• Chapter 3
    Arival

    One foot in front of the other she walked gracefully down the Spirit Road surrounded the stars and planets that made up the Milky Way. She was at awe with their beautiful sparkling brilliance as they surrounded her, underneath her, above her and at both her left and her right until she felt small and insignificant. Each was an orb of stunning brightness and strangely each was not just white. Some where yellow and some where red, others were glowing a rosy pink and some a bright orange. She could feel the heat radiated from them on her exposed skin but it wasn’t a painful heat, nothing could hurt her as I walked the Spirit Road. It was hard to believe that all humans were made of the pretty things dust. How was that even possible?

    Welcome to the beginning of the story within the story. This is the actual story it’s just being told by someone else. Names will now be used so you don’t have to guess who anyone is anymore. It’s not confusing; at least I hope it isn’t. This is just a flashback, like telling someone at school what you had for lunch yesterday.

    Galaxies, stars, suns, moons and planets passed her on her celestial journey through space, time and dimensions and the speed at which they passed her as she walked was incredible. The closet stars to her passed in a blur of light and speed creating a smeared affect like coloured chalk on a piece of black paper.

    No thoughts entered her mind as she walked step by step upon the invisible path, only instinct told her to keep going although where she was going was still unknown to her. She had not been told where she was going, nor what she was wanted for… as a matter of fact she had not been told anything at all.
    Nothing could prepare anyone for what she had gone through that night. Lying in bed as usual after going through the nightly routines had been a normal experience:
    1. Milk and biscuits.
    2. Get dressed.
    3. Fight with brother.
    4. Get told off for fighting with brother.
    5. Brush teeth.
    6. Wait a few hours in silence before finally going to sleep.

    She waited for sleep to claim her, even though it took a while as there was so much to think about when the day was over. The solitude of darkness is always a great place for someone to think. Her three dream catchers began to swing next to her, the pretty feathers blown about like leaves in a storm on their pieces of string that hung from the bottom of the top bunk of her bed. She watched interested as it was a mild day outside and a storm wasn’t forecast for the night, especially one indoors. She slowly and carefully lifted herself from her bed so as not to wake anyone else in the house. Judging by the amount of time she had spent lying there she guessed it was about 1:00 in the morning and as it was a Saturday she wanted to give her parents a lie in after a long week at work, she wanted to wake up her brother just to annoy him but that would mean waking everyone else up too.

    She watched her fish swim up towards the lid of the tank as they sensed the movement in front of the tank. The stupid little creatures shone luminescent orange and silver catching the light from the street light outside her window whenever they turned sideways.

    She looked slightly to her right. Four pairs of beady black eyes stared back at her. A hedgehog, an owl, a rabbit and a robin sat on her television, four dark silhouettes against the pink background that was her room. The hedgehog was for defence, the owl for intelligence, the rabbit for speed and the robin for health. It was her own little religion that she kept secretly to herself because she knew people wouldn’t understand the meaning behind it. It was a comfort thing, just like the dream catchers. She ran her index finger over the wooden pinecone spines of the hedgehog’s glittery back and looked over to where her window was to see of the curtains were fluttering in the breeze that had disturbed her dream catchers.

    The curtains weren’t fluttering in the breeze. The fish weren’t shining in the light from the streetlamp outside her house; they were shining in the light coming from the end of the silent swirling vortex that had taken over and engulfed her radiator, windowsill, curtains and windows. She stood frozen and watched the twisting mass of black and purple gasses eddying and twirling around each other, each particle a ballet dancer dancing with a partner around the other couples. It was hypnotic.

    She was afraid of course, she could hear her heart beating in her ears and her stomach was in her throat, choking any scream, yell or shout that tried to escape the confines of her body. The only noise that came out of her mouth was a strangled gurgle which was meant to be a scream. Her hands felt cold and clammy as she put her hand against the television for support, knocking the rabbit over so that it tumbled down the television and rattled down the back of the machine creating more noise than she had thought possible for a wooden figure. There was a shuffle and the sound of fabric against a wall. Had she woken her brother up? She quickly put her ear to the wall and heard the tired yet loud snores of the animal next door. Nothing could wake that child up. No storm, no earthquake not even a rocket up his backside could wake him; even her mom said that.

    She has hoped that once she had averted her eyes from the scene on front of her the vortex would have gone away but as she returned her attention to her window it was still there, spinning invitingly in front of her almost drawing her in like some beautiful black hole. She could feel and smell the fresh air, it was like a tunnel through a mountain, you enter through one end and it seems you will never come out until you reach the light at the end of the tunnel, then you begin to smell the fresh air and the grass and you can hear the birdsong. It can mean on of two things. You have found the end of the tunnel of you have died and gone to the afterlife.

    Now I am not a religious person because I don’t have a religion. Simple as. I’m not saying religion is wrong because its not but I’m not going into that. Just think about this for a moment. What would you do if you woke up and found a vortex in your room? I bet that half of you lot would walk into it. It’s like putting buttons saying ‘DO NOT PUSH’ in front of 30 children and I bet you 20 of them will push it, especially if it’s red.

    It was like a vacuum but it wasn’t going to hurt her. Something about the inviting way in which it called her in in her mind made her want to step inside and take a look around, even if it killed her. It was like a tiny voice was calling her from inside the vortex but could only be heard in her head. It wouldn’t leave her alone. She put her hand to her ears to try and get rid of the voice which was getting louder and louder.

    Eventually it was almost shouting at her like and angry parent to hurry up and step inside because she couldn’t keep it open much longer. Who the she was the girl did not know but she did as she was told. She didn’t appreciate being shouted out so early in the morning and she had got no sleep that night anyway so she already had a headache.

    She stepped lightly towards the swirling mass of gasses being careful not to step on any patches of floor that she had learnt creaked when you stepped on them and also to avoid her school bag and clothes which were thoughtfully strewn across the floor. She really needed to tidy her room so she marked it on her mental calendar for Sunday. It was already Saturday and she wasn’t going to do it on such a busy day.

    The vortex was cold, like walking through the countryside in the morning and feeling the cold mist swirling around your ankles. There was a lingering moisture in the air that felt different to any normal atmosphere, as though energy of some kind was coursing through the air itself like tiny bolts of electricity that when she touched them she could feel a connection to the space around the vortex and the pull was getting harder to fight against.
    She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and reluctantly put one foot inside the twisting mass in front of her expecting to loose her balance and tumble through the gassy illusion to the drive below her room, perhaps even to her death. Strangely as she reopened her eyes her foot was resting on a hard surface and she was safely stood in her room. The misty gas had started to condensate on her skin and small droplets of water ran down her bare arms and legs making her shiver.

    After a few moments she found the courage to take the next step and when her foot hit the floor of the tunnel a small cloud of gas rose into the air like kicking up dust on a dry day. All five of her senses went mad. Her eyes darted all around her trying to follow the colours and see through the gas to whatever was on the outside of the tunnel. Her sense of smell just about picked up the extremely faint smell of grass from somewhere very far off in the distance; she could sense it on the breeze coming from the white light ahead of her. The gas was wet on her hands and bare feet like the due on the grass when you walk to school in the morning. She could hear the wind whistling through the end of the tunnel and the faint sound of birdsong coming from the place the smell of grass came from. She could taste saltwater spray on her tongue and her lips, the wonderful refreshing taste of sea air.

    When her mind had calmed her body down she took a few more steps into the portal and looked behind her to her bedroom which was getting further and further away until she could only just make out the darkness of her pink room until it finally faded away into a swirling mass of purple and black gas. Comforted by the familiar and safe sounds, smells and tastes she carried on down the portal tunnel until she stepped foot onto the Spirit Road which would lead her to her destination. The gasses faded into the oblivion of space until there was just her, the Spirit Road and the stars and planets that made up the Milky Way.

    She was gradually changing but she was only slightly aware of it. She was turning from on average Erath-girl with brown shoulder-length hair which frizzed when it rained into a lighter, long haired Le-Arian. Her eyes changed from light blue to deep red with golden specks from the Leoni that had been awakened inside her body as soon as she stepped upon the Spirit Road. Her feet grew one size smaller to a size 5 instead of a size 6 and the muscles in her hands changed to become much stronger due to the sheer mass they would have to grip and carry in the near future. The bones inside her body became stronger and slightly thicker and Leoni networks wrapped themselves around her internal organs as a protective shield and also so that when she needed her Leoni she could exert it from most of the points on her body especially her hands.

    Although many of the changes were small they were extremely effective in helping her with the life she was going to live at the end of the Spirit Road. She would face many dangers and a lot of pain and her body needed to be ready for that. They couldn’t just make her start from scratch. It took a lot out of Jean but she always put her soul into her work and gave the girls the best possible chance of survival by changing their physical structure.

    Now I’m not saying everyone has to be slim because they don’t. Actually in my opinion it’s very unhealthy to be as thin as most of the models you see on the runway, and of course I completely disagree with their line of work. But in this girls case she had to be slim otherwise if she stayed the same mass as she was when she was on earth she wouldn’t be able to fly. She couldn’t have hollow bones because then she would be to venerable to attacks so the only other option was for her to lose body mass.
    I’m going to teach you a tiny bit of science now. Mass is what everyone refers to as weight. Mass is how much stuff you are made of which is what everyone measures on scales. Weight is the amount of gravity pulling against your mass. See, you just learnt something.

    All that mattered to her know was getting to her destination even though she did not know where that was. Her legs and feet felt numb in the chilling vacuum of space and how she was alive she did not know but she did not linger on the thought. There were no particles in space but then again when did you ever see a portal appear in your room and tell you to climb in?
    It all seemed to real for a dream or was it one of her really real dreams that when she woke in the morning she would feel her back for feathery wings or check under her pillow for gold she had hidden there when she went to sleep in the tent in the middle of the Amazon forest with the other explorers. There was always nothing there and it she was always sad when a really real dream ended and she had to wake up to the boring old world that was Earth. She would write them down in her Dream Diary in the morning just to remember them and then they would repeat the year after if she was lucky. Some did and some didn’t, that was what the Dream Diary was for.

    She felt her body begin to slowly shut down on her. Her legs became as heavy as led and her breathing became fast and shallow as she struggled on. She had to admit she was walking light-years in a matter of minutes. However long she had been on the Spirit Road it seemed double and even triple when it got really bad and the road took a turn around one of the Milky Way’s outer planets. She felt as though she was carrying another person on her back, making her body feel heavily and the journey was slowly sapping the energy out of her. The only respite from the agonizingly slow journey was the gentle breeze which was getting stronger and stronger the further she walked towards the light at the end of the Spirit Road.

    It was still there and now it was taking the shape of a door. The birdsong filled her ears and she almost forgot about the sweat sticking her white nightdress to her skin and the pain in her feet. Her fringe stuck to her forehead like a wet curtain, obscuring her vision whenever it got in front of her eyes. She could feel the length of it down her back but chose to ignore the sudden change in her appearance because she had more important things on her mind. With each slow step she took the wind became stronger blowing her hair around her shoulders and waist and cooling her down so she could carry on.

    To her right and to her left she could see endless amounts of spiral galaxies and star clusters hugging coloured gasses and shining suns through the fog that was the Milky Way’s collection of stars which I’d always seen from watching the night sky at home.

    That was another thing she thought to herself. She felt compelled to go to this place even though she did not know where it was. It felt like she was finally going home even though she’d grown up and lived on Earth. She’d always felt at home at home but now it all seemed different. Earth seemed alien and boring to her as though she had never been there before and also at the same time it felt as though she had been there too long. Although she thought she should have missed her family and friends terribly she felt nothing but sadness because she missed her unknown home. It felt as though she had been away for far too long and she believed that although she had never been there she had already been and lived there all her life. She knew the birds’ names, the flowers’ colours, the smells of the seas, the feel of the grass and the taste of the exotic food on her tongue.

    She could now clearly see a small planet appearing out of a cluster of stars. It was a beautiful sphere. The surface resembled that of Venus, wispy gasses collecting in places then dispersing again. But instead of a creamy brown these gasses where pink and blue and in some places white. These gases were scattered across the surface of the planet and I could see underneath the gassy sky that the planet itself looked almost exactly like Earth with most of the planet covered in oceans and seas and then dotted on top of the surface was large continents. What made the planet differ from Earth, apart from the colour of the gas in the sky, was that this planet a little smaller than Earth and it had two suns and two moons. She had seen Pluto on her way out of our solar system.

    This planet was about the size of Venus and the largest continent was about the size of South America. The land on the planet seemed natural and no light pollution seemed to come from anywhere. She didn’t know whether or not it was inhabited but she still carried on walking, relying on instinct and the fact that it was a bit too late to turn back. It kept getting closer and closer and although her feet had not yet touch soil or whatever covered the land on that world she could still hear bird song filling the emptiness around her and the sounds and smells of untouched countryside and forests calmed her nerves a little more.

    She was so close to it now she thought she would have been able to touch the pink and white clouds with her hand. She had always wanted to know what clouds had felt and even tasted like. It was probably just water but you could never know for sure until you tried. It was such a beautiful looking world she could feel the warm tears streaming down her cold cheeks. It gave her the same feeling that the Northern Lights would give to an explorer. It was the feeling of accomplishment and the purity of the thing’s natural beauty that made you want to scream. Space had been wonderful but the planet had taken it to another level. Then it happened.

    Completely mesmerized by the swirling colours and magnificence of the planet’s surface and atmosphere she walked in completely the wrong direction and lost her footing on the Spirit Road. Only with full concentration can one walk the path and without it… well… you fall.

    And that’s exactly what happened. For a few seconds that felt like minutes she teetered dangerously on the transparent edge. Trying to keep her balance she waved her arms in the air by her sides and stood on her tiptoes. When it finally became too hard to bear she gave up. Falling backwards with her arms outstretched she fell in the shape of the Angel of the North. Plummeting quickly down to the ground, through layer after layer of cloud she thought about her old life and how much she missed her own bed… and the cat. The inevitable could not be avoided. No amount of flapping would make a difference, so, if she was going to f all to her death, she was going to do it fearlessly without a single scream. Even if she was screaming on the inside so much so she was going to pop.

    When she felt she had been falling for around and hour it all became too much. She did not know how many layers of cloud she had passed through but her last seemed to be a beautiful pale shade of candy floss pink. Her nightdress floated around her body as she fell with her back to the floor, her hair flying up around her face being much much longer than she remembered, and a lot redder. Even if she was going to die she didn’t care. Still she had wanted to go to Italy and to have seen the Northern Lights.
    As she passed the layer of cloud that was like a large stick of candy floss she passed out. It had been a long night and she wasn’t one for heights. The fact that she had been in space didn’t count because there was no height since there was no floor. Now that the ground loomed ever nearer she turned off, that way it wouldn’t hurt.

    Say bye to the girl you once knew. You will never ever see her again. Tis a shame that I have to kill someone off. I don’t like to especially if it’s the story version of me. It’s hard to explain so just go along with it. You will never see story me again or for that matter read of her again. Does that make sense?












    To Little To Put Into A Chapter

    Sorry about this you lot but it’s important that you no these things that are going to follow in this next mini chapter. As the chapter says it’s all too little to put into mini chapters so I’ve put it all into little tiny bits and pieces just so you know what is going on elsewhere. I hope that this isn’t too confusing.

    Deep in the very belly of the Glass Castle the three eggs sat safely inside the Forbidden Room. Kept over a large furnace to keep the eggs at a continuous temperature the red egg, the blue egg and the green egg were as heavily guarded as the most precious gold and gems would be, but even more valuable. Alone inside the large marble hall they sat waiting for their new masters to wake them and set them free from there strong little prisons, that was if they ever made it.
    It wasn’t a normal occurrence for furniture to be put in the Forbidden Room as Shadows lurked where there were shadows. The glass windows had been shuttered up to prevent any light from entering the room and an orb of protection had been but around the fire itself so that any light and heat was caught and directed back into the sphere so no Shadows could linger. Only time would release the little lizard from there hot jail; and only time could tell if the Princesses would show up.

    It’d definitely been a long night. Visions had plagued her even in the darkest reaches of her sleep yet they had never woken her. Even the strongest visions could not wake her from her deep sleeps where she entered the Realm of Darkness to train and meditate. Nothing, not even dreams, wanted to follow Catari into the Realm of Darkness. It was a place where unless you kept your wits about you they would be lost into the shadowed corners or captured by the dead spirits who tried desperately to make it back to this world. It was like hell.
    She’d sat amongst these very dead souls and meditated, awaiting the time when light would stream in through the window of her bedroom and break into the darkest corners of her mind casting out the dead souls who came to her for help and bringing her back from the Realm of Darkness to the Realm of the Living.
    Of course this time would never come. The Twins never shone their giving light upon the Dark Nations. They all had to live in twilight darkness as the World didn’t orbit The Twins, The Twins chose where to send their light and as always it was upon the Light Nations (aptly named.)
    Only she could bring herself out or the Realm of Darkness. Only she and her Father had ever entered such a place and only they and the un-dead souls actually knew about it. She had to fight her way out of the mists, the fog and the dust before her spirit could enter her body once more and that was harder than it seemed.
    As she battled through the darkened clouds that tried to pull her body back to the depths of Death she thought about her vision. It was hard to concentrate on thing when souls began sticking themselves to your body begging to be taken back the Life and also the screeching tortured sounds they made really put a girl off her thoughts.
    She kicked them all off and the shadow-shapes writhed on the floor like injured snakes, shrieking as she ripped open the mist and light poured into the unknown world. She watched and laughed as the tormented shadows skulked back into their corners waiting for the next time someone’s soul entered the Realm of darkness. What the shadow-shapes did not know was that the next time someone would come to the Realm it would be weaponry practice and many would end up further into the realm than they were before.
    Catari stepped through the rip and back into her body. She felt the breeze on her skin chilling her body but not enough to make her cold. She could hear Crawn’s muffled breath next to her as he roosted with his head in his downy black feathers on her bedside table. She opened her eyes.
    She had to tell her Father. That was the first thing on the agenda. The whole of the DN had to know of her vision and fast. They had to prepare. Then after that she would pick a few fights with The Razen and her day would be complete. All she had to do was survive the meeting with her Father… and she meant ‘survive’ literally.

    Back at the Castle Norrani paced her office, one hand on her hip and the other one clasped around her mouth. She was deep in thought. Questions buzzed in her brain like an angry swarm of bees. The preparations had been planned out and executed perfectly; she had seen to that herself and spoken to Jean personally. Had the portal got there in time? She hoped that it had and not sucked some other poor child up into the dangerous World beyond Erath; now that would just add more problems to her ever-lengthening list.
    She had had the Castle cleaned from top to bottom, well as much as possible. She had had all Thanari trained for this day and that had taken a lot of time and resources. She had had the best tailors from around the world transported there for her arrival. She had had the eggs moved to a more secure location since the arrival of the girl would mean military action in the DN would automatically increase with the word of the new ruler, especially with that damned Seeer of theirs.
    Moving her hand from her mouth to the back of her head she stopped pacing and took a moment to look out the window at the gardeners hastily finishing the work outside in time. Everything had been put into fast forward mode when the portal closed. She would be there any day. They hoped that it was the right one. They hoped the girl would be able to take on such a role. They hoped she wouldn’t disappoint them and that she would have a long life. She hoped that she would make the right decision.
    As it was thought to be her girl arriving first many of the preparations had been dumped on her. This had been her first ever arrival and she didn’t want it to go wrong, especially as it was such a dangerous element arriving first. Out of all four of them she feared none more. There was of course the fifth but that had never reared its powerful head since even the beginning of the cycle.
    The suns were high in the sky and it was midday on the 3rd Sprithan and two days since the arrival of the girl as their Seeers had felt the presence of her. Cetahi and Chadori teams had been sent out in search of her but every time there was a new set of Princesses the ‘drop off spot’ changed to somewhere else on the continent. It was difficult but it was Jeans way of testing the new arrivals so that they couldn’t cheat off one another, even though the one another’s were sometimes a few thousand years apart.
    Now all Norrani could do was wait and hope and hope and wait. She could send out Cetahi and Chadori teams for days and still not find where Jean had dropped her off on the land. The girl even had the never to refuse to tell them where she was. They had to trust her though as she was the First’s dragon.