14 Years Later~
Daleesi broke through the surface, the turquoise sea rocking her as the sun danced along her skin. She pushed her long brown hair back off her face, treading the water alongside her sea ferret, Etu. Locking onto the energy that flowed within the water, she pulled the wave along, laughing as it carried her to shore.
Stepping onto the sand, she twisted her hair over her shoulder, a warm breeze breaking around her. Etu scampered up onto her arm and shook out his fur.
“Today’s finally the day, Etu!” She scratched his ear.
Today was the day she’d waited ten years for. The day she’d trained for, and prepared for, and rehearsed in her mind day and night. It was the day her parents would return home from the war with their village’s water battalion.
Daleesi’s father, Chief Ahote of Gitaskog village, had assembled all the men and women willing to fight and left to join in the two-hundred-year long war effort against the Ice Realm after spending many years staying out of it. Their people had tried to remain peaceful through the Ice War, but everything changed ten years ago when the Ice Realm raided their village. They killed and captured many of their water-givers, bringing destruction to the village. Amongst the prisoners they took were Daleesi’s Aunt Neera.
Devastated by the loss of her sister, Daleesi’s mother, Chieftess Solang, had taken action and left on her own to find her, leaving behind nothing but a note. Her father had decided peacetime was over and assembled their troops to find Solang and their stolen water-givers and bring them home.
After their father and the warriors left, Daleesi and her siblings had been left in the care of their grandfather, Bidzil, and to tend to the village. Things changed quickly as a sickness befell Gitaskog, threatening to take their grandfather as well as nearly half the village. It was then that Daleesi uncovered her spiritual gifts of water healing. While at thirteen her older brother, Mato, became the new chief, nine-year-old little Daleesi became the head healer of Gitaskog.
Healing was deemed her calling, her father and brother denying her the right to become a warrior since she was young. She craved more than being a healer though. She wished to master her water-giving abilities and for the opportunity to fight alongside her parents to help end this bitter war that broke her family apart. Her father had remained firm in his belief that it was not for Daleesi though.
On that last day ten years ago, she’d run out to the docks to her father before he’d departed, begging to leave with him. He’d told her she was too young, too delicate, and the battlefield was no place for someone like her. With one last kiss on the cheek, he’d left her standing there, heartbroken and defeated, forever trapped in Gitaskog.