Lana

"Father, why did the Great War ever happen, why do our two kingdoms hate each other so much?"

"Well my dear princess, that pitiful demon, who dares call himself a king, thought it was necessary to break our treaty that had kept our kingdom at peace for many hundreds of years."

"But father why would they do that?"

"You see Lana, he had changed. Not all types of changes are bad you see, some types of changes are good, but the way that King Mephisto had changed was bad. He became greedy and thought necessary to force all the fairies and light folk out of their homes. All the light folk had left within a matter of hours, wandering the forest looking for a new place to reside. After walking for days we had found an old kingdom in ruins, having nowhere else to go we had stayed and repaired everything, which is now our beautiful kingdom, Arcadia."

"Wow, I'm glad you aren't like that father. How dare those wretched demons think it's right to run us out of our home."

"Now, now Lana, not all dark folk are like King Mephisto, We must not judge them just because of what their king had done. Now, I think a certain little princess should be going to bed now."

"Yes father, good night. I love you."

"And I love you more than words could describe, little one."

With that my father had blown out my candle and shut my bedroom doors, but I could not possibly sleep. How could I, there was just too much to think about. The Great War. King Mephisto and the greed that overcame him. How could someone do that? Run innocent families out of their homes. But just as my father said, I will not judge someone purely based on something their king did. I was only five years old and I swore to myself that I will not judge a demon or other type of dark folk without knowing them.

~

Ever since that night my father first told me about the Great War I had always asked my father to tell me more about the war and the original kingdom. I had read many books about the war in the library but none of them had told me anything I hadn't already known. Besides the one useless fact that King Oliver and Queen Lizabeth, my parents, got married three months after they met. That actually did come as a surprise to me. I am now 16 years old and I've been trying to find ways to go to Pandaemonium for years now. My father had told me a couple days ago that all the healers would be going there to help the common folk and said that I was allowed to join them if I desired. Now I have to persuade my father to let Iris join me to Pandaemonium, it has always been a childhood dream to go together. I walked over to my father's office and saw him reading a book on his chair.

"Afternoon father, what book are you reading, may I ask?" I ask him kindly to persuade him to say yes.

"Oh, hi darling. Just an old book I read as a child."

"Oh that's nice, what is it about."

"Would you like to read it and find out?"

"Yeah, sure." I take the book from my father's extended arm. Medium sized book, a couple hundred pages, I could probably finish it by tomorrow. I hear my father clearing his throat, distracting me from my book inspection.

"I am guessing you came in here for a reason." My father questions me raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, I was wondering if Iris would be able to join me to Pandaemonium. Please father." I look at my father with pleading eyes.

"Lana I already told you, she is not a healer. She cannot go."

"But father I am not a healer either but you're still allowing me to go." I argued back with my father, starting to get frustrated.

"That is because you are a healer in training, Lana. This is amazing practice for you and if you take Iris you will get distracted."

"Please father, I won't get distracted I promise. I could even teach her some stuff while we are there. Please, you know that we have both wanted to go." My father looks at me, a hint of pity in his eyes.

"Fine, you can take Iris with you. Only if you don't get too distracted and maybe teach her some stuff. That pixie seems like she gets hurt quite a lot."

"Oh thank you father, I love you so much. I promise I will not let anything distract me." I hug my father thanking him.

"You're welcome. Remember you are leaving in two days, make sure you both are ready."

I turn around to walk out of my father's office to go find Iris. While walking trying to find Iris I picked cute little daisies to give to her. Where the heck is that little pixie? I was away for only about 15 minutes, she couldn't possibly have gone far. Feeling something on the back of my head, I being a normal fairy decided to feel what it was, expecting to feel a leaf I completely freaked out when I felt a tiny foot.

"WHAT THE HECK!" I whipped around and saw Iris fall onto a tree branch dying of laughter.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN YOUR FUCKING FACE LANA! HOLY SHIT YOUR FACE IS SO RED NOW!"

"Oh shut up Iris. I was going to tell you amazing news and give you these cute flowers I found, but now I'm thinking against it." I turned around as if I was about to walk away.

"Fine by me, keep your little flowers, I don't want them anyways." I turn back around to see her sticking out her tongue.

"Sometimes I wonder why we are even friends."

"Cause nobody likes you." She says with a little smirk on her face.

"How absolutely rude of you, looks like I'm not taking you to Pandaemonium after all. Too bad." I turn around and start fluttering away.

"WAIT, WHAT." I drop to the ground and go back to Iris.

"Yup, I persuaded my father to let you come with me. We will be leaving in two days." I told Iris a squeal of excitement coming from the pixie, who was now sitting on my shoulder.

"You know I would kind of like those flowers you picked."

"Fine I'll give you the flowers, but I still despise you."

"I despise you even more."

"Wanna go to the library with me real quick, I need to go return a book."

"I guess, but afterwards can we go back to your's? I'm starving."

"Ya, we'll be quick." With that said I started my walk to the library with my tiny friends on my shoulder. Who kept pinching my ear, which felt strange, kind of hurt actually.

~

"Lana, honey you need to wake up. You and Iris will be leaving soon." I look over to the side of my bed and see my mother standing there. My room is still dark so it must be very early.

"Yes mother. I will wake up Iris so we can get ready." My mother walks out of my room and I look over to the other side of my bed seeing Iris sleeping on my pillow using a tiny blanket she leaves here.

"Iris you need to wake up, we need to get ready." I poke Iris' head with my finger trying to wake her up.

"Leave me the fuck alone." She grumbles turning away from me.

"Iris come on you need to wake up or else you won't be going to Pandaemonium." After I said that Iris flew out of the bed and went straight to the bag she brought.

"I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT IT, WHEN ARE WE LEAVING!" Iris is flying all over the room, I'm guessing she thinks we are late.

"Iris we don't have to leave until like an hour."

"What.  We have a whole hour and you decided to wake me up." She looks at me like I had deeply wronged her.

"Hey I am not going to get ready alone, so suck it up." I said grabbing the dress I will be wearing for the journey to Pandaemonium.

"Fine, you're lucky I like you or else you would definitely be missing an eye right now." She said nonchalantly changing into her clothes she had picked out.

After changing we both checked to make sure we had everything, so we could leave earlier if Iris needed to pick up anything from her home. After checking through my personal bag, I went over to my healer bag and checked to see if I had everything in there. While putting everything back into my bag there was a knock in my door, then both of my parents walked in.

"Ok darling do you have everything." My mother asked me while looking through my bag double checking everything.

"Yes mother, I already checked last night and this morning."

"What about you Iris, do you have everything?" My father asks looking towards Iris who was stuffing everything into her bag.

"Sure do Ollie, I am so very ready for this grand adventure that will hopefully not go wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong Iris." My mother reassured Iris walking over to where she was sitting on a book.

"If anything goes wrong Lizzie I'm coming straight back here and complaining to you, that you had lied to me.

"And I am perfectly ok with that hon."

"Oh and Iris you must not forget to hide your wings when you get there. We do not want to risk anything." My father told me with a serious look on his face.

"Yes father I know. I will not forget."

"Ok and with that being said I think it is time for you girls to be leaving."

"YES FINALLY!"

My father and mother had walked us to where the other healers were waiting. After about thirty minutes of more waiting we finally said our goodbyes and left on our trip to Pandaemonium.

~

After three long days of flying and walking we had finally made it to Pandaemonium and it is beautiful. Before walking through the gates I, along with all the other fairies who came, had hidden my wings. It feels quite strange without my wings, like something is missing. Well obviously something is missing but that's besides the point.

"Oh god Iris I completely forgot, where am I going to hide you. If anybody in there sees you they are going to know I'm a fairy." I was so excited that Iris was coming that I didn't even think of the fact that she couldn't actually disguise herself.

"Whelp looks like we are dying. I knew it."

"Actually I think I have an idea." I grabbed Iris from off my shoulder and set her into my bag, trying not to hurt her.

"Well this was not ideal but I guess it'll work out. When we get to wherever we will be staying can we at least put something soft in here, your glass jars keep hitting me and it hurts."

I was walking through the kingdom behind the other healers and quietly talking to Iris, when all of a sudden I felt something collide with me and I found myself on the ground.

"God, what a warm welcome." I said looking up to see a hand extended to help me off the ground.

"Sorry I wasn't watching where I was going." The mysterious boy says helping me up off the ground.

"So have I seen you around here before, you don't look familiar?" He asked, looking somewhat confused.

"Oh no you haven't, I'm here to heal people."

"You're a healer?"

"Yes, my name is Lana." I told the boy, smiling.

"Orias."