"Don't go too far, there are clouds on the horizon!" shouted Rose's mom, as she left home for a walk. "Ok mom!", she shouted back.
The weather was cool and a bit windy, which was just the sort of weather she liked best for a walk. Not too cold, not too hot, but just cool enough to be refreshing as she exerted herself by running and climbing around. This meant that it didn't take her very long to reach her destination.
"Not too far" had a very strict limit to it, which was the river that passed through the land. Somewhere on the other side of it dwelt predators, which was why every nearby village regularly patrolled the area to ensure no predator had made a bridge across it. There was nothing for prey to seek on the other side except death, and as for the predators, the river was too fast, deep and rocky to make risk swimming across it a good idea.
Today though, the situation was different. An old, huge tree had fallen and bridged the gap to the other side. Rose walked up to it, and stopped in deep thought. There wasn't any doubt that the tree would be removed as soon as the next patrol came by, which probably wouldn't take more than a day.
The trunk seemed more than solid enough to walk across, and Rose was feeling very curious. She couldn't see anything interesting on the other side because the land was higher on the opposite side of the river, so whatever could be there was a complete mystery to her. The only way to find out would be to walk across to the other side and climb the river bank.
Rose considered her options. She probably should just leave it alone, go home, and perhaps tell about the tree to the patrol team. But the more interesting thing to do would be to take a quick look first. This opportunity would be very unlikely to repeat itself, and as far as she knew, there weren't any predators on the other side, as there was no way for them to cross normally. And if there was one now, there was nothing she could to stop it from crossing over.
In the end, curiosity won the battle, and after carefully stomping on the tree a few times to make sure it wasn't about to break under her, she crossed over. Part of it had the bark stripped off the trunk, so she had to walk very carefully, but the made it to the other side without any major trouble. A short while later she had climbed the hill, slowly and carefully rose to her feet while looking out for predators on all sides, and saw the other side for the first time.
The land was mostly flat, and stretched far in front of her. There were some mountains far away to the left, and the right side was dominated by a large lake. The area was very quiet, and fortunately, Rose didn't see any predators from her position.
"Wooow", said Rose to herself. That lake looked awfully inviting. The one her village had access to looked small and dirty in comparison. There wasn't anything very tall growing on the side she was looking at either, so she was getting a great view of it.
After standing there for a while, Rose noticed there was some sort of cabin on the lake's shore. "I wonder what is that", she thought. Having already broken a bunch of rules, and not seeing any movement anywhere, she figured that at least she could try coming a bit closer and get a better look. Carefully moving from tree to tree to have some cover, she got closer and closer, until she was standing behind the last tree that bordered the clearing around the cabin.
It was fascinating. The building's style and craftsmanship was unlike anything she had seen in her town. Even the town hall, which was very well built was less impressive looking. Somebody definitely had spent a lot of time and effort on building a home like this. It was made from huge, whole tree trunks and seemed solid enough to withstand anything. "Who lives here?", she wondered. "What did they make it for? Could it be a shelter?". Certainly, she thought, anybody building something that solid looking had to have defense in mind. Even a bear would probably find it impossible to break into something like that. That would be fitting for somebody living in predator territory.
As she was standing there admiring this unusual piece of work and reflecting about its purpose, a drop fell on her nose, and shortly afterwards, another. Rose looked at the sky and noticed that it had darkened considerably. "Shit!", she swore. She had to get back home immediately, because it looked like the weather was about to get ugly. The rain quickly picked up, and the formerly solid ground got muddy and slippery. By the time she arrived at the river she was soaking wet, and dirty from having slipped a few times. The rain was now falling in torrents, making it hard to see much ahead. She climbed down to the river bank with great difficulty, but saw that the torrential rain had made it impossible to cross. The bare parts of the trunk were now so wet and slippery that she was sure that if she crossed now, she'd just fall into the raging water beneath.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" berated herself Rose, standing there cold, wet and having no idea what to do next. The sky was now dark all around, the rain was freezing, and she was afraid that at this rate she'd catch some sickness and die. She had to find some sort of refuge while things hadn't gotten even worse.
Cursing at her stupidity, she climbed up again with great effort, after slipping off several times and covering herself in wet mud. At least now she could wait it out under a tree, which was a slight improvement. Unfortunately that didn't last long either, as lightning split the sky terrifyingly close to her position. Rose sprang to her feet and ran in fear, trying to at least get further away from it.
After a few minutes she had found herself next to the cabin again. Standing under a tree in a lightning storm was a very bad idea, but if she could get inside, it'd be the perfect place to wait it out.
Not knowing anything about where she was, she had to do it carefully of course. Rose ran up to the wall, and carefully listened. There was no sound coming from the inside. Then she slowly and carefully approached the window, and took a very quick peek from the edge. Nothing seemed to be moving inside. She ducked under the window, and did the same from the other side of it, with the same result. After circling the cabin and making sure it seemed unoccupied, she carefully pushed on the door, and it opened.
Rose walked in, and looked around. This was like no home she had ever seen before. The same remarkable craftsmanship she saw outside was also present on the inside, even more so. The place was full of objects she'd never seen before, or even could guess the purpose of. Finally she found something she did recognize: three hammers, hanging from the wall. Only even that looked like works of art. Her father only owned one, and would sometimes improvise by using a rock if his didn't seem good enough. And here there were no less than three, all beautifully made and with different, complex shapes. Who made this?
Looking around some more, she came across a most wondrous object. It was a sort of transparent, elongated ball, only there seemed to be some sort of delicate string inside. She carefully examined it from all sides, and carefully poked it with her finger. It was set on a support stand of some kind, perhaps to better display such amazing work. There was a string of some material she didn't recognize that was attached to the base, and went somewhere behind the desk it was standing on. As she carefully poked and prodded at it, she noticed that a part of it yielded to her touch. After carefully poking it for a bit, she finally dared to press harder. Suddenly, there was a sharp sound, and her eyes were blinded by light.
Rose backed away in a panic, and retreated to a corner. Nothing else seemed to be happening, so after gathering her courage for a few minutes, she came closer. The wondrous object was now blindingly bright, and illuminating the room. It also produced a very pleasant warmth. She thought of everything she had learned in school so far, or seen in her village, and nothing seemed like it. It had to be some sort of magic.
At that point it came to Rose's mind that whoever all this stuff belonged to, they probably liked it a lot, and wouldn't want some strange kid messing with it. So she'd best make plans to leave as soon as the storm stopped. The first step was to dry herself out, so she removed her clothes, and wrung as much water from them as she could. The heat the mysterious shining object was producing wasn't much, so she got as close as she could to it, and also brought her clothes closer, to make them dry as fast as possible. It had nothing on a decent campfire, but still, it helped a lot.
Time passed slowly. The rain kept on pouring outside, her fur and the clothes dried slowly, and Rose started thinking of how she was going to explain this to her parents. They would be very disappointed, that was certain. At age eleven, to cross into predator territory, get caught in a storm, and then break into some stranger's home was not just stupid, it was almost a suicidal. Even her youngest brother would know not to do that. And she was almost an adult, ready to start raising children and take on other serious responsibilities. Perhaps there could be some way to explain this mess in some way that wouldn't result in rumors or some embarrassing nickname following her around for the rest of her life. At least she was smart enough not to try crossing that tree trunk in the rain and managed to find herself a refuge. Could that help?
While she was preoccupied with such matters, she had failed to notice that the rain had stopped several minutes ago, and her shirt was still quite wet. She could hear the weather outside was still quite windy, and being wet in such conditions wasn't good. In a rush, she brought her wet shirt too close to the shining object. There was a hiss, loud crack, and a flash of light, followed by darkness. Rose looked at the broken device in horror. That wasn't good. That thing was probably some sort of irreplaceable, priceless heirloom. She had to get out of there as fast as possible, before she broke anything else, or the weather got bad again.
Rose hurriedly gave the shirt another squeeze to try to wring a few more drops of it, before putting it back on and taking a few careful looks out of the window. Seeing everything still looked quiet out there, she let out a sigh of relief. Good, now she just had to run back home as far as she could and...
Her thoughts were abruptly cut off as suddenly the door opened with a loud creak. She whirled around, and saw a large figure in the doorway. It was mostly hidden in the shadows, but she could clearly see the large, slit eyes shining in the darkness.
