~Father had always told me that once, Pesmeria was a country teeming with life.

Trees grew taller than even the palace turrets, and their leaves canopied the world below, allowing only the faintest glimmer of sunlight to pass through their shelter.

There were no cities, or grand structures as I'd come to know them- no dark, depressing walls of stone to keep out even the tiniest blade of grass.

            But the part of my father's histories that I always looked forward to the most were his tales of magic. How long ago, humans had learned to shape the world to their will.

But as is usually the case with overwhelming power, magic was used too liberally, to the point where it was taken away completely by nature itself, leaving us to fend for ourselves against the environment that had once offered us so much. Instead, Pesmeria had become a dangerous, wild place unfit for men to live in, unprotected.

It was my father's theory that it was at this time that we began to shut out the natural world with stone chipped from the enormous base of the Séance Mountains to the east, and now, there was no forest left where we lived.

Only the cold, hard shelter that grey stone provides. We couldn't even grow food, and without food, no animals could thrive either. In order to eat, caravans after caravans were sent to far off countries, where the land was still fertile, by way of large, stone tunnels.

The only goods that could survive the journey were dried fruits, meats and other things that were easily preservable, but not very tasty.

            One might wonder why our ancestors stayed, why they didn't simply move on to better places. But the people of Pesmeria are remarkably stubborn, and unbelievably proud of the stonework they've accomplished.

To them, the protection of cold, hard stone far outweighed the appeal of green pastures and edible food. It was more of an accomplishment to survive through adversity.

Father's stories were mere legends to my elder siblings, invented to justify his never-ending quest for the strange and unusual.

But as a child I had always held on to every word he spoke of the matter, wishing vehemently that his stories could be true. As I grew older, instead of worrying over the latest fashions like my sisters, I was determined to, alongside my father, discover the last remnants of a world that was once alive and magical.

Most of all, I wanted to see flowers, real flowers up close- not the cleverly designed prints on my sisters' gowns.

(You can say I have a mere obsession with flowers but not to the borderline of creepiness.)

I had so many unanswerable questions, like were flower petals really as soft as I imagined? And did they have a fragrance?

Such notions seemed quite silly to the other people who lived in the bleak, grey stone walls of Fiore, though I always claimed they hadn't any imagination to speak of.

But to leave the safety of stone was strictly forbidden, and if you weren't killed by what was out there first, you'd surely be put to death afterwards.

Although there were other, more experienced treasure hunters like my father, none were able to sniff out the best spots to dig as well as he could.

It was hard but rewarding work, and even though it was a shame to sell some of the especially beautiful things we found, if we wanted to eat we didn't have much of a choice.

Yet we made a fairly good living, and I always had food in my belly and clothes on my back. My siblings did not always have some of the extravagant things they desired, especially during the winter time, when the ground was frozen solid, and digging was difficult.

My father had been offered patronage by one of the most prominent members of the Fiore court.

Duke Lee was a stern man, and although I didn't know much about him, I had heard that he was a connoisseur of the ancient and unusual. In fact, I was fairly certain that we'd sold some of our rarer pieces to him in the past, and it was clear that he'd been impressed with father's work.

We were headed to his manor now, riding in a carriage he'd provided himself. It was finer than any coach I'd ever been in before, and my sisters were enjoying the treatment immensely.

We had all been advised to dress in our best gowns, and my father in his court clothing- which hadn't seen the light of day for at least a year.

My eldest sister, Iris, wore a dress so large the carriage could hardly contain it, the red shade accentuating the golden brown of her eyes. Her ashy blonde hair was styled delicately in loose ringlets and they hung around her face delicately, bouncing a little every time she moved to get a better look at the view out the window.

Lily, older than me by 2 years, decided on a deep green dress, that looked noble by any standards. Her exceedingly long, honey blonde hair was pinned up on her head in a delicate knot. They both were obviously ready to greet royalty.

But that morning was the first time that I realized I hadn't anything to wear suitable enough for an afternoon at court. While my sisters entertained and went to parties, I was usually out with my father, so there had never been a need for anything overly fancy.

As such, I was currently wearing one of Lily's last season gowns, that was too large for me in all the places that I wished it would fit me nicely. It was a deep shade of blue that had faded a little over time, but there was a little embroidery on the sleeves that served to make it look a little bit fancier.

I had also attempted to do something with the mass of crimson red hair on my head, unfortunately inherited from my mother, but it had refused to cooperate and so I resolved to simply braid it. Give me adventure over grooming any day. My father certainly didn't care, so I was certainly not going to worry about it.

"You are going to accept his patronage aren't you father," Iris asked eagerly, since he hadn't really discussed the subject with us at all.

"Well," he answered, his grey brows knitting toget