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im really sorry its all thrown together, but there is one main charachter in our world, kendra lorelei sarah, julia, and a couple other names are all her. john is both sebastian and john. sorry about the switcing around and the fact that it doesnt all make sense. hope you enjoy.

prologue

Allegra Veridian was born to the queens family, royal from both bloodlines, her father was not royal in the traditional sense though. He was a centaur, son of Ferdinand the 2nd, and fell in love with queen Aceline of veridian, the capital city. this caused many bloody battles between the centaur clans and the noble folk. Still Allegra was the only possible heir to the throne, and so it came to be that she was born and kept. Allegra was never very important to her mother in spite of her being the heir. Somehow Aceline blamed poor Allegra for her birth and the bitter story behind it. Or it could be that, in no uncertain terms, Aceline was well, a bitch. She was absolutely notorious for her cruelty and thirst for power. if it was not for certain traditions and rules Veridian would have long ago become a dictatorship.

Allegra for these reasons had never gotten along well with her mother and had tried harder and harder to get her thrown from office by means of rebellion, impeachment, and protests, none of them working in any way. Allegra was really quite the politician, and would make a wonderful ruler if she agreed to take the throne. In spite of her mother’s suppression Allegra managed to find her own way quite well.

T the moment she is out with her friends, a group that had formed into more of a gang over the years. They called themselves the veridian alliance, because of the mixing social classes in the group.

With that said and done, Allegra

Sahara looked angry. This wasn’t saying much, because Sahara always had an unsettled look about her face, even so this type of anger was a new feat even for her. Her lanky brown waves were pinned back into long tendrils at the nape of her neck, her lips were thin and tightly closed, and her ever fiery eyes were ablaze with emotion. The blush was just beginning to subside when Allegra chanced to see her. It was just passed the bridge connecting the two sides of the city, in a small alleyway that was home to some of the strays of Veridian’s capitol.

“whats wrong?” Allegra asked, sure that it would solve itself with a little bit of talking.

"back there, in the alley, there was something, moving and swirling, sort of like fog mixed with wind. It smelled like a thousand corpses and a million cesspools, and then there was this man...he was dark and all I could feel was hate and doom. And then just as it came it left..."

Allegra ran back to the alley that Sahara had pointed to, the feeling was unsetteled, like whatever it was that she had described could and would come back at any minute to scare any potential meddlers.

She returned to sahara with the most worried of looks on her face, and spoke "Saha, im sorry, we need to leave, I think it might come back, is there anyone around that you've seen?"

"I think that Raimi said hed be around the bridge today.

Allegra felt around for any farmilliar souls, finding only Raimi, she decided to warn him of dangers later, the matter at hand being more pressing. She slowly helped Sahara up and together they stumbled onto the main street. Sahara was obviously weak and vounerable, so Allegra wanted them out of the streets as soon as at all possible.

The streets of Veridian are very dangerous in many ways, there is always the constant danger of pickpockets and spies of the many warring species. Allegra and Sahara were fortunate enough to find a small side street with a Teller stand near it. They slowly approached the teller, who waved them over with a smile.

"what brings two such lovely young people to a woman such as myself?" she asked slyly.

"If you're the teller, why dont you tell us?" Allegra said menicingly, knowing Tellers were bound to cheat anyone who would be foolish enough to talk with them for any amount of time. " we need you to explain what just happened to her", she demanded, gently pushing Sahara towards her.

Sahara sat slumped in the chair across the table from the Teller, expressionless and empty.

"Well child, let me see your pretty eyes." she said tilting Sahara's face upward, "You have had quite a shock I see, yes yes, the Spirit of Varandara is still quite strong in you, my girl you have sprite!" Allegra was slowly growing impatient.

"That which you saw was dark, so dark, so so so dark........" the woman trailed off shuddering, "NO! leave now, I do not wish to see your darkness!"

Suprised at the Teller's reaction the girls both sat stunned for a moment or two before Allegra grabbed Sahara and ran. Only about two minutes down the road toward the big bridge did they run (quite litterally) into Mequoiyi.

"Whoa, what happened to you two, it looks like you've seen the devil!"

"Almost, but we don't know, we need you to warn the others of danger, and tell them to not go near the bridge for a few weeks. Whatever it was probably could come back any time.”

***********************************

Sebastian was new. And interesting. And almost no one had noticed him scince he had a sister and brother who also attended the Pacific Meridian High School, just across the street. They both had made quite a splash. Kendra knew these things, but neither his brother or sister held her interest. It might have been his eyes, green, but slightly bloodshot a lot of the time (contacts), or his hair, red brown in an odd sort of way. Another added bonus was that he noticed her back.

John was a mystery. No one seemed to know much about him and he avoided most contact as a rule. He hung out with just one other person, also a bird flying under the radar. IF he

But mostly it was just him, or what she thought he was. She despratley hoped that he would be a worthwile person, a potential friend someone not too shallow or

”I just wanted to know…….” She continued, unable to fill the pregnant silence that waited expectantly to be broken.

He just stared, and if there was one thing Lorelei couldn’t deal with, it was people staring. It made her squirm, and even in this case with this person she didn’t even know, she felt put on the spot.

“well bye,” she stuttered and walked off.

“NO! I already bothered him enough for one day, and if he meets you I wont have much hope of knowing him.” This may have sounded mean and both of them knew it, it wasn’t any secret that Sienna was liked by most guys. It got quite annoying after a while, having guys you were attracted to talk to you only to ask half way through the conversation where Sienna was.

“Fine but don’t think I’m not going to make you talk to him anyway.” Sienna said. “in fact Ill pay you if you go now.”

“I don’t want your money, but I’ll give it one more try, only one.” Lorelai said getting up, “wait what should I say to the kid, sorry I walked away, I don’t think so.”

“No, just say things like whered you come from, and do you like PQI.”

And with that julia wended her quest to meet john.

“Hi,” John said after a long, long awkward pause, “you were over here earlier.”

Kendra went pink, or as pink as one could go with honey-colored skin. She had hoped this would be easier.

“Yeah, its sort of hard to explain. I’m not always the best with first impressions.”

“So I noticed, but that’s ok, I am too,” he said, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

“So whered you move from?” Kendra asked, despratly hoping to strike a conversation.

“Some random place called Turl, you probably haven’t heard of it. I only lived there for a year though, normally its at least two.” He said bitterly, obviously this wasn’t the way to get him talking, moving on to the next tactic.

Geez, Kendra thought, this kid musit really be a hard nut to crack.

“That sucks you move so much, my mom and I used to before Av`o moved here,” she said, maybe family was the way with this kid.

“oh, yeah I guess it does, but i don’t really mind, I have my family with me. We’re big enough to keep anyone happy even if it is overwhelming to have family reunions.”

“What?” said Kendra laughing, she could relate to large family gatherings. Her family, being Turkish had many loud cousins and aunts and uncles arguing happily on holidays.

“I have five brothers and sisters, and we always move with my Aunt’s family too. My mother was pretty much brought up alone by my aunt because my grandmother was absent for much of their childhood. Sorry, is that too much, I’m never sure with new people if I have said too much or not… wait that alone was too much, never mind I give up.”

Kendra realized suddenly that this guy had the ability to make her laugh, instantly, a feat that not many people achieve apon meeting her.

“Too much is often not enough, and that wasn’t too much at all, your family sounds interesting.”

Nada was suprising herself, even with people she had known for years it often wasn’t this easy to talk openly. Even though she wasn’t exactly shy, she most definitely wasn’t good with new people. She was just a little on the residident side.

“They are. Sam, my brother, can draw like none other, and Naddie loves to read even though shes only six. And Sarah is just plain smart in everything. John is good at cooking, and Mara is good at gardening, and even little Evan can finger paint.”

“I want to meet them now,” Kendra said, and this was true, she did. “my mom and I are pretty much just us. My mom is an amazing jewlry maker though. You never said what your special talent was.”

“I don’t really have one, unless you count playing gitaur. Are you special in any way, or are you going to play the modest game?” He said smiling.

“NO, I am not, I have been told I have talent in drawing.” Kendra replied, not in the least modest.

“Really, do you have any drawings with you at the moment?”

“Sort of, they’re not my best, just something I brought in for art class.” Kendra said, removing a small envelope from her bag and handing it two him.

The top was a picture of a simple hand, but when you looked deeper you could see outlines of veins and bones. The second was a small face, like that of a child, but with pointed ears and a small tail. It looked almost as if it was meant to be an elf but wasn’t, the tail and clothes were not quite right.

“These are really good.” Sebastian said.

“Thanks,” Kendra said.

And so the conversation progressed, their topics ranging from the arts to politics until the bell rang for 6th period to start.

******************

At home, a few weeks later, one night Kendra sat in the chair by a window reading a new book her mom had gotten at eh local library. She stopped for a minute to stare out the window and contemplate the scentence she had just read when she saw it. What this It was she herself didn’t know. It was in fact Veridian, that is a part of veridian. It was in the fence, it wasn’t there. The fence that is, well it was in a sense, it was there in being but what was visible was a bush. Or part of one. it was just a branch of leaves. She thought, well it looked like leaves but they were orange. In springtime. Kendra looked away. And back, and then all of a sudden it was gone.

Though she could not place what she had seen she still was quite sure that what she saw was real. Within a few hours she had dismissed this as just a trick of her overactive imagination.

Chapter

Over the weeks scince that faitfull day when Kendra forgot that shwas not good at introducing herself to people her friendship with john had grown. A lot. Kendra had always been a loner. IT probably was that she always seemed to scare people off at first by being cold ant sort of rude. IT was certainly strange that she had made the first move toward friendship[. It is interesting to see the things that we will do in search of a friend. The two of them were practicticly opposites. John was into music and kenra couldn’t stop herself from drawing everything possible. Even though jhon was white and Kendra Cinnamon colored, John seemed the dark one, while Kendra was sunny and warm. Kendra knew that john was odd.

Different

Strange. Whatever you want to call it. HE wasn’t normal. P

Kendra was sitting in math class when it hit her. No not anything at all important, just a spitball. Yep, a spitball. But instead of doing the normal thing and just letting it go she turned around about to scream at the kid, when she realized two things.

1) she was taking a test, if the teacher saw it was principal for her,

2) the kid who threw the spit wad was (putting it kindly) a gorilla

“What do you want?” Gorilla asked menacingly.

“I want you to stop throwing spitballs!” Kendra said just as scathingly.

“Aint gonna happen,” he shot back.

Too bad for Kendra, at that moment the teacher looked up. This teacher was Mrs. Reisly and she hated Kendra like none other, there was just no explaining it. It was like kendara was a curse.

“Kendra give me your paper and go, right now, to the office please.”

Kendra sullenly walked to the office and entered into the bright lights and potted plants expecting them to be waiting. She was partially right, Mrs. Jelwer was waiting, but not for her. You could always tell if she was expecting someone because she tapped her pencil and stuck her tounge in the side fo her mouth. The look vanished when surprisingly, John walked in. He gave Nadalia a sheepish half-smile and walked up to Mrs. Jelwer.

“John you’re late again. If youre late another time I’ll have to give you a detention, mrs. Lancaster’s right in there.”

Nadalia was surprised, Mrs. Lancaster was the counselor and saw mostly the problem students who came from messed-up homes. She wondered if maybe john wasn’t telling everything when he talked so happily of his siblings. Of course, she could be overreacting and it might just be that he had gotten in trouble a few times too many, still…

It was then that mrs. Jelwer looked up, and saw kendra.

“I thought it had been a while scince she sent you down here. I guess I was right. “ Mrs. Jelwer said, in truth Kendra really did like her,it was just her title of ‘administrative assistant’ that ticked her off. In the past three or so years scince Kendra entered 6th grade she had been here for a number of reasons. Mainly having to do with teachers. It was just that teachers and her seemed to clash. They didn’t have the ‘bond’ some of the other kids had, they didn’t have any contact whatsoever if possible.

Enter Mrs. Jelwer, she had really been a good help. Often when Kendra got in trouble for whatever reason Mrs. Jelwer could get her out of it, and they had had many good times talking in the gray attendance office.

“what did you do?” She asked, smiling.

“I was yelling at mr. Gorilla behind me for spitwadding people and she thought I was cheating. It’s a hard, hard world.” Kendra replied, just a little bitter.

Mrs.Jewler laughed, “well Kendra, I guess you have yourself in a bit of a spot. I don’t think Ill get you in trouble yet today.”

“Thanks, but how do I finish my test?”

I’ll talk to your teacher for you. In the mean time why don’t you do some paper delivery.”

This is mwhy Kendra liked her, she got it. She understood that you couldn’t get sent to the office and get in trouble for something as irrelevant (at least to Kendra) as cheating. She knew that after that you couldn’t just walk back into math and pretend nothing had happened. She just understood what it was like.

Kendra left the office with a stack of pink slips, most of them probably referrals (to the office). She wandered the halls looking in classrooms and thinking. IT really bothered her that john was in there. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t help but speculate about what he might have been doing. Maybe he was there because he filed an incident report. But then why would he be scolded for being late. No he most definitely had these conferences often. He might need counseling. He might be a mental case with a criminal record. Or he might just be confused.

Eventually the lunch bell rang and Kendra left the papers at the office and met up with john who happened to just be coming out. She decided to just ask him.

“hey, I saw you in there, what was that about?”

“it was nothing, just some counseling they made me take.”

“sounds like lots of character building fun, whatdja do?”

“um….” John paused for a long while “I got put in there for anger management. It’s a really long story,”

“I guess you don’t want to tell me. That’s ok.” She said.

“well, I don’t really but its because not many people here know and it was sort of hard at my last school after it happened." john stopped, he seemed nervous, his breathing was harsh and his face was pink. " they still think i need couceling for it. Maybe I do, every so often it comes back to me. "

kendra suspected then, but didnt realize what was happening. The truth was, john wasnt even sure himself at times.