June

Blackwood is a small village nestled in a patch of enchanted woods, mostly populated with satyr, centuars, and other ungulate wildborne. The trees themselves seem to hum with a magic running through their branches and each of their leaves, weaving enchanted roots together to form a barrier between the outside world and the village. Keeping outsiders beyond the walls, and everyone else in. The residents are often very intuned with the magic and flora around them, fervently agreeing they're safer here, detached from the rest of the world, and feverishly demanding that no one step foot outside the walls. It's here in Blackwood that June is born.

June's birth was anything other than ordinary, and if born at any other time would have been a stillbirth. Her mother died in the delivery, leaving June's father to pick her up from his wife's dead hands. June's birth was something to be mourned, and they celebrated it with a fresh gravestone nestled in the back of their yard. Besides June, she had two other older siblings; August and July. After the death of their mother, July didn't spend much time in the family house. To get away from the hauntingly empty halls of June's childhood home, July seemed to enroll himself in Blackwood's ranger force, tasked with making sure the village was safe and the protective magic barricade proved resiliant to any outside interference. August, the eldest sister, seemed to pick up a somewhat maternal role, spending the most time with June while their father slowly drifted away from home and brother avoided it like the plague. August shown June an unmatches kindness, teaching her how to garden and gently weave magic into the plants to speed up their growth. August was much like the mother June never had.

Only a few years after her birth, June began receiving odd dreams. Visions of death, gruesome images that her toddler mind couldn't comprehend. When a toddler babbles on about the death of an old neighbor, it's easy to brush it off as childlike nonsense. But as that child grows older, and offhanded comments pertaining their recent dream, featuring the Lead Ranger choking on the poisonous froth and his own blood after a simple mistake handling a cursed thorn bush, only for the exact event to happen days later, theres reason to be concerned. Suspicion rose and rumors crowded thick in the air surrounding June. Could it be that this young child was responsible for all those deaths? June's father adamantly brushed off these accusations best he could, and August gingerly covered June's ears to the noise.

It didn't take long for the suspicions to grow restless, dissatisfied with being brushed off so easily. The residents soon got violent, demanding repentance for the crimes they swore were June's to bear. It was at this point the face staring back at June as they died in her visions, morphed into June's own. She watched as flames tore her body to blackened dust repeatedly each time she closed her eyes. Every time she went to go to sleep, the scent of charred flesh and smoke clogging her lungs felt increasingly more real. After a period of restless nights, June broke and confessed her nightmares to her father and sister. With an exhausted, tear-ridden face, this was the first night in awhile that June slept peacefully. The vision's mercy did not last long however, as June soon returned to the sweltering nightmare, only this time to stare at the burnt face of her father. As she awoke, the smell of smoke did not leave, and with a chill June realized this time it was real.

To August's credit, she did try to hold June back, but the small satyr slipped past her grasp and sprinted into the town square. There, something she's seen a million times before, tied to a blackened spire lit ablaze with fire lighting up the faces of the entire population of Blackwood, was June's father. She choked down a sob as the cheers of residents drowned out her sorrows, raising pitchforks and torches to the night sky. June's only lucky the townspeople were too caught up in their morbid glee called retribution to spot the source of all their troubles gawking at the display. June's lucky August shortly found the young satyr to tear her away from the sight and sprint, June in her arms, out of the town. August tore past the enchanted barrier, burning through entangled vines with the hiss of dying magic, not stopping until they were miles away from the cursed village.