Adria's sixteenth birthday, and the days before it came and went in a blur. But it was a birthday she never would forget. Her parents had given her a pair of boots and a warm coat along with a new dress her mother had sewn. But the best gift of all was what her parents told her.

"You'll need a new pair of boots if you're going up to the Deltera mountains." Her father had said.

Adria ran up to him and rapped her arms around him, "oh, thank you Father. Thank you!" Then she squeezed her mother. "And thank you mother. How did you find out?"

"The searchers captain, Fenyald I think he was called,"

"Co- captain mum, Fenyald's a co- captain." Adria interrupted her mother to correct her.

"Yes, co- captain. Anyway," she continued, "he came to our door, asked for you but I had sent you to get flower for the bread, so I said you weren't here and he said "well when you see her tell her to come to the ward in four days time." I asked him how he knew you lived here and he said he'd seen you a few times going in and out."

"And now here we are" Adria's father finished.

"I'm going to be a searcher! I'm going to be a searcher!" Adria chanted joyfully.

° ° °

To Adria, each day she had to wait before she got to go to a full day of ward training seemed to be a decade. When suddenly, in what seemed like minutes from her birthday, Adria found herself standing in the same spot she had been five days ago, her hand raised to knock. Adria dropped her hand to her side and turned to her parents, who had come to say farewell, and hugged both of them her eyes filled with un-spilled tears.

"I'm going to miss you." she murmured.

Then, turning back to the solid door and drying her eyes, Adria knocked.

The door was opened by the same woman who had answered it the last time Adria was at the ward.

"Come in." She said opening the door further so there was room for Adria to pass.

Adria turned around as the door closed and saw her parents loving faces disappear behind it.

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Dedicated to HarlequinQuest for helping me edit.