Hero’s journey – Valentina Valkyrie
Chacha | Westmeadows Primary School
Primary English | Term 1 2021
Valentina was as normal as the green hills of Milkyville where she lived. She was a martial arts teacher and she worked at the gym at the local school. There she taught children martial arts, the thing that made her life acceptable and enjoyable. She lived with her fiancé, Jeffrey and their 3 dogs and 1 cat (she hadn’t told anyone but the marriage was actually planned). In her spare time Valentina liked to crochet and knit.
But, she had more than one secret… As much as Valentina enjoyed her job she wished for more, a life of adventure and mystery, just like in her favourite book; A Thousand and One Ways to Live. And one day, her wish came true.
It was an average day for Valentina:
7:00 – wake up
7:10 – eat
7:30 – get dressed, brush teeth and wash
8:00 – wake Jeffrey up from his deep slumber
8:01 – make Jeffrey breakfast because he is too lazy
8:10 – wake the animals up
8:11 – get the food for the animals
8:30 – pack up the dishes and food bowls
8:40 – leave for the gym
9:00 – first martial arts session.By the time Valentina had gotten home she was so tired and collapsed onto her bed and fell asleep. That night Valentina had a dream. She dreamt that she was on a mission to save the world from an evil do-er named Rex, that wanted what every other evil person wanted, power, and lots of it for that matter. With the help of one of her students, Rebecca, the two of them were able to learn new things that aided them in their fight against Rex.
The very next day Valentina decided to take a different route to the gym because she was early. On the way she thought she saw some creatures that looked like evil fairys but when she blinked all she saw was a mozzie. She killed it in one swipe and thought that she might be hallucinating because of her dream last night. As she continued on to the gym she saw one of her best students, Rebecca’s house so she drove over and asked Rebecca’s parents if they would like her to take Rebecca to the gym with her. Rebecca’s parents agreed, so the two of them were going to the gym together. On the way Valentina had to go into a forest. This forest didn’t seem very normal. The trees seemed to whisper to each other in voices that sounded like every word was their last. “Whooo aaare theeey?” “Whyyy aaare theey heeere?” “Sheesh,” Valentina thought. “What’s wrong with this forest?” Just as she was about to think to herself, “We should probably get out off here,” they were sucked into a portal.
If you have ever been in a portal then you know that the feeling is unpleasant. It feels like your body is being stretched and pulled to fit a new one. As well as the unpleasant feeling the actual portal itself is quite dizzying, it’s all swirly and keeps on changing colours. And the SMELL, don’t even get me STARTED on the SMELL it is absolutely DISGUSTING, it smells like the dirty socks that you found underneath your bed from cross country 5 years ago, and vomit combined together. But just as you feel like you are going to vomit yourself, it ends, and you find yourself at your destination, in Valentina and Rebecca’s case, HELL. More specifically, what you would expect hell to be. “EURGH!” Rebecca said with a disgusted look on her face, “What was that!”
It took the two a while to figure out what had happened but after a bit they decided that for some odd reason someone wanted them here so much that they had tricked the two into going into a portal that had led them to this excuse of a world. All of this made sense to Valentina and Rebecca except why someone would want them here. It was all very confusing. In fact, it reminded Valentina of the dream she had had last night. In fact, it was so similar she almost thought that Rex might pop up in front of them and challenge her and Rebecca to a fight! Valentina shook the thought off and suggested that they should probably find someone to tell them where they were. Rebecca agreed so the two of them set off to find some sort of life form.
It wasn’t long before they found a house. It was beautiful and had a mysterious vibe to it. It was made out of walnut (a dark coloured type of wood) and had rosewood (a slightly red, but still dark coloured wood) accents. Even though the house looked deadly, it had a warm and welcoming feel to it, and this pulled Valentina towards it. “We have to go in!” Valentina whispered excitedly to Rebecca, “I just know it!” Rebecca looked at Valentina like she was crazy but still, she agreed to go into the house with Valentina. The two partners in crime creaked open the door and slowly and quietly crept into the house. There they were met with a single room, dimly lit with only a crystal ball in the centre, and what was that, a person? As Rebecca and Valentina crept closer they saw a ghostly figure with closed eyes sitting down on a cushion. Suddenly their eyes shot open “I’ve been expecting you…” the ghost whispered.
“What do mean?” is all Valentina could stutter “The great ‘leader’ Rex has taken over our beautiful land. You see here at Arda it used to be more beautiful than any other planet you could ever imagine, the grass was greener than emerald, the sky bluer than maya and everything was just so beautiful and vibrant,” the ghosts face hardened into a mixture between sadness, anger and disappointment. “Until HE came. Rex drained our land of colour and life, it was devastating to watch, but, we had no power against him…” the ghost’s face shifted to complete sadness. Valentina and Rebecca were just as devastated, “I never knew he could do that.” Valentina whispered wide-eyed. The ghost’s eyes lit up, “Well, at least we have hope now that you’re here!” “Us?” Rebecca asked. The ghost then proceeded to tell them that his name was Owen and that there was a whole rebellion against Rex which he was part of and that Rebecca and Valentina were important because he had seen them defeating Rex in his crystal ball.
As Valentina and Rebecca left Owen’s house they were stunned. How were they, a martial arts teacher and student supposed to defeat Rex, an evil mastermind that was able to drain a whole entire PLANET! It was obvious that they were going to have to learn some new skills if they were going to live up to those standards. Thankfully, Owen had supplied them with some addresses to some great masters that trained (and were part of) the rebellion. Their first stop was another house only this time it was much bigger and it was made out of hickory wood and had yellow poplar accents. This gave the house a light, friendly and joyous vibe. So, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise that Valentina and Rebecca didn’t hesitate to go into the house this time when the door swung open for them. The interior was styled to be more of a sword-fighting arena with daggers strung on the wall next to some much bigger swords that were so shiny that the two could see their reflection in the metal, but they didn’t just see themselves in the reflection they also saw a man dressed like a medieval night in the corner of the room shining a beautiful sword, engraved with the words: “With great power, comes great responsibility”. The handle was a gold cross covered in leather black as ebony encrusted with a shiny ruby, more red than blood at the end of it and two smaller rubies at the end of the gold.
“Hello,” Valentina said to the man. “I’m looking for Grayson. Is that you?” In a very deep voice the man replied, “If I was Grayson then, what would you need me for?” “Oh,” Valentina replied, “Owen sent us here to train with you so we would be more prepared to fight Rex.” “Hmmm, and why should I teach you?” replied Grayson in his deep voice. “I already told you, Owen sent us here to train with you so we would be more prepared to fight Rex.” Valentina replied, almost rolling her eyes. “Trying to kill Rex has nothing to do with your worth, imagine if the situation was reversed.” Grayson calmly replied. Valentina was about to scream at Grayson to just start teaching them but before she could say any of this, she stopped and thought about what Grayson had said, and after thinking about it she replied to Grayson, “We are worthy of you teaching us because we won’t disappoint you, we will commit, be our absolute best because, let’s face it, if we don’t Arda doesn’t have any hope”. “Good, half of your training is already completed.” Grayson replied with an admiring smile, “Huh?” was all Valentina and Rebecca could muster, and then, they understood; with great power, comes great responsibility, Rex was a great example of this, he had so much power, but instead of doing something good with it, he had drained a planet of life, he was doing something bad with it.
Valentina and Rebecca trained hard with Grayson, just like they had promised. They trained for hours and hours in a day and at the end of it they would go to bed exhausted, just to repeat it all the next day. But working hard did pay off. Soon Rebecca and Valentina were able to beat Grayson in a battle with ease. One day Grayson approached the two with some swords, similar to the sword that they saw on the day that they met him, except instead of the handle being made of gold it was made out of iron, the leather charcoal. It was a bit smaller and the ruby was clear quartz, but the biggest difference of all was the engraving, one of them said; “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up,” and the other said; “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it”. “I have nothing left to teach you,” Grayson beamed. “You may be on your way now.” Valentina and Rebecca were absolutely beaming with joy, “Thank you, Grayson.” With one last smile Rebecca and Valentina left.
Their next stop was a house that had a very mysterious feel to it, made out of a very dark black walnut and sapele, the house was almost completely black, it also had a dark violet coloured hue around it. Honestly, it was quite creepy. If Owen hadn’t told them that there was nothing to worry about Valentina and Rebecca probably wouldn’t have gone inside the house at all! With caution, the duo crept inside the house making sure to check their surroundings for something that might tell them more about this new master. Suddenly, a light turned on in the room next to them. “Hello?” Valentina stammered. A spotlight shone down above Valentina and Rebecca, and suddenly, there were skeletons, and zombies, all moaning and shouting things like, “Abwabwabwabwabwa,” even though they were saying these things very loudly, it was NOTHING compared to how loud Valentina and Rebecca screamed, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” After they had recovered from there mini panic-attack Valentina and Rebecca were able to really take in their surroundings. They were in a dimly lit room that had candles across the walls, with loads of bookcases bellow the candles. But instead of books on the shelves, there were long boxes, about the same size of half an A4 piece of paper cut horizontally. As well as the boxes there were little clear bottles and jars, the jars had weird little animals. Valentina even thought that she saw a jar with snake skin in it! The little bottles contained liquids, all the colours of the rainbow. Some were murky, some were clear, some even had POISON labelled on them!
As soon as Valentina and Rebecca moved, POOF! A charcoal coloured smoke cloud appeared and, once the smoke had cleared there, standing in front of them was a woman that seemed to be in her 30’s in a flowy, velvet, midnight blue robe. Upon closer inspection, this lady had long, dark brown hair which was covered with a wide-brimmed pointy hat. There was a star hanging off the point of the hat that seemed to glow a bright, white light. A white, pearlescent ribbon sat on the midnight blue hat with some white gladiolus, lily of the valley and snapdragons. She had silver crescent moon earrings that dangled from her ears. But, the most noticeable thing about her was the wand she was holding, it was made out of ebony, which gave the wand a very dark colour, it was about 30cm long and had a sphere of shiny, black obsidian at the end of it and had a swirl around the handle which faded into the wood. “Hello?” Valentina stammered again. “Owen sent us here to learn something from you.” “Yes, I see,” the lady replied in a silvery voice. “My name is Annalise and I teach magic, but, if I am going to teach you the first thing I need to do is put you in a situation…” The room disappeared and Rebecca and Valentina were transported into a path that split into two more tracks, one of the paths was a dusty, narrow trail that had lots of flowers on the sides of it, the other was a wide concrete path that led to some more concrete stairs, this one was surrounded by signs that pointed to towns. “Choose a path.” Valentina and Rebecca heard Annalise’s voice echo. Valentina and Rebecca chose the dusty path which led to a little wood cabin with vines hanging off the side surrounded by woodland creatures and more flowers.
As soon as Valentina and Rebecca had taken a step towards the cabin, they were transported back and were faced with Annalise asking them, “What did you learn from that?” Valentina was just about to answer, “Nothing,” with an eye roll when Annalise stopped her and said, “Let REBECCA answer.” Valentina faced Rebecca with a curious look on her face, what did her student know that she didn’t? “I learnt that every action has a consequence, in our case we chose the dusty path, but we missed out on possible civilisation if we took the other path,” Rebecca answered with a grim smile on her face. “Good.” Annalise answered looking at Valentina, “Now your training can begin.” Valentina and Rebecca trained hard, for the path they chose was the one that would kill Rex, a great path for the people of Arda, but a horrible one for Rex. Soon the two knew every trick in the book and could perform them with perfection.
After months, Annalise approached the two with two boxes they saw on the book shelves the first day they had arrived. Valentina and Rebecca knew that there training was finished when Annalise came with the boxes because they had learnt that these boxes held wands, so far Valentina and Rebecca had had to use elm wood wands (these wands made the least foolish errors) with unicorn hair cores (these were consistent with magic), this was a relatively dark coloured wand which had criss-crossing grooves for handles. When Valentina and Rebecca opened their boxes, they were met with some wands made out of aspen wood (these wands were attracted to strong minded, determined people that are attracted to quests), with dragon heartstring cores (these cores are supposed to have the most power), and they had magnesite spheres to match the light colour of the wands. Valentina and Rebecca took the wands by the criss-cross handle and were amazed by how much power was in the wands. They thanked Annalise and finally, they were going to defeat Rex.
Owen had told them that Rex lived in a cave below the sea, so Valentina and Rebecca used their new wands to cast an air bubble around them so they would be able to get to the cave. Once they had entered the cave, there was a noticeable dank, humid and almost muddy smell that grossed the duo out. As they neared Rex the cave got noticeably larger and soon the cave was bigger than the mansion. “REX! We have come to put a stop to your reign here at Arda and any future ones as well.” Valentina and Rebecca looked around trying to see where Rex might be, “Aww.” Valentina heard Rebecca say, “What is it?’ Valentina replied, “It’s a little hamster!” Rebecca said, and sure enough there was a little fluffy hamster, about the size of a book, staring innocently at them. “I’m not a HAMSTER!” the little fluff-ball shrieked. “Since when did hamsters speak English?” Rebecca said under her breath, both of them were stunned. “So, who are you?’ Valentina finally mustered, “I am REX,” the little hamster answered with pride, Valentina chuckled a little. “Oi! It’s not funny!” “I, just expected you to be more…big and scary, and, I thought you were meant to be a dragon.” “Oh, bother, I’m still in my disguise, aren’t I,” the little hamster replied with a little huff. As soon as he had said this he transformed into a huge dragon, an ashy grey, with HUGE wings each the size of a house. Rex was covered with spikes and had 8 small eyes that sat upon his head. Overall, he was a big beast that was a big upgrade from his little, adorable hamster disguise. “Hahaha!” Rex laughed in a gruff voice, “You still think I’m cute?” Valentina and Rebecca stared up at Rex and gulped. “No,” Valentina whispered.
Valentina and Rebecca were able to muster up all the courage they had and create a game plan…
To be continued
Chacha | Westmeadows Primary School
