Every Rose has Thorns{Open}

"It'll be fun, dad! Please?" He pleads. My son, Boves was begging me to go horse back riding with him. I hadn't done it in quite a while, always being busy, but my wife had and thought it would be a fun thing to take the family to do. With my son begging, I had to give into his pleas. He's only seven years old and I want to make the best of his life for him.

"Alright." I say with a smile on my face and a happy, fatherly laugh. I pick him up, though he's bigger than he used to be. "Tiara, we'll go!" I shout to my wife in the other room. She shouts back and I give her and Boves time to get ready.

Being one of the wealthier families in the District, and being the one that generally takes care of the farm animals, I had promised Boves a ride. I decide that rather than just him, seeing as though he's rather young, we should all go. There was one problem with this. Only Tiara had a horse. The horse was a silky black, and a rather obedient horse. Her name was Apple. She is rather small but can certaintly handle allowing my wife to ride, seeing as though she is one of the smaller women in the District. As for me, being a full-grown 26-year-old man, that's a different story. We were going to get 2 more horses.

I found that this would be rather interesting, seeing as though Apple has been around plenty of other horses, yet never really shared a living space with one. We arrive at the best place I can think to go on my day off, the farm. I have plenty of money, seeing as though how often I work overtime in the fields and with the animals.

When we arrive there are plenty of horses that we are shown. I spot one that I definately take a liking to. He was a beautiful Clydesdale Stallion. Boves on the other hand, had picked a Pintabian Mare. It was probably one of the most beautiful horses that I had ever seen. We decided to take the horses for a ride before buying them, seeing as though we were some of the most trustworthy people in the District, they allowed us to.

After I had mounted the horse it took me a while to get the hang of it. I hadn't ridin since I was a kid. I had been about 16, which was around when I first met Tiara. I hadn't been riding in about 10 years. As I'm riding, another rider greets me while I'm on the trail. I stop and turn towards them. "Good Morning." I say to them. It's a younger rider. She's rather beautiful for a young girl and I give her a smile. Boves and Tiara are already a bit ahead of me.

The clouds above are beginning to darken. I can sense a storm coming and I can tell the girl knows it as well. Tiara, on her jet black horse, comes over with Boves slightly trailing behind on his horse.

"Sorry, but I need to go, I'm going to have to get the horses in the paddock back into the barn before this storm hits." The girl says to me. She waves and heads off. I then turn to Boves and Tiara.

"We should probably get going too." I say to them. Almost as if on cue, there is a rumble of thunder that startles Boves. Tiara leads us to the safest place we can think of at the moment. After the storm clears up, we decide to go back out. Boves, being a bit small for his horse, switches to Apple, the jet black horse. For now Tiara would ride Boves's horse, which he decided to name Pretty. His creativity wasn't much, but it was cute.

I had decided to name my horse King, because of the seemingly royal look he had to him. We ride back to the man from earlier and I pay for Pretty and King. Once we head off again, we end up coming across the girl from earlier. She greetes Boves with a friendly hello.

Being the boy he is, Boves responds with a big smile and a very enthusiastic, "Hi!" I smile, as does Tiara and we both laugh a bit. Tiara helps Boves down from Apple, and he immediately goes over to stroke his own horse, Pretty.

Realizing we hadn't really gotten to know eachother earlier, I decide to introduce myself to the girl. "I'm Colonus, this is my wife, Tiara, and my son, Boves." I say, motioning to each of them as I say their names in introduction. I put out my hand for the girl to shake, as does Tiara. The girl seems to be one of the very polite and friendly people in the District.

"Its nice to meet you, Colonus, Tiara, and Boves, I'm Rose." Says the girl with a smile and shaking the hands of Tiara and I. Tiara and I both smile back at the girl, Rose. She seems very friendly. I couldn't quite judge quite how old she was, but she looked like she was perhaps 16 or so.

"Nice to meet you too, Rose." I say to her. I dismount King and she does the same with her horse. She walks over to Boves who is petting Pretty.

"Thats a very nice horse you have" She says to Boves. She makes her way over to Tiara's horse, Apple. Tiara had been the last of the four of us to dismount her horse. Rose smiled and pet Apple. Her horse neighed at the other horses in a friendly manner and seemed to like them.

"I think my horse likes your horses" Rose says to me. She glances around at thethree of us and the smile seems to fade from her face. Boves looked concerned and Rose had a few tears running down her cheeck. Wiping them away, the girl quickly smiled at Boves. Rose seemed to smile a lot, which was far from a bad thing. "Sorry, I was just remembering my parents. They died in that fire a few years ago" She said softly. Knowing what she was talking about, the three of us each nod.

"I'm sorry." Tiara says to her, being exactly what I was about to say. Boves runs over to Rose and squeezes her in a hug.

"I bet you really miss them. I'm sorry that happened to you." I say, even though it was no fault of my own, or anyone that we know. I feel bad for the girl, having no parents to comfort her. I remembered what had happened to my parents and it had devestated me. I had always been somewhat jealous of those who had the 'perfect families.'

The next morning I get up earlier than the rest of the family and head out to work with the animals. I let Pretty, Apple, and King out of the barn to run around a bit before putting the girls back in. I get on King and ride off to the fields. After a hard day's work I get back on King. I had earlier heard a news report about another fire. It happened to the same family as a few years back. It was Rose's family. I head off towards the direction of the house.

The I get there King comes to an abrupt stop. I desperately hope that Rose and her sister are okay, even though I barely know Rose and don't know her sister at all. I decide I should go over to the neighbor's house and see if they know if Rose and her sister are alright. I dismout King, and being the good horse he is, he stays there. I go up to the door and knock, hoping to get and answer.

A man comes to the door and welcomes me inside when I tell him why I'm there. He has me sit down in a chair and he brings me in a drink. I thank him and he sits down across from me. There is another empty chair next to me, and one next to him as well. I can hear footsteps from upstairs and hope that it means that Rose is here.

The man seems very polite and I don't mind waiting for him to tell me what happened, despite the fact that I'm rather anxious to find out the condition of Rose and her remaining family. He leans back in the chair and begins to explain that there was a fire last night. He doesn't end up mentioning the cause of it or if their okay, so I decide to ask him when I hear footsteps coming down the stairs.