Clara's Family, Loretober Day Twenty-Six!

Clara spent most of her early childhood traveling around Dracentra with her parents, who studied magical botany. Though she was an only child and was often left to her own devices as her parents worked, she entertained herself by learning to read at an early age and spent a lot of her time reading various books, often pressing various magical flowers and leaves within their covers. Eventually, Clara was told that they were heading north in order to visit her father's childhood village, Havenwood, and that she would get to meet her paternal grandmother.

Incredibly excited and nervous to meet more of her family when she only ever knew her mother and father, Clara said, "Hello, Grandmother!" quite loudly when the cottage door opened, but the one who answered, to everyone's surprise, was Aunt Ava.

Clara's father was quite awkward, not expecting to see his older sister after so many years apart. Last he heard, she had married a man in another town, but when his mother came through the door, crying at the sight of her son, everyone warmed up, and they were invited in.

Clara's family spent a week here, eating Grandma's delicious meals, exploring the forest behind the cottage, and heading into town with her parents for supplies. Clara was extraordinarily happy. She was getting so much more attention from her parents than she had before and had a kind grandmother and a kinda gloomy but interesting aunt to pester. She wanted to stay there forever...

...Until her parents told her that she was going to stay there while they went away, heading on an adventurous (and dangerous) expedition past the equator to the unexplored southern continent to document the magical plants that grew there. Clara was shocked. They were going to leave, for a "while" while they got to go on adventures without her. Before Clara could complain, Ava was already yelling at her brother. Something about abandonment, and someone called the hearth mother, and how if her own child had lived...Clara wasn't listening anymore, and her grandmother led her out of the room.

The next morning, Clara said goodbye to her parents. She didn't argue, didn't plead, only wishing them luck and to come back for her soon. Her parents seemed relieved and gave her many kisses before climbing on their horse-drawn cart, heading on their way southward. Once they were gone, she clutched her grandmother's skirts and cried. For the rest of her childhood, she stared out of windows and across horizon lines, but Clara never saw her parents again.