'I can't believe this is your last week here.' I told my cousin.

I was carrying a basket for her with some ingredients for tomorrow’s dinner. We had been gathering them all day and had just decided to go back home. It was getting late and the sky had already started shifting colours, causing the forest to shimmer in the light of the slowly disappearing sun.

'I can't believe it either, I've never been so far away from Silvea my entire life.'

'That's where you and I differ.' I said.

A few months prior, we had started pointing out little differences between the two of us. You see, we are very much alike. We have a similar hairstyle, for one. We're both quick learners too and like to read as well.

But aside from all the resemblances, there are some things that are quite different. Her eyes are violet while mine are green and my skin tone is a little lighter than hers, as is my hair colour. While her hair is more brown, I'm a real blondie. I guess that's why Anthea always calls me her "little sunflower".

'Yes, it is. And it's also a very important difference.'

I sighed. 'A difference that keeps me from coming with you tomorrow.'

Suddenly, a gloom fell upon me as a penetrating numbness filled my chest.

We stopped walking and Anthea put her basket on the ground. She turned to me and gently put her hands on both my shoulders.

‘C’mon, c’mon, hurry up! The soup’s ready!’ She cheered whilst making me run across the field.

Anthea giggled at the sight of my startled face and, soon after catching up with us and recovering her breath, asked her little sister: 'Could you tell mom we'll be there in a few minutes?'

'All right, but hurry up. It's getting cold already!' Hazel whined in a forgedly plaintive voice.

The vegetable soup that my aunt Astra had recently created had become Hazel's favourite in no time. It was partly from a recipe that my own mother had created a long time ago, just with some turnips added and sometimes even some leaves from a very rare plant that grows only in the Sage. But my mother…

‘Will you tell your father dinner is ready, too?'

‘Of course!’ Hazel gave her big sister a bright smile, proud of the task she had just been entrusted with, and off she went.

Anthea smiled while watching her little sister, who was fourteen years apart from her, take off like that. Hazel was twelve years old at the time, which made her just a little younger than I was. I was still fifteen back then. Just fifteen, but already possessing an immense source of power that was yet to be discovered.