Mkay guys. This is my first story, EVA! Be kind, if it sucks, well then it sucks. This is the boring chapter, an introduction to Fay, just really one big flashback, you can skip it and be confused for the rest of the story, or you can just read it and know what's going on during the exciting parts. Thanks! (^.^) Kirbay! Oh, btw, this story starts after "broken"

Fay

"Quit fooling around Fay, the party hasn't started yet." Don kept pestering me to go and help Marcia in the kitchen, for the celebration of The Trees was but a few hours away. I couldn't help but start dancing around and humming to myself, this was our holiday, the day we founded this great organization of orphans. Well, I wouldn't really call us orphans we were one big family here, we all supported each other, gave a shoulder for you to cry on, ate with each other, lived with each other, the only thing keeping us from calling each other more than friends is the fact that none of us share the same mother or father, but there were a few acceptations of course..

FLASHBACK WOMWOMWOMWOM

Since the beginning of the war, Darken Rahl had no intentions of showing mercy to children, he'd slaughter you along with your parents, especially if they were resistance fighters. Me and Don grew up in a rich village called Agritha. It was a resistance village, filled with many important trades, like fruits, spices, lumber, wheat, and a whole butt load of other important produce. When the war began, Rahl ordered every village to deliver all of its goods to the people's palace so he could supply food for his soldiers. The village would rather burn down with their produce than give it to such a cruel, disgusting man such as Rahl, and that's exactly what the punishment was. I was only 8 at the time, still young and careless, still in that world where good always conquers over evil. And then they came. Ken, my oldest brother, was 16 at the time, he was the first to see the soldiers marching towards us. I was sitting with my best friend in the whole world, Ellie. We were in father's music room, strumming the strings, smacking the rums as we ran past them, creating a whole chorus of mindless beats. That was the last time I saw Ellie. I heard the door slam, and in a second Ken was in the doorway. "Where's mother and Father?!" He gasped out. "Mother went out with Jen to find her a new dress and fathers at the shop, why what's going on Ken?" Father was in love with music, he might even love music more than mother, no wait, that's impossible, mother and father shared a love so strong not even the magic of Rahl's most heartless and powerful wizards could sever it's magic. Agritha was nicknamed the "City of Music". You could hear the serenades and melody's before you even reached the gate, my dad was quite wealthy, and owed his own shop, filled with flutes, guitars, drums, violins, and the list goes on and on forever. But this time, the thought of father tuning guitars with ease at his shop only made Ken more frantic. "What's going on her eh? Tayla break your heart already?" Don snickered as he made his way down the stairs. Tayla was Ken's new girlfriend, she was awfully sweet and pretty, but for some reason Don hated her guts. " D'harrans our coming, they're hardly a mile away!" The color from Don's face disappeared, and his smirk had dropped right to the floor. "What they comin here for?" Don managed to squeeze the words out. D'harrans came round about a year ago, they tried to take any boy 11 or above to join the D'harran army. Mother and Father were terrified, 60% of the men who go into the army were killed. Ken and Don were sent to live with Uncle John for several weeks while Rahl's men searched the village, which took 2 weeks, they came back just after they had dragged away all the boys that didn't hide well enough, any earlier and they might've been taken from us. "I don't know, but it's not for anything good I'll tell you that." Ken tried to calm his shaking. Almost a full grown man, and even he trembles at the thought of being taken by D'harrans. That's when Tayla ran through the door. "Ken!" "Tayla!" They ran into each others arms. Even with the tension of the situation I gave a gag face, and me and Ellie giggled. "Ken, my father's told me that the D'harrans are coming to burn down the village! They're coming to punish us for not supporting the army! I ran over here as soon as I could! We need to leave!" I glanced at Ellie, and she turned to me, and then we both looked at Don, then Tayla and Ken, and for a moment, we read each other's mind. We gotta get the hell out of here. Ken averted his eyes to me, his darling little sister Fay. His Blue eyes tried to get down every detail of me, so he'll always remember me, because he knew he couldn't leave without making sure Tayla and her family were safe, but he couldn't make us wait around and waste time, which meant that it will be difficult for Ken to find us again if we made it out in time. "Don, your 11 years old now, you're in charge." This is probably the only time Don wished he wasn't in charge. "You need to get out of here. Take Fay and Ellie, find a way out, escape. I need find mother and father, protect each other, trust each other." I rushed to Ken and he scooped me up into his arms. "Don't leave." I pleaded. "I must, be brave, you were always the boldest Fay." And with that, he kissed my cheek and rushed out the door with Tayla. Another magic moment happened when the 3 of us looked at each other. Well, what now? "Come on," Don broke the trance "we can't waste time, we gotta go! Now!" Don grabbed me, I grabbed Ellie, we wisped out the door into the chaos. Houses were already of fire, people were screaming. We all gripped onto each others wrists so not to loose each other. Don led the way, we were almost hit by a cart 4 times, everyone was pushing and shoving, trying to get away from the undying flames. Even I could feel the heat coming off the row of houses 3 blocks away. That's when I lost Ellie. She had been crying the whole time. I kept trying to calm her, for now was not the time to cry. "It's going to be okay." "Don't worry, we're gonna meet up with our families later." "Just stay close, I'm here, don't let go." I felt her grip loosen, so I tightened mine, but it was like someone had grabbed her other arm and jerked her back, taking her out of my grasp. I turned around to see where she had gone, but there were so many people, running and crying, I couldn't single out Ellie's crying. I tried to slow down, but Don was much stronger than me, and clamped down on my arm and rushed me along. The next thing I knew, we were out of the mob, the mothers clinging to their children, the wild citizens frantically rushing around to find their families, had all vanished. I turned my head to see that we had run far from the village, we had run up a high hill, Don was trying to run to the safety of the forest. The village looked like a big ant hill, all the ants scrambling about because their hill was on fire. Don finally stopped, mostly because he had drained his energy. He fell to the ground, using his arms to sit himself up, we sat near the edge of the forest for a long time, listening to each others breathing, listening to the cries of the townspeople, the rhythms of the forest, but mostly, we were listening for Ken, and Father, and Mother and my dear older sister Jen. We watched the flames die down, the sun was set, the D'harrans took the survivors as prisoners, we waited there after they had left, still a small flicker of hope w=sat at the bottom of my soul, hope that Ken would appear out of the darkness with mother rand father and they'd take us to safety. But, no me ad Don sat staring at the empty village for half the night, then we both turned our heads and looked at each other for the first time since we reached the hill. Don's hair stuck to his face due to the sweat, his shirt and trousers were covered in dirt, his bright blue eyes glowed in the moons light, but they were different than before. Before his eyes were frantic, alert, panicky, and scared. Now all those feelings were replaced by something else, an emotion we were both feeling, sadness. The sadness felt like a dagger made of shark teeth digging deep into my stomach, and that dagger put out the small flame of hope I had. And then me and Don broke down sobbing in each others arms.

FLASHBACK SORT OF OVER

That night was long gone, the sadness was long gone, my family was long gone, that entire other life was gone. I had a new life, a life that is just as good as, if not better, than my old one.

FLASHBACK IS BACK WOMWOMWOMWOM

After me and my brother were done crying that night, we walked deep into the forest, so deep we were lost, but it's not like that really mattered, we weren't going anywhere, and we didn't have to be anywhere. "We should sleep" Don spoke for the first time since we left the village. "Sounds good I suppose." We lay down in a clearing, we got close together for protection and warmth. The night was so peace full considering the events that had only happened a few hours ago, the stars shone their brightest, the crickets began their musical, the wind blew softly, making the trees and grass dance together. It was then that I realized how exhausted I was. My legs ached, I had bruises and scratches everywhere, and my eyes burned from all the tears I created. The entire walk me and Don just quietly cried for hours, devastated by the sudden lives that were taken from us. I whispered a silent prayer for Ken and Tayla and mother and father, and then I passed out into a deep, deep sleep.

*****

My eyes fluttered open, the sun shot a beam directly at my face, I sat up, my vision was blurry, as I rubbed my eyes I recalled the events of last night, the fire, the forest, the walk, the stars, it all came back to me. "Well good morning sunshine." An unfamiliar voice sang next to me. I took my hands from my eyes and looked over to my right to see a boy maybe 14 years old sitting on the floor next to me. I bolted up onto my feet and stared at him in shock and confusion. "Oi, watch your step young lady, one more foot back and you might've been toast." What is he talking about? I glanced over my shoulder to see what he was talking about. I gasped and whipped my body around to look down from where I was. I was on some sort of platform, it was big, it was nailed to 2 different trees, maybe more than 100 feet from the ground. I felt my legs go limp. "Oi, watch it, watch it." The boy held me up, I was deathly afraid of heights back then. "Hehe, uh, welcome to The Trees." I wasn't really listening to him, I was busy imagining me falling to my demise, and then I remembered Don. "Where's Don?" I turned around to face him. "Uh, who?" The boy's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "Where's my brother? Where's Don?" His eyebrows unscrunched. "Oh, that lad we saw you with?" I nodded my head vigorously, I can't loose Don, not now. "He woke up an hour or so before you did, probably exploring The Trees." He smiled the biggest and dumbest smile I may ever see. "Um, do you mind me asking a question?" I had about a billion but I think the one I had in mind might answer all of them. "Go right ahead." Another dumb smile. "What the hell is going on?!?" I didn't mean to raise my voice at all but I was just so scared and confused I couldn't help it. He laughed "Well for starters, I'm Will, and you're with us now, safe and sound." Now I gave the confused eyebrow. "Uh, who exactly is us?" He cleared his throat like he was about to lecture me. "About 2 years ago when the war started, Darken Rahl started burning down villages, taking away fathers and mothers," a pain shot through my stomach. "You can imagine how many children were left hurt and defenseless," tell me about it. "One day, a whole big group of kids had to scatter away from multiple towns due to the sudden outbreaks in fightin', so, naturally they went to find cover, in the woods." I nodded, that's exactly what we did. "A couple of boys ran into some other boys, and they ran into some other boys, and using teamwork they managed to build this." He looked up, and I followed his gaze. It was marvelous. There were endless amounts of platforms, all different sizes, nailed to trees. Younger children were running and jumping from platform to platform, the older children were working on cooking, connecting ropes from sturdy branches to the ground, and even building more platforms. "We are one big family here in The Trees. Although technically we're orphans, it doesn't feel like it once you get to know each other." Next Will explained the system. "But you see, this place is just for young people who can't fend for themselves, by the time the kids here are 18, they are released from The Trees and sent out to build a new life, maybe even try to find their family now that they're stronger, it's like the circle of life except no one dies, well, unless you slip off the platform." I gulped, he smiled. "I'm just screwing with ya, c'mon I'm hungry." I was so confused, I wanted Don, this place is crazy. But I did want food. Will walked to the other side of the platform to a ladder built into a tree, he climbed up it like a squirrel, but back then, I was weak and terrified, I took forever getting up the ladder to the higher platform. "Wow, we gotta work on that." Was all Will said. We crossed a bridge to another enormous platform that had a big tarp over it, probably on case of rain. Their was a table filled with baskets of fruits and berries and nuts. "Welcome to our dining hall, much more tables and better food during lunch and dinner, breakfast isn't a huge priority here." I started remembering how mother always said breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Her voice seems so far away now. "Ah, I think the man you're looking for is right over there." Will directed his eyes to the other side of the platform, towards my brother. "Don!" I rushed over to him, I slowed down when I came nearer because I didn't want to knock him off the platform. "Fay." He gave a sigh of relief, I hugged him for what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or 2.

FLASHBACK OVA! WOMWOMWOM

I know that was super borin but it was important trust meh.