” I responded.

She stopped and waited until we caught up to her. As we caught up, she looked me up and down, “You’re not familiar with wearing that armor, are you?” she asked with confusion.

“No, I’m trying to get used to it… It’s very heavy.” I said with a hint of embarrassment.

“Alright, we can slow down until you can get accustomed to the extra weight.” She said with a smirk.

As we traveled for a few more miles we approached a dense forest that the path cut straight through, “Be careful, this is a hotspot for goblins or other hooligans to ambush any unsuspecting travelers.” Emily said nervously.

“Goblins?” I asked.

She turned towards me and let out a sigh, “I didn’t realize you were this ignorant. Yes, goblins. They will most likely rob you of your valuables and leave you for dead out in this forest. We shouldn't have to worry about them since-” an arrow struck next to her feet, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“My my my.” A small green figure that stood upon a large tree said in an annoyingly raspy voice, “If it isn’t Emily and her… boyfriend? Emily, I had no idea you were in a relationship. Come on, what's his name?”

“Now’s not a good time, Grubs.” She said clearly annoyed at the little green man.

“Emily, come on. You know the rules, you have to introduce me to anyone you bring along with you. Now, what's the little guy's name?” He asked while drinking from a flask that he had kept on his belt along with a scimitar and a few coin purses.

“His name is Jeremy, and he is not my boyfriend.”

As the goblin heard this he spat out his drink and started to burst out laughing, “Okay that was a good one, I’ll give you that. But really, what’s the fella’s name?” he asked while taking another sip from his flask.

“It wasn’t a joke, his name is Jeremy.”

The goblin started to smile with his mouth full of his drink, he swallowed and started to laugh again, “Oh, Emily, you’re killing me, no one has a name that ridiculous.”

This goblin started to get on my nerves after he said this. I was about to say something to the goblin until Emily said, “Grubs, I’m sorry, we’re in a rush, I’ll tell you on the way back.” as she said this we started to continue our way down the path. We made it about 10 feet before Grubs shot another arrow towards us, “Emily, perhaps you’ve forgotten the rules. One gold per entry.”

She sighed and dug in her coin purse for two small golden coins, she walked towards Grubs and handed him the money, “Something ain’t right here.” Grubs said as she handed him the money.

“And that would be?” she asked while her hands shook in rage

“Well, I’m counting two gold in my hand, and three entries into my forest. You, the boy, and the dog-”

“It’s not your forest to begin with!” I shouted at Grubs. I quickly put my hand over my mouth as I spoke these words.

“You’re gonna get us killed!” Emily shouted firmly to me.

“I don't know what came over me.” I said with a stutter in my voice.

“That’s an extra gold for the back talk!” Grubs shouted over us. Emily sighed as she heard him say this. She dug through her coin purse and pulled out two more golden coins. She walked back to Grubs and handed him the coins, “Why thank you Emily, maybe next time your boy will behave himself a little better.”

As they were talking, I noticed vines started to creep up on Grubs. They were a shade of dark green and were covered with large brown thorns like the ones that would grow from my mom’s rose bushes. They crept closer towards Grubs and when they were about five feet away from him, they started to rise upwards like a cobra ready to strike. Emily noticed the vines just before they were about to strike, “Grubs, watch out behind you!” she shouted.

“Yeah right, the last time I fell for that one was five years ago. You can’t fool me Emily, every time you fail misera-” At that, the vines wrapped themselves around Grubs, “Get these things off of me!” Grubs shouted in pain. Emily quickly grabbed her dagger and as she was about to cut the vines, she smirked towards me, “Yeah, I’ll get these vines off of you. But, It’ll cost you.”

Grubs was struggling desperately to get out of the grasp of the vines, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

“Alright.” Emily responded, “Guess we’ll be on our way.” She walked towards me and grabbed me by the arm as we started to walk down the trail once again.

We were only about fifty feet away from grubs once he shouted, “Alright! How much do I owe you!”

Emily smiled once she heard this, “Hm, it’ll be five gold, perhaps?”

“Fine, fine, just let me outta here.”

We walked back towards grubs and cut him free. As we let him loose, he angrily dove his hand into one of his many coin purses, “Take your filthy money and don’t come back through here again!”

Emily grinned and responded, “Pleasure doing business with ya Grubs.” He grabbed his crossbow back up from off the ground and started to climb up the tree he had been waiting in when we had gotten there. We collected our gold and headed back down the trail.

“You did amazing.” Emily spoke out to me with joy, “How’d you do it?”

“Do what?” I asked in confusion.

“How'd you control the vines?”

“I didn’t do that.” I responded.

“Of course you did, only druids can control nature.”

“But, I can’t- I don’t even know where I could have learned.”

She smiled at me and responded, “You don’t have to learn. Magic is a strange thing, at first it may be controlled by your emotions or even accidentally. Of course you can learn to control it, but I think your magic is controlled by your emotion currently. That could be a very dangerous thing, you saw what it did to Grubs. You’ll have to learn how to control it if you want to be a powerful magic caster like me.”

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This shocked me as it left Emily’s mouth, I barely knew a thing about magic, and now I can use it? I tried to absorb these words as I asked, “So, how do I control this magic?”

“It’s easy, almost like learning to use a sword or shooting a bow. Once you learn to control it, you can only get better. The way I learned was thinking of the moment when I accidentally used it.” she giggled, “I almost burnt the mansion down that day. It happened when I was about five. I was mad at one of our maids for not letting me play outside because she had just mopped the floors and didn't want me to get them dirty again. I felt the rage burn throughout my body and I somehow managed to miss her with a ball of fire. From that day on, she never prohibited me from playing outside again.”

“So, if I want to use my magic, I just have to think back to the time that I was mad at Grubs?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. You have to focus more on how you felt on the inside; were you mad, upset et cetera.”

I thought for a moment before I responded, “Well yes, I was mad at Grubs for taking our money and for treating you poorly.’

“Well, there you go. Just think back to how you felt on the inside. Did you feel any different than when you normally get angry?”

After she said this I closed my eyes and concentrated on that moment. After a minute or so, I felt something different inside of me; some sort of new emotion growing inside of me. As I opened my eyes, in the path in front of me grew a light pink rose in between the cracks between the cobblestone. Sure enough this rose reminded me exactly of the ones my mom grew.

“That’s very beautiful Jeremy.” Emily said, 'You're quick to learn, it took me days to do something like that on command.”

Wilbur noticed the rose and started to sniff the bloom, “Reminds me of the backyard.” he whimpered. I got down to my knees and picked the rose from the stem it was growing from and handed it to Emily. She blushed and said, “Thank you.” as she placed it in her hair.

We continued our way down the cobblestone path until it came to an end, “We’re close.” Emily said while we stepped off of the stone path. We continued through a thick dark forest that blocked out most of the sunlight. For about an hour we traveled through the forest before I said, “I thought you said we were close.”

“Yes, we are close” She responded, “It’ll be at least another hour before we get there.” I sighed as she said this and started to walk a little faster so I could catch up with her again. Although we could not see the sun, we felt it set as the forest started to grow colder. I started to shiver as soon as I felt the cold air touch my skin under my armor. As the forest grew darker, Emily created a small flame in her hands in order to see further in front of us. We journeyed on in the darkness of the forest for a while longer until Emily interrupted the silence and said, “We’re here.” In front of us was nothing but more forest.

“Where’s here?” I asked Emily.

“Belleville.’ She replied.

“I don’t see it.”

“Well, technically we’re not there yet. We’re about fifteen feet from it.”

Before I could say anything else, Emily walked forward between two large red trees and seemingly vanished. Wilbur quickly ran after her and as he ran between the two trees, he as well vanished. I decided to follow along and stepped between the two trees. As I did, the forest around me started to reform into a large open plain with the large red trees surrounding the entire area. In this plain was a large village that a river ran through. It was as bright as day although you could still see the stars and moon burning in the night sky. I noticed Emily was standing by my side as I absorbed the beautiful sight, “Welcome to Belleville.” she said as she once again took me by the hand and started to walk our way towards the village.

“Your mother lives here?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yes, she’s always liked to live in nature rather than cities like my father.”

“My mom is like that too, she loves the wild.”

As I said this she turned to me and said, “That explains a lot.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because you’re a druid and you’re connected to nature, I imagine your mother was the same way. What was your father like?”

“Couldn’t say, I’ve never met him though my mom does talk about him a lot. She always tells me that I am just like him.”

“I’m sorry, what happened to him?” She asked empathetically

“She told me he had just left one day never to return.”

I sighed and she squeezed my hand and said, “I know what that feels like now.”

We continued our way through the village. The roads were empty other than an occasional towns guard who would greet us with a smile. We made our way to one of the houses and Emily knocked on the door. A few moments later, the door swung open gently and stood behind it was a tall elven woman who wore a long green silk nightgown, her hair was a shade of a very light blonde and reached well past her shoulders. As she saw Emily, she nearly cried with joy, “Emily it’s been so long, why have you come at such a late hour.” she said as she gave Emily a hug.

“I’ll explain more once we get inside, but for now, I’d like you to meet my personal guard Jeremy and his faithful companion Wilbur.”

Her mother looked me up and down for a second and held her hand out for me to shake, “It’s a pleasure Jeremy, I’m Sonya. Thank you for protecting my daughter on the fierce trails out here.” She welcomed us inside and gave us a seat at the dinner table, “I would have had something prepared if I had known you were coming, you need to warn me next time.”

“I had no choice mother, our city had been destroyed.”

Hearing this almost made Sonya drop the pot of tea she had been pouring for us, “What! How could this happen?”

“Well, it's a long story but the main point is that the Demon Queen is attacking once again.”

“I knew I shouldn't have let her live last time we defeated her.”

“How will we defeat her this time? She controls a dragon.” Emily asked.

“A dragon? How could she get her hands on one of those?”

“I barely know anything mother, it happened so unexpectedly.”

Sonya set a cup of tea in front of Emily and I and she poured a bowl of water for Wilbur which he happily lapped up, “And what do you know about this Jeremy?”

“Well, the only thing I know is that the Demon Queen is after me. She needs me to pay a debt or something along those lines.”

“A debt? What do you owe her?”

“I haven't the slightest clue. The only thing I know is that she’s given me this sword that was crafted by your husband.” I said after taking a sip of tea.

“What sword is this?” She asked. I pulled the sword from my belt and showed her, “How’d she get her hands on this?”

Emily set her cup of tea down and answered, “She stole it from his forge somehow.”

“Interesting.” She replied, “Well, I know of a way we could defeat her, it requires a very expensive gem. Luckily tomorrow the jeweler is holding an auction on rare gems, perhaps we could obtain it from there?.”

“Mother, what are you talking about? You’re not talking about summoning-”

“Yes Emily, we are going to summon him, unless you have a better idea.”

“Excuse me, but what are we talking about?” I interrupted.

“None of your concern!’ They shouted in unison.

“Well, we should get to bed, mother. We can attempt your plan in the morning.” Emily stood up from the table and started her way towards the stairs. I followed along and walked up the stairs with her. We walked into a room with a large king sized bed that was bedded with royal blue blankets and pillows. Emily climbed underneath the blankets and fell asleep within minutes. I took my armor off and set it next to the bed. I was about to climb under the covers until I heard Sonya from the hallway, “Jeremy, may I have a word with you?”

“Yes, of course.” I answered.

She led me down the hallway and into another bedroom, “Is there anything you’re not telling me about the Demon Queen.”

“Well, she has shown up in my dreams a few times, but not since Emily had cleansed me from her- except shortly before the dragon attacked.”

“What happened then?” She urged me.

“She wanted me to kill Emily to gain her trust, but I didn’t listen to her. Then when I disobeyed her commands, she destroyed the city.” I answered

“Do you suspect her curse is still inside of you?”

“Possibly.” I said with uncertainty.

“If you ever suspect her to be controlling you, tell me and I can try to cure you. Well, you should get some rest for tonight, we have a long day tomorrow.”

She led me back to my room and wished me goodnight. I climbed underneath the covers and gave Wilbur a hug as I wished him a goodnight as well.