Florella

Florella
The heroine is a female.  Her name is Florella.  She is about 5’2”, and she is 18 years old. She usually wears flowing dresses in yellow, pink or powder blue colors. Her prominent feature is her eyes which are light brown in color and fringed with thick lashes.  She is strikingly beautiful.  The heroine’s personality: green thumb, brave, trustworthy, hardworking and shy. The heroine lives with her grandmother who is known in the village as a healer who grows different kinds of herbs and prepares poultices and decoctions from them which he prescribes to the townspeople to cure their illness.  The heroine helps her grandmother in her farm and has to wake up early in the morning to help her water the plants and cultivate the soil.  Because they live outside the town, she does not have many friends of her own age.  She learnt to read from her grandmother and also was taught by her grandmother to write.  She learned to count and knew the different kinds of coins and their denominations.  They live simply from their produce.  She does not know of any relatives having been told by her grandmother that her parents were killed when she was still a child.  She was told that she was born in a place far from where they now live.  On the other side of  the mountain, her grandmother said.
A typical day for the heroine starts with preparing breakfast for her and her grandmother. She takes eggs from the chicken coop and cooks rootcrops for breakfast.  She will then call her grandmother to eat.  Her grandmother is the one taking care and watering the plants.  Her other early morning chore is to draw water from the brook using a wooden bucket that her grandmother specifically told her to use.  It was a large bucket that was unusually light even when filled with water.  She will then pour the water in a hole in the ground that is located at the middle of the farm, at the entry point.  While pouring, she was instructed to sing a song that her grandmother taught.  She always sings the same song and she always makes sure that the words and the tune are correct.  When her grandmother first taught her the song, he made sure she got it right before he let her sing it while pouring water in the hole.
Her song goes this way:
Water, water, flowing clear,
 water from the mother earth
 water from the skies that fall on land
fill the soils and quench the thirst
    of the roots that hug tight to the ground
wash the leaves and kiss the flowers
cleanse the fruits, nourish the bowers
water water flowing clear
hear my song and help me here.
 Her grandmother made sure she did it right by going with her and observing her.  He did it for three full moons and stopped doing so only when he was assured she did it right.  One time, she was in a hurry to finish because she was learning how to draw and she wanted to catch the light.  Thinking there was nobody who would know about it, she cut the song short.  She then hurried to prepare breakfast and went to the field to start drawing.  She was lost in her work when her grandmother went to the her and asked her if she made some mistake in singing the song.  She hesitated to answer truthfully at first.
“Of course not,” she answered hastily.
“Tell me the truth,” her grandmother said looking serious.  It was the first time she saw her grandmother being serious so she told her that she was in a hurry to finish all her chores so she cut the song short.  Her grandmother then told her not to do it again and to make sure that if he teaches her something, she should always do it the way she was taught.
After breakfast, she would draw and make flower necklaces or crowns.  The she would prepare lunch which consists of meat stew and boiled rootcrops.  Her grandmother will also bring fruits from the garden and herbs that she will boil to make tea.



Livania
The villain’s name is Livania. She is Florella's stepmother who married Florella's father. Florella's father is a rich merchant who wanted to give his daughter a mother when Florella's mother passed away when Florella was yet a baby. Florella’s stepmother is a beautiful woman who is in truth a powerful witch who suspected that Florella's mother is not human but actually a fairy.  Florella's mother fell in love with a human and had to forgo her powers and become human. Because fairies do not bear children but reproduce the same way that flowers do, Florella's mother did not survive childbirth, leaving her human husband and daughter behind. Florella's father grieved for his wife and in his grief, forgot to take care of his daughter. Before she died however, Florella's mother called on to her Fairy Queen mother to look after her child. Being half human, Florella did not possess the full powers of her being a fairy. She however has a special affinity for flowers and plants and trees. As Florella grew into childhood, she looked more like her mother and many men were drawn to her beauty. What puzzled them however was that although young men were drawn to Florella, they seemed not interested in courting her or marrying her. While they sighed and admired her beauty, the young men will then court other young women and marry these women.
What they did not know is that Florella's stepmother had a hand in this situation. Having uncovered Florella's secret heritage, she learnt that if Florella reaches the age of 18 and has not yet fallen in love, her heart can be eaten by a witch of her kind and the witch can then own her supernatural powers. At the time, the villain was already Florella's stepmother who saw to it that the young girl will not fall in love with any young man.
If she becomes successful in getting Florella's heart, the mambabarang will be the first of her kind to truly attain supernatural powers that will enable her to have a degree of influence on the plant kingdom which is the domain of fairies. The stepmother has to ensure that Florella's heart will also be pure and not heartbroken because if her heart is tainted by strong negative human emotions such as that happens when one becomes heartbroken, her powers will be lessened and she will be more human than fairy. She thus ensures that Florella should not know love that happens between a man and a woman. Because of this Florella grew up a happy child and her stepmother made sure that she is. A witch though has to perform her evil spells and it was not long after that people began to suspect her true nature. At this time, Florella's father joined a shipping expedition and was away for many months. The stepmother patiently bides for the time that she can have Florella's heart. She secretly despises Florella because the child was growing more beautiful each day and her vanity is not happy with such competition.
Livania is a beautiful woman with long dark straight hair.  She stands about 5 feet and six inches tall, lithe and fair.  Although she was beautiful there seemed to be a certain kind of hardness in her mouth when she smiles.  She was not very popular in the household because she was prone to fits and sudden burst of temper.
Livania’s mother was human but her father was born from a family of warlocks.  Because Livania was born half human half witch, she was somewhat considered an outsider.  Her mother was despised by her father’s family prompting them to move out from the village where they reside.  Livania’s mother taught her young daughter dark arts and promised her daughter that she will find ways to ensure that her daughter will become the most powerful in her father’s family.  So Livania’s mother became Livania’s mentor in the dark arts.  According to old stories, half-witch and half-mortal beings like Livania can be powerful if they harness the powers of other supernatural beings like the dwarves and fairies.  By taking over the heart and mind of these beings, mambabarangs like Livania can slowly possess the powers of their captives until they became a shell without no mind and will of their own, serving only as minions of the mambabarang.
“Remember this Livania,” her mother will often tell her.  “You are destined to become the most powerful among all mambabarangs and your father’s family will recognize you as a force to reckon with. Promise me that you will find ways to be able to strengthen your powers.  Find a dwarf or a fairy that you can enslave.”
“Yes mother, I will.”
“Your cousin Genera will not insult and embarrass you and flaunt her powers to you.  You will be the most powerful among them.  And when the time comes when you fight for the chance to become the leader of the clan, you will show them all that a mambabarang can rule over the witches,” her mother tells her.

Florella finds her father.
Florella was fourteen when she was reunited with her father.  One day, Florella was busy drawing  under her favorite tree when she heard a commotion in the garden.  She stood up and looked at the place to see what the commotion was.  She saw her grandmother and a man talking.  Her grandmother seemed to want the man to leave, barring the gate as if she did not want the stranger to come in.
“where is she?” asked the man.  Florella felt a sense of excitement when she heard the man’s voice.  Something stirred in her memory.  The man’s voice seemed to come from the deepest receses of her brain.  It was a voice she sometimes heard in her dreams.  It gave her a feeling of love and comfort and she wondered how can a voice from a man she did not know give her that kind of feeling.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” her grandmother was saying although Florella can see from where she was hiding that her grandmother darted glances to her direction.  Were they talking about her? She wondered.  Who was the “she” that the man referred to?
“Florella!” the man called. He was calling her name! She cannot remember knowing the man from somewhere before. How could he have known her name?
“Florella, where are you? It’s me, your father. I have come to fetch you so that you can live with me.” The man called out.
Her father? How can it be? She has always thought that her father and her mother were already dead.  How come this man is calling her name and saying that he was her father?
Florella stood transfixed as the door swung open and she came face to face with the man who called himself her father.  A loving feeling came unbidden when she saw his gentle and tender face.  A feeling of love and tenderness wellled from inside her and she cannot full explain why she knew without a doubt that the man standing before her was her father.


Florella’s father.
Florella’s father is the son of a local chieftain although unlike his other cousins from the neighboring islands, he was more of a merchant than a warrior.