A sun-washed beach. A pebble studded shore. Salt-stained boulders beneath a shining lighthouse.

Sounds like I'm setting the scene for a romantic getaway.

I definitely am not. I wish I could, but that's not how great stories begin. Sometimes they end that way. Boy meets girl, boy saves girl, boy and girl live happily ever after. Usually in those stories the girl wants to be saved. Those stories don't work so well when the girl wants to save herself.

So the scene is a sort of getaway, but not a romantic one. And I'm going to tell you about a girl--but one who becomes far more than a damsel in distress. I'll tell you how the lives of thousands were changed by this girl who grew into a woman, and into so much more.

Her story begins on that sun-washed beach, in a love-warm home, as the green of the leaves began to turn blood red.

Lex shoved the loaf of bread into her canvas bag and delved into the apple barrel. Before, she had always dug into the apples for her afternoon adventures in the fields around the home. Mammi and Pappi knew, of course, but they didn't mind. They were their families apples. No one else for leagues around to share them with. Besides Tavi, her closest neighbor, but he didn't deserve any.

"Three should do it," she whispered, choosing two with shiny, inviting skin and one with a wrinkling brown bruise. "Three-times best makes you three-times greedy" Mammi would always say. Lex nodded. Take two good ones and be satisfied with that. Mammi would be proud.

Except for the fact that she was storing up food for running away. Lex wasn't sure Mammi would be so proud of that.

A rattle sounded near the storehouse door and Lex ducked behind the apple barrel. Setting her dirt-smudged hand over her heart, she tried to slow it down. She only succeeded in making it go faster.

The sun streamed in through the wide-open storehouse entrance. She had slid the door all the way to the side, which now seemed like a fools' idea. She had done it so it wouldn't look suspicious. The storehouse door was never closed during the day. That did, however, leave her out in the open. And Pappi did plan on doing some work near the storehouse today.

But nothing stirred near the door...until one loose almond rolled off a bag of grain and onto the dirt. In the blink of an eye, a mouse scurried from a pile of hay. In the second blink of an eye, a blur of fur and teeth launched after it, snarling as it whizzed through the air.

Lex smiled. Good burrycat. She'd have to give Chappa a treat later. He really was a much better burry cat than their last one, an unceremonious blob of fur that moved only when kicked or when too cold to stay put. Chappa was a hunter, and a successful one at that. Lex would model some of Chappa's skills in the forest in the days to come. Minus the claws part, plus the dagger.

She patted her hip with satisfaction. Her Pappi had just given the dagger to her for her twelfth birthday--a few birthdays too late in her opinion but appreciated nonetheless. She had of course been practicing with kitchen knives, sticks, fire pokers, large rocks, and sometimes fish as she waited for her very own dagger. So when Pappi finally gave it to her, it hadn't been more than two weeks since she nicked him on the arm for the first time.

The sheen of her many scars reflected the rays of the sun dropping in from the cracks between the hastily constructed storehouse roof. Pappi had given her a few scars as well, of course.

Chappa, their burrycat, sauntered out from the corner of the storehouse, grain and soot filthying his already dirt colored fur. He cast a long, proud look in Lex's direction, then, snatching up the almond that had escaped from the terrified mouse's grasp, he ate that too, and disappeared outside.

Lex watched him go enviously. He was probably going to find a warm spot in the sun to lounge in celebration of his victory over yet another mouse. Lex, unfortunately, did not have the luxury to rest. She wanted to reach the Sepiab forest by nightfall in order to cover her tracks, which meant she needed to have everything she needed within the hour.

Her stomach growled. Don't you get soft on me, she thought, before eyeing up the sack of almonds Mammi had traded for from the northern caravaners. A handful of those almonds didn't seem like such a bad idea.

Slipping out from behind the barrel of apples, Lex somersaulted to the side of the door. Brushing hay out of her hair with one hand, she peeked outside. Chappa lay a mere net-length away from the door, arms spread wide as he lay on his back in the sun. The gentle buzz of fall gnats and the flicker of the last butterflies of the fields caught her attention, but nothing else. Mammi and Pappi were nowhere to be seen, the sea was as gentle as it could manage, and she was alone.

The sack of almonds sagged her direction and the mouth opened for some reason, as if inviting her to take her share. Her share being exactly half, as she estimated--she had caught half the fish Mammi had traded for the almonds. And gutted and pickled all of them. Perhaps work that deserved a little share of the profits.

Her hand paused inches from the bag, however. Not from a sense of guilt, though she knew she should have one for stealing from the main course of their winter star festival. She felt a different sense, a fighter's sense, as Pappi would call it. She knew she should move, but she didn't know why. She hesitated, wondering if she was being stupid.

Then he slammed into her.

"Tavi, no!" Lex reached for her dagger, but Tavi had already pinned her dagger leg down against the ground. With his other hand, he brandished a leaf-covered club conveniently shaped the size of Lex's head.

Thunk!

"Ah, Tavi, stop it!" Lex shouted, trying to wiggle to her side. Tavi's knees kept her in place and he sized up another attack on her arm.

"What's the matter, Lexy, can't fight a real man?" Tavi bounced his head back and forth, his long hair flopping after him like a lazy shadow.

"I don't think you know what one would look like," Lex said, punching Tavi in the stomach.

Tavi's face turned red, and whatever words were about to come were lost, but he still managed to land another hit of his club on Lex's arm before she wriggled free.

Slipping from his grip, Lex pulled her dagger out and slashed it inches from Tavi's face.

"Whoa, whoa, I was just kidding!" Tavi jumped back from another swipe, holding his leaf-softened club up as protection. He still carried a mocking smile on his face. "See, I even covered up the end this time. You're using a real dagger!"

"Like a couple leaves make it hurt less," Lex said. This wasn't the first time Tavi had jumped her, but it was the first since she had a dagger. And this certainly wasn't the first time she wished she could slash a dagger across his stupid grinning face.

"It would if you weren't such a nanny-girl. I tested it out on myself, it doesn't even hurt a little." Tavi tapped his shin with his club to prove his point, tutting his thin lips as he did so.

"You need something in your head to actually feel pain. You wouldn't feel it if someone clubbed you over that empty head." Lex smiled back now, pleased with her own comeback. She was even more pleased that while Tavi had been bantering with her, he had allowed her to make her way to the rope that held the rest of the almond bags in place above them.

Tavi's face blushed, though he smiled more. "I could've thunked you really good, you know? I'm cleverer than you'll ever be. You walked right into my trap. You're the empty head. Stuck out here all by yourself with no one to teach you properly but your Mammi and Pappi who don't know anything but smelling like fish. That's what my dad says, he says fish got to your head, that's why you stay out here all the time and don't join the rest of us."

"You shouldn't talk so much," Lex said, gripping the rope that would release the almonds. She used one hand to wipe her eyes. Her arm hurt, and his words hurt, but to concede that would mean Tavi had won. And that's not how they played this game of theirs. She fought until she won. Every time.

"You shouldn't stink so much," Tavi said. "Then we'd let you join us in the town."

"Towns are for people who can't take care of themselves."

"Towns are for people who don't smell like fish tai--"

Lex made Tavi swallow the last words in a pile of almonds and chaff. Over ten bags of high quality nuts slammed into Tavi's shoulder and back as Lex pulled the rope that released them. Tavi fell forward and a mess of almonds spread around him as he groaned.

Lex slipped between open spots of ground and snatched up his club before running to the edge of the door and placing a hand on her hip. "Now what're you gonna do?"

Tavi rubbed his head and groaned. Then he tried to get up, only to slip on the loose almonds at his feet.

Lex let out a triumphant giggle. "If you were as smart as me you wouldn't have been caught in this mess."

"If you were as smart as me," Tavi said, laying full down on the ground and picking up an almond in his mouth before eating it, "You would eat the almonds instead of using them as weapons."

Before Lex could answer, Tavi threw a handful of almonds at her. She caught one, giggling, then popped it into her mouth. "You do have a point."

Between throwing two more handfuls at her, he regained the stupid smile on his face. "So what're you doing out here anyway?"

Lex shook her head. "Stuff."

Tavi hadn't asked for an answer. Picking himself up, he ran for the door, ignoring Lex's threatening dagger. "Whatever, forget about the stuff, my parents brought a surprise for you!"

Lex's heart skipped as hearts do when surprises are mentioned. "What'do you mean, a surprise?"

But Tavi was already running for her house, the calloused brown of his feet flicking up with each stride through their fields. Lex had wondered what Tavi was doing at her home, but in the mess of their struggle she hadn't been able to ask. Or even wanted to. He probably would have said something stupid.​

He was half-way to her home before he stopped, waist-deep in resa crops, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "What're you waiting for?"

Lex glanced at her canvas bag, prepped for her runaway journey. She had promised herself that she wouldn't put it off any longer. At first she waited because she didn't have a weapon. Even she wasn't silly enough to run into the surrounding forest without a way to defend herself. She had tried with carved wood, clubs, slingshots, bows and even pans, but none of them were fearsome enough to give her courage in the face of the growling predators in the Sepiab forest. But now she had a dagger--and she was pretty good at using it too. And she had already packed her other things. If she didn't go now, then when would she?

Then again, Tavi did say his parents had brought her a surprise.

Lex quickly swept the heap of almonds to the side with her feet and stashed her runaway bag underneath them. She'd have to clean up the almonds before Pappi got out here, of course, but now that she had made her decision to see the surprise, everything else could wait. Even the rest of her life beyond the Sepiab forest.

Tavi's hands snapped down as he saw Lex sprinting towards him, and he tripped before managing to turn around and scramble towards her home. His long brown hair whipped his shoulders and back, spurring him on.

But Lex smelled victory, and she would have it for the second time. Pumping her arms like Mammi had taught her, she flew through the resa crops as well as she knew how. Churning her legs high up and down, she managed to avoid the full grip of the tiny thorns along the base of the resa plants. Tavi had less experience--stupid town dweller--and was clearly working harder than she just to keep moving.

The glossy purple resa stalks parted at her shoulders, allowing the daughter of these fields through. The sun overhead lit the sea on fire and its warmed winds carried the smell of salt and future dinners to her nose. Their magnificent lighthouse sat vigilant against the waters, ready for its duties to change from playhouse for Lex by day to guardian for travelers during the night. A flash of white--a sail?--licked the top of the sea, but it was too far away, and Lex had other things on her mind. She burst into a huge smile as she crested the small hill, on the other side of which sat her home, nestled into the natural wall before the soil turned to sand. This was her home, and she wasn't planning on running away from it because it was dreadful.

It was, she guessed, the best place in the world. She just wanted to have the freedom to explore and find that out for sure.

Gentle puffs of smoke emerged from the ground just in front of her, from one of the chimneys allowing escape for the smoke captured in the fire of their home just beneath her. She jumped over it, and not until she reached the other side of the hill, where the log walls of her home jutted out from the hill to create the front rooms, did she realize that Tavi was not to be found.

Or anything that resembled Tavi.

Red and puffy, Tavi emerged over the top of the hill. He shuffled like a snowbird, ankles fastened together by the briars from the base of the resa plants. "Don't even talk, nanny-girl."

Lex smiled, puffing out her chest. "Do you need any help? Or are you scared that everybody in your fancy town​ is going to find out you needed help from a nanny-girl?"

"Shove your face in a rabbit hole, Lexy." Tavi stuck out his tongue, then turned to prying the briars from his pants.

"Shut up." Lex flicked a piece of bark by the door at his feet before spinning to her door. She hated being called Lexy, but her parents would be upset if they found out she hadn't helped him with the briars. "Use that. It'll get them off way faster."

Tavi ignored the bark until Lex was opening the door, when she saw him snatch it up and start to scrape. She opened the door with a smirk on her face. "Not bad for a nanny-gi--"

Her words caught in her throat as she caught Mammi's eyes. Pappi stood there too, sun-browned hands held to the fire. Tavi's parents sat on tree-trunk stools, backs to her. But Lex only saw her mother's eyes. Eyes brimming with apology at what the mouth had no choice but to say. Eyes fixed on Lex, as if painting a mental keepsake before what she held in her lap would turn Lex into something else.

"Alexa, dear," Mammi said, and for the first time Lex saw her mother's eyes rimmed with red from what must have been tears moments before. She managed a smile, as soft and sweet as a feather. "We have a surprise for you."

She held up the small creature in her lap, and its head flopped to the side, slick as if weighed down with sweat, with whiskers that drooped to the floor. The sky-blue fur above its nose parted to reveal one dark eye, the size of a large egg--the other eye was covered by an uncooperative floppy ear. "He is a Haion. He says he belongs to you."

Despite the serious look on mother's face, Lex broke out into a smile.

He is a Haion. He says he belongs to you.

That was all Lex heard before her mind went spinning. She had been planning on running away, on seeing the world, on adventure. All of those things had come to her in a package smaller than seemed possible.

The Haion whimpered as Tavi burst in, and Tavi's father, Engre, stepped quickly forward to scoop the pup into his arms. It's purple tinged ears flopped over his arms as Engre deposited the Haion safely into its vessel. Tavi leaned as if to peek, but Engre shook his head.

They made no mention of the torn bottoms of Tavi's pants or his puffed up face. His parents, Engre and Dali, had their eyes on Lex.

She wiggled a little bit in place. The single greatest thing in her life had just happened and they all seemed to think that she had been given her death prophecy. The single dark eye of the Haion burned in her mind. All appearances marked it as an eccentric dog puppy, but that eye, filled with knowledge and foreboding, betrayed that it was much more.

"Lex," Pappi started, before brushing short beard free from crumbs, "We didn't pick this for y--"

"Thank you!" Lex shouted, finally making the decision to move and managing an emotion that seemed mostly orderly. Gratitude. "Thank you so much!"

His gruff hand cupped the back of her short, black hair, holding her tight to his stomach--she only came up that high on her giant of a father. "Your--your welcome, Lex."

"Alexa, you know what this means?" Mammi said, laying a hand on Lex's shoulder.

Lex promptly drew her mother into the hug, finding plenty of gratitude within her for everyone.

"Alexa, there will be many burdens ahead of you," Mammi said, her voice thick. "Burdens we cannot help you with."

"Nonsense," Engre said, his voice much less rich than the silk of Lex's mother. "The Haion is an honor. None who serve one have a care for more pleasure than to be of service."

"Or to be served by those around them," Dali said quietly, then stared back defiantly as Engre threw a sharp gaze her way.

"The Haion rarely choose one so young, and so..." Engre sized up Lex, who had only just know broken from her embrace with her parents. "And so female."

Mammi's grip tightened on Lex's shoulder. "Perhaps the Haion are growing wiser with their choices then."

Engre's face darkened, the intrusive brush of his eyebrows jutting downward. He spoke like he was sucking on a chicken bone. "I pity those who haven't been chosen at all, who neither understand nor appreciate the higher tasks of this world. Lex, girl, you'll be needing to come with me. To greater things. Your parents have already made arrangements."

"What does he mean?" Lex asked, looking up at the grave face of her father.

"You're going to live with us!" Tavi yelled, then took a step back, glancing at his father. "I mean, near us, in the town. A real town Lex! I can finally show you everything I've told you about."

"Quiet dear," Dali said, pulling her son beside her. Nodding at Mammi and Pappi, Dali moved for the door. "We will step outside for a moment. Take what time you need."

Engre huffed, but his wife did not give him a second glance before leaving the home, and Engre soon followed, closing the heavy wood door as he left. The crackle of the fire was the only sound that remained. That and the racing of Lex's beating heart.

A Haion. Adventure and duty and more--more than she had ever imagined. She would explore away and away and bring tales back to her family. The kinds of tales that kept her up at night dreaming and shaking and yearning. She would be in them. Lex's stories, they would call them. And the town would come out to them to hear them.

The town.

"The gathering of people, the town as they call it, is not what they make it sound to be," Pappi said quietly. "More people can be a bad thing. Would you rather have one person thieving or a mob? Would you have a follower of the fallen corrupt one or corrupt many? Lex there is much danger there."

"There is also much opportunity, Karo," Mammi whispered. She rustled Lex's head. "There is perhaps more future there as well."

"They throw this word around like it is a magic spell, Ata. The future is not something we can find in a town. The future is something we create with our two hands, with our dreams and with our work to make them real. The town is a place to lose those things so people can use our dreams and our work to make them a future they think they should have." Pappi's voice had grown louder now. "It is not our duty to sacrifice our lives for their fantasy of a future."

As always, Mammi's voice grew quieter as Pappi's grew louder, though that never made hers less powerful. "Our daughter is not our sacrifice to make, Karo. Not anymore. It is not her duty to delay her dreams for our fantasy either. How old were you when you set out from home?"

"That's the wrong question. I knew where--"

"Karo," Mammi said, cutting her husband off with a tense mention of his name. She continued slowly, and even quieter, "You know I am on your side. I don't wish this for her. But she is going, I have seen it in her already. We do not need to create fear where there should be excitement."

Mammi stroked Lex's cheek, but she pulled back. Their conversation made little sense to her, but she could feel their anxious hold on her, like she was about to fall over the edge of a cliff. "Mammi, why are you and Pappi so afraid?"

"Hush, dear," Mammi answered. "This is a big change, and with any change there is worrying to be done. But you will be fine."

Pappi sighed deeply, then knelt down to look Lex in the eyes. "You will leave tomorrow morning. Make good use of the rest of your day, Lex."

Tomorrow morning. The timeline brought the reality of the situation crashing into her. Suddenly Lex was overwhelmed by all the things she wanted to do that hadn't even crossed her mind earlier. At the forefront was covering up the mess she had created just moments ago. "Pappi, I, I made a mess in the storehouse. Tavi was there, and I--"

Pappi stood up, holding his hands over his belly as he laughed. "No, no, child. No cleaning. Get out of here! Run once more through the meadows. Taste the salt of the sea. Find a windin shell. Go on!"

Before Lex could protest, her father's large hands had pushed her out the door and back into the sunshine. She smiled, pushing against him just enough to make it playful, then stumbled out onto the beach.

"We'll pack up for you," Mammi said, wringing her hands at the base of her tight-fitting cloth shirt. A strand of her jet-black hair--Lex got her hair color from her mother--fell in front of Mammi's face and stuck to the corner of her lips. Her piercing eyes were dry now, redness replaced with the hard determination that Lex had always seen in her. "Your adventure begins tomorrow."

Lex's smile froze in place as the door swung shut, leaving Tavi's parents and hers to discuss whatever it was they needed to discuss. Where she was going to live, she supposed. What she was going to do. Her...training, perhaps. Whatever Haion training involved she did not know. But adventure, that she did know.

At least she thought so. Dreams upon dreams since her childhood had been of adventure in every shape and size. Warriors, raiders, forest ghouls, stars, all of them had at one time been her enemies and at another her allies. The best adventures always did seem to have a fight involved.

"Whatd'ya think?"

Lex groaned. "My last moments at home and I have to spend them with you?"

"Yep," Tavi said. "They wanted you to relive your greatest memories! So, you need me."

"My greatest memories are definitely all ones where you are not there." Lex said, walking towards the shore. "That's probably what made them great."

"Whatever." Tavi jogged up until he was next to her. "I always wanted a Haion."

Lex frowned, picking up a stone smooth enough to skip. She wasn't sure what a Haion was at all, and whether she wanted one or not, but she wasn't about to ask Tavi. He would enjoy knowing something that she didn't, which would ruin her memory-making. She managed an, "I guess."

"I guess!" Tavi said, picking up a handful of pebbles and throwing them underhanded into the sea. Salty wind sprayed sand from the pebbles back into their faces. "It's like a pet and a wizard rolled up into one! You get to do whatever you want, and everybody has to do what you tell them! If I had the Haion I would be charging around the town right now making all the rules."

"Maybe that's why you don't get one," Lex said, skipping a rock three times before it plunked into a small wave.

Tavi swung to punch Lex's arm, but she dipped to the side so he missed. He started to come at her again, but something caught Lex's eye.

"Wait!" she shouted, squinting into the wind. "Did you see anything?"

"No," Tavi said, coming at her.

"Stop, stupid, I saw something," Lex said, holding one hand out to him. More than the crest of the wave, she saw a flash of white on the horizon. The same she had seen at the top of the hill. "Come on!"

Tavi dropped a handful of rocks and scrambled after as Lex dashed around her house to the top of the hill. Holding a hand over her eyes, she scanned the horizon.

Breathing hard, Tavi came up next to her. "What're we even looking for?"

"I dunno, a sail, or a whale," Lex said, still looking. "Something white."

Tavi gave her a look, which she ignored, and started scanning with her. "I don't see anything."

Lex started to formulate another phrase with "stupid" in it, but she didn't see anything either. In fact, she wasn't sure she had seen anything in the first place. But her gut told her she had. She hadn't grown up looking out to see so she could mistake every flash of white for a sail. Helping her father in the lighthouse had trained her to see differences in the water, the unnatural, ships fighting amidst nature. But whatever she had seen, it was gone again.

"Whatever," Tavi said, plopping down on top of the hill. "I wish we could go back right now. The town has a light festival every five-night. We could be dancing and playing with other kids. Even you would like that."

"I'd have to meet the other kids to know that," Lex said, finally turning from the horizon. "They're probably all worse than you."

Tavi kicked at her legs, but she jumped back. His face got even more red, in addition to the puffy marks from fighting the resa plants earlier. He flicked his long brown hair behind his shoulders and said, "I should go get my club from the house again."

Lex ignored him, soaking in her home. Gently waving crops, the beach, the sea, the lighthouse. Throughout the crops to the east, some of those who worked with his father bobbed up and down. Lex had forgotten that it was harvest time for the carrin plants already. She wouldn't be able to help her parents with the harvesting.

Just another thing she was saying goodbye to.

Lex started for the east, deciding that she would say goodbye to Pilu, Wenna and Jil, then goodbye to the shore, the beach, and finally the lighthouse--her second home as Pappi called it. Tonight she would sleep there, keeping an eye out, as always, for those who needed help, like Pappi had taught her.

Then, tomorrow, she would being her adventure.