Xonelel: Perfect time for an update, I think. D I’m building up a lot of the background, and the characters meet in this chappie! Bear with me, here. Story is swinging into full fantasy mode – you won’t be hearing about school for a while.

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Alena blinked slowly. Once, and then twice. The sinister voice in her head was gone, and she looked around at her surroundings, trying to grasp her situation.

She had just been transported to another world. No big deal, right?

At least, that’s what she was thinking.

Around her was the meadow, so different from the gym that she had been in only seconds before. I wonder if everything’s back to normal? I hope so. Alena thought, biting her lip.

The meadow was even more gorgeous that what she had seen before, it was a rolling, endless plain with few trees, and if there was one it was as thick as a redwood looking like it had been zapped out of the Amazon rainforest. The grass was lush and wild, and flowers of every hue and shape carpeted large areas of the field. There were multicolored bushes to match the flowers, ones with purple leaves over purple flowers and visa versa. The sun shone high in the sky, with a color that leaned more towards orange than yellow. There was a white bird with a tail three times its size flying overhead, confirming the general feeling of otherworldliness.

The air was the perfect balance of dry and humid, and it was just so… clean. Alena took a deep breath and sighed, laying down on the small carpet of cool azure blossoms that she had landed on. It all felt so different from the polluted world that she had lived in all her life, and frankly, it was a nice change. She sat back up, looked down at her clothes, and gaped.

Her PE uniform had been switched with a very different outfit. She was wearing a white and gold halter shirt with an elaborate ribbon that tied behind her neck and perfectly hugged what little curves she had. Tight, black leather shorts with gold embroidery reached to just above her knee, and her contemporary sneakers were now white sandals.

She noticed a bulge in her tight pocket and reached her fingers into the confined space. All of the things that had been in her pocket previously now occupied the pocket of her new outfit, and Alena giggled at the motley group of items.

Her fully charged blue iPod nano, a half – used tube of vanilla chapstick, a small bag of unopened peanut, M&M and raisin trail mix, a compact mirror, and a travel sized black mascara, and 25 cents.

Not wanted to waste any of her few earthly possessions yet, she stowed them safely back in her pocket with come difficulty, and laid back down. She was thoroughly enjoying not having the nagging voice in the back of her head anymore, already after only a day she had grown accustomed to it.

Her eyelids began to flutter, and she realized that bridging the gap between worlds must be hard on the human body, more so than she realized. She struggled to keep them open, to get up and explore, but her body disobeyed her and fell to the ground, sending her into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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Unbeknownst to Alena, during her time in the field, a young man not too far away was planning on making a trek out to search for flowers.

Yes. A young man searching for flowers. Well, technically, he wasn’t a man.

He was a sun elf. 15 years old, with skin as orange as the rest of his race, slightly pointed ears and a mop of spiky amethyst hair atop his head. Purple was a rare hair color among his people, sort of like an albino in Earth’s society. His eyes were the traditional orange, fairly common, in contrast with his hair.

He lived in a village of high quality huts called Torie, along with about 300 villagers, out in the middle of the vast Aurora meadow.

Everything they used or ate was off of the land. The flowers were their food, the bushes, grasses and bark their clothing. It was somewhat primitive, and the inhabitants were aware of this, but they didn’t mind. After all, they were the only civilization in all the spacious green land. Past the Aurora plains was Caucira, the immense capitol of the world. Since the light tribe was the one in power, their capitol was everyone’s capitol. King Phillip lived in his castle there, ruling all of the seven tribes that spanned the world – Light (of course), Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Arcane, and even the malicious Dark. He was kind and gentle, which is why the inhabitants of the world were keen to let him rule.

But, enough about the king. He’ll show up in due time.

Back to the village Torie, and back to our young elf about to embark on a flower expedition.

“Be sure to nab the rare blue ones, dear. We need some medicine for Grandmother.” Said his mother, ruffling his hair affectionately even though he stood a good head taller than her. Her hair was the conventional red color, like most sun elves.

“Mom, stop! I’ll be fine.” He said, giving her a grin.

“ Is Oswin going with you today?” She asked, but no sooner than the words were out of her mouth than a human teenager bounded along and made a flying leap, landing next to the boy and his mother.

“Hiya, Ael!” Oswin sang, bouncing up and down due to his near constant sugar high. He looked very ordinary, with brown hair, brown eyes and a gangly figure. In contrast to Ael, who was slim with toned muscles, they were very different. Their races might add to that, too.

In this land, and all others for that matter, if you live in a village ruled by a certain tribe, then you belong to that tribe. It doesn’t matter what species you are or anything, as long as you live there, you are loyal to it. The tribes are split up by land, not by groups of people. So, a vampire might be native to the Dark tribe, but decide it prefers the Earth tribe better, and so migrates.

Ael grabbed the woven sack that his mother had made for him, stuffed it with some provisions, and then set out beyond the last row of huts with Oswin.

A girl watched Ael go. She had curly chestnut colored hair and dazzling green eyes. Her name was Lilica. Her eyes tracked him until he and her older brother had walked so far that they were barely seeable, just specks in the distance.

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“Gaah, purple, yellow, green, everything except blue today! What the hell!” Ael raged. Two hours had passed, and not a single blue flower had been spotted yet.

“Cheer up, Ael!” Oswin chirped, trying to distract him from his empty satchel.

“Ugh, our lives are so boring, Oswin. Everything’s so… peaceful. It gets really old, picking flowers. Yeah, these are pretty fields, but they’re so insubstantial compared to the palace and everywhere else in all of Rualai!” Ael said defiantly.

“Someday, I’m gonna explore the world, and get out of this place. Someday, I’ll find my father that left us and beat him up for all the things he put me and mom through.” He was bitter now, and he began slowing his pace, looking at the ground. Oswin only could nod sympathetically, but he had no idea what Ael felt.

“Hey, you never even met the guy. How can you hate him so much?” Oswin said, wagging a finger at his friend, who merely growled indifferently in response.

There was a cluster of blue bushes up ahead, and as soon as the two boys saw it they grinned and quickened their paces. Blue bushes meant blue flowers, and Ael looked excitedly over the tall bushes at the cluster or blue flowers, but froze.

There was a girl curled up in the flowerbed.

“Hey, look, a gi-“ Oswin started loudly, but Ael didn’t hesitate to slap a hand over his best friend’s mouth.

“Shhhh.”

Her chest was rising and falling gently, and her eyes were closed, and Ael relaxed as he realized that Oswin’s outburst hadn’t awakened her.

“Tess… need to copy your math really quick… where’s my pencil…” She mumbled. The two boys stared at her, transfixed, sprawled out on the blue flowers that they needed like a sleeping guard dog. Her outfit was gorgeous, fit for a princess, but more athletic. Ael drank in her appearance. She was human, yet she seemed alien.

They were going to have to wake her to get to the flowers.

Tentatively, Ael motioned for Oswin to remain behind the bush, and stole closer to the girl. He waited for a reaction. Nothing.

“Hey, wake up!” He yelled, but she continued to breathe deeply and peacefully as if nothing had happened. Ael sighed.

“Oswin, you can come out now. She’s obviously not going to wake up any time soon.”

Oswin emerged and began to delicately and professionally pluck blue flowers from the ground as Ael prodded the girl, mulling over the best way to go about moving her.

He eventually decided that he ought to carry her back to the village. He couldn’t just LEAVE her here. Ael slipped his arms underneath her waist and lifted her up, coincidentally in the bridal style. Oswin noticed this and cocked an eyebrow. Ael merely smirked slightly and said nothing, but then a surprised look overtook his face. He began to shake violently and dropped her on the ground, causing her eyes to snap open and a cry to escape from her lips. Ael was engulfed in a blinding light, and when it cleared, it left him looking confused and Alena disheveled.

“What the heck…”

There was a yellow and orange sun plastered to the skin covering his hand.

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Xonelel: Yes it’s short, but this was mostly a sort of background chappie. We’ve found the sun D The adventure REALLY starts next chappie!!