"Patience is Bitter, but Its Fruit is Sweet." --- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    Mina panted as she ran. She had never run so hard before, but she was scared. Whatever that creature crawling in the flowers was spooked her, and by the way the plants were moved by it, it must have surely been larger than a bunny.

Spotting the nearest cover, the girl darted to safety. Mina looked around at her surroundings while trying to steady her worried breathing. Petite baby pink flowers sprouted above her head, and skinny, wire-like branches unfurled around her. The sweet fragrance of the tree distracted her, and she released a yelp when the creature with the chocolate brown eyes crouched before her.

Those chocolate brown eyes belonged to a girl. A beautiful girl, Mina thought, with equally as chocolate hair that fell in messy waves over her shoulders.That pretty and wavy and chocolate hair framed two round eyes, a straight nose, and pouty lips the color of raspberries. Her skin, not damaged but rather kissed by the sun, was dusted with pale gold. Her body, which Mina only dreamed to possess herself, was clothed in merely a short, loose fabric as a blouse, and the small article was draped onto two glowing shoulders by thin hand-woven straps.

The pretty girl stealthily inched forward, and Mina shakily shifted backwards-- backwards into the tree’s trunk. The dark-haired girl perched directly in front of Mina, and she halted her face when it was nearly