"Onyx!" a young girl with pale red hair called down a flight of oak stairs. "Onyx, have you seen my secateurs?"

"I believe they were still in the box with your other gardening supplies," A large, well-built man with messy black hair and stubble that connected to his sideburns called back.

"Well, where's that?" the young girl called back, tugging her arms through a forest green hoodie.

"Still downstairs I believe, your highness," Onyx answered, setting the large moving box down and wiping his brow with the black sweater he was wearing.

"Onyx," the girl rolled her eyes as she came down the stairs, "I told you, you can't call me that here. People will notice. And you've known me long enough to call me by my first name."

"Apologies, your high… I mean, Prin…" Onyx stopped himself and cleared his throat. "Rose." He finally said, feeling uncomfortable with the informality. Rose covered her mouth as she giggled at her caretaker.

"Thank you, Onyx. Now, which box did you see my secateurs in?"

"The one next to the cupboard's door."

"Thank you, Onyx~" Rose sung as she opened the flaps to the box and rummaged around until she found a pair of rose ornamented secateurs.

Rose Wilderflower and her caretaker/bodyguard Onyx Blackstones were unpacking their various items into their new home for the foreseeable future.

17 Hopton Rd, Trolberg. A city situated on the edge of the sea and smack dab in the middle of troll country. Neither Rose nor Onyx were very happy with the reason why they had to move here, but both were trying to make the most of the unfamiliar environment.

Rose returned upstairs, secateurs in hand, to continue the pruning of her small Azalea bonsai tree. Focusing on the pink-ish flowers, she tried to enjoy herself and ignore the sad memories in the back of her head trying to wriggle their way in.

"Your highness, we must leave quickly!"

"Mother!"

"There isn't anywhere you can hide! We will find you girly!"

Taking a deep breath, Rose ignored the thoughts and returned to her miniature tree.

~ROSE~WILDERFLOWER~

Sometime later (after unpacking) ...

In the streets of Trolberg...

Rose and Onyx were had to decide to take a walk through their new city, to familiarize themselves with the new environment. Or, as Onyx had dubbed it, (with reprimanding from Rose,) 'scouting'.

"Have you ever been here before, Onyx?" Rose asked, inspecting her surroundings in awe.

Onyx chuckled. "Yes, Rose," Onyx answered, still unhappy with the informality. "All guards are required to spend a set amount of time in such an environment should the need to live in one ever arise."

"So can you tell me what that is then?" Rose asked, pointing at something. Onyx followed her finger to see what she meant and chuckled again when he realized the object of her confusion.

"That, Rose, is a car. The people here use it as a means of transportation." Onyx explained, mirth playing in his voice. Rose, satisfied with the answer continued her jaunty walk down the sidewalk.

This process of walking along and questioning Onyx of different things about the city continued until the pair drifted a bit further into the centre of the city. The pair began noticing people in costumes and large parade floats, all in the theme of birds. Once again, Rose had a question, albeit a bit bigger than before.

"Onyx, what is all this?" Rose asked, watching some more bird-costumed people tend to more bird-themed floats.

"I believe..." Onyx began, racking his brain for what this was, snapping his fingers when it finally came to him. "I believe this is the Trolberg bird parade! They have this parade once a year in honour of the great raven."

"Oooh, what that?" Rose asked, now even more interested.

"Apparently, it's the messenger of a god that was worshipped around here a very long time ago." Onyx scratched his chin, "Now that I think about it, there may be a statue of the god around here somewhere if you'd like me to show you."

"Yes please!" Rose agreed, interested in the funny customs that these people had.

A short bit of walking later and the two had arrived. At a very large statue of a man with quite a large beard, a cap and a spear in their left hand. However, Rose was distracted by something far more interesting.

"Is that an elf?" Rose observed, look at the base of the statue where a black bird had an elf on their head.

Onyx squinted before surprise took him as well. "You know what? I do believe it is... But what one is doing in the city? I thought they all lived in elf country, and that is quite the distance from here."

"Hm, hm." Rose nodded. "I'm going to find out." She said before trotting over to the elf.

"Ah! Rose, you can't go running off like that!" Onyx said, before following.

~ROSE~WILDERFLOWER~

"Ahh, that was a close call," Alfur commented after he and the raven he was accompanying evaded some stray cats. A feat that is far more dangerous than it sounds when you're a tenth of their size.

"Yeah..." The raven agreed, "But now we're totally lost! We'll never find that statue!"

"Hello there!"

"Ah!" Both Alfur and the raven exclaimed once they noticed the pale-red-haired girl that had appeared in front of them.

"Sorry for bothering you, but I just had a question!" The girl continued. "I'm Rose, by the way."

"Oh, you want to know why I can talk, don't ya?" the raven predicted. "Well, I am truly sorry, but I-"

"N-no, sorry, not really..." Rose interrupted. "But no, what I was wondering, is what an elf was doing in the City?"

"Wait, you can see me?" Alfur asked in surprise.

Rose nodded happily. "Oh yes. My family have been in a close relationship with the elves for quite a number of generations now." Rose explained.

"Oh, well, that does explain that then..." Alfur nodded. "Well, my name is Alfur. I'm sorry but what was your question again?"

"What were you doing in Trolberg?" Rose provided.

"Oh, I came here with my friend, Hilda. I'm filing reports about the city life!" Alfur happily explained. Then he paused in thought. "Um, actually, if it isn't too much trouble actually, we were looking for my friend now. Would you mind lending a hand?"

"Sure!" Rose replied, offering her hands for the Raven to climb into. "What did she look like?"

"Well, she had blue hair..."

"I knew you could talk!"

"Huh?" Rose questioned as she turned around and saw a boy about her age, wearing a beanie over his brown hair.

"That bird! He can talk!" The boy repeated.

"Um... yes?" Rose agreed, tilting her head to the side in confusion, even though it was Alfur who talked. "All birds can talk. Not many people like to listen to them though. And that is quite fair, a lot of birds are quite rude..."

"No!" the boy rudely interrupted, "That bird can talk like a person! Give it to me! I need to show everyone I'm not crazy!" he said, making to grab the bird, only to have Rose hold them away from him.

"Hey! You can't just go grabbing people like that, bird or not!" Rose frowned.

"I don't care! Give it to me!" the boy growled, making another grab for the bird. Rose, seeing that he wasn't going to give up easily, turned and jogged away over to Onyx.

"Ah! Rose! There you a-" Onyx began, only to be cut off my Rose grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

"Later, Onyx! We need to find a blue-haired girl named Hilda!" Rose explained rapidly.

"I... okay?" Onyx replied, confused.

~ROSE~WILDERFLOWER~

"...And that's when we found you, right?" Rose asked, after having listened to Alfur and the raven's story about what happened to them.

"Yes!" the raven confirmed exasperatedly from her arms. "And we're still no closer to finding my memories!"

"Hm. We should go and find Hilda then." Rose decided.

"Wait, if you two were trying to reach the statue, then why did you ask us to help you find your friend to help you find the statue... when you were already there?" Onyx asked.

Everyone paused to digest what Onyx had just said before both the Alfur and the raven facepalmed. Well, face-wing in the raven's case.

Rose giggled at the two. They were very amusing.

"It's okay you two," She said, "We can just go back there now, maybe your friend Hilda is already there."

"Hey look! There they are!"

The group all turned to see a blue-haired girl wearing a beret and yellow scarf run into view with a brunette woman right behind her.

"Blue hair..." Rose said to herself whilst inspecting the girl. "Is that Hilda?" she asked Alfur.

"Yes! Hilda!" Alfur answered before calling over to the girl. Hilda, and who Rose presumed to be her mother, stopped in front of Rose.

"Hi!" Rose greeted, "You must be Hilda! Your friends here have been looking for you!"

"Yes, we got a tad... separated," Hilda explained with an embarrassed expression. "Wait, did you say friends? You can see Alfur?"

Rose nodded. "Yep. Signed the papers years ago." Rose offered her hand to shake. "I'm Rose, I just moved here."

Hilda faltered for a moment before smiling and taking Rose's hand. "Hilda. I also just moved here."

"Uh, Hilda," Hilda's mother (that was the only reasonable assumption Rose could make) interrupted, "But didn't you need to do something?"

"Oh! Right!" Hilda turned to look at the raven. "I know who you are! You're the Great Raven!"

"The Great Raven..." The raven pondered. After a few moments, his eyes went wide with a gasp. What happened next caused everyone else to shield their eyes as electricity began shooting off the raven as he rapidly grew in size.

"I remember EVERYTHING!" Raven exclaimed, expanding his now giant wings. He then glanced at Hilda. "I told you I was bigger. I only take that little form when I'm being discrete."

"I knew it!" Hilda shouted gleefully. "I knew you were the Great Raven!"

"Weeeeellllll... not exactly," Raven admitted, looking away shamefully.

"What?" Everyone questioned aloud together.

"It was all a big misunderstanding actually." Raven began explaining. "A long long time ago I was passing over this city, and I landed on the statue I was telling you about, the one of the bearded man." Raven paused to get a nod of confirmation from Hilda. "The people thought I was the raven messenger of the god I worshipped! That year, there was a great harvest, and everybody prospered! They thought it was my doing, so they started this whole festival in my honour."

"But what about the bad year?" Hilda asked, voicing the question that was on everyone's mind.

"Aghh... That was the year I missed the festival. I was off somewhere else! The bad luck had nothing to do with me, but everyone thought that they had displeased me! So I decided to make the effort of making it every year."

"But if you're not the Great Rave," Hilda's mother began, "Then what are you?"

"I'm a thunderbird." Raven smiled, which was an odd thing to see on a bird. Before anybody else could ask any more questions, they were interrupted by a very loud gasp from Rose.

"Y-you're a real thunderbird?! Really truly?!" She asked, eyes sparkling.

"Uh-huh." Raven nodded.

Rose gave off a squeal. "Oooh! I've always wanted to meet a thunderbird! Do you mind if I have one of your feathers?"

"Uhh, sure?" Raven nodded, a little confused. He then used his wings to easily pluck one of his tail feathers. "Here ya go."

"Thanks!" Rosed said as she accepted the feather, proceeding to put it in her satchel.

"Wait, wait, wait, just what exactly is a thunderbird?" Hilda asked.

"Ooh! Ooh!" Rose bounced up and down. "they're size-changing birds that can conjure lightning!"

"Ah, yeah. Pretty much that." Raven nodded, gesturing to Rose with a wing. "Now, I've got a parade to get to, thank you for everything Tilda!" and with that, Raven spread his wings and took off.

"It's Hilda actu- oh what's the point." Alfur groaned, giving up on trying to correct Raven.

~ROSE~WILDERFLOWER~

"...It is a great spot though," Hilda said to her mother as she watched the parade from the wall. "How did you know about this?"

Johanna smiled before answering her daughter. "This is where I used to come to watch the parade when I was your age." She then looked away sadly. "I know that it doesn't really match some of the views you had back in the wilderness, however."

Hilda smiled and put a comforting hand on her mother's leg.

"Actually, I think this is just as good," Hilda said. Johanna smiled and pulled her daughter closer into a one-armed hug.

"Room for two more?" a familiar deep voice asked.

The two looked down to see Rose and Onyx looking up to them from the street. Hilda and Johanna looked to one another before Johanna nodded and they turned back to the other pair.

"Sure! Why not?" Hilda replied, motioning for them to come up. Taking that as their cue, Onyx hefted Rose up first, before following himself.

"Hi again." Rose greeted.

"Hi," Hilda replied, gathering the courage to ask a certain question. Gulping she decided sooner was better than later. "Um, do you... want to be friends?"

Rose looked at the blue-haired girl with a blank expression before it lit up with a grin. "Sure! I'd love to be your friend, Hilda!"

The rest of Hilda's nervousness faded away as she allowed herself to smile too.

The friendship just made, here and now, would last a very long time.

It will go on great adventures,

Difficult times,

And grow much stronger than either thought it would.

Rose Wilderflower and Hilda Lundin*.

A friendship to rock the world.

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Elsewhere, far underground in burrows...

"Did ya find da gurl?"

"Nah, ol' Blacky got 'er out."

"Well, where'd dey go?"

"Dunno, 'em's scent goes some're stinky. Tis 'orrible it is."

"Blagraggit. Them twos must've scamped off to eh 'uman village."

"...'ell how we ginnur git 'er then?"

"Dunno, but I may 'ave a plan..."


*I know that Hilda doesn't have an actual confirmed last name, so I made one up for her.

Hope you enjoyed it, and leave a comment if you did

Cya~