Having slipped into town earlier in the day to avoid her mother, who was fussy on the best of days and simply unbearable on ones like this, Aren was currently reclined on the roof of a random house, so as to be a little further removed from the bustle of people setting up for the festivities.  The breeze blowing across her petite body was incredibly refreshing after the climb up the side of the building, though it didn’t do much for her hands, which were a little sore from the roughness of the wood.  Still, that little pain wasn’t enough to diminish her good mood as she watched the clouds float by and bit into an apple she had plucked from one of the trees on her family’s farm.

Of course, lying on random people’s houses was not Aren’s typical method of entertaining herself.  Normally, she would be at the smithy as an apprentice, helping to hammer out some of the less complicated pieces, or she would be at her house, helping her family maintain the farm for the next season.  But there were no chores on this day, and the smithy was closed, and so she found herself with virtually nothing to do but relax and idly wonder what the other shard-bearers were up to at the moment.

Hearing some other, unseen people talk about what was going to happen that day as they passed by the house on the street below did dampen Aren’s good mood just a bit.  Perhaps the others enjoyed all the attention they received for being one of the “special” children, but Aren found it grating to be made such a big deal over.  She didn’t desire getting treated better than others just because she had been chosen by the crystal and so stuff like this whole celebration had a tendency to get on her nerves a little bit.  But she knew what it meant to the people, so she went along with it and put up with their fussing as much as she could.

Wriggling around a bit to get a little more comfortable, she thought about what the others would be like, as she only knew them as fellow schoolmates.  Living on the outskirts of town had its disadvantages concerning making friends, as school only offered so much time to get to know someone.  And that wasn’t even accounting for the fact that she was typically reserved and rather introverted when it came to talking to people she didn’t know very well.  Hopefully they would be people that she could get along with fairly easily.