Ariana ~ Just a couple more days until school ends for summer break. I can't wait. I hug my notebook closer to my chest. Why does my life have to be so miserable? I think angrily, tilting my head to look back up at the sky.

Why can't I have some sort of adventure like characters do in books? I walk up my lawn, then suddenly stop. I'm standing inside a circle of mushrooms, with a patch of clover inside it. "A faery ring," I whisper softly, crouching down to get a better look at it.

I pick one of the clovers, gazing at it intently. It has four leaves. I've never found one myself before. I put a foot inside the large ring, hoping to find more. Sure enough, I've already found one.

I put my other foot in, trying to get a closer look at the patch. Something feels like it's pulling at my feet. Alarmed, I try to step out, but I can't. My feet are disappearing. I scream, hoping to get someone's attention. But no one comes ...

It's up to my waist. Now my neck. I'm paralyzed with fear. Then my vision goes black.

I wake up to see a bossy looking girl of about seventeen standing over me, her gaze furious. "You were supposed to be awake hours ago," she snaps. "Why?" I ask. I don't like her bossy tone. 

"It's none of you buisness, slave." 

"Why did you just call me that? It's a free country," I demand, angry.

She smirks at me, her face smug. "That's what most of them say. The ones who come from, what's it called? Oh right. Amirica," she says, pronouncing it wrong.

"You're in the fayworld now. And you're my slave."

I'm just going to go ahead and start. Cho, sorry if you said something otherwise, I can't see your post.

This will be before the warnings of the faerie, just as a starter, because I've been planning this post and I'm really excited. xD

___

Kyena~

Some say they were raised to expect pain.

They're wrong.

We were not raised to expect pain. We were raised with pain, just as the day is only a day with light and a field is only a field with grass. Pain just simply is, like time is or life is. We do not expect it, no, we know it, it is just a fact.

So is slaving. Some talk of times in a far-off world where they were happy and had all they wanted and more and people loved them.

They're lying.

There is only one reality and that is this one, working for Isole, mining for her. We learned to call her both "mother" and "mistress", call her house both home and out-of-bounds. Learned to accept punishment but laugh through the pain, because we must all be happy, the mistress will not accept a sullen face.

They learned to whisper in the night. I learned to brood. To brood and plan and scheme and try to escape, quietly, undetectably. Some are foolish and break out in the light of day. They are a threat, Isole says, they must be killed. She is wrong. They are not a threat, they are stupid, stupid enough to run in their chains and not really escape, just run, never stop running.

I know better. You do not run from them, you sneak from them. You befriend the night and embrace it, wear it as a cloak. You cast off your chains and run free, escaping not as a slave but as a person, a person who stumbled into the mines but is now leaving.

You never run.

Remy~ 

The last thing I remember was that I was walking down the street after school and I fell. Then everything went black. I open my eyes. I am not where I was when I fell. I am in some sort of weird meadow. I look around. Standing a few feet away is a girl wearing some sort of flower smock thingy that you would wear in preschool. "That was eeeaasy." The girl says to another girl who happens to be standing next to her. The other girl frowns. "Maybe yours is better tempered than mine," she says, "Does this one bite?" "No," the first girl says. Are they talking about me? I don't bite. "Uh, I have a question, where am I?" I ask. The second girl answers. "You are in the Fayworld. Swiftflower meadow in particular. I am Daisy and this is Tulip." She signals to the first girl. "Another question, why am I here?" I ask. This time the first girl answers, "You're here because I need to trade you to get whatever I need in the next month. You are the first human I have ever captured!" "Wait, wait wait. You captured me?" I ask. Both girls, (are they actually girls?) nod. Boy, I am kind of scared right now. 

Ariana ~

I'm no one's slave! What is she thinking? "I don't 'belong' to anyone," I say, sighing. How did this even happen?

"Yes, you do, and I'm going to sell you to some wealthy Frostflake merchant for more chrystallium," the girl snaps. I open my mouth, then stop, inspecting her. She has beautiful golden-red hair that any of the girls at my school would die for, perfectly complimenting her silky golden-orange dress that she's wearing.

And she has wings! "Why do you have wings?" I ask. "Why do I always end up with the ones who constantly ask questions?" she snaps back.  

"I don't know what you mean," I say, attempting to stand up.

Gtg 

Myria~

I walk slowly home from school with my backpack slung over one shoulder and my battered black sketchbook hugged to my chest. I hum without a real tune and whenever I see a flower I rush over and stroke it and sometimes kiss its petals. Something bright zooms over my head with a low buzz like a hummingbird's wings. I instinctively duck, then look up to see what it was. Just a dragonfly. No... that's not a dragonfly. I've never seen a scarlet and orange dragonfly before. It zips above my head a few more times, then perches on a young maple tree branch and I get a good look at it. I gasp with suprise. It's a tiny person with gold-red hair dressed all in maple leaves, with beautiful wings coming from her back. A faery! 

"Ohhhhh....." I say, amazed. She cocks her little head at me and says, "Don't you recognize me?"

"I've never seen a faery before." Her eyes widen and she protests,

"Yes, you have! You're my sister! You were switched with a human baby when we were little! You have to remember me," before I can even blink she darts down and grabs my finger, saying, "don't worry, I'm here to take you back home! C'mon!" She starts to pull me towards an azalea bush.

"Where are we going? Where is home?" I ask, easily resisting her tugs.

"To the faeworld, of course! Now, come ON!" she answers impatiantly, then pinches me hard when I don't start moving.

"Hey! Stop that!" I start walking towards the azalea bush to keep her from pinching me again and follow her under. My bag slips off my shoulder, but I don't let go of my sketchbook. She moves farther in and I go after her, until the ground suddenly falls out and I am falling... into the faerelm.

Brandy~

It can be said that there is nothing to prepare you for change. I live by this quote. Nothing, not a single thing in the world could have prepared me for the change I felt when I woke up one morning.

No, it wasn't acne.

No, I hadn't suddenly grown up.

But instead I had shrunk.

Even if I had known, nothing could have prepared me to the surprise of waking up upon my pillow and finding it as big as a small hill! 

After that shock I almost fainted when another person approached. Save for the fact that he was small, really cold-looking, and had an odd essence about him.

Was it weird that my first reaction was to get dressed and change? I was in my loose, fuzzy pajamas. They weren't meant for stargazing in. 

"I'm sorry, who are you?" The first words out of my mouth were something I regretted instantly after. 

The other midget shot me an even colder look then before. He glared ice daggers. "You will not address me as such. I am Simone, and you will not call me otherwise."

The next words I regretted just as much, if not more so. "And why should I do that?"

In an instant, he had lept several feet over to me. They were my sized feet at least. "I am Simone, and you should address me as such."

There was no questioning in his voice. It was an order. And I was supposed to obey it.

I looked up at him. Before I had felt small, but now with him glaring down at me with pearl white eyes I felt puny. No, worthless.

It was an awful feeling, and followed by many more. "'I've decided to kidnap you. Come on now."

"Wait, no, you can't jus-" He cut me off with that icy glare, though a hint of malevolence was stirred in. 

"You doubt me?"

"No...Simone..." I don't know why I called him that. He was kidnapping me, and I was listning to him! Simply unnaceptable. Except the smirk that followed was so meaningful, so confident, that I shivered right down to the bone. 

"C-can I grab some...some...thing first?" 

"No."

That was that. All I had was my pajamas and whatever else I carried in my sleep. 

He led me to the edge of my bed and gestured over at the floor. I had thoughtlessly hopped out of my bed countless times. Now was different. It seemed ages away, and I felt I would surely die at the bottom. After all, it wasn't the fall that killed you, it was the landing.

He sensed my hesitation and once again spoke. "Do you doubt me?" His voice was so full of himself. It was obvious. But it still scared the heck out of me. I had never been so scared in my life. I was being ordered around by a tiny person who was taller then me, and listening as well. 

"Yeah, definitely." Finally. A snappy retort. "Why am I listening to you again?"

In an instant I regretted it. My doubt fled. It was if he had magic. The way he looked at me was skeptical and powerful. Fear filed in and moments later, without another word, I jumped.

My scream made up for the silence, but the floor never came. 

I had done it.

I had listened to this complete stranger who thought, just because I was tiny, it was okay to make me jump off my bed and into some sort of black hole. I had no idea what it was about him that made me listen, whether it be the confident composure or comanding voice. Maybe something more....magical?

But then again it could have all been a dream. At least that was what I prayed for. Dreams didn't have pain, however. For pain was what replaced everything as I finally hit the ground.

Cold stung my lungs as I blacked out.

Here's Ember! Sorry, I was sorely tempted.