Crystalline - Chapter One

They say there is no boundaries for when love decides to come into your life. That is how it was for me. Of course I was a normal teenager, rebellious, uncaring towards my parents. That is what most people's adaptations of teens are anyway. I was in the category. I had no boyfriend though, but I had joined a rock band and wore holes in my jeans, ragedy t-shirts, and had shaggy hair. It was just a persona I was going through. My parents were pretty ordinary. My mother was a nurse at the local hospital who worked twelve-hour shifts. Dad was a writer, who sat at his desk day and night pouring over Tolkien's language and world. I never thought it fascinating myself...a world full of hobbits, knomes, dwarves, orcs, and any other creature you could imagine.

One evening I came home from school and began doing my normal studying which consisted of laying on my bed, orange soda in hands, and radio blaring to my new CD by Green Day. When reality slipped back in I would go downstairs and stand in front of the stove a few moments wondering what to cook for dinner. Daddy would come down moments later and congratulate me on a job well done. I shrugged and slipped back into my daydreaming.

Daydreaming was much better than the reality I lived in I thought. Suddenly I began to get terribly tired. I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was no longer in my bedroom. I could hear the hoots of an owl, the strange chirps a cricket was making, and the hollering of another unknown creature. I got up and looked around me taking in my surroundings. I needed to stay calm, I reminded myself. This was just a dream and in any moment I would wake up.

I didn't wake up and I came to my feet. I wore no shoes and the tiny sticks beneath my feet stuck the tender flesh of the bottom. I closed my ears off with my hands and knelt down. Finally the chirping stopped along with the hooting and weird noises. When I gazed up not even the wind stirred the trees. Something was coming...I sensed it. The smell of sulfar rose in my nostrils making me immediately hold my nose. My heart pounded dramatically and I looked around again. I saw a huge black horse coming down a small trail in the middle of the forest. My immediate thoughts were to hide. Once hidden, I could see the air that it took in and out through its nose. The creature atop the horse was just as ugly. I realized it a woman wraith, leader of the world of Cazindome, the Underworld that my father had created.

She had red hair, glowing green eyes, and let out the most horrible scream you could imagine. I scrambled back into the brush and held my breath for a moment. A hand clamped over my mouth and I knew that I would have screamed had it not been there. The smell of alcohol mixed with something else was powerful and it made me pass out.

When I awakened again, I saw a bunch of pale people with multi-colored hair around me. One of them came up to me and replied, "What are you doing in Lyndonosh?" I raised an eyebrow, "Excuse me? Lyndonosh? What sort of name is that?" The tallest strolled up to me and said, "You are in Lyndonosh, city of the fairies. I am Beleg, prince of the fairies. Who might you be?" Before I could answer, an older fairy came up beside him, "Her name is Adonnenniel, princess of the elves. It was foretold by the prophecy she would return to us in a midsummer night's sleep. Alas, she had returned!" Beleg looked at me and I could feel mistrust come into his deep blue eyes.

I cleared my throat, "Um yeah, could someone please tell me where I am? Lyndonosh? That is unbelievable if I may say so. I thought fairies and elves weren't real...oh and that creature in the forest? Who was she?"

Beleg strolled up closer, "Her name is Almarea...and she is the queen of the wraith's. I saved you from a fate worse than death, Princess. Won't you come and rest awhile? I know you must be terribly tired from all of your ordeals. You will rest in my home. I knew you would come as did my mother. She is the queen of the Fae...Alarina. And you are foretold to come in a prophecy which I will explain to you. Come...let us not tarry here any longer."

I followed him up some stairs at the side of a huge tree. When I was inside his home, I was shocked to find it rather cozy and not at all uninviting. He looked at me and said, "Sit by the fire awhile. This is not where you need to get comfortable though. Your room is being prepared for you. So tell me princess, is it a shock to find yourself here?"

I nodded slowly taking in the sparsely decorated space, "Yes it is rather astonishing to be honest. I never thought I would come to rest in the land of fairies, wraiths, and elves. Let along be a princess of elves? Kind of still impossible to believe." He laughed and put a foot stool beneath my feet. "To be honest with you princess, I never thought the night would come where I would come upon you. The prophecy was foretold in a time when King Bisbone ruled Crystalline. He ruled over the mountains and the seas. He was your uncle and your father took you and your mother and moved with you to the human world. Through a veil you went and it was foretold when you returned, you would come in baring a hand of iron. Elves have always ruled over Crystalline until the evil Sorceress Dinala came along. She was evil and would stop at nothing till you and your family were wiped out. She searched high and low for you but no one told her of your whereabouts."

He took a water basin and washed my feet, "When she vowed she would put a new woman to rule Crystalline everyone laughed. We never thought that would happen. King Bisbone was overthrown and the castle was ransacked by a bunch of orcs and wraiths. That is when Almarea came into play. She ruled over the main city in Crystalline called Cazindome. Before it became the new Underworld it was a beautiful city, the main city where your family lived and thrived. It was ruled then, that you would come back one day and take back Cazindome. And we must prepare you, princess. Her armies outnumber the fae and elves any day...and she has flying creatures that would love to come upon one of our kind."

I sighed, "So how do I begin to take this city back?"

He smiled slightly, "I thought you'd never ask."