all was well

[Julie]

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Word Count → 336 :: Anyone is free to respond if they wish! I'm just trying to get a feel for Julie before she's eventually brought into the game.

A small trunk-like box had been set in the dirt beneath a hundred year old willow tree. Signs of the trunk’s age were clearly visible amongst its hues of chocolate and gold, and yet it still remained rugged and secretive. It had been latched closed, protected by intruders with its black iron lock. The contents of which were cherished by one child, who had thumbed through them countless times. Above all else, this was her cherished possession and this she would never lose sight of. Even now, though the trunk had appeared abandoned, the girl sat only meters away with one of the trunk’s secret treasures cradled in her lap.

Fingers of rusted copper brushed along the spine, colored in a hue of maroon that often reminded the girl of her mother. She had been the one to teach her children the skills of literacy and it was something the child would not soon forget. Of course there had been other favorites as she had grown from infancy to her adolescent years, but those had been quickly replaced by what the trunk held behind its fastened lock. What she held now had enlightened the girl; had brought her to an entirely new world. Above anything else, she wished she could escape there, but knew it was nothing more than imagination. She would never truly find this place, for it only existed in her mind. And yet the girl was somehow content with that. Steel blue eyes would close and the world written amongst those pages would come to life.

The silhouette of the girl was the only thing to disrupt the weeping branches of the willow, but one had to really look to even see her there. It was her favorite place to retreat from the real world to fall into her fantasies, which she so often and easily did.

And like countless times before, the child gently opened that maroon cover to reveal yellowed pages with its bold blackened text proclaiming: The Boy Who Lived.

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[Lunatoke]

Lunatoke flicked her ears towards the creaking of metal. She didn't recognize the sound, and thus her attention was drawn to it. She trotted over to the willow tree she had been walking past, to see a little girl holding some kind of box in her lap. Lunatoke sat down, wagging her tail. "Hello," she woofed gently. "What are you doing?" Lunatoke tilted her head slightly to the side in curiosity.

Lunatoke's eyesight had always been okay, even after the fire. She felt guilty seeing the girl jump, as if coming back into the world. Her ears tilted in a minor sign of submission, unsure as always whether this was a pack member or not.

But, then her curiosity grew again and she pricked her ears forward. The girl was holding what seemed to be a tree sliced into thin bits, with some kind of dried liquid on them. The girl was in front of most of the printing, so Lunatoke was unable to see what it was. "What's that?" she whined in excitement. Despite her serious personality, Lunatoke loved a mystery.