Part One
The Collision

Chapter one
Enter Jayd

Hey, my name is Jayd and some pretty weird stuff has been happening in my world, I don't know about you, but lately I've been experiencing some pretty serious shit. One of the reasons why I am writing it all down in this book. But maybe I should start at the beginning, after all you have no idea what I'm talking about, and right now I'm not really making all that much sense to myself.
I'll start with a description. Of me, my life. Anything and everything. I am five feet three inches, sixteen years old, and I had long brown/blond hair that's mostly brown, but I cut it all off a month ago into an easier and much more manageable boyish style. I have fair skin that burns easily and bright blue eyes of which I'm rather proud of. My life is, in short, boring. I go to school, come home, eat, sleep, do it again and again and again. I have basically zero to no friends except for one person who moved to Washington. Oh yeah, I live in Raytown Missouri. filled with all the old people you can imagine and hundreds more. Now don't get me wrong, I love old people, but sometimes I'd like to be around people with more energy. Anyways back to the story.
I was walking up the steps to the school when the ground gave a odd sort of shake, and that made no since because Missouri doesn't gets earthquakes. All the other students stopped as well as me and looked around with confusion. "What was that?" a girl said, picking up books she had dropped when the earth shook. "How should I know." a boy answered. A few people looked around as if they would see the giant elephant that made the earth shake. Everyone turned around and continued inside. I, however, did not. While I was not looking for a giant elephant, I did want to see if it would happen again. And if it did, I did not want to be inside and have the building collapse.
Looking back I wonder what might have happened if I had gone inside. Some people would have died, that's for sure, but I'm no one who can say for sure. So I walked over into the foot ball field and stood there for about a minute watching the sky. I always feel as if one day the sky is going to do something miraculous and no-one will be looking up and see it. I walk around for a bit, admiring the ground view and then it happened.
It felt and sounded like a great ripping. I felt as if my guts were being torn to pieces and I watched in horror as that literally happened to the Earth! Jagged cracks formed, and rising out of them were houses, fields, forests. Every single thing that you could possibly imagine in a fantasy book came out of the ground. That would include Dragons, unicorns. I saw a witch fly up on her broom as her house was came up on either side of a great oak tree. Screams sounded from behind me, I whipped around to see the school ripped in two. It was like both sides of a cut-away picture. I could see one half of a classroom on one side of the gorge that had formed, and the other half on the other. Now everyone was panicking. The water tower was falling, trees too. Houses smashed and torn apart. I noticed that the stuff coming out of the ground was messed up as well. Not just the witch's house but other buildings too, were coming up one half on one side of a tree and the other on the other side of the street! I couldn't tell what was going on! People started running out of buildings. One man jumped out of his car as it was slowly being torn apart by a giant who looked confused and was trying to figure out what it was. I was just thinking that I should go and find my parents, or see how our house was fairing when I heard a cry from a house that had appeared right inside the football bleachers. I did not know what was going on but if someone needed help and I could help I might as well. So I started running toward the broken house which looked as if a tree had fallen on top of it, and seeing how it was more of a cottage and it's roof was made of thatch, that was bad. As I got there I heard a moan from next to the door, two feet were sticking out of a pile of thatch and stones. I hurried to the feet and started pulling the pile apart, trying to see if I could get this strange person out and save him or her. I dug for what seemed like hours. The stones were heavy and the ground continued to shake. I heard a moan again, less muffled. I was getting close! Pushed on a rock bigger than my entire body rolled up, and with a large gasp of air, from me and and whoever was buried, it rolled off and a little farther. It was a boy around my age, maybe older, with dark brown hair that was almost black, gray eyes flecked with silver, and light brown skin. He was covered in blood, the rocks were also bloody. I knelt next to him. "Hey, can you hear me?" I asked. "Are you OK?" No answer. And then. "Yes," he said in a rasping voice. He struggled to raise himself up from the ground. I didn't help him. My experience with boys is that if you are a girl, and it's a boy who needs help don't' help them. At least without them asking for it. It's really understandable... Sort of. They'd be teased if other boys found out. "Hey," he rasped again. "Could you help me up? I need to go inside, my father is in there." I looked him over, he was different obviously since he asked me for help, (They usually don't, they have to be all macho) but he was also being stupid. He could barely talk let alone walk. Both legs looked broken. For some reason I have always been able to tell what a hurt person needed for some reason. Just some strange talent. I decided to let him know what I thought. "Don't be stupid. There is no way that you can walk." He glared at me. "My father is in there, and you expect me to just sit here?" he wanted to know. I took pity on him. "Look, I'll get him out if you stay here. Deal?" He sighed, "Fine." I nodded and got up, just then the Earth gave a huge shudder and I was knocked off my feet and back to the ground right next to the boy. He would have laughed, I think, if his house hadn't been in ruins, and he hadn't been so scared for his father. As it was he just looked at me with a look that said to hurry before he dragged himself into the house. I heard a crash from inside the house as the earth shook once again, and pulled myself up, This time I made it to the front door before the ground shook. I held on to the doorframe waited for it to stop. When it did I looked back at the boy. He was watching me. For some reason, that kind of creeped me out so I tried to ignore him and went in.
The entire house was in ruins. What was once probably a neat clean cottage, looked as if a war had been waged here. I walked in a little farther, stepping over broken earthenware plates and bowls. I realized that I had no idea what to call out since I didn't even know the boys name. I decided on the old 'hello'. "Hello?" I called. "Where are you?" There was no sound. I searched everywhere in the little house, calling out anything and every thing, trying to find him. And finally I did. Although I wish I hadn't. I found him underneath a pile of rubbish, transfixed to the earth floor with a beam. His eyes wide in death. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to bury him and get the pole out of his chest. But I knew I wasn't strong enough.
I walked out of the dark and broken house and in to the open. I think he saw it in my face. "NO!" He cried, his eye wide and filled with tears, as if he didn't believe it and yet some how knew. "No! He is not dead! I don't believe you!" He tried to get up but I pushed him down. "If you don't believe me than how did you know what I was going to say before I even did?" I asked, not even sure if that made all that much since even to me, but that was the point. I read it in a book once that if you can confuse some one it will give you more time to do what you needed to get done which for me would be to get closer and still block his path to the door. I don't know why, but I didn't want this kid to die. "I believe you." He said. I looked at him with concern. When my Grandma died my father had a hard time believing it and he was even there when she died. "But I still want to see him." The boy continued. I looked at him and thought of the gruesome picture I had seen. He looked at me with a look on his face that said that he could not be swayed. I nodded and walked over to him. "How can I help?" I didn't want him dragging himself through broken glass and pottery. That would just hurt him even more. He thought about it for a moment before saying, "Give me your hand." I did. He griped it and with much effort and with my help he got himself upright. He then leaned on me heavily and said, "Ready." As we started forward slowly (I was basically supporting all his weight his feet were useless, so I was pulling him across the floor) and I asked him what his name was. "Tobias Aoudad, but every one just calls me Tobi. Spelled with an I not a Y. What is yours?" "Jaydria Caw," I chuckled. "But every one just calls me Jayd. Spelled with a Y not an E." I panted. He was heavy! Finally we got to the door and crossed the threshold. Tobi gasped. Which is really not surprising seeing how he new exactly how every thing used to look. I shuddered to think of what my own house would look like if it could even be called a house anymore. Then I thought of my parents and hoped they hadn't ended up like Tobi's father. He looked around a little. I hoped he was okay. "Tobi?" I asked questioningly. "I'm alright," he answered. "Just a little shocked, lets go." We walked farther in to the mess and turned to the pile. His father was still covered with rubble and household junk but I think think he knew what happened when he saw the beam sticking up from the ground. He shuddered and we continued. I could feel him brace himself for the sight, mentally and physically and I did the same. Seeing it once was bad enough but going back again might make me throw-up. Not to be disrespectful to the dead but seeing a man speared with a piece of his house is very gruesome, and trust me I am not squeamish. As we approached the pile I heard a whimpering noise coming from Tobi. Once again I felt a wave of pity for him and fear for my own parents. Suddenly I felt an intense need to find them. It kept growing and growing until I felt the only way not to explode was to leave Tobi and find them! "Dad!" Tobi yanked away from me and fell with a crash next to his father. "Dad!" He sobbed, he was crying. I stood there for a few moments struggling with the feelings welling up inside of me. I won and they dissipated slowly. I crouched down next to Tobi and put an arm around him. I had no way of knowing what it felt like to lose a parent but I wanted to help him in some way. Surprisingly he did not pull away, but turned to me and cried on me! Now this was a new experience for me. I had never comforted anyone before. My mom comforted my dad and vice versa. My one friend that moved had other friends that she went to for that. I never even had a pet, so, needless to say, it was a little awkward. He cried for a long time and we just sat there. We sat there until the last of the earthquakes passed. Then... I don't know what happened.
I woke up a while later next to a tree with gold and silver leaves and copper bark, it was so beautiful that I just stared at it. Tobi sat up and looked at me a few times with an expression on his face that said that he thought that I was stupid. Finally done staring at the tree and tired of the look that Tobi was giving me I stopped him the next time he came over. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" I demanded.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm stupid."
"Oh. Because you kept looking at that tree like you've never seen one before." His sad eyes seemed to laugh at me. "I haven't. At least not one like that." He started staring at me again, which was starting to get on my nerves. "Never?" I shook my head. "But they are every where." I continued to shake my head. "They are in every city, town, country." Now he shook his head, utterly baffled. "I have never seen one before anywhere." I told him. This seemed to finally strike home. "Whoa! That's weird." I laughed. "It's no more weird than that tree appearing." He laughed a little at that. "What happened anyway? You just fell. Are you sick?" He looked concerned. "No!" I hurried to assure him. "I don't know what happened...What about you? You don't look so good." "Hmm? Oh, I don't know, I'm finding it kind of hard to breathe for some reason. Kind of like standing in smoke." He coughed. At the time it didn't worry me. "Do you need any more help?" I asked. The feeling of urgency was returning. "Not particularly... Just... Where are you going?" I was looking in the other direction, now I turn to him. "I was going to look for some people." I didn't want to say parents right after he lost his own, or at least his dad, I don't know about his mom. "Can I help you?" He looked hopeful. It reminded me of myself, I did not want to be alone either. Not to mention it would be useful to have someone who was used to some of the odd things coming out of the ground. "I would say yes, but both of your legs are broken, if not crushed," I said, matter of fact. I was always blunt and I don't think I am going to learn not to be any time soon. "If you could walk, I'd say yes. I can't carry you across Raytown." He got up and attempted to walk around to show me that he could, and failed. "What is 'Raytown'?" He asked after he fell to the ground his face tight with pain that he was trying to ignore. I looked around before answering. "I think Raytown is where we are, but nothing looks the same." "Oh... I thought we were in Dag," the boy said. He looked around and whistled when he saw the school with the tree through it. "This whole thing does not make any since!" He burst out so suddenly that I jumped. "First the earthquake, when never in the history of Fief Dagrolma has there been one. Then things start coming out of the holes in the ground! What is going on!" He glared at nothing in particular, as if someone or thing would step forward and present to him the answer since it was clear that I had no more of an idea than he did.. "That happened where you come from too!" I asked him, puzzled. I had kind of expected that he would have seen things falling from the sky, not coming out of the ground. Like it did for me. He glared at me. "Yeah." "When things were coming out earlier, what was coming up?" He shrugged. "I don't know, Really big buildings with lots of windows. Either that or they were spread all over the place. People. Why" I was thinking deeply. It was hard to get my head around it. Neither world (for that was exactly what they were) was either below or above and they could not be side by side. So was the only explanation I could come up with, was that they must be in the same place. But that did not make since either, for if they were in the same place then everyone would or should know about the other. If they were in the same place then two people would or could stand in the same place at the same time! It must be like a alternate universe or something! My musings were interrupted by loud and sickly coughs from Tobi. "Are you sure you are okay?" I asked. He did not look good. He shook his head and laid on the ground. "The air feels heavy, I can't breathe," he whispered, his voice was hoarse. "Should I get help?" Even as I said it I had no idea where I would get it. He nodded. "The Wizard. Please get the Wizard." Wizard! "What wizard?" I burst out, forgetting that there might actually be Wizards in his world. "There are no such things!" He nodded. "East in the Tower. He is the village Wizard. He will help." I looked at him in disbelief than started to run, East. Surprisingly enough (or not, considering the circumstances) there was indeed a tower. Contrary to Tobi though, The air felt lighter than ever and I was breathing it in. Which is NOT stupid. What's stupid is holding your breath while you run. You'd pass out if you did that.
When I got there I started running around the base looking for a way in. I must have circled it twice before I realized there was not a door. "Tobi must have forgotten to tell me to tap the third stone to the left next to the one on the right or some other such nonsense." I muttered to my self. I do that quiet often. I gave up and decided to yell and hope the mighty Wizard hears. "HEY! IS ANYONE THERE? GREAT WIZARD MAN?" I jumped in fright when I got an answer. I thought that the stone walls would be too thick for him to actually hear me. "WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU IMPERTINENT LITTLE CHIT!" A thundering voice rang out from the tower. Something about the disembodied voice unnerved me, but I also knew that Tobi needed him. "PLEASE COME! MY FRIEND NEEDS YOUR HELP! God that sounded cheesy. "WHY SHOULD I HELP YOU? YOU INSULTED ME! CALLED ME A 'GREAT WIZARD MAN'. SUCH BEHAVIOR WAS NEVER TOLERATED IN MY DAY!" Great now we both sound cheesy, he sounds like an old geezer telling his grandchildren off and I sound like one of those story book characters who ride on big white horses and slay dragons. "YOU WONT BE HELPING ME! YOU WILL BE HELPING SOMEONE WHO DOES RESPECT YOU HOWEVER! NOW COME DOWN SO I DON'T HAVE TO KEEP YELLING!" I stopped, my throat hurt, and I hadn't had time to catch my breath after running all the way there. I didn't hear anything. I thought maybe he was just ignoring me when suddenly there was an explosion in the stone wall and when the smoke cleared there was a door. The door then opened and a voice from somewhere proclaimed, "The Great and Magical Wizard, MORON!" "It's MORAN you idiot piece of worthless spellerey! Moran!" Came the wizards voice from the halls behind the door. "What ever," the door spell said. "Stupid spell," the Wizard muttered as he came into view. He was every thing that could be associated with wizards. Tall with a long flowing white beard and a dark blue cloak covered in silver symbols. However, even though he had a white beard, he wasn't all that old. Maybe thirty or so. Maybe working with magic turned your hair white? "Now then, what do you want?" "Uh..." I said not sure exactly what to say. He smiled. "Ah yes, now I see why you were so disrespectful before. You have never seen me or my magnificent. I understand." He grinned some more. "Um... so...will you help me?" I said. "Please?" I added hurriedly at his disapproving look. "Maybe," he said. "It depends." "On what?" I asked. "On what you need me for and how much you pay me," he said with a greedy smile. I stared at him. "How much do you want?" He smiled even wider. "Ten Dagas." And I was to know what that was, how? "We'll talk about the price later," I said. "Tobi said tha-" "TOBI! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY HE NEEDED HELP EARLIER!" The Great Wizard boomed. "So you will help?" I asked hopefully. "OF COURSE!" He said running back toward the Tower. "I have to get my tools, then I will be right there!" Yes! He sure took long enough to come around. A few minute later he came bursting out of the house carrying a bright green and purple bag with pink flowers. I stared at it for a moment before deciding that it did not matter what kind of bag he kept his tools in, as long as they worked.
When we arrived it was obvious that I had done the right thing in going to get help. Tobi was gasping for air but choking on it. "Be quiet and do what ever I tell you to do," Moran ordered me. He got to work right away. First he flipped Tobi onto his side ( he was on his back still ) and made me hold his legs down since he was he kept have violent spasms. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a syringe and drew blood from the vain in his ankle. He put the blood into a vial marked with translucent signs and studied it for about five minutes, during which Tobi continued to get worse and worse. Finally done, the Wizard dipped his finger in to the vial. When he pulled it out all the blood was clinging to it. He quickly wrote symbols and letters in the air with the blood that hung there until he was done. It then fell onto the boy, gathered together, and rolled down his body to his ankle and into, what I assume, the tiny needle hole. We waited for one minute and then the Wizard started performing CPR seven times. He then sat back and asked me what had happened. As I told him about Tobi's father he started to cry very hard. When he asked me what happened after that he continued to cry. It might just be a stereotype, but no men I have ever known have ever cried like this, or at least not in public. "Are you okay Wizard Man?" I asked him. I really didn't want to comfort anyone else today but if it could not be helped it could not be helped. "John was my husband. Tobi is my son as well," he sobbed. "It's hard you know?" He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. "And if my sexuality offends you that is just to bad," he said with a glare through his tears. "Nope, not at all" I assured him. I have three grandothers. One married to my grandpa, and the other two married- well not legally- to each other. "I'm a little was surprised, though. From what I see here," I gestured around, "Your world is a lot like the times back when people faced death just for being gay. And that wasn't to long ago." Moran chuckled a little at that. "Yes," he said. " My country in my world was like that too until just eighteen years ago."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Well, and I am just going to let you know right up front that I know a bit about your world, seeing how I am a Wizard and all. It's our job to know about the unseen." He cleared his throat and began the story.
"Now, in my world it's tradition for if a princess gets kidnapped by a dragon the one who rescues her gets to marry her. So, eighteen years ago, the Princess Karim had a affair going on with a girl who had a job in the stables. No one knew, no one guessed. They all thought that the Princess really liked horses and was good friends with a stableboy, no one knew that the stableboy was in reality a girl either. So days passed, then years, until one day the Princess was performing the Unicorn Ritual in which the maiden goes in to the forest and sits and waits for the Unicorn to come and lay her head in her lap. This Ritual is very important because only a princess who has had a Unicorn lay it's head in her lap can rule. So as she was sitting there the great Dragon Nargdo swooped out of the sky and bore her off into the mountains.
"Back at the castle of Calsablin (that is the name of my country) the news was spread that the Princess Karim had been stolen by Nargdo (who was a very well known Dragon) during the Ritual. Seeing how much every one liked the Princess, who was kind to all, no matter their social status, there was chaos. Knights hurried to polish their armor. For even though they were afraid for her safety, this was also their chance to win her hand in marriage. The stableboy/girl (who's name was Kate) saw it all the same way the knights did. Kate was very into the law and read books on it all the time. She knew that if she saved Karim they would be married and no one could do anything about it!
"So she snuck into the armory and picked a sword and found armor to fit her, than took the greatest horse in all the palace stables and rode after her beloved. It was a hard task. Since she'd taken the fastest horse and she was much lighter than all those heavily muscled men, she easily out ran them all. Slowly she crept into the dragons lair and saw Karim bound in magical chains that would not break unless the dragon was dead. Seeing her precious Karim tide up like a pig for the butcher set Kate into a frenzy. Whirling that great-sword around her she attacked with earnest the Dragon. The battle was fierce but the adrenaline coursing through that woman, and the muscles that come with any physical labor of which she had plenty, pulled her through and the Dragon was dead. After they returned to the capitol and people realized who had saved the Princess, they all were furious! But after a long debate between Karim and Kate against the King, Queen and all the court, the two women were allowed at long last to get married. Now they rule all of Sra (that's our country) side by side and they both live happily ever after."
I thought about the story for a while. I liked it even though he hadn't given much detail. "How come people are like that?" I wonder out loud. I was talking about people with homophobia and prejudice assholes. "I don't know," was his quiet answer. He knew what I meant. There was a pause. "So what's the rest of the story?" I wanted to know. He looked at me surprised. "There is not anymore. I said 'happily ever after' didn't I?" I sighed exasperatedly. "What about you. Where do you come into the story?" "Me? You want to know my story?" He asked, puzzled. "Yes!" I answered rather enthusiastically. "Um... maybe some other time." I let it go, while he seemed happy enough to tell stories about other peoples lives he didn't seem as comfortable talking about his own. Not to mention he had just lost his husband, who was undoubtedly in the story somewhere. "How is Tobi?" I asked, to change the subject and because I was still pretty worried about him. Moran moved closer to Tobi and made more signs in the air (without the blood) and whispered a few words. Then he nodded and moved back a little. "He will be fine." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Should not you find your parents young one? What is your name anyways?" I jumped up with a start. "Mom, Dad. Crap! I meant to go and find them before Tobi collapsed." I started running toward the end of the football field. As I ran I heard Moran yell after me, "Interesting name!" What an odd time to show a since of humor, I couldn't help but think. Running across the field I had a flashback to when I was running across a field. I was chasing some man, saying that he'd better run because when I caught him I'd kill him. I don't really know who the man was, nor do I know why I thought of that just now, nor even when that happened! Or even why I wanted to kill him. Either way, the memory itself is strange... If that's what it was As I ran I heard Moran call out to me, some thing about a spell. But I ignored him. I ran to the fence and jumped it. I ran all the way to my moms office which now had a giant tree growing through it. I heard some one behind me just as I was swept up into a hug that showed all the relief she was feeling and all the worry she'd been going through. "Mom!" I cried, turning around to receive her hug and give her one of my own. "Are you alright? Did anything bad happen?" She laughed, her bright blue eyes shining with suppressed tears. "I am fine, my little Jay, I am fine." No matter what I tell her, she still calls me Jay, when I would be the last person to be called such. Or that's what I think. "Mom! Have you contacted Dad yet? Is he OK?" She nodded. "He's fine. He went to the school to find you." 'OK," I said, now I was completely without worry, except for the house. "Let's go and get him." My mom got her car and we drove to the school. As we drove I looked around what had once been a neat and clean little town. Now the signs were crooked, the streets would end suddenly, and a tree would be right in the middle of the road so that we would have to swerve to avoid hitting it. It made me very glad that my moms car had four wheel drive. When we got there we jumped out of the car as if it was on fire. We both I think wanted to see him in the flesh instead of just taking his word that he was alive and unhurt. "Dad!" I called. "George?" Yelled my mom. We kept on yelling and calling out as we walked around the school and all the places that had appeared around it until finally we heard, "Over here!" We ran towards the voice of my father until we saw him. Now under different circumstances what we saw when we arrived might have been funny, as it was we did not find it funny and Moran, who was standing next to him, was laughing his head off as he attempted to help my father who's leg was buried all the way up to the middle of his thigh. For a moment me and my mom just stared, then after a while when the humor hit me, I joined Moran and laughed until I got a stich in my side. Then my dad started to laugh and then my mom, and when Tobi finally woke up from his spell induced sleep he found an incredible sight of which consisted of three adults, one which was his dad, and a girl whom he had met just a little while ago, all lying on the ground laughing and holding their sides.


Chapter two
What normal is now, and what it will be now that "normal" is unacceptable, along with how and to what they plan on making normal.

It has been a year since the Collision. That's what they are calling it when the two worlds became one. Both worlds wanted to declare war on each other- both blaming the other for what happened- but since both had suffered so much damage neither really could. So they made a peace treaty after assuring the other that neither one was responsible. There was a lot to discus. In the end it became like it is now. All children attend the schools, whether they were from Earth or from Treah. The two queens were, as you could guess, not widely excepted. But after fierce arguments and debates, the US Congress finally came to the agreement within themselves to "tolerate" them, as long as they didn't press for America to accept gay marriage. So then Tobi and I went to the same school and it was nice to have a friend again for a while at least. You never know what can happen. When I was alone... it wasn't very much fun. Things went back to normal, and they didn't. At least for me. People like Tobi, who had a parent die. Things will never be the same for them.
About a year later the Dragons came out of hiding. They were hiding, Tobi says, because they wanted to make sure that everything wasn't going to change again. "They do that," he'd said whenever it came up. He didn't like Dragons and never understood those who did. Kind of like how people who like spiders never really make since. And Tobi would know, about Dragons I mean. People have been dying left and right from Dragon attacks. The people from earth just are not used to Dragons coming out of the sky and stealing their children and livestock when they have it.
Me and Tobi have become great friends since I dug him out of the pile of stones and thatch. Every once and a while he'll go and visit his dad's grave. One time he asked me to go with him since his Papa (Moran) could at the time. I went, and I am sorry to say, things did not go well. I wanted to be a comfort to him, and I tried as best as I could but I just do not think that I am cut out for it. It started out as fine we went and then... Well never mind. It has nothing to do with who ever is reading this. Lets just say that comforting people has to come from experience. Because I suck at it.
I have decided to write in third person for now. Just to try my hand at it.

Jayd ran up the newly built school steps and in to her classroom, not even stopping by her locker. She was running so fast that she when she noticed that the classroom door was closed she did not even have time to stop and went careening in to the door. Every one in the class burst out laughing, with the exception of Tobi and the teacher Ms. Finrich. "Take your seat Miss Caw and try not to interrupt us again," Ms. Finrich said in her most severe teacher voice. "Sorry, I did not mean to run in to the door," Jayd said. "I do not doubt it. How ever, you are also late. and I do not approve of late-comers." She raised an eye brow. "Understood?" Jayd nodded and slipped in to her seat. "Where were you?" Tobi whispered. "I waited by the door but I had to go in when the principal came and asked what I was doing." "Mr. Aoudad!" Finrich's voice whipped and cracked over our heads. "Would you like to join Miss Caw and me after school for detention?" Tobi shook his head. "Thought not. But you will do so anyways." Damn she's mean! Jayd thought. "Now class, listen up!" Everyone snapped to attention. "I am going to discus an important subject with you. And I want everyone to share an opinion. Understood?" "Yes Ma'am!" Everyone said in unison. A few of them were stupid enough to say it mockingly. Those unlucky students joined Jayd and Tobi in detention. The teacher, Ms. Finrich, had an uncanny way of hearing everything said, and knowing who said it. "Now attend! Here is the problem. Many people from Treah are suffering from failing lungs, thanks to the pollution in the air. People from Earth are being attacked left and right by Dragons and other man eating monsters, and our weapons do not work against them. We have to hope that someone with Dragon slaying experience in nearby. And in the white house, the President and Congress are conferring with the Queens, Karim and Kate, and both have decided that there needs to be something done.
"The only problem is that they can't agree on what to do. One party says that they need to separate the worlds once again. And the other says that that is not realistic and that they should learn to cope by training the Earths people to fight with the right weapons and get better help for the Treahian's lungs. Now which to you think we ought to do?" There was a silence in the room as everyone digested this information. Everyone, that is, except me and Tobi. (I gave up on third person, it's too hard!) After the Collision my parents and Tobi's papa had also became friends and the two queens believed wholly in keeping their subjects informed. When Moran had received this information he had told Mom and Dad and us. He said that, "You should know too what goes on in this, for it concerns everyone." or something like that.
While everyone else was talking (Tobi was the only Treahian in this class) me and he went back to our conversation. "So...? Where were you?" Tobi asked. "My parents held me up. It is my birthday today," I told him drily. "And they wanted to celebrate before we all went our separate ways." "Oh!" He said surprised. "I did not know that! Happy birthday!" I laughed. "You are far too enthusiastic. And it is not even your birthday." He looked down for a moment then his enthusiasm returned. "Well...yeah... I do not know when my birthday actually is." He raised his eyebrows. "Surly you wondered how my dads ended up with me?" I was startled. "I have never really thought about it." I told him. "Really? Never? That is surprising. Do you want to know?" He asked. I shrugged, "Sure. But not right now I think someone is about to start talking and then we would be in for it." He nodded.
Turns out my prediction was right. A girl who had shared the same class with me since kindergarten stood up. For some reason I could not remember her name, I guess it might have something to do about the fact that for all those years she had barely said three words to me. "You have something to say Miss Tordol?" Ah! Now I remember! Her name was Alice Tordol. Seriously though, who would want to name there child "Tordol"? It sounds like a mixture of tortes and turtle. But I guess "Caw" is not much better. "I do!" She said, her voice was kind of squeaky. "Well actually it is more of a question. Do we get to vote or will it be decided by the government?" It was a good question and I, too, wanted to know the answer. We had republicans in the White House again, and who knows if I will like their decision. "Well, I do not know. I think, because this is a global decision, that it will be decided by the government. Any thing else?" "Why don't our weapons not working on the Dragons?" I asked. I had always wondered about that. I had to ask even if it had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Finrich glared at me. "Raise your hand before speaking, Miss Jaydzandria Caw! And keep to the subject." God! She acts like she is my mother, and getting on to me like I was talking with my mouth full. "Sorry." I said, obviously not. I raised my hand. "So will you answer my question?" Finrich made a kind of clicking noise in the back of her throat and moved on to Tobi. A few other people who wanted to know my question groaned. Tobi grinned at me, then turned back to Finrich and said, "I believe you said that you wanted everyone to participate in the conversation, Ms. Finrich, and yet right now you are disproving that. Jayd has a question that you said you would answer." She stared at him for a moment than answered, "I will get back to Ms. Caw later. She will have to wait as punishment for her insolence, along with an extra thirty minutes added to her detention that will now be added to your time." She glared us both, then said to Tobi, "Did you have something to say or a question to ask Mr. Aoudad?" He nodded. "Then please say so verbally." "If I was mute or deaf would you make me answer verbally?" Tobi asked. I groaned inwardly. I knew what he was trying to do, he was trying to get the same amount of detention. I still had detention from yesterday. As a friend this was going a little far. He was already behind on homework. "Shut up!" I hissed at him. "What was that?" Finrich demanded. "Nothing Ma'am." The rest of the day passed in a blur. Until Phys. Ed.
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When we got there, the doors were shut and the coach was waiting out side. "OK listen up! We are going to do something different today kiddies." She smiled widely. "Try to get in to the gym without using the doors." Since the gym was separate from the main body of the school, it had windows all around it. The only problem was that all the windows were up the walls about thirty maybe thirty-five feet. And that was the only way in to the Gym now that the doors were off limits. "Feel free to split in to teams, but you can only have two people per team." I turned to Tobi, "Do you have any ideas?" He shrugged, than brightened. "Well we obviously have to use the windows. So we need to get to the roof right?" I nodded. He grinned. "I have an idea alright. Wait a second." He ran over to the coach (who's name is Agatha Bradley but everyone just calls her Aggy) they talked a little than he ran back over to me. "I had to check to make sure that there was not anymore rules." Tobi explained. "Now here is my idea. I am not yet strong enough to lift us to the roof magically, but I can make something to get us to the top." I yipped with joy. Nothing physically taxing! Yay! "I'll make a rope and get it to tie it's self to that furnace vent. Then we can climb up the rope!" My spirits sank as he talked. So much for the easy way up. I nodded and hoped that I could make it all the way up with out slipping and getting a rope burn or sliding all the way down and making a fool out of my self. I sighed. "OK," I said dully. Tobi turned to me and smiled. "Do you want me to make a rope ladder instead? In my opinion they are harder to climb and once I make one I wont have enough to make the other. It is your choice." I sighed again. "Do what ever. I just wish I had more arm strength." "OK," he laughed. "The rope it is!" I shot him a look that just made him laugh harder then turned my back feigning indifference. I had to look how ever when he started chanting in a strange language and moving his hands in complex forms. Suddenly there was an explosion and there, lying on the ground was...A rubber chicken? "A rubber chicken is going to help us get to the roof?" I asked drily. He blushed a dull red. "Shut up, I would like to see you try." "No thank you. I would rather not make a fool out of my self." I grinned. "Why did you make a chicken anyways?" "Well... The key to Magic is concentration and so whatever you are concentrating on will appear, that is, if you are trying to conjure something." He said, sounding very much like Moran at that moment. But it is not like I was going to tell him that. "The reason I made a chicken is that at the peak of my spell a car drove by with a rubber chicken dangling from the rear view mirror. There for making me think of rubber chickens." I stared at him for a moment then we both started laughing. "HEY!" I jumped so high I swear I could have reached the top of the big Ore Tree (Also known as the silver, gold and copper tree by me). Aggy had snuck up behind me unintentionally to see what the explosion was and, sadly for me, possesses a very loud voice. "So? What is going on here?" She demanded. "Tobi comes over and asks if there are any other rules besides not using the doors. Are you trying to make a door?" "Sorry Aggy," said Tobi, looking properly abashed. "I was just trying to conjure a rope," he held up the chicken. "As you can see, it did not work very well." Aggy looked at the chicken and we looked at the chicken, I think we were all slap happy today because, once again, we started laughing, including Aggy. "Tobi," Aggy said once the laughter had subsided. "Next time you are planning on doing something with an explosive out come, please tell me. I look forward to seeing others." She walked away chuckling. I turned to Tobi and asked him, "So are you going to try again or are we just going to use the rubber chicken to get to the top?" "I am so tired, we might have to." "Ugh." I groaned, I seemed to be doing that a lot. "What are the other people doing?" I said looking around. No one was really doing anything. Some boys were trying halfheartedly to climb the wall. Most had just given up. Wandering around, talking, if they were good students they were studying. "Well? Shall we join the others and give up?" "Hell no!" I said. "I will never give up! It is not my nature." Tobi shook his head. "You are crazy. You would not stop even if you were half dead." He shook his head again. "OK. I will try again." "YAY!" I yipped. He did the weird muttering thing and hand stuff again and BOOM! There was rope! He was now panting he was so tired. I ran over and hugged him. "Yes I did it," he said prying me off of him. "The only problem is that now I don't have enough energy to send the rope up to tie it's self, let alone climb it." I thought for a moment. "I do not know what to do about the climbing thing. but I have an idea about the tying." I started running toward the sports shed, calling over my shoulder to Tobi to, "Tie the rope to the chicken." When I got to the shed and opened it I soon found what I was looking for. A bow and an arrow. See? I am good for something! I can even shoot. I ran back to Tobi and explained my plan. "Sounds good, but what kind of shot are you?" I smiled. Eager to disprove his idea that I had zero physical abilities, I quickly strung the bow and asked for the rubber chicken. I tied it to the arrow and brought the bow up, sighting at the chimney from an angle and fired. The arrow and chicken flew up and over the roof and down the other side. I really hoped that he had made the rope long enough, or else we had just lost it and our rubber chicken. Me and Tobi ran to the other side of the gym to see the rope dangling just out of our reach. "Let me climb on to your shoulders." I said. "WHAT! Hell no." He said backing away from me, as if I was going to jump on him suddenly. "You are way to heavy." "I am not!" I said indignantly. "You are just to weak. I am perfectly light!" "Ugh, fine." He bent down and I clambered on to his shoulders. "Just try not to fall over." I told him. He grunted and I assumed that was his yes. He walked forward slowly and carefully. I could feel him going off balance here and there. I grabbed the rope just as he lost it completely. We both tumbled to the ground. "Hey Jayd." "Yeah?" I mumbled. He had landed on top of me and was squishing me in to the ground. "What was the point of tying the rubber chicken to the rope if we were not even going to use it as a grappling hook? If we wanted a weight we could have used something much heaver. Like you for example." "Ha ha," I said drily. "The point of the chicken was simply to see it fly through the air. It is not a sight you see every day you know." Tobi grinned and started walking back to the other side of the gym. "Stay here until I say to come. Other wise we might drag the other side of the rope up the wall and you would have to get on my shoulders again." "OK," I agreed. I waited until he said I could come over. I ran over to him. Gym was almost over and I was extremely competitive. Tobi had tied a strong slip knot in his end of the rope and threaded the other end through it and started to pull it taut. Once it was ready Tobi indicated that I should go first. "Are you crazy?" I asked him. "Yep. Now go. We are almost out of time." I started up the rope and surprisingly made it to the window ledge. "NOW COME UP!" I yelled down to him. Tobi went to the rope looked up, looked at the rope, looked up again and yelled back to me, "YOU ARE CRAZY! THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD OR COULD CLIMB THIS THING!" "COWARD!" I cried. "I MADE IT UP HERE!" He muttered something incoherent and started to climb. When he finally made it to the ledge and crowded on, I teased him heartlessly. "Shut up," he told me. "We still have to get inside." By now the other students had noticed what we were doing and were staring. When we tried to open the window we realized that it opened outward and since we were on a ledge with about a foot in which to sit on. "Crap," I said. Tobi swore so fluently and great that if I put them down on paper this book would never get read or published and be put as a banned book in most libraries and bookstores. "So how do we get it open?" I asked him when he was done cursing. "How the hell should I know?" He was obviously freaked out. I should not have made him come up here, he was completely afraid of heights. How was I supposed to know that? "Um... We could continue to climb until we get to the roof. There are windows up there and beams to tie the rope to." I suggested. He nodded. It might have been just me, but he looked a little green. I hoped he was not getting sick because of the pollution and just because of his fear of high places. Truth to tell, the "conversation" in Ms. Finrich's class freaked me out. Tobi is and was my only real friend as sappy as that sounds. "Let's go!" And up the rope I went, trying not to slip and fall. My palms were sweaty.
Some how we made it to the roof. We walked to the sky lights and looked in. The Gym was completely dark and empty. Looking in it like that creeped me out. It was looking in to a giant box, a box that was a void, absent of all noise and light. Complete and utter darkness. Nothing else. So now you know, or you should (are you stupid?) that my greatest fear is the dark. And if you mock me in anyway I will find you and lock you up all alone and in darkness, we will see if you like it. Not that that has ever actually happened to me, but still.
We opened the sky light and saw that we were very lucky. There was a beam directly below us. How ever there were two problems. One was that Tobi was afraid of heights and we would have to jump in order to get to the beam. The other was that I realized that I was willingly going to jump into my worst night mare. So we sat there. Staring down at the inside of the gym. Both of us to afraid to move, and to ashamed to say so. Now this is the time in the story that we the heros brave our fears and continue anyways. I am sad to say that this is not the case. In the end the school had to get the Fire Department to come and get us down, both of us rooted to the floor next to the light.


Chapter Three
Someone kisses me in this chapter but I am not going to tell you who, so in order to find out you are going to have to read it.

Like the title says, I receive my first kiss in this chapter. And I know you are all thinking that it must be Tobi. After all it is not exactly like I have talked about anyone else which is not very good authoring. So let me tell you all the names of the guys in my class. We have: Simon, quiet personality, gets good grades but is not a geek. Often is caught vandalizing school property, his favorite art medium is spray paint. Then we have Jared. Cute, all the girls like him. The strong and silent type, no one knows much about him except his best friend, the before mentioned, Simon. There is Atticus, born Cole, who is obsessed with books and legally changed his name to Atticus after reading To Kill a Mocking Bird. Likes to read Playboy magazines and has sexually harassed every girl in the class with few exceptions. Luckily for me, I am one of those. Don is a complete nerd. Likes to play with action figures and reads the dictionary for fun. Ricardo is new to the school but everyone knows everything about him because he likes to talk so much. Although he talks a lot no one thinks him annoying and everyone likes him even if they do not have a crush on him. Nick and Bob are twins and every one knows that Bob got the brains while Nick got the muscles. Simon hates them both. Damien is just Damien. Not much of interest there. It is not that he is stupid, just dull. So, that is all the boys! I will save the girls for later. Now to the story!
Me and Tobi meet every week at the coffee house near our school called Finetties. We do our home work there. As we were sitting in our usual place when a group of raucous boys entered the shop. They spotted us and headed over. The group contained Nick, Damien, Atticus and one other boy that I learned later is called A.J. Now with any other boys all would have been fine, but if you reread the descriptions above and you put Nick and the others together you should find that they make the perfect team for bullying. Atticus pointed to me and whispered something to Nick, they both snickered. Not a good sign. "So? You two dating?" Nick asked casually. "No," Tobi answered, just as casual. For once I wished we were, just so that Honest Tobe would say so and they might leave us alone. Nick and Atticus exchanged looks. "So, if you are not, why don't you leave and let us become better acquainted with Jayd?" Atticus said sweetly. "I am sure we will have a lot of fun and you have a lot of homework to do." Tobi glared at them. Sometimes I wish Tobi had a more fiery temper. I know that wanting Tobi to kill him for me is very much like feeling like a damsel in distress. But I can not help it. I tried to punch Atticus before and Nick broke my arm. That was back in third grade this is our sophomore year in high school. I shudder to think what he might do now. "Come on Jayd," Tobi said getting up. He started to put his books in his bag when A.J. poked a knife at his stomach. "Shut up," he hissed. "I have an idea," Nick said. "Let's go out side and talk so that we do not disturb the other people here. Sound good?" It sounded horrible, but A.J. still had a knife pointed at Tobi. "Fine," I snapped. "Careful," Atticus warned. "We would not want people to think that you did not want to come. It would ruin my reputation as a Ladies Man." He lowered his voice and added, "Not to mention that Tobi there might lose his guts." Me and Tobi hurriedly gathered our stuff trying to act calm and walked outside. They lead us behind Finetties and in to the parking lot. "Now Tobi," Atticus said. "You are going to walk away and forget that you ever saw any of us here, understand? It is very important that you do, else wise harm might befall the young damsel Jayd." "I understand," Tobi said. Then he did something way to fast for my eyes to comprehend. One minute they are all upright and intimidating and the next they are on there butts (and in some cases their backs) and looking as if they have no more idea of what happened than I did. Somehow Tobi now held the knife and he waved it at them menacingly, saying "Now if any of you come near Jayd or me again, this knife, which you were going to carve my guts out with, will cut out all of yours." He looked so evil standing there holding the knife that if I was not on his side I would have fled for my life. As it was, Nick's stupidity showed through when instead of running, he stayed and brought out his own knife and flicked it open. "Come on then," he taunted. He walked over to me and coolly reached up my shirt and groped my breasts. I gasped and punched him hard in the jaw. He flew toward Tobi who beat him so bad I am surprised he could still get up when Tobi let him go. He staggered away, his buddies had long since abandoned him. I realized that I was shaking. I looked at Tobi. He looked tired. "Hey Tobi?" He looked up from the ground at which he was staring. "Thanks." "No problem," he answered. "Let's go." We picked up our bags and started heading towards the Tower. I would call my mom from there to pick me up.

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So after that day, when ever we saw Atticus he would look away and pretend he did not see us. Which was fine with me. I hated and hate that fucking bastard.
The school started a new program for the month of November. We had to write a novel be the end of the month. The novel had to be fifty thousand words long. This thing had been going on for a long time. Me and my friend who moved to Washington still email beck and forth, and she told me that her school was doing the same thing and that she had done it a few times before her school started it. The organization was called NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I don't think I ever told you people her name! Oh well, let me introduce her. Her name is Aloe and her middle name is Vera. Her parents are obsessed with cacti. She said that she was breaking the rules and writing about the Collision. She said it was close enough to fiction, what with the Dragons, Elves, and Goblins. Not to mention all the rest of the weird stuff that happened. Here is my story so far, as you can tell I did not put a lot of thought in to it.
Once upon a time there was a girl named Jayd and she had to write a 50,000 word novel in one month! so all through the month of November she wrote and wrote until her fingers grew blisters and her bones started to crack whenever she sat down at her computer to type. Eventually her fingers turned blue and then black and then fell off. Her parents rushed her to the hospital and in to the emergency room where she was immediately fitted and equipped with metal fingers like those you would see on Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. Claw like fingers that have knives protruding from the tops. They moved like real fingers and were incredibly sharp.
Every once and a while I would cut myself on accident. My best friend was afraid of me now that I had monster hands. I could not type or write any more. I cursed the doctors who had done this to me. They had ruined my life I was going to end theirs. So began my long training as a master assassin. One day as I was walking when I heard a muffled scream and chanced upon an assassination of the mayor. The assassin dropped the dead man and ran at me. I side stepped him. He was obviously not expecting that and ran right past me. He quickly turned and I realized that although he did not expect it he was ready for it anyways. Soon he had me in a one armed headlock with a knife against my throat. "Say one word and I will cut your neck open and laugh as the blood runs." I did not doubt it but there was not much more to live for any ways. Every one that I loved had abandoned me in fear of what my hands might do, even accidentally. "I do not care. Kill me." He was so startled that his knife slipped and opened a shallow cut right above my Adams Apple. "Teach me," I said. The assassin stared at me through his mask. "First you want me to kill you than you said that you want me to teach you. Make up your mind." I decided that I liked this man. He seemed to be one of those people who could take things in stride. Because of this I told him, "The reason I could not decide at first, is because I want to die, but I want to take a few others lives first." He continued to stare at me before grabbing my arm and towing me to the window. He was going to toss me out. Or so I thought. "Go," he said. "We can have this discussion later when we are not in the middle of a crime scene." It made since, so I crawled out and onto a part of the roof that protruded just out from under the floor of the Mayors office and climbed out. The assassin followed quickly and motioned for me to follow.

As you can tell it is not very good. But it is as much as I can do right now. A week after the incident with Atticus at the coffee shop we went back. We refused to give up our hang out. Besides I doubted that they would show there ugly faces there anyways. Atticus's cuts were still healing and his black eye was still Prominent. So we were surprised when we saw Nick. We both tensed. Then relaxed when we saw that Bob was with him. We liked Bob, he was a cool guy. It was his brother that we hated. The good thing is that Nick will listen to anything and everything that Bob says, which means that we should be OK. Bob spotted us and walked over. "Hey! What are you guys doing here?" Me and Tobi looked at each other and answered at the same time, "Nothing." "Homework." He's look was confused and humorous. "So which is it? Nothing or homework?" "Both." We answered in unison. He laughed. "Some times I think you two are more in sync than me and Nick, and we are twins." We all laughed except for Nick who stood there looking uncomfortable. "So how are you two coming along on your novels?" Tobi asked, trying to be civil towards Nick for all he is an ass hole. "Mine is coming along pretty good. What about you Nick?" "It is fine," he muttered. "Well, we have to get going pretty soon. Right Nick?" Bob said while he walked away. "See you guys tomorrow!" "Yeah," I said. "Bye," was Tobi's nicer answer. "So," I said. "Back to work?"
Later tomorrow we were all gathered into the auditorium. Sadly it was Ms. Finrich who was speaking. "Now listen up! I have something to tell everyone and you are going to listen like your life depends on it. Because it does." A few people turned in there seats looking uneasy and whispered to there neighbors. "I DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYONE HERE LISTENED. I SAID THAT YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON LISTENING TO ME, NOW LISTEN!" When everything became silent again she continued. "The two idiotic queens said-" There was a roar of disapproval from the Casablinians and some Americans. Everyone liked Queen Karim, who's Idealism had inspired many changes, most for the better, and Queen Kate, who's realism complemented Karim's ideas and made them possible. "SHUT UP!" "YOU SHUT UP!" Someone yelled back. "YEAH! DO NOT INSULT THE QUEENS!" The principle stepped up to the microphone and said so loudly that feed back ripped over the auditorium. "Every one please sit and be quiet. Thank you Ms. Finrich, I will take it from here." He glared at her. He was a supporter of the queens as well. "Now people, the two queens said that the two worlds must be separated and the other rulers of Treah agreed. The only problem is that the Tycoons and other rulers of Earth-" "What do you mean "Tycoons and other rulers of Earth? They don't rule anything other than there businesses." "That is a good question. The Tycoons control most of the money in our world and since our world, like all of them, revolves around money they have quite the power." He sighed. "The two queens and others threatened war and since it would cost more money than anyone who is interested in that stuff. Treah leaders have agreed that the prophesy made a thousand years ago mentioned this and gave an answer. All the Prophecy Readers are trying to unearth it's meaning as we speak. As far as they have gotten this is all they know. The prophecy is to be carried out by young people such as your selves. They plan on holding a tournament in order to decide who these people are. All humans in between the ages fifteen and eighteen are to participate. Even if you are not of Treah." There was a lot of whispering and some people near to use were trying to think about how to get out of it. "Tobi." "Hmm?" he seemed to be deep in thought. "Has something like this happened before?" He shook his head. "Not that I remember. Why? id you think that world collide on a daily bases?" I sighed exasperatedly. "Not that. I meant has a tournament to decide who is from the prophecy been held before?" "Oh that, yeah it has. Did you want to know what it is like?" I nodded. "Well the last one was held when I was nine and we went to see it. Pretty hard stuff. You have to either be really strong or really smart in order to actually have a chance. Most of it has to do with forming the perfect team. When you go to sign up you take a physical test and a written test. They want an even balance on the teams." I nodded slowly putting it all together. I would probably fall under the category of the smart. I decided that I wanted to be stronger. I would hit the gym in the morning and get Tobi to teach me some of what he did in the Atticus incident.
Next morning at school there was a person in royal livery siting at a table with a bunch papers stacked next to and in front of him. A second man in a dark suit and sunglasses stood next to him. Mr. Johnson the principal walk up to us and lead us over to the table. "You two are sixteen right?" "I am seventeen," Tobi corrected him. "Seventeen, yes. Sorry about that." He smiled. "I need you to sign up for the tournament. You too Jayd." "Sure," I said. I wanted to. I wanted this mission to fail. I did not want Tobi to leave. When we signed up I could feel the recruiter staring in to me. I felt he could read my thoughts and knew my intentions. As we walked on I could feel his eyes boring into my back. After a class that me and Tobi did not share he cornered me. "You are Jaydria right?" He asked, his voice was a light tenor. "Yes," I answered cautiously. "You are close to Tobias Aoudad?" I nodded. "How close?" My temper surged. "What does it matter to you! Go away and leave me alone. I have a class to get to." I moved to go past him, he blocked me. "I need an answer to my question." I shot him my most withering glare which he ignored. "We are friends and have been since the Collision." He looked at me curiously. "Since the Collision? How did you meet?" I sighed, and looked at the clock. I was late. "Can we not talk about this right now? I am late for English. He nodded and moved aside. "But I will hear the rest of the story." And there was no doubt in my mind that he would not.
At the end of school me and Tobi met up. "Tobi, what exactly is the jobs of the recruiters?" My thought was maybe this guy had to annoy me because of his job, but... "The recruiters are just supposed to go to the schools and make sure everyone signs up. They hang around for a few days just to make sure that every one is on the list. Why do you ask?" "Are they supposed to ask questions? Because one of them was following me around earlier today and made me late for English." I really wanted him to say that that was normal, even though I knew it probably was not. "No, not really." I knew it! "What kind of questions did he ask you?" "How close me and you are and how we met." He looked very confused now. "That is very odd." "There he is! hide me!" I ducked behind an over hanging branch and jumped in to a bush. "Hello!" That was Tobi trying to be friendly. "The girl over in that bush, that Jaydria?" "Depends, why are you looking for her?" I held my breath. "I have a few questions for her." "Are they related to the Recruitment?" "Slightly." "Then why are you only asking her? Why not anyone else?" "Because she is the only one who is close friends with someone from Treah. There for less likely to try hard to complete the Separation." "I see. Jayd quit hiding, and come out." I got out of the bush slowly. "Well?" The recruiter asked. "Well what?" He scowled. "Answer my question!" "Introduce you self first!" "Fine. My name is Sir Allan of Horicine. Now answer!" "Which question? The one about how I met Tobi?" "Yes! Now quit beating around the bush and just tell me already!" He was obviously inpatient. "Well, see I was standing on the steps of the school when it started and then I heard a moan and found a pile of rocks and dug him out and that is basically it." Tobi and Allan stared at me for a moment than Tobi said, "Wow Jayd, you sure know how to kill a perfectly good story." "Well excuse me," I muttered. "I did not know that I was supposed to recite a novel or else I would have taken time to write one before hand." They laughed at me! "So did you learn what you wanted to know?" Tobi asked him. "Just about. Thank you for your time. I look forward to seeing you at the tournament." "We do as well, it was nice to meet you." "Speak for your self," I muttered. Tobi elbowed me hard. "OW!" "Well see you tomorrow!" Tobi said, towing me away before I could say something else insulting. "Good bye Jaydria and Tobias, thanks once again." "My name is Jayd!" "My name is Tobi!" He stared at us for a moment then turned and walked away. "So?" Tobi said like he was trying to get me to tell him a secret. "So what?" "So..." I groaned and turned away. If he was going to be an idiot and not tell me what he was talking about so be it. I would just ignore him. "So what are you going to do?" He said jumping in front of me and blocking my path. "Do what? Damn it! Is it just to hard to define what you are asking?" He shrugged. "It seemed pretty obvious to me what I was asking." That would be because you are the one thinking it!!!! That was what I was screaming in my head. What I said out loud was something like "You are an idiot if you think everyone can read minds." So basically around the same lines but still deferent. "What are you going to do about the tournament?" I looked at him annoyed. "What? I thought that was perfectly clear." "No." "OK here let my lay my out my question completely. What are you going to do if you go to the tournament and win? Are you going to actually try to separate the worlds? Or are you just going to slow the team down?" I had to think about it for a minute. Before Tobi asked I would have never even thought about actually trying to separate the worlds. I would have done everything in whatever power I had to keep things exactly as they were. But now? Tobi agreed with the queens, that the worlds should be separated. But if that happened I would lose my only friend. People make friends all the time, so they say. If that is the case then how come in my entire life time I have only ever had two? Have you ever had one friend that you did not even have to try to be friends? That it was just effortless? If ever you needed something or someone you could just go to that person? That is what Tobi is to me, and needless to say I did not want to give him up! "Do you want my honest answer? No. I would not try to separate the worlds." Tobi looked at me for a minute, than turned and walked away with a strange, tight expression on his face. Let him be. I could tell he was thinking about what I had said and wanted to be alone. As I walked back to the house I wondered why he thought that I might want to keep the worlds together. Either he does not think of me the same way as I think of him or knows that I even think of him in that way. Now it would be really embarrassed if he did know and just did not return the feelings. Oh my life is way to complicated. Oh, and by the way I lied, I do not get my first kiss this chapter. Hah! If I did, this would be way to much of a high school drama and that would be just plain boring!

Chapter Four
The Tournament

A week after that all the drama and me and Tobi still were not talking as comfortably as we used to. On Thursday we were all told to bring sleeping bags, tents and anything we would need for ten days because the next day we all piled in to the buses and drove to Washington DC for the Tournament. On the bus people laughed and talked for the first few hours and then everyone got sick of each others company and started bickering. Tobi and I sat next to the other but said nothing. I have no idea how to make up for the truth, but I tried. "Hey Tobi?" He grunted as a response. "Um... Why do you want the worlds separated so badly?" "I do not." I stared at him. He was angry at me for no reason!
"Then why are you mad?"
"I am not."
"Then how come all your sentences are short and you voice is clipped?"
"I am nervous, besides, I thought that you were mad at me." I looked at him, puzzled. "Why would I be angry with you?" I asked him. "How should I know? You just seemed to not want to talk to me." "Oh... Well I was just giving you space, you seemed to want it." We lapsed in to silence. This time it was more of companionable silence. When the bus finally pulled to it's last stop, every one yelled with joy. As everyone piled out of the buses and started looking for the bathrooms Tobi pulled me in to a shadow and said, "Jayd there is one thing that I have to tell you." "What?" I asked. "Is it about the Tournament?" "Yes and no, it is and it is not." He looked nervous, he had said that he was in the bus. "Well?" "Um... See, I wont be participating in the normal Tournament." I stared at him in disbelief. "Why? Are they separating the Treahians from the Earthlings?" I joked. He looked completely serious when he answered. "No, the reason is that I am biologically a Noble." I must have looked really surprised because of what he said next. "It does not really change anything, it is just how they have ordered me to attend. Which really makes no since. I have been raised as a peasant's son all these years." "Why did you not tell me?" "Well I asked you if you wanted to know how my dads got me did I not?" Also I was asked if I wanted to bring someone to the Nobles tournament with me and I said maybe, that I would have to ask that person first. So do you want to come?" He said the last part very fast. "Um... What exactly does that entail?" I was suddenly cautious, this should not have needed to be a secret. "If you go to the Nobles Tournament instead of the Commoner Tournament, you have a better chance of being chosen for the Prophesied Fellowship. Please say yes!" "Why is it that you are so eager for me to join that Tournament? Why do you have a better chance?" He grinned. "You Earthlings sometimes, I have noticed, refer to us Treahians as Fairy Tale People. And there is a good reason for that. Our ways are very similar to the ways of those stories, and if you notice that in the stories the royalty usually are the ones who have to go on a quest and whatever. So come with me." "You still did not answer why you want me to join." He sighed. "Because you have to join the Tournaments in pairs." "Oh... OK. I will do it!" He grinned and hugged me so suddenly that I lost my balance and fell against him. We both fell to the ground and started laughing. He picked him self up and dusted himself up than held a hand out to me. I took it and he helped me to my feet. Now that I was not in the middle of an important conversation with Tobi nor being dragged by him I could look around. I looked up at the White House which is were we were obviously. And saw that it was very big. I guess that I never really realized just how big it was. It always looked kind of big on the postcards but nothing like what it really was. The lawn was perfectly cut and green, and all the cars were fancy and shiny. For all there were children that lived here it sure did not look it. Tobi and I ran to catch up to the rest of the Raytown people. When we got up the steps we slowed to a fast walk. Once we caught up to the others we got in line to sign in so that they would know that we were there. When me and Tobi got to the front they asked us our names and if we were competing together or with someone else. "Together," Tobi answered. He nodded and pointed to the door that said Nobles Tournament. We thanked him (might as well use good manners if you have them) and moved through the doors.
My first impression of the room that I was in was that the designers and builders had way to much time on their hands. The walls had intricate patterns embedded in to the smooth stones. "I had wondered what had happened to the palace during the Collision," Tobi whispered. That was when I realized that the modern White House would not have stone walls like this. The Royal Palace of Calsablin had erupted and conformed into the White House!
A richly dressed woman with a crown stood up and Tobi and every other person who was not on the dais bowed, I hurriedly followed suit. She had coal black hair and bright green eyes, her skin was a creamy brown just like Tobi. She must be one of the Queens, all the rest of the people did not look like they shared the same ethnicity with Tobi "Rise," she commanded. "You are Nobility and the friends of Nobility, and I welcome all of you. I have but one request for you." She stared at us all, measuring us up as if she could tell just by looking at us who would win so that she could place her bet on us now. "Try your best to save your respective worlds by separating the two and by keeping your individual thoughts and feelings out of the picture and putting others first." She seemed to be looking at me and Tobi for that last bit of her speech. I remembered what that one recruiter, what was his name, Sir Allan of Horicine, said that I was the only one who was close friends with some one from Treah. Was that true? And if it was, what would that mean for them in the competition? "Now when you go through these doors," she gestured to some doors inlaid with mother of purl behind the dais. "You will began the first challenge of the Tournament. All will be explained by the judges of each Contest." She motioned for the doors to be opened. "I wish you luck." As everyone walked through the doors from the back of the line of Noble Teenagers, all me and Tobi and me heard was applause. "Hey Tobi. Am I the only one here that is not of high decent?" He looked at me amused. "Even if you were I might as well be. No you are not, for every Noble person here there is one Commoner." "Why is that?" "Because all the Noble personage here is partnered with a Commoner." He explained while trying to see over the heads in front of us and in to the room where all the applause were coming from. "Than how come everyone is staring at me? Is it because I am from Earth?" He shrugged and nodded, "Probably, all these people are from Treah now that I think of it." I sighed, great this is just what I needed. As a guess people here do not like Earthlings and would rather I not be here.
The room that we walked into was like what I would describe as a mermaids cave. The walls had seashells pressed into them and the floor... Was non existent. All there was, was a deep pool that seemed to stretch down for forever. There was, how ever, a narrow walkway that went around the pool. "WELCOME!" What sounded like a giants voice boomed. "THIS IS THE FIRST CHALLENGE, YOU ARE TO SWIM TO THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL OF MER AND BRING BACK A KNIFE. BUT NOT JUST ANY OLD KNIFE! BUT ONE OF THE KNIVES OF THE MER! MAKE SURE TO GET IT, EVEN IF YOU COME IN LAST. FOR THAT KNIFE WILL BE ABLE TO HELP YOU IN THE FUTURE CHALLENGES. REMEMBER! ONLY ONE KNIFE PER TEAM, OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE DISQUALIFIED AND YOUR FAMILY SHAMED FOREVER!" "Why would I care if my family was shamed forever? If this works I wont ever see anyone from Treah again." I whispered to Tobi. He shrugged and said, "All the same, I hope you are a good swimmer." "THE TIME LIMIT IS FIVE HOURS. BEGAN!" Everyone dived into the pool. I was lucky. I used to be on the diving team in middle school and could dive pretty good. The only problem was that I was not the only one who could dive. As I kicked to the bottom of the pool I saw hundreds of knives. None of them looked the same and I had no idea which one of them was a Mer Knife. Some one touched my ankle I whipped around, trying to keep myself from gasping, I was running out of air, to see Tobi trying to tell me something. Something about the knives I think. Why did he not just get one? Instead he was trying to tell me which one to get. I pointed up and shot to the surface. I saw Tobi standing on the edge completely dry. What the hell! "Jayd!" He yelled across the water. "Get a dull one!" Get a dull one? But Tobi was more experienced in this kind of thing than I was. Tobi was the only one standing there, could he not swim? I dived down just as the first person shot to the surface clutching a knife. I dived down swimming for all I was worth. At the bottom I saw people trying to figure out just what kind of knife they were supposed to bring up. I saw a really boring knife and held it against me thumb to see if it was sharp. It was not! Since I had did not know what kind of dull Tobi was talking about I went for both kinds. I swam back to the surface. Once there I gulped down air filling my oppressed lungs. "DO YOU HAVE A KNIFE, CAW?" The voice boomed. I nodded and started swimming to the edge. As I hulled myself up to dry floor a short and squat man held out his hand. "LET ME SEE THE KNIFE." He asked. So this person is the one with the voice loud enough to wake the dead, he did not look it. I handed him the knife. He looked at the knife and then touched the edge and nodded. He brought out a cloth and started drying the blade. Once dry he handed it back to me and turned back to the pool. "DO YOU HAVE A KNIFE, CASNALIN?" I looked at the knife in my hand. It was completely different from the one I had brought from the water. It had a blade that looked as if it was made of Mother of Purl although it was much stronger. The hilt was made out of rock it seemed but it had pieces of bright coral embedded in to it. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Tobi came up behind me and looked over my shoulder. "Mer Knives are only pretty and useful when dry or being used by a Mer. When that man dried it he unlocked its powers." He looked like he had just seen something marvelous. "Do you want to see it?" I asked. "No!" He looked startled and somewhat fearful and pulled away. "Well there is no reason to make a scene. You could have just said 'no' and left it at that." A team near ours was standing with a knife and snickering at us. "Mer Knives are bound to whom ever pulls them out of the water. If I touched it, I would either burn or freeze, and neither one of those is good." I stared at the wonderful knife. Could it really do that? "TEAMS NUMBERS 1,2,3,6,9 AND10 ALL PASS. CONGRATULATIONS! PLEASE CONTINUE THROUGH THOSE DOORS." Two doors on the other side of the pool swung open.

Chapter Five
The Second Challenge

On the other side of the doors leading from the Mer room there was a giant sized room filled with well... giants. All of them had to be at least twenty feet tall and thirty feet from the ground was a spectators box in which sat a portly old woman with a mega phone. "Your job is to last three hours in this room while these giants try to eat or step on you. In short they are trying to kill you." Yeah, as if that was not clear enough. "Began! Giants! Eat your fill!" We all scattered. As me and Tobi ran from one of the giants, (He looked like a huge potato on legs with red curly hair, if you wanted a description) I asked him why the giants did not attack the old woman. "Because she is up higher than all of them. They are all stupid. They are not used to anything being taller than them that is edible. And giants do not usually grow to thirty feet." "So if we get up higher than them we win?" He nodded. "Let's do it!" We ran to the wall and started looking for a way up. We had but two advantages, but both could be rendered useless if a giant stepped on us by mistake. We were small which meant that we could run in between there legs and the giants took up most the space they had to push and shove to get to their prey. The other advantage was that we actually had brains that we used. Our giant was, at the moment, trying to untangle himself from his fellows. I looked up and said, "I wish we had that rubber chicken right now." Tobi grinned. "I do not think that would be necessary." He pointed to some normal sized stairs to our right. Some others were already running up them. We ran to the stairs and hurried up them as fast as we could. The problem was, was that the stairs only went up twenty feet. We would be level with the giants heads. When we got to the top platform the other team glared at us. "Go back down," one of them said. "We do not need a Earthling up here or even in the Tournament at all." "That is nice," I said absently, looking around for a way to get higher. "There!" I pointed to a platform ten feet above where we were now standing. "She is stupid, just what to expect from an Earthling," the boy who said that I was not needed sneered. "And just how did you expect to get there?" "Well," Tobi said, stepping forward. "I think she wants a rubber chicken." He turned to me. "Is that so?" I grinned and nodded. "A rubber chicken?" The boys partner asked. He looked to be a little young to be in this kind of competition. "Yep." Tobi closed his eyes and muttered the strange words again. There was a loud bang and then, there was rope. "So you now have rope, big deal. You can not do anything with it," the older and meaner boy said, slightly put off by the show of magic. Tobi muttered some more holding the rope out to me. I took it. He motioned for me to throw it. I did. The rope flew through the air just like the one that I shot over the gym. It flew up and over and on to the platform above us. Tobi came over and took the other end of it from me and gave it a hard yank. It held. He then pressed the end to the floor and stood up. The rope stretched taut between the two spaces. "You can come with us if you shut up," Tobi told them. He motioned for me to start climbing. I climbed trying not to think of what might happen if a giant spotted me hanging in the air. Helpless. Unable to move. I hurried up the rope. Once up I looked to see what had held the rope up here. I found the rope lying on the ground. Not very reassuring I tell you. I waved to the others to tell them that I was up and that they should start climbing. I stood as look out to warn them if a giant came this way. Now that I was up here I realized that there would be people that would not pass this part of the Tournament. People die in these Tournaments. That was another thing that Tobi and other Treahians had failed to mention when informing the public that this was going to take place and drafting all the teens. And I could very easily be one of the dead.
Now the insulting boy was up and his partner was on the rope. Tobi was nervous for some reason, he kept looking around. I know that he should be nervous, after all there are a lot of vicious man eating giants ten feet to his left. But he seems more nervous than that when I realized that I had forgotten that he was afraid of heights and now he had to climb a rope suspended twenty-five feet in the air. He must be looking around to disguise his fear. I wondered if he could do it. He had frozen on the rope at school, but maybe his fear of the giants would push the other one out of his head for a moment. Unfortunately we had no such luck. When the smaller boy got to the top (I learned their names later, the small one is Cole, and the bigger and meaner one is Henry. Seriously?) I looked down to see Tobi looking up with terror on his face he saw me and shook his head, he could not do it. Crap! "What is up with him?" Henry asked, coming up behind me. "He is not coming." "Why?" That was Cole. "Watch out for giants for me will you?" I started climbing down the rope. When I got to the ledge that Tobi was on he laid into me. "What the fucking hell! You were up there, safe!" "Yes, but you were not." He looked as if he was going to say something but I cut him off. "Look, just go up the rope, it is shorter than the one at the school and it is easier to climb. You wont fall." "I can not." "OK, than we will have to go down. Staying here will only get us killed faster." He looked alarmed at that. "NO! You have to go back up. I have spells to help me." "That is well and all but can you actually use those spells now that you have used a good amount of energy to make a rope that you wont use?" "Maybe..." He looked away but not, I noticed, down. "Just go up the damn rope. It is either that or use your magic to float you across." He shook his head, this time not as a no but more of an acceptance that I was crazy, and that he would do it anyway. I grinned. "Up you go then. The longer we wait the more chance that a Giant will see us." He looked at me again and shook his head (again) at my insensitive humor. He started up the rope and tried not to think about the consequences of slipping. Halfway up the rope a giant turns around and sees him. Or at least I think it sees him. "Hurry!" I half yell half whisper. He starts climbing faster. hoping that he makes it without being eaten or falling. At the last second I realize that he does not see Tobi, but me! I run to the stairs and start to run down as fast as I can, but I am not fast enough. He reaches out and grabs me. My arms are pinned to my sides by his massive fist. "Jayd!" I hear Tobi yell out. I hope he was on the ledge when he yelled that, otherwise he would soon be dead, just like I was. All of a sudden I was falling and then I was not. I giant had punched the one who was holding me making him let go and grabbing me before I fell and died, `cause you know that dead meals are not near as much fun as when it is still alive. Then I was falling again, another giant saw me, it kept on happening that I almost wished that they would just get it over with. Finally one giant hit the holding me really hard but he did not let go of me until he the floor. I picked myself up as quick as possible and ran to the steps and up them and to the rope and I climbed up the rope, nothing was going on in my head except survive, survive, survive. I had been striped of everything that made me human, until all that was left was my bare animal instincts. When everything started to process and my mind became human once again Tobi was hugging me and I was on the ledge. About thirty minutes later the whistle blew and all the giants stood completely still. "All of you left alive and conscious pass," the voice of the old woman says. If you are injured have your partner help you out. If he or she is unconscious stay where you are and help will come, you both fail." Cole and Henry go down first. I get Tobi to go back down the rope and I follow. We reach the others and the next door just before the last of the people arrived. The numbers had drastically waned. What started out with thirty odd kids, there was now maybe eight. Four teams had made it out of the Giants' pit without dying or being horribly maimed. I hoped that through the next door it all would be easy.
And in a way it was. It was not a challenge but a rest stop, with an infirmary and everything. It was also a place where we discovered our loses. Ten of us had died. Lilly, Martin, Abbi, Hope, Jon, Tyler, Jacob, Fred, Zoe and Hannah. Dead. I had never even talked to some of them and yet that night, I cried a lot. We slept in the infirmary. They knew that people needed a break. I knew that a lot of other people were also saddened by the deaths, I could hear them crying through out the night.

Chapter Six
The last Challenge

The next day began with the rise of the sun, but for me and all the others who were grieving for the lost, our day began with the fall of the moon. For breakfast we got bacon, eggs and pancakes. Not to bad either. As the eight of us continued eating, we were briefed for our last challenge. Our job in the next 'game' as they call it, is to get everyone to the other side of the obstacle course. What the obstacles are (and they are not the normal kinds of that everyone is sure) no one will say. So as we journey forth in to the unknown Cole and Henry dropped back to talk to us. "Hey," says Cole. He is by far the nicer one. "Do you have any ideas on what we are walking in to? I mean, last time it was giants, this time who knows?" Tobi grins. "Might be Dragons." Cole shudders, "Don't say that, it might come true." Henry is silent. "So what do you think...um... I forgot your name." I laugh. "Jayd, I have no idea, it could be anything. For that matter we have no idea what the obstacle course is. It could be a field or another pool. Maybe up in the trees or under ground." This time Tobi shudders. I do as well, but inside so know one will know just how afraid I am of the dark, or even that I am at all. "Jayd, can I talk to you privately?" I looked at Henry in surprise. He pretty much said that he hated me the day before, why would he want to talk to me now? My surprise turned in to suspicion. He did not like me, so what was he planning on doing or saying once we were alone? But for all that I nodded, without any real plan if he planed on doing something nasty. Besides it is not as if I would know what kind of plan to make until he said or did what ever he was planning on doing. "What did you want to speak to me about," I asked him after the Tobi and Cole had gone far enough along that they could not hear if we talked quietly. "I wanted to apologize. Yesterday I insulted you and yet you saved all of our lives any way." "Well duh. I am human, and that is a human thing to do, you do not just leave people to die." "Still, you did save us. Thanks." He looked really embarrassed and sincere. Thinking to lighten the mood I said, "Out of curiosity, how old is Cole anyway? He seems to young to be in this competition." "He is fifteen." His face had become closed. Looks like my tact had not worked all that well. "So how did you two get to know each other?" "We met one time when he was running from some people." "Running? What for?" He looked away, a sure sign that what he was going to say next was either a lie or not the entire truth. "How should I know." So it was a lie. I know this because if it was a half truth there would most likely be more to the story. "Oh, OK. Let's catch up with the others." Henry agreed and we ran. Tobi looked at me with a question on his face, I shrugged and he nodded He knew that I would tell him later. We walked through the doors (I seem to be saying that a lot) and onto the pristinely cut grass. Everyone else was far ahead. Tobi and Cole had slowed down a lot so as not to leave us behind. We all ran towards them arriving just in time to hear the rest of the introduction. "Now than, here is exactly what you have to do," said a tall gangly man who looked as if he spent most of his time with his nose in a book. When he spoke he punctuated his words like he was trying to use them to stab you. Needless to say, I did not like him. "You will split into Teams of four. Two teams per Team. There are reasons for all of the tests, the ones you have gone through, and the one you are about to do. No one should die here. The object of this is to get everyone across the field to the platform set up there." I could not see the platform from so I let my hope that it was not a high platform rise. "Now before you began I am going to give you a bit of advice, stay on the path. At some points that is impossible, but trust me, it is preferable. Now quickly choose your Team." Me and Tobi looked at each other and then at Cole and Henry. Henry and Cole looked at each other and then at Tobi and me. "Want to be a Team?" Cole asks. Tobi grins and I answer, "Sure." Now the others are stuck with each other and they hope that they are able to get along. "OK, now that the Teams are decided we will choose weapons." When everyone started to look uneasy he said, "What did you think that we would let you start without being properly prepared? Each Team needs one bow, one sword, one staff and one knife. Talk amongst yourselves and when you are decided come to me." We all looked at each other. "I will be the bow. That is all I know how to use anyway," I stated. Everyone accepted that. "I will be the knife. I know how to use them," was what Cole wanted. Them? I wondered. The guy in charge had only said "knife". Oh well, if Cole knows how to use two he can probably use one as well. "You be sword and I will be staff?" asked Tobi. It makes since. Tobi is the Wizard in this group, he should get the staff, and Henry looks as if he could easily use a sword too, he is very big and muscular. We all nodded, this Team was perfect! We are going to kick but! We walked over to the guy and told him our choices. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at us, like he was superior or something. We walked back this time with our weapons in our hands and waited for the other team to receive theirs. Once they did Guy (that is what I am calling the dud in charge, he looks like a Guy. seriously!) turned to us all and said, "Ready? Began!" It was started so suddenly that no one moved for a moment, than everyone registered and shot of down the path. Almost immediately Cole was apprehended and held suspended by a tentacle that had shot up out of the dirt as if it was water. "Cole!" Cried Henry. I wasted no time. I reached behind me for my quiver and put an arrow to the string. I pulled back and ran forward, aiming in to the hole as I ran. I released the string and the arrow flew into the hole and hit something with a slightly squishy thump. The tentacle released Cole and he fell to the ground and the tentacle slithered back into the hole. The ground closed behind the tentacle as if it was a automatic door. We stared at it for a little while before Henry suggested that we hurry up and get to the end of "this fucking death trap". Again as we started off a second time we were stopped. This time because a small army of what looked like goblins jumped from the trees and onto the path in front of us. They attacked us with a verity of what looked like prehistoric weapons. Not one of them was actually made out of metal. "Melee weapons, attack in a pincher movement!" Henry ordered. "Jayd! Stay behind us and shoot over our heads to attack!" We all nodded and moved to take our positions. Tobi on Henry's left, and Cole on Henry's right. I stepped back behind Henry and brought an arrow out of my quiver and knocked it. I looked behind me to make sure that there was not anything behind me, than turned my attention back to the scene unfolding in front of me. It looked like something out of The Lord of the Rings. I remembered that I was supposed to attack as well and brought the bow up and took aim. I shot and a goblin went down. Tobi struck and a goblin went down. Cole attacked and two goblins went down. Henry threw himself into battle and down went five. We continued to attack and slowly gained the upper hand. Once a group of three got past the three boys and were about to take me down. But I shot one and Henry turned and ran one through as I shot the other one. Then all was quiet. The rest of the goblins had fled and now we were alone. I did not see the other Team, they must have had better luck than us and moved farther ahead. Everyone except me had some cuts but none were to bad. After a minutes rest we got up, readied ourselves for another fight and continued down the path. As we walked I wondered how they chose the people in the end. If they have two competitions going on at the same time that would mean that they had more people in the end than that needed to complete the prophecy. "Hey Jayd! Hurry up!" Tobi called back to me, in my musing it seems as if I have fallen behind. I ran up and we continued walking. "STOP!" Someone says in a thunderous voice, almost scaring the pee out of me. So glad no one knew that. "NONE MAY PASS BUT THOSE WITH BRAINS!" "Guess that counts you out Henry," Cole joked nervously. "DO NOT TAKE THIS LIGHTLY YOUNG HUMAN! IF YOU ARE STUPID OR IGNORANT YOU DIE, HERE AND NOW!" The voice boomed out once again. And it was not like that one short guy's voice either. While his had been loud, it had been like Aggie's, the gym teacher. Nice and friendly. This persons how ever was anything but. I was terrified. All the same I guess I can not keep my mouth shut for to long. "So you want us to prove how smart we are? OK, how do you want us to do that? And what kind of smart? Book smart? Street smart? Maybe battle smart? Specify please." "OH HO! WE HAVE OUR SELVES A SMART ASS! THIS WILL BE VERY INTERESTING! NOW I AM GOING TO PROVE TO YOU JUST HOW GOD DAMNED IDIOTIC YOU ARE!" "So are you going to specify or not?" Just shut up Jayd! Damn I talk to much! "WHAT IS YOUR NAME STUPID ONE?" "What is it to you?" "Just answer the question," Henry hisses. "Why?" I asked, not bothering to be quiet. "He asks my name but does not even have the decently to introduce himself first? I refuse to answer him." "HA HA AHAHA! THAT IS A GOOD ONE! ACTING LIKE YOU YOURSELF HAVE MANNERS WHEN YOU DID NOT EVEN INTRODUCE YOUR SELF AND ASK ME MY OWN NAME WHEN I FIRST APPEARED!" "As a matter of fact I do have manners. And since you ran to greet us, you should have been the one to tell us your name and then politely ask for ours." There, I thought. That ought to teach him who is stupid and has bad manners. "Your right," said a quiet voice. "You failed Jared. She won." "NO!" Screamed the loud one, who's name apparently is Jared. "NO SHE DID NOT! THAT IS NOT TRUE!" "Screaming and stomping your feet is not going to change the rules of etiquette." A rather large lizard climbed out of the bushes next to the road. It turned it's head toward us and said in the quiet voice, "Congratulations, you have defeated the spoiled brat, now I am going to have to console him and find more books on etiquette for him to read." The lizard sighed. "Alow me to introduce my self, I am Torcal. Pleased to meet you. What pray, are your names?" We stared for a minute at the lizard that had vocals he could use to communicate with humans, before Tobi recovered and answered. "My name is Tobi and this is Henry, Cole and Jayd. We are pleased to meet you as well." He bowed courteously whilst motioning behind his back for us to do the same. Cole and Henry got it immediately, but once I saw everyone bowing I quickly got the message. Torcal nodded, accepting our respectful show. "Now quickly, continue on your quest. Find that golden egg or whatever." He sighed. "I hate being polite." "Are we supposed to find a golden egg?" "No, no. It was just an expression in reference to your quest." He sighed again. "I am surrounded by imbaciles!" He cried woefully. I roll my eyes and start walking down the road to whatever our next stop is, be it blood thirsty Unicorns or a One Eyed, One Horned Flying Purple People Eater. The others see that I am leaving and follow. "That was stupid." Tobi said. I can not tell if he means what I said and did, or the stop it's self. I chose to ignore it. And just as I expected, fifty five feet away from our destination is a huge and powerful and hungry, Dragon.
"Holy shit!" Screams the three boys behind me. I just stand there staring at it. I had never seen a dragon before. "I do not think that shit is very holy," I say somewhat distractedly, awed by the magnificent spectacle before me. "Shut up Jayd." I turned to Henry. "What is the best way to defeat a Dragon?


Chapter Seven

The Chosen Five

"What are you? Crazy?" Henry looks at me like he is sure of it. He speaks slowly as if speaking to a child who does very bad things. "You do not attack a Dragon if you are inexperienced. If you do, you will die. Understand?" "Yes," I answer grumpily. He did not have to talk that way. "So what do you guys think that we should do?" Tobi asks, always the peacekeeper. "I vote that we try to sneak past it somehow. We are obviously unable to kill it, or even knock it out. And the object of this challenge is to get to the platform safely and not get killed. So it is not as if we will get disqualified if we did not." Cole nodded, agreeing with him. Henry shrugged and said, "Can not think of a better way." They looked at me. "Well duh I agree with him! What, did you think that I wanted to fight that monster?" "So it is decided that we will not fight the Dragon unless impossible to do otherwise," Cole said. "But how are we going to get past without? And what if it attacks us? We should have two plans, plan A and plan B. Henry?" He away from the Dragon and at Cole. "You are in charge of plan B. That would mean that the plan revolves around killing or maiming the Dragon if it attacks us." Henry nodded. "Jayd?" I saluted, trying to keep the mood light. I am not very good at heavy atmospheres. Cole frowned at me. "This is serious, do not play around." I hung my head meekly. "Jayd, you are in charge of making sure that as we plan we do not get eaten. Also if both plans go awry, you are in charge. You seem good at thinking things up as you go, and so far that has worked out pretty good." "What about me?" Tobi wanted to know. "You and I are going to figure out plan A. How to sneak past the Dragon." Tobi emersed himself into thought and conversation with Cole. I, on the other hand, had nothing to do and was very bored. All I got to do was stare at a stupid Dragon for hours on end whilst the others made plans. Not that either one of those actually sounded good to me, I am more of a "go with the flow" kind of girl. Forget the planning and just do it. Unfortunately, that is not what the others liked. Not to mention that it does not always work out. More than once my compulsiveness had gotten me in to trouble. I sighed and started picking grass and twirling it between my fingers. eventually I started braiding it. Now you see just how bored I was. And as the Dragon that was not being watched swooped down on us, you see just how stupid I was as well. "Jayd!" Tobi and Cole screamed as the Dragon grabbed me and flew upwards. I screamed as well. I screamed bloody murder until my face started to turn blue. But the dragon continued to fly higher and higher. The following is what people told me after the incident had passed.
"Jayd!" Tobi screamed again. "Save it Tobi," Henry said, his face grave. "She is gone. There is no way we can get her back now." Tobi spun around and punched him. "Don't you ever say that!" Tobi held up his staff and started chanting, the air billowing and contracting around him. It grew darker and the staff gave off a weird illumination, but void of all light. Clouds gathered quickly as I continued to scream my head off. Lightning struck a nearby tree, setting it a flame immediately. As Tobi said the last word to his spell it was like the end of the world. Everything shook briefly and and the fire from the tree flew up and hurled it's self at the Dragon, sending a bright flash through the air. More followed, now it came not only from the tree, but from the sky as well. Lightning bolts continued to strike at the Dragon even after it had dropped me in it's pain. I fell quickly and fast.
When I awoke, I was laying in Tobi's arms. He was so tired he was gray, the sweat dripped off of him in big drops. "Jayd," he sobbed in grateful relief when he noticed that I was awake and alive. I realized that some of the drops were tears. "Hey Tobi," I said. It hurt to talk. "What happened?" He looked at me in surprise. "You mean you did not see?" He asked. "How could I have? I was unconscious." "You mean you... you did not see the air or the lightning or anything?" "How could I have seen the air? It's invisible. And what lightning? It's been clear all day." He stared at me for a few seconds as I tried to get to my feet and failing, than he swiftly bent down and kissed me fully on the mouth. Then he grabbed my hand and swung me to my feet, steadying me with his arm. Still dizzy from what ever the reason for my fainting, and now somewhat dazed from being kissed unexpectedly by Tobi of all people, I leaned heavily on him and tried not to fall down. "Hey Jayd!" Cole said happily and warily. I wondered at that last. Why was he so nervous? "How are you? Are you OK?" I nodded. I did not have the energy to speak. "So...What happened Jayd?" Henry asked me. "You were supposed to be watching the Dragon, but you did not give us any warning or anything." "Yeah Jayd, what happened?" Cole said questioningly. Tobi looked at me expectantly. "Um... I do not really know." I blushed and looked down. "I stopped watching it." I admitted. They all stared at me in rage and disbelief. "Jayd," Tobi said haltingly. His voice unstable. "We trusted you with all of our safety and you just gave it up because you were bored!" His words turned into a hiss. I looked down, ashamed. Henry glared at me and Cole... He could not look at me. "I am sorry." I said, trying to keep the sob out of my voice, and looking down so that they could not see my tears of regret. Tobi sighed and said, "We still have to get to the end of the Course. Let's go." Everyone got up slowly and started walking to the end. I promised myself that I would make it up to everybody somehow. Like next time there was danger, I would be a hero and save them! Big dreams I know, but that is what they did for me and I betrayed their trust. No matter what I had to do something.
Near the end of the Obstacle Course I had almost given up hope that anything would happen. I was not sure that I really wanted something to happen, but I did want to make it up to everyone. And then something did happen, and I realized that I did not want something to happen.
The giant tentacle burst out of the ground, again. We were all fools for thinking that it would go away after wounding one of it's hundreds of arms, legs, what ever they are... Who was to say how many the thing had?
Three more giant, suckered, slimy tentacles followed the first. All of them shot towards us. I brought my bow out of my quiver along with an arrow. I was determined to end this quickly. My arrow flew straight and true all the way into the sucker of one of the tentacles. I was correct in thinking that that was one of the tender spots. "Aim for the suckers!" I yell. I am not really sure why, we were all rather close to each other. I did not bother to look to see if anyone heard. I brought out another arrow and fired.
A while into the fight I heard a scream behind me. It was Cole. Once again the giant Kraken had ahold of him. Swinging him high in the air by his legs. I let an arrow fly and hit the tentacle square. But unexpectedly, instead of dropping him, it whipped around like it was rabid and crazy. How ever it did not hold onto him the entire time. The thing let go of Cole, and he flew from it's grip as though he was one of my arrows and the Kraken my bow. He fell into a tree above the base platform. "NO!" Henry cried. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" He charged the Kraken ferociously. Hacking away at it's tentacles as if he was the woodsman and they were the tree trunks. Frightened by the onslaught of pain, the tentacles started to retreat. "NO!" Henry roared, beyond reason now. "I WILL KILL YOU!" But it was to late. The ground had closed and the Land Kraken was gone. "NO!" "Come on Henry, let's go find him." Tobi said walking over to Henry. He looked at me helplessly. I stood there frozen. This was my fault. I wanted prove myself and wished for this to happen. "Jayd. Come on." I shook myself and ran over to them. We all ran to the tree to find Cole.
Henry practically jumped up the tree when we got there. He came down quickly as well, this time carrying Cole. He was not moving and very bloody. Henry laid him down on the ground then turned to me. "Jayd, help me." Both me and Tobi found this very sexist and demanded to know why not Tobi. "Cole's real name is actually Riah. She is a girl." We stared at him for a second, and then... "Tobi go and find some water or something to clean the cuts." I ordered. "I will take care of Co- I mean Riah. Henry stand guard and make sure you do not do as I did." I turned to Riah the girl formerly know as Cole. First I found one of her knives tucked into her boot. I took it out and cut away what remained of her shirt. Tobi could give her one of his once he got back, he always wore two. "Tell me why she was disguised as a boy, if you can," I said to Henry as I worked. "Well... Remember what I said about how me and Riah met?" I nodded, "You said that you two met when she was running from people." "Yes, well... The reason she was running from people was because she was a thief. More correctly I should state that she is still a thief. Really she can not help it anymore. Riah is a kleptomaniac." "Quit defending her and get on with the story," I told him, he was the worst story teller in the history of story tellers. "OK. But first tell me how Riah is doing." That would explain it. Although I was trying to get him to forget about Riah's currant state by telling the story, it did not seem to be working. "Riah is alive. She is breathing, but not as strongly as I would have hoped. Still, if we get help soon she will be fine." I think, I would not know, I am not a doctor! Thank god I kept those last thought to myself because what I had said out loud was pushing him close to hyperventilation. "You mean if she does not get help soon she will die!" He cried, his eyes wide. "Turn around! Have you no respect for a woman's privacy!" He quickly turned. "No," I lied. The most I know about nursing or healing is that you have to keep a confident appearance and tell many lies so that if the patient wakes up without you knowing it they do not just give up because someone said that they were going to die. "Now get on with the story." "Uh, right! Where was I?" "You never got past the beginning." "Right, right. OK, so she was running from the guards and I stopped them. I had no idea what she had done. As far as I was concerned, she was a girl and they were a bunch of ugly guys looking for some entertainment. So I told them to stop and go back to their posts. They had no choice but to do so, and so did. And Riah, always honest even as a thief, showed me all the stuff she had taken from the guards. Please do not tell her any of this OK? After she showed me all of the stuff, I looked at her and then at the money. All my life no one had ever been honest with me. Even the important stuff they kept from me. And yet here was this girl who did not know me. Did not know why I had told the people to not chase her. And yet she was truthful. I have to say, I fell in love with her immediately." I could hear him glare. "And if you ever tell her that, I will kill you." I laughed silently. Just before he had said that he loved her, the object of the conversation had opened her eyes. Now those eyes were wide. "Do not tell him!" She mouthed, her face rather panicked. I glanced behind me and nodded to show that I would not. I grinned though and she glared at me. "Will you go look for Tobi? I think she can be moved safely now." "Sure," Henry said, brightening up now that his beloved was ready for transportation. "Make sure that your bow is ready just in case, I did not see anything but you can never be to careful." I nodded and got out my bow and fitted an arrow to the string. Now I was ready for practically almost anything! "Please do not tell him that I heard!" Riah begged. "Also, you can not tell anyone that I am a girl either! They will throw me in jail for sure if they find out." I nodded and said, "How would they know that your a thief anyways? Are you famous or something?" She grinned sheepishly. "Some what. At least I am famous at Henry's Fief anyway. I stole some of his fathers prized jewels. They chased me around for ages. Henry knew it was me, and after he stopped the solders that one time we had kept in touch. He knew how to find me. And he did. He found me, told me I could keep the jewels and follow him. So I did, and he brought me to a secret entrance into his castle that I thought only I knew about. He said that the best way to hide was in plain sight if you have a little help. He asked me if I was any good with horses, I said I was and he gave me a job as a hostler and helped me cut my hair and gave me clothes fitting for a Commoner boy. That was the second time he had saved my life, because the next day I heard that they had found my hide out and had set up a watch there. So that if I ever I went back they could nab me. I do not think that he knows that." At that moment Tobi and Henry came out of the woods that they had entered. Did I not mention that there was a forest? Oh well, now you know. "Hey! Tobi, Henry! Riah is awake!" Henry beamed and ran forward hugged her while Tobi and I exchanged looks. Than I was reminded of him kissing me and I blushed and looked away. Him guessing why I blushed, turned pink and also looked away. "Can you walk?" Henry asked Riah. "I do not think so," she answered. He nodded amiably and picked her up as easily as picking up a sack of potatoes, although a whole lot gentler I am guessing, unless he treats potatoes like they were made out of glass. "Come on you two. Let's get on the platform so that we can win." Seeing how it was less that three feet away, we walked over and sat on it, Riah leaning on Henry. Tobi looked at them and then at me with more than a bit of jealousy. Obviously wishing that I would lean on him. Life was getting more than a little complicated. About thirty minutes in, Guy, from the beginning of the Course, came and said to follow him.


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Later that day, after Riah was professionally patched up by a trusted doctor, all the teens that had made it through all the Tournaments lined up in front of all the Royal people from Treah that were in charge. There was about Thirty left, out of all the people in both of the entire worlds. "There will be only five people to be in the Fellowship," said the queen that had instructed us before we started. "That is the Queen Karim, the woman on her left is Queen Kate," Whispered Tobi. "I did not think that you knew, so I just thought to enlighten you." "Thanks," I whispered back. "Here are the people who passed all the challenges valiantly, courageously and with flying colors." She paused for a dramatic build up. "The first is from the Commoner Tournament, and his name is... Merric Kerrisum! Please stand up here Merric." A boy who looked like he could be from either world and any country walked up to the dias and bowed to the royalty their. "Now the next to join Merric is some one from the Noble Tournament and his name is..." Tobi, Henry, Riah and me exchanged glances. When we came back we had learned that the other team had failed and all were disqualified. She had said "his" so it could be any of them except me. "Tobias Aoudad! Please come up here!" Tobi looked shocked but walked up anyways amid mild applause. He, too. bowed to the souverians and then took his place beside Merric. "Now for the third!" Cried Queen Karim, getting herself worked up. Her wife placed her hand on her arm and whispered something to her. It must have worked, because she calmed down a little after that. "The third to join this Fellowship is from the Commoners Tournament and her name is...Elizabeth Badger! Please join us." Elizabeth walked up and stood beside Tobi. "Now for the Fourth! Will Cole Moreo come up here please?" Cole/Riah walked up to stand next to Elizabeth. Me and Henry looked at each other. There was only one space left and both Riah and Tobi were already chosen. One of them had to be chosen, but which one? "The fifth and last is from the Commoner Tournament and her name is... Zoe Beaura! Come on up Zoe!" Once again Kate had to tell her to quiet down. Zoe walked up to the dais, trying to be formal but try as she might, she could not keep the spring out of her step. Once again me and Henry looked at each other. Our hopes had been dashed as soon as she had announced that the fifth was from the Commoners Tournament. "We thank all of you young people who came here. Please join us at the feast we are have to celebrate. Thank you." The queens, kings, and emperors and emperesses all stood up and we all bowed. They left through the door behind the dais. The page behind the door motioned for the Five to come through as well. As the doors closed behind them I saw all of them look back. I locked eyes with Tobi just before the doors closed completely.


Chapter Eight

The Final Good-bye

At the feast I did not even see one hair on Tobi's head. I went through the whole night thinking about never seeing him again. And I would not. The teams purpose was to separate the worlds, they were not allowed to to go anywhere except to their beds or the bathroom after they had finished with their work for the day. It was not until the very end of the feast that I saw him, standing amidst a cluster of people. "Tobi!" I ran, ducking and swerving to avoid people. When I got there, two people moved to block my way. One of them I knew. "Sir Allen of whatever! Why are you blocking me! Let me through!" The recruiter smiled sadly, "I sorry but I can not. My orders were very specific. Let no one who was not approved before hand, talk to the Chosen. Sorry Jaydria." I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. "Tobi!" I shouted. I saw him look up from his cluster and see me. He muttered something to someone and started to walk towards me. Allen and his buddy grabbed my arms and started to pull me away. Tobi's eyes grew wide. "Tobi!" I screamed. Riah walked up beside him and whispered something to him. He nodded and walked away. I felt fury well up inside of me, pushing to get out. To make me break something, hurt someone. More specifically Riah. "Tobi!" I screamed again. "Tobi!" But was to late, he was gone and people were staring at me as if I was crazy. And I was. I was scratching and twisting and biting. Any thing to get them to let go of me. They dragged me down what felt like a hundred flights of stairs all the way to the dungeons. "You have to stay here until tomorrow," said Allen. As he and his silent companion walked away he looked back and said once again, "I am sorry." Then, they too, were gone. "Jayd?" Said a familiar voice behind me. I turned and saw Henry standing there. Then I could not take it any more. I burst in to tears and ran and threw myself on him. He hugged me and we comforted each other through out the night, neither one of us felt able to sleep that night.

When morning came Allen and his friend came back and opened the prison door. I had to restrain myself from throwing myself at him and ripping him to shreds. "Sorry" my eye! "Come with me you two," Allen's friend said. So he had a voice after all. "The queens wish to talk to you." Henry looked at me and said, "Only if Jayd gets to talk to Tobi." I looked hopefully at Allen, he was the only one that could make that happen. But he shook his head as if he could not bare to say it. The other guard however was not so kind. "No, now hurry up." His face was stoney. There was no way that I was going to be able to change his mind. I walked out of the cell and started to walk towards the stairs, Henry and the guards hurried to catch up. I stormed up the stairs, I would plead to the queens themselves! I was not going to let Tobi go without at least saying good-bye. I was caught from behind and pulled almost half way down the steps by a large hand that had ahold of my arm. "Let go of me!" I yelled and turned to hit whom ever had grabbed me. But I froze. The person who was holding me was the one person I wanted to see most. "Tobi!" I whispered. He grinned and I threw myself on him and we fell the rest of the way down the stairs. By now I was wondering what had happened to the others. "Tobi, where are the others? Henry and Allen and the mean guard? He chuckled. "The others are following a different Jayd. Me and Cole planned it. She is disguised as you and once they catch her she and Henry can have their little moment whilst you and me, have now." Then he pulled me close and kissed me, no awkwardness, just sweetness passing from him to me and me to him. I could have stayed like that forever, however fate is never kind in fairy tales until the end and my end is not for certain. After all, the fairy tale is not about me, I am not from a world like that. "That's nice and all," a voice said behind us. "But I don't think that the queens would be that pleased. So we are going to have to break this little meeting up." I was the ass-hole of a guard. He had Henry in one hand with a knife to his throat and on his left was Allen with Riah, with him there was no knife but her arms were tied behind her back with a lead in Allen's hand. "Take us all to the queens," Tobi said, with all of the authority granted to him by being one of the chosen and of Nobility. The two guards looked at each other and shrugged. "Might as well. We were taking the prisoners there anyways," said Allen. I glared at him, so much for thinking that he was nice and just following orders, because, for all of my anger, I did believe that he was sorry for us and that he would help if he could. They tied us all up like we were cattle or something, being lead to the butcher, and brought us to the queens' private rooms.


Chapter Nine

Enter the Queens

When they got there the guards straightened their uniforms and looked at me and Henry like we could have at least tried to change into less shabby prison clothes. Then all fell silent as Allen knocked on the double doors. We all waited in the hallway for what seemed like forever before there was an answer. The right door opened and a woman who looked to be in her late twenties,early thirties, poked her head out. "Can I help you?" She asked softly in a husky voice. The mean guard gulped and bowed low saying, "Your Majesty, I hope we are not interrupting anything! These young ones demanded to see you and Queen Karim." So this was Kate. She did not look like I imagined she would when I first imagined her. She had dark brown skin and a round face, her eyes were wide and brown but if you looked closely you could see hints of red. Her hair was wiry and she wore it in hundreds of little braids. "Well come in then. Let me go and get Karim. She is sleeping right now, had a late night listening to a bunch of high strung and jealous old men." "So she was talking with the American Congress?" I asked. Everyone turned to stare at me except Kate. "Yep. You do not seem to like your officials very much. Why? It is not as if they inherited rulership and you had no say in the matter." "Well it's majority rules is it not? Our old president was good, Obama. But this new one is not one I would vote for. Not to mention I don't get to vote until I am eighteen." For some reason I felt very at ease with this queen. Maybe it was because she used to be just a stable-boy and seemed more real to me than the other queen. But then again, I have not really met the other queen. I mean I have seen her on the dais, but she was being queenly. Maybe queens don't have to act like their not people when they are in their rooms. "I guess that no system is really perfect," Kate said with a shrug, motioning us to take a seat and frowned when she saw the rope. "Why are they bound?" She demanded of the two guards. "Um... I ..." The mean one looked helplessly at Allen. "We received orders not to let any not pre-approved persons talk to, or get near to the Chosen Five," Allen said, coming to his comrades rescue. "But it seems to me as if two of these children are part of the Five. Is that not so?" "It is so." "Then if they wanted to talk to these people why did you not let them?" Karim asked coming into the room,tousled and sleepy eyed. "Be-because they were not pre-approved." Kate put her head in her hands as Karim burst out laughing. "Karim! Is it impossible for you to write clear orders?" Kate asked her soul-mate, exasperated. "Apparently," said Karim between outbursts of laughter. Kate shook her head. "I am sorry about that. It seems like Karim was not clear in her instructions. Pre-approved by the Chosen. If they wanted to talk to each other it should have been fine. The only reason for that was to protect them from persons who were jealous about not being chosen and might wish them harm." She sighed. "Please untie them." Allen and the other man untied us. It was a relief to finally have them off. The blood had been having a hard time getting to my wrists and hands. "Have any of you guys had breakfast yet?" Karim asked brightly. She was obviously not one of those people (like myself) who when woken up, would rather rip anyone's who was in sight heads off before offering them any kind of hospitality. We all shook our heads except the two guards. "Well then you should join us! Right Kate?" Kate grinned and nodded. "Yes! Interesting company at last!" She laughed at our astounded faces. "What? Can I not be tired of dried up persons of state?" Kate held open a door. "Come on, whoever is eating. And quit complaining, it's getting old Kari. Breakfast is getting cold." The table looked to be made out of copper, but I knew better. It was made out of the oar tree. My father, a carpenter, had been making a lot of these recently for rich people. This one looked brand new. Enough about the table, more attention for food lovers like me should be on the spread. There was a basket of freshly bread, baked to perfection. Steaming muffins, bacon eggs, it seems as if they had adapted a little to the American Way, because they had some waffles. "I always love eating in here instead of down in the dinning hall. We get better food." "Why is that?" I asked them. No one else seemed inclined to talk. "Probably because there's less people," Kate answered. "So...How come no one else is talking? Is there some kind of protocol about talking to royalty that I do not know about?" "No, they are just most likely in awe of me," replied Karim modestly. Me and Kate looked at each other and started laughing. "What? I was serious!" Karim demanded trying to suppress a smile of her own. "Although," she said more seriously. "You could be a little more companionable guests." "Come on Tobi," I said. "Be more normal." "Yeah! All of you guys do that," Kate urged them. "We are not going to have you be-headed just for saying whatever!" Karim turned to me, "By the way, what was your name again?" "Jayd." Tobi kicked my shin under the table. "Jaydria Caw," I amended myself. I shot him a look that said 'Happy now?' "Pleased to meet ya!" Karim said. Kate extended her hand like this was a formal introduction. I took it. "Great! Now will you please introduce them if they cannot find their voices?" Kate said with a smile that did not quite fit under the hand that she attempted to hid it with. I waited for a moment for them say their names, then Riah spoke up. "I am Cole Moreo of the Fief Tangpo." That seemed to wake Henry up who then said, "My name is Henry of Fief Tangpo." "I am Tobias Caw, although I would prefer Tobi." We all turned to Allen, the other guard had already left for duty, and waited for him to take the others lead. His ears turned red as all eyes turned on him. "Um..." "Don't worry about it Allen, we know your name," Karim said kindly. "Now! Yesterday I canceled everything until two o' clock, so lets do something fun until then!" "Um... Your Majesty, Tobias and Cole are supposed to work on splitting the worlds apart," Allen said, finally finding his voice again. "Oh yeah! I had completely forgotten." Henry and I looked up in alarm at Tobi and Cole. "Why don't you four, or five if you want to come Allen, come back here tomorrow? We like company like old people!" Kate made a face, "I am not old!" Karim went over to her and kissed her cheek, "Of course you are not! It was a figure of speech." She turned back to us. "So? Tomorrow?" We all nodded except Allen. "I have things that I must attend to at that time Your Majesties." "Oh, maybe some other time then?" Kate said. He nodded, "I will try Your Majesties." Karim snorted, "Enough with the 'Majesty' stuff, OK? Just use our names. Kate and Karim. That applies to you four as well." We all nodded except me who said, "Sure Karim." She smiled. "Well, if you and Henry want to stay here for a while your welcome!" Kate said hopefully. "Sure," we both said in unison.
It was a few hours before we left. "I like Karim and Kate, what about you?" He nodded, he had a thoughtful look on his face. "What are you thinking about?" He shrugged, "Not much, just, I did not think that they would be that human. They liked playing cards and talking about normal stuff. I just find that kind of odd." "Well if you had to spend your life doing paperwork and talking about politics I would think that you would want to do something fun too." "I know that," he assured me. "I just never really thought about it." As we got to the end of the stairs a messenger ran up to us. "Are you Henry of Tangpo and Jayd Caw?" He asked, slightly out of breath. We nodded. "I have a message for you from Her Majesty, Queen Kate. She says that if you two wish it she can arrange it for you to have your own suits here until the Five figure out how to separate the worlds. Do you want it?" Henry looked at me and grinned, I smiled back. "Yes!" He nodded and said for us to follow him. He lead us through a hall and up another flight of stairs until we arrived at a floor that looked a bit like a mid-evil hotel. He brought us to a door and said that this was to be mine and that the one on the right was to be Henry's. He gave us two keys and left. Henry grinned at me and moved to his door and put the key in. I followed suite. We turn the keys and walked into the rooms. They were wonderful! Floors were made out of thousands of different colored stones arranged into a mosaic of a hundred birds taking flight. The ceiling was made out of what looked like the leaves of an oar tree, woven together with copper wire. There was a desk in the corner for what ever work needed doing. The desk was made out of sturdy oak with gold and silver embossed in intricate designs around the edges and twined around the legs. There was a canopy bed that looked like it could easily fit five people plus me. The sheets were made of blue silk and the thick blanket was of a soft fabric that I had never seen nor heard of. Sheer blue tuel covered a thick deep purple velvet canopy. The wood was most likely from some distant land in Treah, because I had never seen it before. And mind you that was just the bedroom. I skipped describing the rooms I passed coming in here. But I tell you that it is probably more luxurious than anything that you live in usually.
The next day I had a hard time getting out of that bed. It was the best sleep that I had ever had! But up I got, I had to hurry so that I would not miss breakfast and Tobi. I hoped that I could talk to him. I dressed, brushed my teeth and flew out the door, running my fingers through my hair as I went. I went down the stairs through the hall that the messenger had brought us through yesterday. Up some more stairs, and to the queens' rooms. Where I stopped and gasped for breath before standing up straight and knocking. This time Karim answered the door and grinned when she saw me. "Well come in!" She said moving aside to let me through the door. A Tobi, a large and very excited Tobi, came bounding over and swept me up in a bone crushing hug. As I squeaked my protest Kate and Karim laughed. When Tobi finally let go of me (and I wont lie and say that I did not not like being held by Tobi) I looked around and realized that two of us were missing. "Where is Henry and Cole?" Kate grinned. "There is no need for pretenses with us, we know that Cole is in reality the infamous Riah Moreo. You would think that she would choose a less obvious name, but maybe she was suffering from a lack of imagination that day." "You are not going to arrest her are you?" I asked, worried. Kate shook her head as Karim answered, "Of course not! Why would I do that? All she was doing was trying to get enough money to live a comfortable life. And Henry's family is very rich, they have money to spare. And she never took anything from people who were not super wealthy." "Why did you say that her name made her obvious? I mean, I get Moreo. That is not a very common name. But Cole?" Kate answered before Karim could jump in and give a long and romantic story, which I know she would have. "Her middle name is Nichole." "Ah!" "I see!" We said, sagely. "So..." I said. "Did I miss breakfast?" Karim laughed, "Nope. Just about to start." Tobi led the way, he was always hungry. "Yay! Food!" He bound to the table and sat down and started to pile food onto his plate. He must have gotten to know Kate and Karim better because he was much more at ease with them. We all laughed as waited impatiently for them to sit down so he could eat. We all sat down so that he would quit looking like a sad puppy. He dug in immediately. As we ate we talked about just about everything, until Kate suggested that we go outside and play Cricket. "How do you play Cricket?" Everyone turned to stare at me. I guess that Treah, or at least Sra, is like some places in Europe in that everyone knows Cricket. They explained the rules and me and Kate, who was on my team, lost horribly. "I do not think that Cricket is really your game," Tobi said,covering a laugh. I did not blame him, I sucked at the game. "I have never been that good at games that need hand-eye coordination." Tobi cocked his head to the side questioningly. He looked like he was imitating a bird. "But you are really good at archery. What do you mean you do not have good hand-eye coordination?" I shrugged, "It has never worked that way for me, I might be good at archery but anything else I just can not do. It's kind of annoying."


"There was once a dog named cuso and his mater was a tater and his pappy was always happy and little willy down the road liked to ride his bicycle and do things. He liked to watch English movies and read English books, and his favorite games were Cricket and the English Football. He was on a soccer team and often invited his friends over to play Cricket. His parents thought that his obsession with England would make him move there, and they did not want their little willy to go anywhere, so they devised a plan. A plan to make him like America! They enrolled him in Baseball and Basketball, they had him watch American Football on television and they canceled all of the English channels and all the Cricket get-togethers. When Willy found out about all of this he was furious! He called up his friend Eli (Who was obsessed with Hungary) and together they made their own plan to make his parents realize how great England is. When they put their plan into action it worked a little too well. Soon the whole family was packing up and moving to England! Eli tried to get his family to realize just how great Hungary was but they had been forewarned by a mutual friend what had happened to to Willy's parents. They swore to each other and to themselves that they would never move to Hungary. And so they did not. The End," I read. "Who wrote this?" I asked holding up a leather bound journal. "Give me that!" Kate grabbed the book from my hands and sat on it. "Do not go around reading things that do not belong to you!" "Sorry," I said, ashamed. "I did not think that it was anything that important, or that anyone would mind." Kate sighed, "I guess it does not matter that much. That is just my practice journal, all the stories and stuff are just some stuff thrown together in three or so minutes. My finished works or my works in progress are on that shelf over there," she said, pointing to a bookshelf in the corner that held a total of maybe ten books. "As you can see," Kate continued, gesturing at the shelf I was standing next to that was over flowing. "I spend more time practicing writing than actually writing the stuff I plan on going anywhere with. Anyways, let's go and find the others, they seemed to have disappeared." "Can I read one of your books?" I asked her. She stopped and said, "No." Without even looking at me. Had I offended her? Did I finally find the boundary and stepped over it by accident? "Sorry," I said quietly. I can not tell if she heard me or not, and I am not sure if I wanted her to.
I am lying in my room. The bed is soft. Something is going on. I feel it, but I don't want to figure out what it is. I miss Tobi. And I miss my parents. Henry I see every day for an extended amount of time, but right now I miss him too. And Riah. I do not get what is going on. I feel like I am never going to see any of them ever again, but I know that is not right. I am lonely. I am lonely for no reason. Where is everyone. I looked at the clock, it says 1:57pm. They are probably sleeping. I need a reason to stay here. My life was put on hold for the Tournament but now I want to go back to school. I want something to happen. I want something sad, or happy. Anything that makes me feel as if I am actually alive. I feel dead, but my pulse is still going. My heart is pounding and my lungs are breathing. But it is not me doing those things, my body does those automatically.
The next day I was feeling better, but I still did not feel as if my life had a purpose. I decided that I would talk to Karim, I think I needed to talk to some who was passionate about whatever she did. As I walked down the hall to go to talk to Karim, Tobi came running down the stairs and did not even stop when he saw me. Instead as he ran past me he reached out and grabbed my wrist and pulled me along with him. "Tobi! What is going on? Where are we going?" He did not answer. I dug my heels in and pulled him to a stop. "Tobi! Answer my questions!" He turned and glared at me and tugged at me again without saying anything. "TOBI!" I heard a rush of footsteps coming from behind us. People were chasing us. Suddenly I forgot all of my questions and started running, Tobi right behind me. We ran all the way to the gates at the White House before I realized that what I had no idea what I was running away from and whether it would make me a national, or even a global, criminal. "Tobi, before we go any farther, I need to know what happened and who we are running from." He looked at me and then looked away. "Tobi?" He was making me nervous, he had not said a single word since... All of today he had not said anything. When he had grabbed me he would have said "Come on" or "Hurry", or something. Tobi is very verbal. "Tobi just say something!" He looked at me and smiled sadly and shook his head. Was he saying that he could not talk? Tobi could not talk? Just then I saw who was chasing us. They were Allen and the other guard, plus what looked like fifty more. Tobi did not just tug this time he pulled me through the gates just as they went under lock-down. I followed him dazed, before I almost got hit by a car and realized that Tobi had gone crazy and was pulling us through the street recklessly. I took over and pulled him over to the side of the road. He bent down and started coughing up blood. I knelt next to him and made him look at me. "Tobi, what happened." Just as he started coughing again before he could cover his mouth or look away I saw. He was not coughing up blood, blood was poring from his stump of a tongue. Some one had cut it out. He could bleed to death! "Tobi, we have to get you to a hospital!" I told him urgently. He shook his head. "You could die, and you do not want to go to a hospital?" This is not one of the times when Tobi is the best person to love. He was incredibly difficult in the most dire situations! He coughed again and blood covered the sidewalk. People were staring now, I saw a few of them reach for their cell phones to call the ambulance or police. Well, if it was the police that they were calling, they could have saved their minutes. They were already here and after us. That was when adrenaline kicked in. I do not remember making the decision to pick Tobi up and sling him over my shoulder in the fire men's carry. But next thing I know, I am running down the street and in between cars doing just that. Cars were all backed up and the police were forced to go after us on foot. We ran between building and through alleyways. Suddenly an hand shot out from behind a garbage bin and grabbed my arm and pulled us into the shadows. A hand gagged me before I could let out a scream. "Do not make a sound," a rough boy-ish voice said from the darkness. I gulped and nodded, I could only assume that Tobi had passed out. The hand dropped from my mouth and on to my wrist. "Follow me." I had no other options. Either run from this person and to the police and who knows what (except Tobi, who I do not think will be able to tell me any time soon), or I could go with this stranger, who might be helping me. Or not. But at least this way there a chance that something good could come out of it. I followed the strange person through countless tunnels and sewers and alleys. Finally it seemed as if we had reached our destination, where ever that was. It was a room, sort of. Made of the walls of the surrounding buildings. There were sleeping bags and piles of blankets everywhere. This was definitely a place where many people lived. Now that we were in better light I could see my captor/rescuer. It was a boy with long-ish dark brown hair that looked like it could use a wash, several actually, he had big brown eyes and looked to be about nineteen. He also looked as if he did not spend all that much time, an in the sun, he skin was so pale, it looked to be on the verge of albino. His clothes were not much more than rags d made of what seemed to be a hundred different color, like a jester that was down on his luck. He gave a sweeping bow and said, "I am known as the great and unpredictable King thief, Bastion!" I stared at him for a moment, and then for some reason I still do not know, I started clapping. Random right? I guess it just felt natural, like after you see a really good performance. He looked up, startled. "Well that's a first!" He was smiling. "Your friend there needs help? You have come to the right place. Put him on the 'hospital' bed over there." He pointed to the one and only actual bed. I tried to, but all my energy seemed to have deserted me. As soon as I lifted up my foot to take a step toward the bed I lost my balance and fell heavily and weariness descended upon me. I struggled to keep my eyes open, losing finally to the deep and welcome darkness. As sleep came over me I felt Tobi being lifted off of me and heard people talking.


Chapter Ten

Oh The Places I Have Been, From the White House and A Palace, To the Den of Thieves.

When I woke up I was surrounded by people I did not know. I can not even begin to guess how many people there were. Possibly twenty, I could not count, they came and went constantly and my head was aching so fiercely that I could not think all that straight. But after lying there for about an hour I remembered suddenly that Tobi tongue was cut off and he was losing a lot of blood and was slowly dieing. I jumped up and the head ache that came with getting up to fast almost killed me. After moaning and cursing for about five minutes without stopping and getting a lot of odd looks, I wobbled over to the bed that held Tobi. Bastion was sitting next to him reading a large book. He when he looked up and saw me he frowned. "You don't look so good," he remarked. "You should sit down." He got up and gestured for me to take his chair. "Thanks," I said, my voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. I sat. "How is he?" I asked. "Bad," was Bastion's answer. "But I am confidant that he will live. That is, if we can get him to wake up." I turned around and looked at him, puzzled I asked, "Why? Wouldn't you want him to stay unconscious? Would it not be better for him to stay asleep so that he feels no pain?" He sighed. "The only way I can help him is if he consents to it, and I can not go into his mind and ask him." "Oh! Are you a wizard?" I was surprised, he did not look to be the wizardly type. "Of course I am not a Wizard!" I guess I was right. "I am insulted that you even thought that!" He glared at me angrily. "Um... Sorry?" "Sorry is right! All I did was help you and then you go and insult me! I am a Demon Healer!" I stared at him, completely baffled. "A Demon Healer is exactly what it sounds like," he said, in a painfully patient tone. "A Demon who is a Healer." "You are a Demon?" I was startled. I had read some of Moran's books on Demons. All of them said that they were evil, and would eat you once you let your guard down. So, if that was true, why was I still alive? "Yeah, yeah. I know what your thinking, 'why am I still alive? When is he going to eat me?' Well guess what?" He glared at me once again. "I am not just a Demon, I am a Demon Healer. There is a difference. The difference is, is that I do not eat humans, nor would I ever really want to. The other difference is that the only magic I have is for Healing. But I can only Heal if people say, 'Bastion you can Heal me', other wise I have to just sit there and watch them die." He sighed, "Rather depressing really. So do you think that you can wake him up? What are you twos names anyways?" I glanced at Tobi and then looked back at the Healer Demon. "I don't know if I can wake him up, but I can try. My name is Jayd and he is known as Tobi." "Toby and Jade huh?" "Tobi is spelled T-O-B-I and Jayd is J-A-Y-D," I said automatically. He nodded like he knew that all a long, "Of course, of course." I rolled my eyes and looked back at Tobi. "So if I can wake him up... You can Heal him?" "Well I can't give him another tongue, but you had better hurry. I have a clamp on what was once his tongue to keep it from bleeding to fast. But he is still bleeding." I nodded and turned back to Tobi. As odd a thought it was I still wondered what kind of kisser he would be now that he did not have a tongue. I shook my head and went back to the task of waking him up. "What have you tried to wake him up?" Bastion shrugged, "All the obvious stuff, shaking, making noise (you did not wake up from that either), we even dumped water on him." I turned and gave him a disapproving glance, "I had wondered why he was wet." I turned once again back to Tobi, "Hey," I said softly, shaking him gently. "You're going to have to do better than that," Bastion said, as he walked away. "I'll leave you to it then!" "Tobi?" I said shaking him again. "Come on, you've got to get up." I sighed, how was I supposed to know what to do to wake him up? I shook him again, I continued to shake him and call his name for hours. Finally Bastion came over and told me that it was night and that I should get some sleep. But I shook my head, I had to wake him up no matter what. I think I was starting to g into panic mode. Late that night, after everyone was a sleep except for the sentries and me, I finally got a response from Tobi. I had almost given up hope that I would ever wake him up in time, his tongue had started to bleed again. I started to cry. The tears fell from my face to his. "Tobi," I sobbed, I could barely stand it anymore, the waiting, the futile hoping. It felt as if nothing was going to work, and my best friend -who might have ended up to be more- was going to die, and I was helpless against it. My voice was getting hoarse from calling to him without break. "Tobi!" That was when I lost all of my will to be strong and I just fell on him and sobbed. About thirty minutes into my breakdown, I felt a hand touch my hair. A big hand that had touched me before and I knew who's it was. "Tobi?" I whispered into his chest. I looked up and saw his arm raised and felt his hand now on my shoulder, but his eyes were still closed. "Tobi?" I said again. "If you hear me nod, OK?" He nodded, just barely, but it was most definitely a nod. "Stay awake OK? I have to go and get some body." As I stood he gripped my arm tightly and shook his head. "What do you mean no? He can help you!" Still he did not relax his grip. "I will be back in next to nothing," I promised as I gently pried his fingers from my wrist. Slowly he took his hand away and I hurried over to Bastion. "Bastion!" The Demon Healer woke up and sat bolt upright. "What is it?" He asked. "Tobi is awake." He jumped up and raced to the bed. "Hello Tobi, my name is Bastion. I have a question for you. I need your permission to work a Healing on you and save your life. Do you give me your consent?" There was a long pause. Than he nodded. Bastion waved his hands briskly through the air, making flourishes here and there, all the while mumbling Tobi's name over and over with his eyes closed. Suddenly there was a bright flash and all the people sleeping woke up with a start. One of them said something about firecrackers whilst another talked about dynamite and other explosives. I was blown backwards and Tobi passed out again. As for Bastion he just turned around and walked back to his pile of blankets and fell asleep once more. I walked back to Tobi and saw that his mouth was open and I could not help but looked inside. The tongue was completely healed. The only thing that was wrong was that he still had no tongue, but I already knew that he would never have another one. But that was fine with me, as long as he was alive, I was happy. I dragged my sleeping bag over next to the "Hospital bed" and laid down. I was tired! I was asleep almost instantly.


Chapter Eleven

Nothing happens the way you want it to.

Nothing happens the way I ever want it to. When all I wanted to do was make out with Tobi when we were being chased before we met the queens, what happened? We were roughly pulled apart and dragged up stairs. When I wanted to be a Chosen when Tobi got picked, that did not happen either. My life sucks. Anyways you must be wondering why I am complaining, right? Well, here is what happened that made me realize just what a fucking annoying life I have got.
In the morning when I woke up, I looked around and saw that everyone had disappeared, including Tobi. That last irked me. I was thinking that maybe if I found a piece of paper and something for him to write with he could "tell" me what had gone so wrong that we had to flee from the capitol buildings of both countries. But now everyone was gone. Where were they? I looked around for some sign of where they had disappeared to, but there was none. "HEY! IS ANYONE HERE?" I yelled. Suddenly a hand grabbed my mouth and pulled me into an alley. "Wha-" I said startled into noise before the hand had completely muffled my voice. Tobi pulled me roughly against a wall and shook his head before removing his hand. I nodded mutely. Something was up. Now you see how nothing goes as planned? Everything can go from being completely and totally cool, and then the next we are running for our lives again. Because that is of course what was going on. I do not know if the police were after us or Bastion and his gang but ether way if found us it would not be good. Tobi took my hand and smiled at me, obviously glad to see me alive. I smiled back, and then we were running. We ran through sewers and through the crowded marketplace. I was most definitely getting some cardiovascular work done here. As we ran I got a weird feeling that kind of tickled and yet somehow felt like someone was poring water over me. It started behind my ears and swamped over my head and then dripped down to my feet and out my toes. It felt good. I was also positive it was a spell. "Tobi?" He looked back as we ran to show that he was listening. "Are you spelling me?" He smiled, and nodded. "Is there a way that you can show me why? You can still sort of talk without a tongue can't you?" He shook his head and pointed to his throat with a disgusted look on his face that also portrayed hatred. They had made doubly sure that he would not be able to say anything. They had crushed his throat damaging it beyond even a Demon Healer's skill to fix. At least he could breath properly. He then did something really strange. He jumped what looked like ten feet in to the air and on to the top of a low roof and motioned for me to follow him. "What are you talking about? I can't jump that high!" He looked at me with a kind of crooked smile that asked me if I was stupid. The spell. "Oh." I jumped and landed next to him. He grabbed my hand once again and off we went jumping from house to house, landing so lightly on the rooftops that we hardly made a sound and no one noticed us. I noticed that every time we jumped or got close to the edge he squeezed my hand a little harder. But at least he was working through his fear of heights whilst I still stayed as far away from dark small places as possible. At last we jumped down from our last roof. As we jumped Tobi almost broke my hand as he crushed it within his own. He pointed towards a low hanging branch from a tree nearby. Now I was beginning to think that he was crazy to want to go up a tree right after getting of the high roofs, but as we headed towards it at a fast walk so as to look at least somewhat inconspicuous, instead of going to the trunk of the tree, he brushed the branch away and reviled a tunnel into the ground. As he started into the tunnel he realized that I had stopped following him. He turned, giving me a puzzled look. I just shook my head. I could not say anything. Exspesially after he had just ran across rooftops, defying his own worst fear, to get me here. He looked at the tunnel than at my terrified face then gave me a half smile. He reached up and took me hand and gently pulled me towards him. I resisted and shook my head, trying to get my lungs and mouth to work together and explain why I could never go into that dark and narrow hole in the ground. But sadly I was not even close to matching Tobi's strength, he easily pulled me towards him anyways and wrapped a firm but comforting arm around my shoulders and led me into the tunnel. About three yards in I started leaking tears and closed my eyes and buried my face in to Tobi's side. He just kept walking. We walked like that for what seemed like forever and a day, no more like a month, when he pushed me away from him slightly and touched my eye lids lightly with his fingertips. I opened them. We were in a small room true, but it was brightly lit with flickering torch light. I breathed a small sigh of relief and hoped that Tobi had not heard it. But he did. When he heard it he looked down and smiled at me. Lots of other people were there already. Tobi took me to a corner in the room and let me go. He nodded at me and left for a moment, and then was back with pizza. I had not realized just how hungry I was until I saw that wonderful cheese and pineapple thick crusted pizza. My stomach growled in anticipation. Tobi's shoulders shook with silent laughter at the sound. I grinned back at him, then he took out a pad of paper and a pencil and started to write between bites. I did not interrupt him. I knew what he was writing, he was explaining everything that was important at this moment. The details could wait for later. At last when he was finished he held it out to me. I wiped my greasy hands on my jeans (they were dirty anyways, it did not make much of a difference to my hands either) and took it from him. This is what it said:
Jayd, so much has happened I can't even begin to start. You're probably wondering what happened that made us have to leave the White House/Palace, right? Well here is how it goes.
I was lost and walking down some corridor in the basement when I heard voices. I just thought that I would go and ask for directions but unfortunately I that was not a good idea. I walked into the room to see a group of about thirteen adults in black matching robes and masks that completely covered their faces, so that none of them could even know who was who. I don't know much about conspiracies in your world quiet yet, (it's only been a year since the Collision) but in my world that is a definite sign. They wear the cloaks and masks so that not even the members know exactly who is in it. That way, if there is a spy they can't tell any one who is in the organization. And if one does get caught, and they are tortured they can't tell on anyone.
So as I was standing there in complete shock, one of them turned and saw me. They reached out and grabbed me before I even completely comprehended what I was seeing. They tortured me to see what I knew, if someone had sent me, or anything. Half way through I blurted out your name, I was in so much pain that all I wanted was for someone (namely you) to come and save me from it. I felt as though I was going to die. They mistook your name for someone who sent me and they picked out people to go and find and kill you. After that they crushed my throat and cut my tongue out with a serrated knife. And let me tell you, that is painful! After that I think I went into shock, I was oblivious to all that was happening around me. People leaving people coming and all the while all I could think about, when I could think, was how to get out of here and find you so that you did not suffer because of me...

Around this point I started crying. I flung myself at Tobi and hugged him hard and did not let go of him as I continued to read.

Once the last person left I was able to think clear enough to figure out how to untie the ropes. After that, my head was functioning as properly as possible and I ran out of that room like a mad man. When I saw you coming down those stairs... You have no idea how glad I was to see you. I wish I could have explained to you right then, but as you know that was quite impossible. Anyways, that is what happened originally. More recently you might be wondering what happened at Bastion's this morning? Well... His newest members made a huge mistake when breaking into someone's house.
1. The person who's house they were entering without permission, was a police officer.
2. The police officer was having a bunch of people over after work at exactly the same time that they had decided to enter.
3. They did the worst mistake possible and led them straight to the hide-out.
The only reason you got left behind I think, is because the signal to leave was very quiet, and we were so new that I don't think that most of them even remembered that we were there. The only reason I did not get left behind is because I was awake at the time. When I realized that you were still there I headed back immediately. And the rest you know. Are you afraid of the dark?

"No," I answered his question. "Well, sort of. Yes. I am claustrophobic and afraid of the dark. My cousin was a really weird person. He wanted to travel but did not have enough money, so he closed himself up in a crate and had someone ship him to someone they knew in England. When they opened the crate they found that he had suffocated. Ever since I could never even go into my closet to get something out without a flashlight." He nodded and took his pad of paper back and scribbled something on to it and handed it back to me. "Is that why you freaked out when the power went out at school?" "Yes," I nodded. "That whole day was horrible. I was anticipating it all day. As soon as I saw the forecast I planned on bringing a flashlight or something to school so that I wouldn't be without a light. But I was late for the bus that day and in my hurry I left it on my bed." I sighed and shook my head at my foolishness. Tobi smiled at me and handed a wrapped box to me along with a piece of paper. The paper said, "Happy birthday Jayd. You forgot again didn't you?" Tobi was right, I had forgotten. "Thank you Tobi! It had completely slipped my mind. He gestured for me to open the gift. That in of it's self is a joke. For the past three years I have been telling people not to give me anything on any occasion. And yet they all seem to forget time and time again. Tobi silently laughed at me as I scowled at him. I had told him of my dislike of gifts. He was teasing me. Again. Seriously, why do I love this guy? He drives me insane! I tore the paper off of what ever was under it. It was one of those shirt boxes. That totally threw me. Tobi is not the kind of person to go and give someone an article of clothing for a present unless it's like a really cool hat (we have this thing about hats, we are completely nuts about them... I suppose if he gave me a hat I could forgive him). When I opened the box I found something completely different from what I had expected to find. This was the present. The notebook that I am writing in now. He passed me another note. "Our lives have been pretty interesting so far. It would be a shame if no-one wrote it down. Not to mention, you're a pretty damn good writer. Do what ever you want with it though, it's yours." Actually it was the best gift anyone had ever given me, and I told him so. As he laughed at me I tried to explain why it was, but he just kept shaking his head. Eventually I just gave up, he would see how great a present it was for an aspiring author. Tobi got onto his knees and kind of walked kind of crawled over to me and sat down pulling the book from my hands as he did. He then flipped it open to the first page. On it was a picture of right after the Collision. Everything in disrepair. The next page was the same, but on the third there was a picture of me. I was pulling stones and straw out of a pile next to a broken down cottage. The next page was the inside of the cottage with the picture of Tobi's dead father. That made me sad, I flipped through the rest and found that they all had pictures of all of what had happened. But somewhere mid-way through, the pictures stopped. Tobi passed me another piece of paper. I took it and read the words slowly. Some of it did not make that much since to me. "The book is spelled. Every thing that has happened to you since magic came into your life up until now is in, and part of, that book. As you live and you have had more experiences, more pictures will appear on the pages. You had better appreciate it, It took a lot of work." "Will it work even after they split the worlds? Magic will be gone from here if that happens. Will all of the pictures go away and will pictures never be added?" I wanted to know. But Tobi was already shaking his head and writing. "You should not have to worry about that. The spell makes it bound to you, so that after, if it comes to be, it would not leave you and go to Treah. The spell is bound to the book to it should never leave the book either." Bound, bound.... I had read something once in Moran's Tower that had to do with binding. You had to have a focus if you were binding something to a person. Something that had been with that person for a long time. "Tobi?" He looked up from the pictures with a "What" on his face. "What exactly did you use of mine for a focus?" Focuses were important, if someone with a control of magic that wished you ill got something of yours you were in trouble. He grinned sheepishly, as if asking forgiveness. He reached into a bag that was laying next to him and pulled out a plastic zip-lock bag that held what looked like a lot of my hair. I reached up to my head and checked to make sure that I was not bald. He laughed a little as I relaxed somewhat when I found all of my hair still there. He scribbled something and gave it to me. "I started planning this last year, I told you this had taken a lot of work. The hair is from that onetime I was over and you mom trimmed your hair. It was perfect really, I had just started looking for a focus. Sorry I did not tell you." I sighed and shook my head at him. "You are crazy, putting that much work into a present. Now your making me feel guilty about how little I did with yours." Earlier that year I had given him a book that we had to read in English/Micora (Micora is what the Treahians call their English language. He had read the book before and had loved it so I gave it to him. His was so much better. Hugged him again. "Hey you two love birds! What's up?" Bastion asked rather irritatingly, coming up from a tunnel to our right. We both jumped at his voice and flushed at his choice of words. "We are not love birds," I told him with a killers glare. Tobi poked me and gave me a questioning look when I turned to him. "Well we're not, we are humans." I answered. He smiled at that and suddenly looked much more relaxed. He nodded, satisfied with my answer. Bastion laughed at us and said, "Look, you two humans. You know the situation around here right now?" We both nodded. "Well it will probably be like that for a few days until our scouts find a new spot for us. Until then, we are cutting back on light so as to save torches. I over heard what you said, Jayd, earlier about your phobia, but I can't really do anything about that. You can leave if you have to. But if you do just be careful and tell no one about us or this place, got it?" We nodded and he moved onto the next group of people to tell them the news." Tobi turned to me with a concerned look on his face. "Where else would we go?" I said quietly, my eyes avoiding his. He took my hand and was sat and dozed like that through out the night.
When morning came, I did not know it. I woke up to the pitch black. I almost screamed before I remembered where I was. I felt around for Tobi, needing some reassurance that I was not going to suffocate and die. When I found him he was sound asleep. I could not wake him up. So I tried not to, but in the end I couldn't stand waiting for the lights by my self. "Tobi!" I whispered quietly into his ear. He lifted a hand and put it against my face and wiped away my tears of fright with a soothing hand. I whimpered and pressed my head into the crook between his neck and shoulder.


Part Two
The Separation

Chapter Twelve
Home

Yes, home. There was never and has never been a better sounding word. In the end, once the torches were lit I practically flew out of there. I told Tobi that if I had stayed in there one more day without lights I would go crazy and hurt either myself or someone near me and that I did not want any of those to happen. He agreed to go and we left almost immediately. I was kind of sad to leave Bastion. He was fun to talk to. Anyways, as we left the Tunnel of death and walked across the traffic way I heard a news broadcast coming from a big black Hum-V. Oddly enough, the big gas guzzler was listening to NPR National Public Radio. A world conscious station. On it I heard our names. "- Jaydria Caw and Tobias Aoudad. If any of you listeners see them please call-" and then we passed them and were on our way to the interstate. "Tobi, did you hear that?" He looked back at me and shook his head no. "Radio stations are putting people on the lookout for us. I heard it from that car back there." Tobi raised his eyebrows and sped up, I matched him in speed and we made it (completely out of breath) to the border of Virginia. "People who do cross-country runs for fun are irivocably crazy," I stated flatly as we stopped to catch our breath before looking for a place to stay the night. Tobi had no comment except a smile. Finally able to breath again we began our search for nice warm bed. Yeah right, although that would be nice. Our legs wobbled, it was getting cold, and it was getting very dark. Maybe we could find some sympathetic person to let us stay in their house for the night. *Sigh* "Tobi? I am hungry, let go and find some nice person and beg from them 'Kay?" Tobi got out his pad o' paper and writ down his most wonderful words yet, "Where is the closest Krispy Kreams? I have money, let's get some DONUTS!" Yes! I found a local who looked as though he enjoyed donuts and asked him where we could get some whilst trying not to look so starved that I was about to keel over and die from hunger and exhaustion. And like I anticipated (which was very shallow of me) he knew exactly where to go and how to get there. Although I probably just repeated myself. Leaving the donut factory, munching on sugary goodness we ran smack dab into (or Tobi did) some fancy lady with her teacup poodle. Both Tobi and the lady fell backwards, the dog jumping out of his persons arms and into the street where the little thing met a horrible end under the tires of a semi-truck. The lady had spun to watch the dog as he jumped out of her arms and screamed at his death. "NO!" Tobi's eyes were large with horror and I had screamed along with the woman. People from inside the store came out to see what had happened. In the confusion Tobi leaped to his feet and pulled me into Krispy Kreams and out the back door. We ran without looking back. I did not say anything, I knew that he would feel horrible whatever I said or tried to say. Later as we found a soft place in the grass in a nature park to sleep, I said, "Tobi, it was not your fault." He ignored me. I sighed and we both tried to sleep.
The next day we were up and running again. We hitch hiked some of the way and managed to get half way through Kentucky before having to stop. That night was like the others only slightly different. Tobi tapped my shoulder as tried to get comfortable under the unoccupied bridge. Let me tell you something, if anyone ever tells you that cement is nice and soft to sleep on, DO NOT listen to them! It's pure hell! "Yeah Tobi? What is it?" He passed me a note and then turned and went to sleep. I tried to make out what it said but it was way to dark. I would read it in the morning. He obviously did not want to talk about whatever he had written so it would not matter if I read it tomorrow. The next day Tobi looked at me, for what I could only assume was an answer and I told him that I had not read it yet, it was to dark last night. He nodded and looked away, as if he had written something on that little piece of paper that he really wished he hadn't. Halfway though the day when Tobi was walking a little ways in front of me, I pulled out his letter (for that was indeed what it was, more than a conversation starter like usual) and read it quickly so that he would not catch me reading it. However that was rather pointless seeing how after I read it I had to read it again to make sure that I was reading it right.
"Jayd, I know that your response to this will probably be a mixture of reassurance, comfort and indignation. But I am going to write this anyways. Jayd, our relationship has changed drastically these past few months, and that is fine except I no longer know where I stand. Are we friends? Are we dating? Or are we nothing except travel partners? Nothing makes since anymore, and I just want clarification. I like to know where I stand in life and after I know that I can rest more easily except for possibly heart-break. Let me know soon please? Also, I might want to talk so could you give me your answer when we are stopped? Thanks.
Tobi

There are some times I wish Tobi could read my mind, like now for instance. I could tell him anything and yet he wont believe me because of some reason or other. He would tell me, but only after a while. Also, it was not just our relationship that changed. We both changed, Tobi and myself. I felt different inside my own skin and Tobi was completely different, either that or he was still adjusting to not being able to talk. I was thinking about this all through the day so I did not notice when a car turned when I was crossing the street and hit me dead on. I fell hard on to the ground and the car did not stop. It ran right over me and kept going. Nothing was staying clear, I was fading in and out of consciousness. I stayed conscious long enough to hear the sirens and then I was gone.
When I awoke it was near night on the second day of December. I had been out for three days. Suddenly I felt a surge of anger! Where was that son of a bitch that ran over me! I wanted to tear him to shreds! A nurse came in then. "Hello," he said. "How are you feeling?" I stared at him for a moment and then shook my head to clear it and answered, "Fine, I guess. What happened?" He grimaced. "Some idiot ran you over. I don't suppose you managed to get his license plate before you passed out huh?" I smiled and shook my head. "Hey, did someone named Tobi come here for me? It's really important!" Now it was his turn to shake his own head. "He did but we told him that we could only let your family members in. He mute?" "Yes. Are you sure that you couldn't make just one exception for us? We might as well be family." "Nope, sorry," he said cheerily. "Do you want to use a phone to call your legal family and your friend Tobi's cell?" "He doesn't have a cell," I grumbled, but I nodded all the same. It would be nice to talk to my mom again and hear my dad's funny deep voice. As soon as the nurse left I heard a tapping sound on my window. I turned and saw Tobi standing on the small ledge out side my third-floor window. "Tobi!" I hissed. "What the fucking hell are you doing?" I tried to get up only to find that my leg was broken and bound in a thick cast. I heard foot steps from outside my door. I made quick and urgent gestures for him to hide, apparently he got the message because by the time the nurse opened the door he was gone. "Hey!" He said putting the phone down. "Need anything else?" I pretended to think for a moment before saying, "Could you open the window? It's a little stuffy in here." "Sure!" He nodded. Once the window was open and he turned around I asked him what my condition was. "Well... Your leg is broken in three places and one of your ribs on your right side is broken as well, not to mention your entire left side is one massive bruise." I sighed (I seemed to be doing that a lot again) and then groaned. my lung hurt too. "How long do you think I will be in here?" He thought about it for a while, "Maybe a month and a half to two months. I don't know, they have not finished evaluating you yet." I thanked him and he left. Once the door closed Tobi was back, this time looking like he was about to be sick. He crawled through the window and went straight to the bathroom and from the sound of it did exactly what I thought he would. He came back a while later and went up to me with a piece of paper in his hand. I took it and read, "How are you? How long are you in for? And why the hell did you just walk into the road like some kind of lunatic!?" I told him everything the nurse had told me, and to his last question, "I was kind of spaced that day. I wasn't paying very good attention to my surroundings." He snorted as if to say "Obviously!" And for the rest of the day we play hide and go seek with the nurses and doctors. Tobi ducking in and out of hiding when ever one was heard in the hall.
The next day was no different, except for a little more painful (they kept on drawing blood for some reason). By the time night came we were pretty bored. "Hey Tobi, let's play hangman," I said, that should tell you how dull life in the hospital can be. He nodded and brought out his note book and drew the little doodle for hangman. We played four times and then we were bored once again. Finally I decided to answer, or bring up, his question/ letter. "Tobi? You know that question you asked me? About where you stand and stuff?" Aren't I eloquent! "Um... I don't really know why you were asking that, I thought it was pretty clear what we were, are, to each other." Tobi looked at me for a moment then flipped the leafs of his notebook to a clear page and wrote. When he handed it back to me he did so with a blank face. It read: "Jayd, if it was clear to me I wouldn't be asking you, now would I? So will you please outright answer the question and let me go on with my life?" Now it was my turn to stare at him. "Are you breaking up with me?" Real original huh? He made a face and held out his hand for his notebook. I gave it to him and he wrote: "Were we ever really together? I think I love you Jayd, but I am not so sure if you do me, until the answer is clear I don't really know what we are or aren't." After reading that I sat back and thought about what he had said. Did I love him? Like that anyways, I know I love him as a friend. But such as that? Do I? I thought long and hard about it until I came to a conclusion. This was probably stupid and cheesy and dumb all around but I did it anyways. I reached out and took hold of Tobi's wrist and pulled him towards me, he came easily enough, and kissed him full on the mouth. We had kissed before, but as you can probably guess, it was different now that he didn't have a tongue. Not bad, but different. Sadly our kissing was interrupted by sounds at the door. We broke away glanced at each other before the doctor entered and Tobi had to hide.

Three days later there was a knock on the door, Tobi ducked out of sight and I called, "Come in!" It was strange because usually the nurses and doctors just come in and out as they pleased. The door opened and both of my parents came in. "Mom, Dad!" I was so happy to see them. They ran over and hugged me. My dad told how they had gotten lost in the hospital and walked in on a couple in the middle of an argument and then hurriedly exiting knocked over their daughter who was on crutches because of a broken leg. My mom wanted to know everything that happened. "Later," I told her, because just then the doctor walked in. The next day they discharged me and all four of us left that pristinely clean hospital for our dirty and messy home.


Chapter Thirteen
Siege at the Tower

When we got to Raytown late that night my mom offered to drop Tobi off at the Tower but he said that there were to many stairs in the Tower and that he'd walk over there tomorrow when he was less tired. My parents agreed and called Moran to tell him that Tobi was back and would be home in the morning. Of course like any good father he wanted to talk to Tobi immediately (and since Tobi couldn't talk he talked enough for the both of them) so he did not get to sleep at a good time anyway. Late that night I got hungry, so I did what any teen in their own house would do in that situation. I wobbled down the stairs with my crutches and made myself some Eggo Waffles and drowned them in syrup. Looking out the window in the kitchen I notice bright lights coming from the school. I wondered if we were missing some school dance or something. I shrugged, not putting much though into it. Tobi walked into the kitchen, tousled hair and sleepy eyed and held up a piece of paper asking me what I was doing. "Eating. Are we missing something at the school or something?" I asked him, still looking out the window. He walked over to me and looked out the window then shrugged and went back to the couch he was sleeping on. I finished my waffles then put the dish in the sink, not bothering to wash it, and went back to my bed.
Morning came and me and Tobi still slept. My mother came and woke me up around eleven thirty. "Come down stairs," she said. Something in her voice told me something bad had happened or was happening as we spoke. I jumped out of bed and dragged my clothes on brushed my hair and grabbed this book on my way out and hobbled down the stairs as fast as I could and skidded to a stop trying not to fall as I lost my balance and waited just out side the living room until I calmed down my breathing and could walk into the room. The people in the room were all people I knew but some of them I did not expect to see there. There was six people in the room, Mom, Dad, Tobi, a Sending of Moran, and... queens Kate and Karim. I froze, completely shocked. "Wha-?" I asked. Everyone turned at my voice, Karim and Kate smiled. "We've been looking for you two for forever," Karim said. I turned wide eyed to Tobi and asked him,"Did you leave anything out when you explained it to me?" He shook his head, although he looked just as confused as I was. "When you two left the Capitol no one knew why. Allen and Porter ran after you to see why you, Tobi, were bloody and when you saw them, they said, you ran even faster," Kate said. "'Why did they run?" We wondered, so we looked into it and found out about a conspiracy and dealt with it," Karim said, picking up where Kate left off. "Now we would like to hear your story, but Tobi can't speak and he did not want to write it all down so I was wondering whether you would tell us?" She said, all in one breath. "Um... Okay," I said unsure of where to begin. I looked at Tobi for some help, he just shrugged. Thanks a ton Tobes. "Ah, let's see, um... Where should I start?" "How 'bout the beginning?" Kate suggested. "Ahem," I cleared my throat. "Yes, the beginning. Um..." And so I told them in such a rush that they kept stopping me and asking me to clarify stuff. They did that rather often. After about an hour I had finished and the had understood most of it. The whole while my parents and Moran and Tobi stared at me. My parents and Moran because of the story, and all of them because I always talk very articulately and take my time saying what ever I think. I was really nervous and let's just leave it at that. When I was finished Kate said: "Thanks Jayd. Hey Tobi, if there is anyway we can repay you just let us know, okay? Even if you warned us inadvertently, you still did and we want to thank you somehow." Tobi bowed and then made a face. Tore a page out of his notebook, wrote on it then folded it into an airplane and threw it at me. I caught it and read it. "I need to learn Sign Language. Do you know where I might find a teacher?" I looked up at him and frowned. "How'd you know I would be able to find you a teacher? I'm starting to think that you can read minds!" He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. I sighed (again) and turned to Mom. "What's Uncle Aden's phone number?" "You want your uncle's phone number?" She asked puzzled than smacked her hand to her forehead. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" She ran into the kitchen and started pulling stuff out of drawers. "Mom, calm down. It's not like the world is going to end if you don't find her number in fifteen seconds. Kate and Karim stopped watching my mom's frantic pulling apart of the kitchen and turned to my dad. "Who is Aden?" Karim asked. My dad sighed (now I know who I get it from) and answered, " Eryn's s brother. He is married to a deaf woman, Rebeka's her name. She should be able to teach Tobi easily. Now I feel stupid, I should have thought of her." He turned to me. "Why don't you teach Tobi what you know Jayd? You know some." I nodded. "Well, if anything, call us!" Karim said heading to the door. "We have to go and get the real Moran out of his tower." "Yes, thank you," Moran said bowing. Tobi looked confused and I was as well so I asked for us both, "What? Why would you need to do that?" "Because I am under siege," Moran explained calmly. Some air-heads from the Comity of Wizardry have decided that I am getting to big for my britches for a small country Wizard since Tobi was Chosen." At that Tobi's eyes got big. "Now, now Tobi, every thing is under control! Once the queens get there and tell everyone to get lost all will be well!" Tobi shook his head at his crazy father and went back to whatever he'd been writing. After the queens took their leave and Moran had dissipated his Sending, Mom left to work and Dad went up stairs to edit some articles for the Sunday paper. I had breakfast again and wrote some in this book. Tobi seeing me do this shook his head and returned once again to his writing. What was he writing? He'd been writing for a long time now and had used about five pages. A speech? Or maybe a novel? I tried to read over his shoulder but he shifted and blocked my view. "Tobi, what are you writing?" I asked him in a wheedling tone. He shook his head to say "Nothing." I frowned and tried to see past him but he turned his head and kissed me quickly and gave me a grin then turned back to his work. Startled, I pulled back and sat down and contemplated trying again for either end result, both sounded good to me. Five hours later I asked Tobi if we were going to go to school that day. He shrugged and shook his head. "How 'bout I teach you some Sign Language?" I said. I was tired of writing for now. Still he shook his head, he flipped to a new page and wrote "Later" and continued ignoring me and writing. Well, he could do what ever he wanted to do. I was bored so I was going out. I walked out the door than decided that that was to normal these days so I went back inside and to the window. I opened the storm and screen and of course that other window that I cant remember what it's called and stuck my crutches out the window. I then put my broken leg out the window, since it was the least flexible and put all my weight on my hands and pulled my other leg through and then dropped. I grabbed my crutches and used them to help me up. Tobi came to the window and looked at me with concern, whether it was for my sanity or physical well being I still to this day I do not know. Once on my feet I nodded importantly to Tobi and hobbled off down the street. I heard the windows being closed behind me and the door slamming shut and then Tobi was next to me walking along with me side by side as we've been doing for quiet some time now. I smiled at him and he smiled back. Ah what a wonderful day. We walked up to the drug store and got some soda and then talked a bit. I taught him a little Sign Language and then we headed for the school. Not to go to school mind, just to see how the whole siege thing was going and whether or not Moran was out of his Tower yet. On the way there I asked him, "Hey Tobi?" "Yes?" He signed. "What do you think happens next?" "What?" "You are still one of the Chosen right? Are the queens going to take you back with them?" He thought about it for a moment than shrugged, but his face was worried. "Why do you think the real reason is? That they want to separate the worlds that is." He took out his paper and wrote, "I take it you don't believe the whole Dragon and pollution thing then?" "Of course not! People of the Government always lie. It's a well known fact." "Mine don't." "Maybe, maybe not. All rulers lie sometimes though. It keeps people from panicking or doing something drastic. If what you say is true and they don't lie, then they were most likely pressured into it by the others, like threatening a cold war or something." Tobi shrugged but looked uncomfortable in the thought that someone from so far a way from him could have that much of a impact on his life. "When is your aunt coming?" He wrote to change the subject. "In about three days I think," I answered. "We are all going to learn. If we did not, who would you talk to? Not to mention you need people to practice with as well." He smiled at that. When we got to the Tower it was obvious that the queens had not succeeded because they were still here and yelling at people. Or at least Kate was while Karim told Kate a few things to add to her speech that no-one was listening to. Apparently Karim was to well brought up to shout as we were told later. "Karim?" I asked as we ran up to them. Their body guards moved to block us. Their swords and guns raised. We stopped dead. "No! No, let them through," Karim assured them. "They are friends of ours." They parted and let us through after checking us throughly for weapons. "What are you still doing here? I thought that all would be over quickly?" Karim cleared her throat anxiously and said, "Well, we thought it would be done with quickly too. But these Wizards are a law unto them selves. They seem to think that they don't belong to Sra and can do anything they want to. UGH! It's so annoying!" "You are too used to everything going the way you want it Kari," Kate rasped. "I need some water, any of you guys have some?" We all shook our heads. "Jonah, go and get Kate some water will you? She can hardly speak!" She turned to Kate and gave her a hug. "Thanks for trying Dear." Kate pulled away from her in mock surprise. "For trying eh? I haven't finished yet!" She grimaced. "Damn my throat hurts. So when did the kids get here?" "I am not a kid! I will be a legal adult in a year!" "Yes you will," she agreed. "In a year. Until then you are a kid. Sorry but it's true." I scowled at her. "A few minutes ago." "What?" "A few minutes ago. You asked when we got here and the answer is a few minutes ago." "Oh. Next time be more clear or just answer the question instead of walking around it." I scowled even more at that. Then shook my head and smiled. A good tip in life, learn to laugh at your self when you do something ridiculous. Your life will be much more fun and enjoyable and people will like you more. Tobi wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to Kate. "How's your father? He is fine, we'll get him out of there by night hopefully. But if not I am sure that we will tomorrow!" At Tobi's wide eyed expression she quickly amended herself , "But that wont happen. Don't worry." At that moment the body guard Karim had sent to get water returned and handed over some water. "Thank you Jonah," Kate said gulping down the cups contents. "Ah, much better." She handed him back the empty cup and returned to her bellowing. And that woman can bellow! I am surprised that they did not all stop immediately after hearing her voice. "So why are they attacking him again?" I wondered. "Well... Recently we, me and Kate that is, decided that Moran was a really great Wizard for all he can be a bit distracted at times." Tobi smiled at that and nodded vigorously. "So we invited him to join the Queens' Wizards, but some of the Wizards, both in and out of the organization, disagreed with us. They said that there were better candidates for the post." "Jerks," I muttered. "They just don't want a rookie to get the spotlight." Kate smiled at me and said: "Well, maybe you should try talking to them. They don't seem to like listening to me." I nodded, and just for the hell of it I yelled in my best parade voice : "STOP YOU IDIOTS!" And, surprisingly they did. All spells mid-way through completion halted and all eyes turned to me. I paused for a second and looked at Kate. She gestured for me to continue. "You are all making absolute fools of your selves, do you realize that? What ever your cause is I doubt that attacking Moran's Tower is going to help it. In this kind of situation the best thing you could do would be to file a rational complaint and hope for the best. You can try that now, but because of this idiocy your chances of being listened to are a whole lot slimmer than they would have been. Now leave and do not ever attempt this kind of thing again!" There was a stillness in the air and then some muttering then slowly at first than it sped up and grew louder popping sounds came from all directions and Wizards disappeared. "Damn Jayd, how did you get them to listen to you? I've been yelling for ages and they ignored me no matter what I tried!" I shrugged self consciously. I had no idea what made them listen to me, but I sure do wish that it worked all the time. After all the Wizards had gone we walked to the Tower and Tobi knocked on place where the door would appear. And it did, so suddenly and it opened so quickly that on his third knock he met empty air and lost his balance and fell. Only to be caught up in a bear hug by Moran. "You are now free," Karim said. "And it's all thanks to Jayd." Moran turned to me and hugged me as well, lifting me up in the air. "And so it is!" He said, as he gently lowered me to the ground so that I wouldn't fall thanks to my broken leg. "You are amazing Jayd, simply amazing. So would you like to come in?" He asked us all. "That would be wonderful, do you by any chance have some chamomile tea? I hear that if you add honey it's good for your throat," Kate said massaging her own throat. Moran chuckled and led us inside. "Now Her Majesty wants tea... Any one else?" "Do you have any donuts?" I asked him, well aware that just yesterday he had celebrated his weekly Donut Day. "But of course," he said with a bow. "Tobi? You want donuts?" Tobi nodded and Moran turned to Karim. "And you fair lady?" "Hmm... I think I'll have some donuts, but could I have some tea too?" Moran bowed low and turned once more to Kate. "You sure you don't want donuts Lady? They are really good." Kate looked affronted. "I don't believe I said that I did not! Who wouldn't want donuts?" Moran clapped his hands together and turned to the kitchen and got busy warming the donuts and heating water for tea. I don't remember the rest of that day very much, but I do remember it being a good day until the very last.
Three days later we were visited once again by Kate and Karim. Somehow they had found out that we were having Moran and Tobi over for dinner and invited them selves as well. They said that they had things that they needed to discus with us all. Me and Tobi exchanged looks at that as the adults thanked them for "gracing our table with their presence" or something like that. Later on in the dinner my father brought up the reason for their visit, asking them why they had come, even though we are happy they did. "Well..." Said Kate, looking at Karim for support. "We came originally to Raytown to hear these two's story. But now we are leaving Raytown and as a Chosen, Tobi has to come with us." There was a brief silence interrupted by the screech of chair legs as Tobi stood up. He glared at the queens, shoved his pad of paper at them and left the house through the back door. I hurriedly got up and followed. Let the adults talk, but no matter how much they did, no one was taking Tobi where he did not want to go. "Tobi! Wait up!" Thanks to the Collision we have woods instead of a back yard now and Tobi was already pretty deep into them. Not having grown up in or around them and never needing to learn woodlore I would never go in there without Tobi, I would get lost for sure. Tobi stopped and waited for me to catch up and then continued determinedly in a certain direction. "Where are we going?" I asked him dodging a tree. "Aunt Rebeka's house," he signed. "Why?" "We need some place to stay right? And I still want to learn more Sign Language." He finger spelt most of that. Since I am still pretty slow at signing, it took me a little while to figure out what he had said. Now you can see who's been practicing and who has not. So, after a moments pause for me to understand what he'd said, I asked him: "Don't you think that going there would be a little obvious? I mean, we're hiding from the law, I think. Shouldn't we go somewhere more...hidden?" Tobi shook his head and signed: "I don't want to hide, if they come and find me I plan on kicking their asses across the country." I said nothing about this folly. If they found him all he could do was run and I would follow him. Life suddenly got complicated again. It's annoying. We walked for about three days until it occurred to me that Tobi had never been to my Aunt's house, so how could he be leading us in the right direction? "Tobi? How do you know where to go to get there? You don't even know the address." He held up a piece of paper that had her address on it, along with intersections along the way. That last did explain why occasionally we would leave the woods when we heard cars to see where we were. He had planned all of this out ahead of time, I realized. "Tobi, how long have you been planning this?" He signed "Later, I don't have any paper." I was silent through out the rest of the day, pissed that Tobi had planned on leaving without even including me into the stratigizing part of it. We don't even have decent food! But I guess Tobi probably didn't know when we were leaving either. He knew that the queens would try to take him back and had planned for it. He was a genius, so damn smart it was annoying.
Two days later we arrived at the deaf community where my aunt lived. "Help me find her house, I get lost easily in these kinds of places." What he meant by "these kinds of places" would be the suburbs. Everything looks so alike I bet the people who live here get lost! After about a hour we found her house and guess what! There was no car in her drive and no one answered the door. So we sat on her steps until she got home. Slowly my head fell on to Tobi's shoulder and he propped himself up with his forearms resting on his knees and we let our tired bodies sleep. We were woken up by a quick intake of breath. Or should I say Tobi was and him leaping to his feet and making me fall woke me up. Tobi did the polite thing and bowed while I yawned and said: "Yo Aunt. How's it going?" She stared at us for a moment. In this moment I am going to describe what my Aunt Beka looks like. She has long brown hair that she forever wears in a ponytail low on her head. Her clothing changes time lines every few weeks. Right now it seemed to be from the nineteen-thirties. But also note that no matter the time line she is always in the males clothing. She was wearing a long trench coat with one of those hats... I can't remember what they're called. Find a picture or watch a movie from the `30's and you would see that she fits right in! With the boys. "Jayd? Is that you? You look so different!" For some reason I've always liked the way deaf people talk, just something about their voices. "Yup, it's me Aunt." Just in case you are wondering why I am talking and Aunt Beka understands me she can read lips. So don't try to say anything about her from behind her back,`cuz she also has eyes in the back of her head. Speaking of which, her eyes, I have always considered to be the strangest part of her appearance. Red with slited pupils like a cat. I have always envied her eyes. "Can we stay here for a while? And could you teach us some Sign Language? Tobi is mute." She was already nodding. "Come in, please," she said leading us into her enormous house. She went into the kitchen and started making pasta. "Are you hungry?" We both nodded vigorously."Great." Just then Aden walked in and stopped when he saw us. "Well this is a surprise! Hello Jayd," he said giving me a hug. He held out his hand to Tobi, who took it. "And you must be Tobi right?" Tobi smiled. "It's nice to meet you." He looked between us and asked: "So why are you here now? You were not supposed to come until next week. Or did I miss something?" "So you knew they were coming?" Beka said, her hands following what she said. "I thought I told you, Beka?" She shook her head. "No? Oh... Well here they are!" "I can see that." She went back to her cooking. "So why are you here?" Uncle Aden said, not to be swayed from finding out. "Well... Tobi has to go back to the Capitol soon, so we though that-" Tobi was shaking his head and signed "Paper". "You want paper? Not very good at signing yet eh? Okay." He pulled open a few drawers before finding what he was looking for. He passed some paper and a pencil to Tobi and waited. Tobi had gotten very fast at writing recently so he did not have to wait very long. "You ran away from the two queens of Sra. From all the monarchs and presidents of the two worlds," he stated dully. "And you ran to here? Why here?" "Rebeka," Tobi signed. "Okay, let me get this straight. You ran here blindly trusting the fact that we would not turn you in or make you two go home, so that you could learn Sign Language from Beka." Tobi nodded. "What happens if they find you? What will you do then?" Now we all looked at Tobi. I wanted to know the answer to this as well. After all, I followed him here blindly, trusting that he knew where he was going for the first few days, and before that I just assumed that he knew what he was doing all together. Now how ever, I was not too sure. Tobi was taking a long time to write his answer so we all started to put the dinner on the table and get plates and forks. We sat down to eat and we were all about to start eating when Tobi fell over.
A few hours later Aden came out of his room and said that Tobi had been struck with a high fever. His temperature was at a hundred and three. "If we can't get it to go down soon we are going to have to take him to the hospital." "Is he conscious?" I wanted to know. "Not yet, don't go in there. We don't know if it's contagious or not." "If it's contagious then I have already been exposed," I said, and walked right past him and into the room. I was done with people trying to keep me away from Tobi for no good reason.
A few hours later I was still sitting next to Tobi as he lay in intense fever. Sweat running down his face as he started to cough. Phlegm coated the inside of his throat. "Here," Aunt Beka said handing me a laptop. "I know that your bored, no matter what your good intentions are. So take this. You can type with it, use the Internet, what ever." She rested her hand on my shoulder for a second, as if she could pore reassurance into me through that touch. And for a moment I did feel better. I put this book to the side and picked up the laptop and turned it on. I realized that I had my portable hard-drive in my pocket and put it in. I was a few months too late to finish it for NaNoWriMo but I figured that it didn't matter anymore. I opened Microsoft Word and took out the file titled NaNoWriMo---Knives. I reread it and then added more.
Once upon a time there was a girl named Jayd and she had to write a 50,000 word novel in one month! so all through the month of November she wrote and wrote until her fingers grew blisters and her bones started to crack whenever she sat down at her computer to type. Eventually her fingers turned blue and then black and then fell off. Her parents rushed her to the hospital and in to the emergency room where she was immediately fitted and equipped with metal fingers like those you would see on Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. Claw like fingers that have knives protruding from the tops. They moved like real fingers and were incredibly sharp.
Every once and a while I would cut myself on accident. My best friend was afraid of me now that I had monster hands. I could not type or write any more. I cursed the doctors who had done this to me. They had ruined my life I was going to end theirs. So began my long training as a master assassin. One day as I was walking when I heard a muffled scream and chanced upon an assassination of the mayor. The assassin dropped the dead man and ran at me. I side stepped him. He was obviously not expecting that and ran right past me. He quickly turned and I realized that although he did not expect it he was ready for it anyways. Soon he had me in a one armed headlock with a knife against my throat. "Say one word and I will cut your neck open and laugh as the blood runs." I did not doubt it but there was not much more to live for any ways. Every one that I loved had abandoned me in fear of what my hands might do, even accidentally. "I do not care. Kill me." He was so startled that his knife slipped and opened a shallow cut right above my Adams Apple. "Teach me," I said. The assassin stared at me through his mask. "First you want me to kill you than you said that you want me to teach you. Make up your mind." I decided that I liked this man. He seemed to be one of those people who could take things in stride, no matter that he was an assassin. Because of this I told him, "The reason I could not decide at first, is because I want to die, but I want to take a few others lives first." He continued to stare at me before grabbing my arm and towing me to the window. He was going to toss me out. Or so I thought. "Go," he said. "We can have this discussion later when we are not in the middle of a crime scene." It made since, so I crawled out and onto a part of the roof that protruded just out from under the floor of the Mayors office and climbed out. The assassin followed quickly and motioned for me to follow. I had no idea where we were going but I did know that once we got there he would most likely kill me. But I still didn't care. You could probably call me suicidal by this point, except that I wont kill myself. That does not however exclude me from putting myself in dangers path. As I followed him through alleys and over roofs. He stopped next to a old broken down house and motioned me through hands might do, even accidentally. "I do not care. Kill me." He was so startled that his knife slipped and opened a shallow cut right above my Adams Apple. "Teach me," I said. The assassin stared at me through his mask. "First you want me to kill you than you said that you want me to teach you. Make up your mind." I decided that I liked this man. He seemed to be one of those people who could take things in stride, no matter that he was an assassin. Because of this I told him, "The reason I could not decide at first, is because I want to die, but I want to take a few others lives first." He continued to stare at me before grabbing my arm and towing me to the window. He was going to toss me out. Or so I thought. "Go," he said. "We can have this discussion later when we are not in the middle of a crime scene." It made since, so I crawled out and onto a part of the roof that protruded just out from under the floor of the Mayors office and climbed out. The assassin followed quickly and motioned for me to follow. I had no idea where we were going but I did know that once we got there he would most likely kill me. But I still didn't care. You could probably call me suicidal by this point, except that I wont kill myself. That does not however exclude me from putting myself in dangers path. As I followed him through alleys and over roofs. He stopped next to a old broken down house and motioned me through. That is all I ask." I nodded. It was a reasonable request and I had nothing to lose from it, only gain. "It's a deal," I said out loud. I offered my hand and he took it. Now it was set in stone. What ever would happen next would either raise us both high above where we were now, or sink us to the very bottom of Hell.

Immediately after finishing that sentence I fell asleep and did not wake up until morning. In fact I had to be woken up. "Jayd. It's morning, wake up." The voice was familiar but I couldn't place who it belonged to until I remembered that I was at my uncles house. "Uncle Aden?" "Yup?" I shook the sleep out of my head and sat up stretching out my spine until I heard a crack. "Well what do ya expect, sleeping in a chair all night?" Said yet another familiar voice, but one who did not quite belong in this house hold. As you might have guessed, I still have not got around to opening my eyes. Now I did and I was more than surprised to see Bastion sitting at the foot of Tobi's bed. He was awake as well and laughing silently. I stared at Bastion for a long time, until he said, "Did you know that it's impolite to stare, expecially with your mouth open. And for that long too!" I snapped my mouth shut and then opened it again almost immediately to ask questions but he answered all of them before I could ask. "I Felt that Tobi was sick, so I came here. Demon Healers can Sense when a former patient is sick or injured and go to them." He paused for breath and then continued, talking so fast he had me beat. "I was in the middle of something important too, so you had better be grateful! I knew you guys were on the run, or sort of, and could not go to the hospital so I though I might as well be nice and come and help." He motioned for someone outside the room to come in. She looked a lot like Bastion except she was female (obviously) and instead of super pale skin hers was only really pale. Besides that she could have been Bastions twin, which, as we found out, she was. "This is my twin sister Shelby. She came with me for no particular reason." Shelby rolled her eyes and said, "There is too a reason and you know it!" She turned to us. "The Treahians solve the people problem pretty well usually in prophecies, but this time they failed horribly. They had all the right people together and everything, and then they went and split them all up!" "Um... How do you know that all the right people were together?" She looked affronted. "I was the person who wrote that prophecy! Didn't they say that? I am a world famous prophecizer, every one in Treah knows my name, isn't that right Tobi?" Tobi shook his head slowly, trying to hide a smile. "What do you mean 'no'!" Bastion went to his sister and put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down Shelby, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything." He said. "So if your the person who wrote the prophecy, why didn't they ask you who the people were?" I wanted to know. "That would be because they did not know it was me who wrote the prophecy. See, I wrote it on a piece of paper and left it on some ones desk." Me and Tobi exchanged looks than raised our eyebrows in Shelby's direction. "So who are the people featured in the prophecy?" "You two and Riah and Henry and that one guard what's his face..." She pretended not to notice the looks of disbelief that had come over our faces as she tried to remember the last name. "Allen! Ha! I remembered!" "No one said that you wouldn't," Bastion said, trying and failing to make his sister less hyper. "So you are saying that when us five were together we were this close to finishing the prophecy?" "Nope." "You care to elaborate on that sis?" Bastion said. His patience was starting to deteriorate. "Well... Needless to say, it takes a lot more than getting the right people together to solve a prophecy, you have to think and you have to do. Those are the three things most important to do when attempting to complete the inevitable." "Huh? You mean even if we didn't try it would happen anyway?" "Precisely! Fate would twist in the most excruciating positions so that it would happen." She sighed romanticizing. "And it would twist your hearts as well. You see, although you don't have to take on this daring quest, if you don't, fate will make your lives miserable, but if you try and succeed, it might have mercy on you and give you a loop hole. I know you two don't want the worlds to separate, but that is the only way. One time I made a prophecy (and whom ever makes the prophecy has to watch it unfold, that's the rules you know) and the main chosen didn't do anything and in the end it made him do it by convincing him through killing his lover. That made him vengeful and off he went to slay the Serpent.
" It makes you think about that one quote by Garth Nix, it goes, 'Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?' It's quite a good quote is it not?" I had never met some one who could talk to much and so fast. She didn't seem to stop even to breathe through that whole long paragraph of words that she had just spouted. And for all that, she looked as though she could go on and on for a good long while yet. "Yes it is a good quote," I said before she could start again. "But why us? I mean, why did you choose us to be in your prophecy? It seems to me that you would and should choose people who actually want for the worlds to split." "The answer to your-" I cut her off, "And could you make your answers shorter please?" She glared at me but did summerize what ever she was about to say. "Prophecies are simply telling the world what is going to happen so that we, who would not do what we needed to do, will do what we need to do. Get it? So basically, I did not choose you, Fate did. I am Fates messenger. I run around and tell people what it wants done. Fate chose you five and for what reason I do not know." She glared at me again. "See, I can do short." "Never thought you couldn't," I lied. "Come on you four," my Aunt Beka called. "Brunch is on the table." Tobi eased himself out of bed and across the room I followed him and the Demons were already at the table filling their plates. "Whats a Brunch?" Shelby asked through a mouth full of food. "It's a meal half way between lunch and breakfast. The food is usually more on the breakfast side so people sometimes call lunch brunch if they eat breakfast food in the middle of the day," my Uncle Aden replied. "Huh..." Bastion said his mouth full as well (who taught these two table manners, if anybody?) "You humans come up with the weirdest yet best things ever." "Thank you, I think."
Later on Shelby and Bastion called us out to the front porch. "Jayd and Tobi, come out here for a moment please," came Bastions voice as we were finishing up the brunch dishes. "One minute," I called back. Tobi put the last dish away and we went out side. "We need you two to come with us to the Capitol to get the others." Bastion said bluntly. "We can't." I answered immediately. Tobi held up his hand and signed: "What do you need us for? Bring them here." I told them what he'd said and (no surprise here) Shelby answered: "Well, what are the chances that they are going to believe that we are Demon Healers and not the normal Demons who would want to eat them? On the out side there is not all that much difference between the two species of Demon you know." I shook my head, "No I don't know. I hadn't met a Demon up until a few months ago and that was Bastion. You are the second." "Really? Well I am honored. Simply honored." She said with a small curtsy. "Yeah, enough Shelby." Bastion said. "Look you two. This needs to be done, all of the mystical beings are dieing because of this worlds aversion to magic. Nothing is going to stay as it is now anyways so even if it you two are not happy with what will happen, think about the others will you? Our uncle just keeled over dead a few days ago for no reason what so ever except that the worlds are one instead of apart. This is a problem, and it needs fixed!" Me and Tobi looked away. Shame crawled over our faces for the worlds to see. We were being selfish. People were dieing. And not just humans but others and it would continue if we didn't break through and do what we least wanted to do. "Fine," I said. "I'll do it." Tobi nodded and then went inside. "Do we leave now?" I asked them. "Yes," Shelby answered. "Quickly, because we don't want your uncle and aunt to know. They might call the police or something and that would inconvenience us dramatically." I nodded and ran inside and went up to my room and gathered what little I had. I then went into the hall and knocked on the door of Tobi's room. He opened it and nodded like he already knew what I was going to say before I said it. We went down and avoided the adults quite easily and met the Demons outside in less than two minutes. "Ready?" Said Bastion. "Take our hands. We will both be going to the same place so you don't really need to hold both of our hands, that would actually probably just inconvenience us. Jayd take my hand, Tobi take Shelby's. On three." They must have counted in their heads, because I don't really remember them ever even saying "one". Next thing I knew we were flying through a weird kind of hole that there was no end to when suddenly there was nothing and then we were there. Actually we were in the room that I stayed in while we lived there. It was kind of weird being in there again. I had never really expected to see it again. I figured that the next time that I was inside of the palace I would be being towed into the dungeons again. "Okay, we will be right back," Shelby said cheerfully. "Don't do anything naughty you guys!" She said with a evil wink and smile. Than she was gone. Bastion rolled his eyes and then he, too, disappeared.
We waited in silence for about thirty minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore. "Tobi, I am going to miss you," I said, very matter of fact. He smiled back at me and signed: "Me too. But remember, Shelby said that sometimes if you went along with it, Fate would give you loop holes. Right now I am holding on to that." I slung my arm around his shoulder and for a split second it felt like it did almost a year ago. School had just finished and we were off to play some ingenious prank on someone or another. Two best friends doing whatever and anything. Unstoppable, we were. I stole a glance at him and caught him doing the same thing and we both burst out laughing. Funny how both our parents and us, when ever we are in a serious position, we will start laughing. There is not really any thing remotely humorous in my opinion in losing your best friend,but we laughed anyway. Kind of like a fare well. The last time we will laugh like this. At that moment both Bastion and Shelby appeared with Allen, Riah and Henry in tow. All of them stared at us (we were still laughing for no apparent reason) then Henry just had to ask what the joke was, and that only made us laugh harder. After about three minutes of intense laughter we finally stopped. Seeing the others still staring at us I blushed and cleared my throat. "Hey guys, long time no see," I was really just trying to make them stop staring at us but it did not seem to be working. "Any particular reason you two were laughing so hard?" Bastion asked us. Me and Tobi looked at each other and then shook our heads. All five of them raised their eyebrows. That was almost enough to set us over the edge again, but this time we managed to hold it in. "So, is it true? What Shelby said?" Riah wanted to know. Tobi nodded but I said: "Well what did she tell you?" Shelby sighed and said: "Yes it's true, I don't lie. This everyone knows!" "She said that it was actually us five," she gestured around, ignoring Shelby completely. "That are the ones in the prophecy. And that if we don't try something bad will happen." "Yep, all true," I told her. From the look on her face, something told me I had just confirmed her worst nightmare. "How do we know where to start?" Tobi signed. I asked Tobi's question and this time it was Bastion who answered. "No one ever knows where to start. In prophecies, Fate usually just drops the first clue in your lap and you have to figure it out from there." He shrugged, "Wish I could help more but except for getting you guys on the right path, we are not allowed to help you. Good-bye." And with that the two Demon Healers were gone. "That -no- This is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me." That was Allen. I kind of wondered what Bastion had told him and if had had an impact on that. "Can you not speak Tobi?" Henry asked. Tobi shook his head. "It sucks." He signed. "He says it sucks." I translated. Maybe I should teach these guys Sign Language so that I don't have to translate everything. Nah, they will probably pick some of it up, and teaching them would take to much time. The only reason me and Tobi were able to learn it so quickly was out of necessity, not to mention I had already learned some of it earlier in life. And although I didn't use it very often I could still remember it vaguely. For Tobi, it was something he had to learn. All of what he had to say had to be said with his hands. For them, they wouldn't learn very quickly. They didn't need to. "So..." Riah said awkwardly. No one was saying or doing anything. "Does everyone know everybody?" I asked, there was a possibility that Henry didn't remember Allen from when he dragged us into the dungeon. Henry looked at me with a "are you stupid? Of course I remember him" look. "Yes," he said out loud in a very dry voice. "Every one knows everybody." "I don't!" Riah pointed out. "Hi, my name is Cole, what's yours?" She held out her hand to Allen. "I met you once when you were trying to put Henry and Jayd into the cells but I never got your name." Tobi covered a smile as me and Henry slapped our hands to our foreheads. "Um... Allen." "Nice to meet you." She turned to henry, "Don't blame him for following orders. After all, he seems like a nice guy to me." I started thinking that Riah might need some pointers in acting like a boy. Boys don't usually say that someone is nice to their face. It may be a stereotype but most stereotypes have some truth to them. I decided to give her some. "Hey Cole, can I talk to you for a minute?" "Sure," she said walking over. We moved to the back of the room and she said, "Boys wouldn't usually say that people "seem nice" to their faces do they?" Well at least she caught it. "They might think that your gay anyway. But it might put a little doubt into their minds, especially if they are looking for you." I told her. "I try, but it just does not come easily," she said with a sigh. "In reality I am really girly. I like to giggle and stuff, this being a is really hard." I tried to suppress a smile but it slipped out any way. "I am sorry Riah," I said, truly apologetic. "I am so glad that I can be who I am and not have to hide." She nodded sorrowfully and we walked back to the group. Henry and Tobi looked at us, questions dangling from the tips of their tongues. Everyone just stood there. No one knew what to do until Henry said: "Let's go somewhere!" And because it seemed like the right thing to do, we did. At first no one knew where to go but Henry knew and so we just followed him. "I don't know exactly where we are going," he said as he lead us through the door and down the hall to the stairs. "But I am sure that we should go there." We followed him down corridors and through passages until we finally got to a door. Henry reached for the handle before Allen said to stop. "Why should I?" Henry asked. He was still mad at Allen for the dungeon incident. "Because that is the Beast stables." Allen answered calmly. "If you want to die, or be eaten alive, go ahead and open the door. But before you do you might want to let everyone else know so that they can get to a safer place." Tobi rounded on Allen and glared at him. Riah looked at Allen with utter astonishment and Henry stared at him in horror. I was the only one I guess who didn't know what he meant by Beasts. "Why do you have Beasts in the Palace?" Riah asked him, a cold glint entering her eyes. "Because... I really don't know." Allen said. I believed him but no one else did. Henry turned back to the door and opened it. I then found out what a Beast is. Tiny little things, they have sharp pointy teeth and claws. They have red eyes sometimes flecked with black and their fur is bright yellow to a mottled brown and gray. Some of them looked like demented calico cats. Their body shape resembles that of a cats in the most basic way. The thing that makes them most different would be the fact that they have three more tails and antlers. There were four Beasts in the room and when the door opened they all turned towards us with an evil hiss. I gulped and shrank behind Tobi instinctively. "Don't worry Jayd," Cole/Riah said comfortingly. "They only look fierce. They are actually really nice, but it's illegal to have them in captivity because when you do... they kill themselves." I looked at the remaining Beasts (because that is what they were) and then I looked around and saw bodies of dead ones laying every where. "How could people do this?" I whispered. I looked back at the others to glare accusingly at Allen and saw that both Henry and Tobi were holding one of the Beasts. Riah was bending down to pick one up. "Get that one Jayd," She said. "We are getting them out of here." "Hey! You can't do that!" Allen exclaimed. "And why not?" Henry said, he looked as though he was about to snap Allen's head off. "Because Beasts are not the only kind of beasts that we have in here," he said. His voice was lowering into a whisper as if not to disturb someone, or something. Henry stared at him a moment than grabbed the other Beast that I had not yet gotten around to picking up and shoved it into my arms and then bolted for the door. Every one followed him without hesitation. I remembered all to clearly the kinds of beast that we had encountered in the Tournament. But the door was blocked by a hundred little eyes that pierced the darkness. Eyes appeared everywhere, hungry eyes, blood shot and angry. I felt sick. Riah screamed. And that set off all the Beasts. They started to scream and thrash in our arms but we held on to them. "Follow me!" Allen cried and ran toward the eyes farthest from the door. There was no where else to go so we followed him and hoped for the best. Things flew and charged at us randomly, at one point Tobi was knocked to the floor and almost dragged to the dark side before Riah tripped over him and realized what was happening in the complete blackness. I, on the other hand, the farther we got into the "stable" the more dark it became, I was freaking out. I started screaming as what little light there was before disappeared entirely. "Jayd?" Henry and Allen said in unison. "What's wrong?" But I was beyond talking. It was all I could do not to sink to the floor and cry. I was shivering with nervous energy and my voice started to break when suddenly a bright light lit the room. A bright blue-ish light, and at it's middle stood Tobi. I stopped screaming as soon as the light came, but almost a thousand others started to ring. I could see what had been after us. Large centaurs and a few winged horses from Hell. There were so many that I could only see a few before the blue light wavered and died. Bringing darkness once again. This time I only had a few seconds of just standing there before I was scooped up and literally carried across the room and through a door into the bright after noon. Even in the light, it took me a while to stop shivering. I had my head buried in to the shirt of whomever was holding me. "Jayd? Are you okay?" The person holding me was Allen. I had so hoped that it was Tobi, this was beyond embarrassing. I pulled away and blinked at the light. I nodded, still shaking. For some reason I couldn't stop. Allen put me down and I stood there with everyone except Tobi staring at me. Tobi came over and slung an arm over my shoulder and gave me a one-armed hug. He was still holding his Beast. He looked over at Henry as if asking where too next and as if I hadn't just had a nervous breakdown. "Uh... This way," he said, getting the message and trying to pretend that nothing had happened as well. He turned and went to a door and pulled it open, revealing a long stair case with no walls. That didn't make any sense, there was a door and walls out here. Maybe it was a one way wall. So you can't see in but you can see out. But my theory was proved wrong almost immediately when a bird flew through the supposed "wall". I started to chuckle and Tobi grew pale. Allen looked at us in confusion and asked what the matter was. But Henry and Riah looked up at the staircase and then at Tobi and hide grins. "Come on Tobi," I said. "You'll be okay." I started up the stairs and looked back as Tobi grabbed my hand and almost pulled me down. He beckoned me back down. "What?" I said going back down. The others looked at us questioningly as they started up the stairs. "Go on," I urged them. As they continued up the steps I turned back to Tobi. "What is it? I asked him. "Well..." He signed hesitantly. "Could you help me with the stair somehow?" I raised one of my eyebrows with a question. "Well... You could...I don't know, you could let me hold onto the back of your shirt or something so that I can close my eyes and pretend that I am blind instead of mute." I laughed at that but agreed if it would help him. "Do you want me to tell you when to lift your foot up?" I asked him. He grinned but shook his head.
We made it up with out further incidents. "So, what was going on with you in the stables?" Allen demanded. "Allen! You don't need to know, leave her alone." Riah said, her brows furrowed in frustration. I looked away in shame. The fear had gripped me and put every one in danger. "I am afraid of the dark and I'm claustrophobic." I decided to just come out and tell them just in case my cowardice got us in to trouble again. There were a couple of "ohs" then Riah piped up. "I am absolutely terrified of dogs. I don't know why but every time I see one I have to get away." I smiled at her thankfully when Henry decided to follow her lead. "Every time I see a spider I kind of freeze. One of the reasons I never went on the Spiderkin hunts around where we used to live, Riah." We all looked at Allen expectantly. "What?" He asked defensively. "Just because you all confessed your fears doesn't mean that I have to tell you kids my phobias." "You are, what? Two years older than us? And if you have a crippling fear that might end up hurting us as a whole, you should tell us." I said. Will you look at that, I just made a speech. "Well, I have no such fears." He said obstinantly. "What ever." Riah said with a roll of her eyes. "Come on, lets go." She headed in to the only direction there was and didn't wait for any of us. Now you might be wondering what the path looked like. After all, the stairs were invisible until the door was opened. Are they in an transparent castle or something? You might be wondering that. I know I was. It was like a castle except that there were no walls and no one below seemed to notice you. There were no walls, only doors that seemed to lead off into empty space. I knew that if I tried to lean on one of the invisible walls I would fall through. I saw birds nests in every niche. Everyone was fascinated. Even Allen. It seems as though we had finally found a place in the Palace that he had never been to before. "This way," Henry said. Turning a corner suddenly a bag was thrown over his head and tightened. Three more men in black ninja costumes dropped from the invisible ceiling throwing black tightly woven bags over out heads. None of us even had time to scream before the sleeping potion that the bags had been soaked in took effect. We slumped to the ground with a simultaneous thump.
We woke up later in a crowded cell filled with people. People we knew. I saw some one that I hadn't seen for years and ran toward her. "Aloe!" I cried happily. "Jayd!" Aloe said, jumping up and giving me a hug. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here!" I stood back from her and almost screamed as I actually looked at her. There was no way that she could be alive. Not when half of her stomach looked as if some thing had decided to have a snack and she was it. Her once beautiful face was now a mask. A long ugly scar ran down one side of her face, making all the skin on that side of her face pulled taut, giving it a pinched look. "Aloe... What happened to you?" My voice was choked. "Get out of here Jayd. Get out of here now and don't talk to any one else except for those who you came with. And before you even do that make sure that they aren't like me." Then she turned away and ran. I backed away slowly and then turned and ran too. I started looking for them. Tobi, Riah, Henry and Allen. I had to find them and warn them. I found Allen first, he was talking to an old man. He still looked whole and alive. So I ran up to them, grabbed his wrist and pulled him away from the old man. "Hey! Jayd, let go of me!" I did, but only after I had put a good deal of distance between us and the man. "What did you do that for? I hadn't seen him in years!" I studied him as he ranted at me. Nope, nothing wrong with him. I quickly told him everything that Aloe had just told me. His eyes widened as he listened. "I thought he looked kind of different from when I last saw him. Dead, he looks dead." He shook his head as though he couldn't stand to believe it. "I am really sorry Allen," I said hurriedly. "Truly I am, but right now we need to find every one and get out of here!" He nodded and we started off looking. We found Henry next and then Riah, but we couldn't find Tobi anywhere. I started thinking that he was dead or worse when I turned and saw him talking to his father. No, not Moran, but the one I had helped find when the house collapsed during the Collision. He was dead, but Tobi was still talking to him? Tobi knew that he was dead? "Tobi!" I called before I could constrain my self. He turned and thats when his father attacked. He wrapped his arms around his neck and started squeezing so tightly that I was afraid that Tobi's head would pop off before he was choked to death. I ran towards them and was about to do what ever it took to get him to release his death grip on Tobi when Henry charged past me with a sword raised (don't ask where he got it, because I do not know) and brought it down with a sickening thump... With the broad side of the sword. The zombie fell to the ground and Tobi was free. He stared at us as he ran from his dead father's body. "What is going on Jayd?" He signed. It was hard to make out sense his hands were trembling so hard. But I stopped him so look him over first. For all I know, that could have been just a show to get Tobi close to us and kill us. I judged him to be alive and not a zombie, so I grabbed his arm and towed him away from the approaching zombies. Henry caught up to us and we ran toward the others who were slowly being cornered by the undead. "Run!" Henry and I yelled. We bolted to the door and when it didn't open I almost started to cry. "We'll have to bust it down," Allen said. "Don't be stupid," Riah told him. "The only way I would let you bust that door down is if I wanted to be attacked by the corpses. This kind of lock is spelled so that as soon as it's closed it's locked. So, the best plan of action would be..." She stepped forward and pulled out a few pieces of wire and inserted some of them into the lock. Within a few seconds the door was open and we were through. Riah closed the door firmly behind us and said to Allen smugly: "And you were going to bust it down." "Now is not the time, Cole." Henry said still watching the door as Allen stared at Riah suspiciously. "Where to next Henry?" Riah asked him brightly. I had finished filling Tobi in. I wanted to say something to him to help with the fact that his fathers body had just tried to kill him, but seriously, what do you say when that happens? I put my arm around his waist and hoped that my presence would help even a little. "This way," Henry said this time checking around corners and occasionally looking up. We were all wary now that we'd all been thrown into a zombie pit. I felt really sad now. If Aloe was a zombie, that meant that she was dead. I wondered what had happened to her. Did they kill her or was she already dead when they got ahold of her body? Tobi would know the finer points of how a zombie was made. Or maybe not, but I could still ask him. "Tobi?" He looked at me. "How are zombies made?" I signed. He shrugged and said, "I wouldn't know, only Necromancers know how. Them and those who hunt Necromancers that is." "Oh," I said aloud. The others looked back at us, unaware of our silent conversation. "'Oh' what?" Riah asked me with a comically puzzled expression on her face. "Nothing," I said. "I was just thinking about something and it just finally made sense, that's all." Tobi raised his eye brows at me but I shook my head to his question, indicating that I did not want to answer it. He shrugged and we continued down the long hall way when Tobi suddenly ran in front of everybody and motioned for them to stop. "What's up Tobi?" Henry asked. Tobi's face was urgent when he started signing. "There is a lot of magic being worked right now. It could be Necromancers or it could be Wizards, but either way I doubt that they're on our side. And I am no great Wizard. Compared to them, I am probably just an annoying little fly on the wall." No one said anything for a minute before Riah rounded on Henry. "Why is it that every time you lead us somewhere there is always something or someone trying to kill us?" He glared at her. "What? Do you think that I plan it like that?" She made a noise somewhere between a snort and a hiccup and turned her back to him huffly. Her act as a boy was starting to fail horribly. So horribly that Allen said, "You're not a boy are you." She froze and Tobi and Henry put their heads in their hands and I just sighed and gave Riah an "I told you so" look. "Um..." She said, not sure what to say. "I'm going to take that as a yes then," Allen said and turned to the rest of us. Which ever one of you gave her lessons on being a boy failed at the teaching." "What makes you so sure I failed?" Henry muttered. "It's not my fault that she's impossible to teach." Me and Tobi snickered as Riah glared at him. "Let me lead," Tobi signed. As I told them what he said Allen studied him then reached toward him and pulled the neck of his shirt down revealing a deep gash that seemed to go all the way down his torso. I stared at the wound for a moment than looked back up at Tobi's face and noticed what I hadn't before. His face was pale as death and his eyes had acquired a kind of dullness. "Sorry Jayd," He signed and then attacked. His hand reached out and grabbed my throat, cold fingers cutting off my air. I couldn't respond. I was in shock. Not Tobi, any one but Tobi! I fell backward just as my vision went dark. The fingers that were choking me let go suddenly and air slowly filtered down into my lungs. My vision cleared just as I saw Henry lift his sword up and bring it down. An animals scream tore through the air as the sword cut in to Tobi's shoulder. I couldn't help my self. This was Tobi. My Tobi, my best and up until now my only friend. I jumped up and pushed Henry away and tried to pull the sword out of him. "Jayd." Said a rasping voice. I realized that it came from Tobi when he coughed and put a hand up to his throat. Only it sounded more like "Awax." I stopped trying to pull out the blade and stared at him. "Stop. Let me die." I burst into tears and sank to the floor. Both of my best friends died in the same day, or at least I found out that one of them was dead whilst the other one died. Skinny arms wrapped around me giving me not the slightest bit of comfort.
We stayed there for around thirty minutes while I sobbed next to Tobi's corpse. I couldn't help but wish that it had been someone else. I know that's mean and an evil thought. But it didn't have to be Tobi. I cried until I felt all dried up inside, I felt empty, like everything that was once inside of me had turned to water and pored out of my tear ducts. Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, I didn't realize that I had been saying his name out loud until I felt a touch on my knee. I looked up to see Tobi's hand there and his face tilted towards me. Was it just my imagination or was his eyes getting clearer? "Tobi?" Now I knew it wasn't my imagination. Everyone else was looking at him with astonishment as his skin gained it's usual dark tone as blood flowed through his veins. The only problem was that blood was now flowing through the gash under his shirt. I came alive immediately. "We need something to bind his cuts with and some thing to use as a needle." A bag was thrust under my nose my a large hand. Allen's. "Here, everything you should need. I am glad you know what to do with it, I carry it but there is no way that I could use any of that stuff." I gave him a quick smile and got to work. First I borrowed one of Riah's knives and cute his shirt off, then I rummaged through the bag until I found a jar of ointment and a bottle of water. i pored the water over the wound and Tobi gasped. Riah slipped into place without me telling her to, lifting his head and kneeling at his shoulders and resting his head on her lap. Making sure that she had restricted the movements of his upper body by putting her hands on his shoulders and pressing down gently, but firmly. Henry went to his legs and did the same as Riah, putting pressure on his calves so that he couldn't kick. I took a little of the ointment onto my fingers and spread it into the ugly gash. Like we expected he buckled and wrenched in pain. I quickly rubbed more in and then got out a needle and thread, sewing the wound closed. As I did this I asked Allen to get the bandages out of the bag. I held out my hand like a professional surgeon for the next tool. He put the bandages into my hand, neatly folded and ready for use. I wrapped them around him quickly, Henry and Riah did exactly what I needed them to do, and for that I was grateful. I sat back when I was done and found that I had started to sweat, I was so nervous about sewing him up, I had never giving any one stitches before. "Where did you get training for this anyway Jayd?" Riah asked curiously. She was my patient once too. "I never had any, I was just guessing both times." Tobi (conscious enough to hear) and Riah stared at me in absolute horror. "What? When would I have gotten taught this anyways? It shouldn't be that much of a surprise to you Tobi!" He didn't hear me though, he'd passed out. We didn't linger any longer than necessary. Allen, being bigger and taller than any of us carried Tobi as we continued down the long corador and through door ways picked by Henry. Finally he opened a door that led to a stair case and up we all went. At the top was an observatory. Bookcases lined one wall and the ceiling was a big glass dome that showed different places depending where you look. But the worst part is that I had been here before. This wasn't part of the palace though. I don't know when Tobi had become conscious but he was and it was he who said, "Not here." Moran walked into the room from the kitchen and started in surprise. "What are five doing here already? I hadn't finished preparing!"

Chapter Fourteen
The Unexpected Can Be a Sad Thing

"Wha- why? Moran you almost killed your son!" I didn't believe it. Moran was the Necromancer, he was the one who most likely killed all those people back there and turned them into zombies. For a year now Moran had been like a second father, I couldn't believe that he would- Wait what? I already knew that Moran was behind all this. Why didn't I tell anyone? Why didn't I remember? "Do you remember now Jayd?" Moran said, evilly. "Do you remember walking into my Tower for a spell and seeing my plans? Do you remember what the world was like before the Collision. How we planned to make it happen and therefore destroy the eternal balance and bring chaos to the worlds. How when it happened, you would emerge victorious in slaying the evil Necromancer after he killed the two queens and bring the Wizard Moran to be co-ruler of Sra? Remember?" He was getting excited, acting like a five year old boy who just got the toy he wanted. "Remember how we had to send you here in advance so that when It came you would know the lay of this land and make it easier to take over?" I remembered. I remembered being born into this world, I remembered my purpose here too until I turned five. I remembered sending the signal on accident but subconsciously did it because I wanted to. "I remember." "Remember? What is he talking about Jayd?" Henry asked. "Jayd is my name here, but before I was known as the Demon Queen Izera. I deffenatly remember now Moran," I said. I let no emotion show, that just wasn't how I do things. "Izera!" Allen said in horror as Henry and Riah stared at me. Yes, I was very well known. I looked at Tobi. He was watching me with a look on his face of utmost hatred. And although I now remembered my life before, it still cut me to the bone. "I remember the PROPHECY as well." Moran paled as he heard that. "I remember very clearly how Shelby told me in a trance how 'The reborn would kill that who tried to kill her' and I remember how you tried to poison me, and how you attempted kill me more recently when you ran me over after you realized that i wasn't remembering as I should." I grinned and felt my fangs grow longer, my claws pierce my feeble human skin. My hair grew longer and my skin thickened and it paled until it became almost translucent. Horns erupted from my scalp and thick bone ridges poked out of my spine ending in a long tail, a pike on the end ready to tear my prey to pieces. And Moran was my prey. I ran at him as my arms grew long and and my hands turned into talons. I remembered just how much I loved shape-shifting as I ripped his head from his shoulders. The corpse fell to the ground and disappeared and I felt a sharp sting on my back. I whipped around, swinging my tail and hitting bookshelves and the glass dome, sending spidery cracks across the entire half globe. It then broke. pieces fell to the ground in large and small chunks. I leapt to yet another Moran as he started to mutter another spell. I hit his force field with a thump and fell backwards along with all the glass that I had spelled to slice him, even if it had to fly across the room diagonally. I crashed and slid across the floor and into yet another bookcase. "Stop!" said a thunderous voice. We froze. We couldn't have continued even if we had wanted to. "What is this foolishness? For shame, the both of you." The short little man from the Tournament came into the room. "Why did you have to bring him into the know?" I asked Moran, I was rather pissed. It was this little Wizard who had almost killed me thirty years ago. Moran shrugged and sighed, "What did I do wrong this time Oh Mighty One?" He asked him impatiently. "Mind your tongue! You were not supposed to kill each other, nor were you supposed to let these extras know what was going on. They were supposed to be witnesses to your demise Moran. And Izera, don't really kill him! You just have to pretend to do so, so that he can stop being the evil Necromancer Vanyel, and be Moran." "I am not your puppet!" I screamed at him. "I am Izera! I will never bow down to you idiotic humans, I will not particapate in your little acts! I-" "Izera shut up." The little Wizard said, waving his fingers in a little gesture that locked my jaws together, making it impossible for me not to obey him. I grunted and hummed in frustration. "If you do not follow my orders, you will not ever be free again. You do remember our deal, correct?" I glared at him for an answer. The deal was made when he almost killed me. Our pact was that if ever he needed some kind of help, I had to provide it, no matter the cost. If I didn't agree, or I did and didn't uphold my end of the bargain, he would kill me. No matter how long it took him to find me (which knowing how good his tracking skills were, wouldn't take very long) he would kill me. So I had agreed. This must be what he wanted help with. And yet I had helped him without even knowing it for years now. I nodded to show that i remembered, my face downcast, and he undid the spell holding my jaws together. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Tobi waving franticly in my direction. "What?" I asked iritibly. He didn't sign anything, just pointed. A dragon was heading straight towards us. It was big red and beautiful, just like a dragon always is. But this one wasn't flying overhead peacefully, this one was looking for food. I shifted back into my original shape and dived toward Henry, Riah, Allen and Tobi (out of habit I guess) and pulled them and myself under an over turned bookcase that had propped itself up against a table making a kind of fort that I had made when I was a human child. Moran and shorty however, were not so lucky. As the Dragon swooped down and picked them up I heard shorty say: "Help me now Izera and you will be free of your bonds, I swear it!" But still I hesitated. There was little chance of helping him when the very presence of a dragon will cancel out all magic. Besides, if I was going to risk my luck against a Dragon it would most deffinatly not be for the sake of shorty (by the way, his real name is Don). So I stayed hidden until I saw Tobi staring after them, almost in tears but not quite after his fathers betrayal. I sighed, "Do you want me to bring your father back?" I asked him. He turned to me with an astonished look on his face. "What? Just because I got my memory back doesn't mean that the past few years never happened." I told him, hurt. He stared at me for a few more seconds, both of us ignoring the looks that the others were giving us, and then he nodded and signed: "Only if it's possible." I crawled out from under the shelves and bowed to them and jumped, growing wings as I did so. I flew as I had never flown before. I started out as an eagle, then turned into something lighter, an osprey, finally remembering (now I was doing that a lot) that peregrine falcons are the fastest and quickly turned into one of those. I sped after the dragon, knowing that I flew to almost certain death, but because it was for Tobi my one true friend, out of all the ones that I had ever had, in all my lives- I didn't care. As I approached the tail of the Dragon I started thinking that I should have come up with a plan, but it was to late now. There was only one way left to go and that was forward. As I neared the front paws and saw Moran and Don -Don in the right paw, Moran in her left- Don started to wave so that I could come and save him. He had recognized me easily. How ever he didn't seem to get that just letting the Dragon eat him would solve all- or most- of my problems, and so there was no way in Hell that I was going to help him. I started to turn into my human form, keeping the wings though, just making them bigger, and I flew towards Moran. Completely ignoring Don. I flew around the paw for a moment trying to decide where the best pressure point would be on a Dragon to make him let go. Since it had been about seventeen years since I had last picked up a book on Dragon anatomy I had no idea. So I just settled with a spot that would work on humans that Riah had taught me earlier. I backed up and charged at the spot right in between the two wrist bones, changing shape once again (and thanking what ever ruled the universe that my shape shifting had nothing to do with magic so that I wouldn't be sent tumbling out of the air once I made contact with the Dragon because my magic had been countered) into a One Horned, One Eyed, Flying Purple People Eater and hit the Dragon dead on. It worked! Moran fell through the air and I dived after him, opening my hippo-like jaws and grabbing him gently by the leg. I heard yelling from below and behind me. Gods, why can't Wizards be grateful? "What? I asked Moran, who was screaming almost as loud as the Wizard about to be eaten. "I can't stand heights." "Ugh! You just have to be difficult! I save you and all you can do is scream and complain! Your son would have at least stayed silent or said 'thank you'." He was silent for a moment than said, "Thank you." He at least sounded like he meant it, so I tossed him up into the air and this time caught him by his arms and hoped that they didn't come out of their sockets. "What did you do that for!" His face was pale and tears streaked his cheeks. "I said 'thank you'!" "I just thought that it might be easier for you to ignore the hight if you were right side up." I answered calmly. He shivered and then said through what sounded like a stuffy nose: "My nod ib bleeging." I looked down and sure enough drops of blood were falling through the air to land on top of some poor guy down there on lawn duty. Or maybe someone's fancy clothes! I chuckled a little at the thought of the president walking across the lawn, in the middle of some important discussion, suddenly and unexpectedly, blood falls on to his head, staining his white hair pink! "Id nob bunny!" "No it's not a bunny," I assured him still chuckling.
Touching down gracefully in his observatory (I teased him unmercifully the entire time we were up in the air) Moran pulled away and ran from me as if I was the boogie man. I chuckled still more as he continued to baracaid himself into his kitchen while attempting to get his nose to stop bleeding at the same time. I slowly changed back into my human form, sometimes if you stay in one form for a long time it hurts to change, but if you go slow it's fine. So "Don't rush it" will forever be my motto. "Happy Tobi?" I asked him as my mouth became human (and just so you know, you do not lose your clothes if you are a Demon. I know a lot of books like to say that you do no matter what, but it is not true). I continued to become normal, except that I rather like falcon wings so I made sure to keep those. "What do you want from us Izera?" Allen asked. He, Henry and Riah were glaring at me, like it was my fault that they were born into this exciting life or something. "What do you mean?" I asked puzzled. As far as I know, I have done nothing but nice things to these guys. Well... I don't remember exactly but when he was putting me in the cell I might have hit Allen... Does that count? "There is no way that you would do all those nice things without ever wanting to get something out of it." Henry stated. See, I didn't do anything bad. "Well excuse me! I didn't know that I had to get something out of what I did." Now I was pissed, I thought these people were my friends. Now they all acted like I was poison or something. "Now if you might excuse me, I have business with that sorry excuse for a Wizard in there concerning you keeping your lives!" I turned on my heel and stalked to the door of the kitchen and shoved, sending his baracad falling. A poorly cast spell hit the door turning it to smitherines, reveling what a mess Moran had made of the kitchen. There was blood every where, the table was over turned and... He was lying on the floor. Dead. Well would you look at that, there was a suicide note and everything. "I am so sorry Tobi," He wrote. "I have no idea what came over me. Forgive me if I have by any chance ruined your life. I just wanted for you to be safe. Beware of Izera, she is evil and will kill you if she has the chance" The four human teens entered the room as I continued to read. Tobi gasped at the sight of his father on the floor. "Beware! She is the one who planned all of this, what I said before was a script that she had given me earlier. If I hadn't done as she'd said she would have killed you! The Dragon was a little unexpected, but no doubt she saved me simply to gain your trust. After all, you are one of the Chosen for the prophecy. You have power she can use. I love you- Moran." I sighed, disgusted. "Lying even in death." I shook my head at him. "You sure have twisting the truth down to an art, I'll give you that." I got up and went to Tobi and thrust the note at him. "Here, read it if you want to. But..." I was about to tell him it was all a lie, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. He should have something to remember his father by that he didn't know was not the truth. I walked out of the kitchen and went to to one of the shelves that had been turned over. It was in this shelf that he had all of Necromantic books I remembered. I started opening them and flipping randomly through the pages of different tomes, looking to see what each book contained. I heard the others follow me, but they stopped ten feet away. Finally I found the book I wanted. It was large and heavy with gruesome illuminations on every other page, instructing you on what to do. I turned the pages until I found the index, and then flipped to the chapter about the making of the undead. As I found the page I started humming With a little help from my friends by the Beatles. I read the safety list first, "If your undead servant is made incorrectly you must not kill it for at least an hour, else wise the spirit that had control of the body will come back and then the body will be useless for further Necromantic experiments." Well that answered my question about Tobi, now what about the other zombies. "Destroying your Undead: If your undead servants have finished their purpose the best way to dispose of them would be to cast a dismantling spell (page thirty-two), it would extract the dead souls from the body and send them beyond the gates of whence they came." I turned to page thirty-two and read: "Dismantling Spell: How to cast: Take a cup of blood from a Beast and pore it on the head of your undead servant. The undead will then freeze and fall to the ground, twitch for a moment than leap back up and do it again. The entire time it is doing this, you must say the following: Akanakaa Alkort Angotars milbo. Repeat until undead has fallen to the ground and has stopped moving completely.
"If Beast blood is unavailable: Take three ounces of the magical pulp of crushed daisies and mix it with apple juice and deliver it the same way as with the Beast blood only say this chant instead: Hijermins Norgameis Giroand. The effect is the same but it takes longer than the blood." I memorized the words than got up and went back to the kitchen, the others continued to follow me like lost little lambs. I went to the pantry and got out what seemed like hundreds of gallons of apple juice then went to the garden and picked about a thousand daisies. I crushed them and dumped the pulp into the apple juice. Only then did I turn to the others. "Will you help me with the zombies? You just have to pore this stuff on their heads and say Hijermins Norgameis Giroand over and over until they stop moving." They looked at each other and nodded in unison. But Allen had a question, "Is Tobi really not an undead?" "Tobi is not an undead." I confirmed. "If you kill a zombie within an hour after they are made they come back to life. That is, if they were alive to begin with when there spirits were expelled from their bodies." He nodded as if he understood this when I myself didn't and picked up some of the bottles of apple juice. "You only need a cup of it per zombie," I told them. I didn't want to end up without enough. "Hey Tobi?" He turned to me with a "What?" on his face. "How do you plan on casting the spell if you can not talk?" He smiled grimly and signed: "If I think it, it works too. I have cast a lot of spells like that." I nodded then headed for the door.


Epilogue
The after.

As you have probably guessed, the destroying of the zombies was successful even though plenty of times we ended up crying because we were killing the bodies of people that we knew. The worlds never did get separated, the spell that Moran and Don used to accomplish the Collision must have gotten eaten along with the Wizard Don. Nothing much happens here in jail, but I have plans to get out and wreak havoc once again on the world. Tobi read his fathers note and didn't believe a single word except for the last three, and happily agreed to help me get out of jal after he had proposed to me, so once I am out we'll be having a nice wedding with my human parents, my jail guard Allen, Riah and Henry are coming and soon everything will be fine, hopefully. We did make a deal with Allen. If we escaped with out being caught he wouldn't chase us. Well, our plan is about to be put into action so maybe I will tell you what happens next some other time. Next November mayhap. Until then! ~Ezera~

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Publication Date: 06-03-2011

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