AN: This isn't a very good Chapter, sorry guys :(

After we'd eaten, I went as far away from the annoying clutter and noise of gossiping girls: to an old, thriving tree. Its heavy burden of hundreds of branches spread out and hooked downwards to portray the immense weight of them. I had to merely look at it to respect the tree's age.

I rested on my back, my arms tucked under my head, as I stared up at the waving branches and rustling leaves. The smell was so fresh and relieving, I felt my body relax and slip into meditation mode unconsciously. It was so peaceful and beautiful in this world. Back home, sure it had been gorgeous in Melbourne. Lots of trees, but wherever you went there were the sounds of chatter or engines roaring or something noisy. There was not a block of land unused or quiet—except the mountains.

But here there was a lot of space and piece and quiet, a whole lot more than my world anyway.

'Peaceful, isn't it?'

I looked up to see Roald's frame leaning against the tree beside me. I got up and leaned on my elbow and smiled. 'Damn sure. I'd love to live here, without a care of bills to pay or acting nice to people who deserve to be spat on and ignoring people who you aren't supposed to talk to just because they're not "cool enough".'

Roald sighed, walking over and sitting on his own back, looking up at the branches as I'd looked up a few seconds ago. 'But this world isn't perfect, Reem. There is bullying and abuse just like your world, sometimes far worse than in your world. And there are taxes to pay here too. Look at the streets, look at all the beggars and homeless; that's the cause of loss of money or just no money to begin with. Isn't that the same as what you have in your world?'

I nodded, and then shook my head. 'Your world isn't polluted with the stench of machines and smoke; your air is sweet and fresh. Your soil isn't ruined from pesticides, causing the growth of all vegetables and fruits to bear less healthy fruit than before humans decided to fool with the soil. Your living days aren't ruled by the horror of going to school and being treated differently just because you're different, whether it be your difference is size, shape, religion, race or whatever. So long as you're different, you're going to be picked on. Unless you have money or something people love.'

'But,' Roald said determinedly, 'you have to remember that no world is perfect. There are always injustice and faults in every world, no matter how hard you fight to ignore them.'

'I wish I could think like you,' I said quietly, with a glum twitch of the lips, which could be looked at as a smile. 'But I can't. The world is a horror to me, a horror I have to put up with and live in. Now I have the opportunity to make a fresh start, in a new world. Don't stop me. No matter what you say; my world is a kazillion times worse than yours.'

He frowned at me; I was tempted to look into his eyes and see what he was really thinking, but I held back. He was my friend after all.

'You have a big grudge against the world, don't you?' he finally said, in a sad tone.

I thought of what he said, slowly. A grudge? I'd never thought of it that way.

'No, no. The world has a grudge against me.' I told him firmly.

He laughed then. 'The world has a grudge against you? No offence, Reem, but who are you for the world to have a grudge against? The world has far more important things to do then deliberately set traps and torments for you everyday.'

I blushed and for once, shut up and enjoyed the fresh breeze sweeping across, rustling the leaves with a slow, gentle push.

But soon the picnic was over and Roald had to go do whatever squires did. So that's when I took the chance to go and talk to the squire. He was quite mysterious and I felt I had every right to see what he was hiding in his eyes; something not dangerous I was hoping.

So as we rode back, I trudged up ahead and smiled as saintly and sickeningly sweetly as possible when I caught up with him. He returned the smile—only it wasn't saintly and sickeningly sweet, it was a forced smile. Obviously so.

'Did you enjoy the picnic?' I continued smiling, my eyes probing his. But it seemed to hurt to look for more than a few seconds and every time I probed further, it sent shocks through my mind.

A mystery indeed.

'Yes, I enjoyed it,' he replied. And I felt eerie, because I felt some odd feeling tinkle my mind and I knew it was him probing my mind. So I imagined a barrier like I'd read in Tammy's books and held it up in my mind.

No jerky, stubborn—if handsome—squire was stealing my thoughts. Even though I was trying to do the same, unsuccessfully.

'That's great—coz you know we set up the whole picnic thing for the sake of enjoying it. So yeah, that's wonderful—that you enjoyed it.'

To anyone—and I supposed everyone around us thought so—it seemed that we were having a polite, friendly conversation. But of course we weren't. I'd been making up all that bull on the spot, concentrating more on stopping the maniac from distorting my mind; he was probing so hard, the migraine I'd so gratefully lost thanks to the picnic was returning.

And that got me mad.

So I increased my probing so that he'd stop attacking me and start defending himself. It worked. He winced and turned red as he fought me. This, I thought, is actually fun. I felt like a mage fighting off some other evil, maniac of a dark mage, except I was the dark mage. I was pure evil.

'Well, I thank you for the picnic; it was very successful. I am sure everyone is grateful you set one up for us busy folks.' He smiled delightfully and suddenly, let go of his barrier and just stopped his probing.

It threw me back and my mind swirled for a bit.

When I could see properly again, I smiled dazzlingly—I tried at the least—and then fell back behind and joined Serena and Hayley.

'Had enough of the Prince and now wanting the handsome Yamani squire?' Hayley teased.

Yamani?

Oh he could so easily kick my butt, I thought frantically. I'd had hopes of meeting the squire in a dark alley and telling him that evil will always prevail—the good evil that is—and that no matter what he does, I will keep the Kingdom and the Royals of Tortall safe. Now pay scum. And there starts a fight, which ends with the creep bleeding, half-dead, in a corner and me, victorious.

'He's cute enough…but did you see his eyes?' I asked curiously, wondering if anyone beside me detected something strange at the encounter.

But all Hayley did was nod like an idiot and giggle. 'They…were…gorgeous!' she squealed, her eyes clenched as if containing herself.

I rolled my eyes and pitied her soul. How innocent that soul must be, I thought with a soft smile. Lucky girl. 'Yeah, cute, sure, so's every other squire here. But I was thinking on the lines of creepy.'

It seemed everyone had a habit of staring at me like I'd got knocked down and had gotten some form of amnesia. That are-you-mad and I-think-there's-a- mental-ward-around-the-corner sort of stare. That's what stare Hayley gave me.

'Creepy,' she said slowly, her face straight, as if she was talking to a kid from kinder, explaining to the kid that chewing on clay won't really do any permanent damage, but it'll be a hell of a load to get out in the toilet. And of course that it's not good for the kid's stomach or diet.

'Yes, creepy,' I repeated. 'Look, forget it. What do you wanna do when we get back?'

'I was thinking—'

Hayley was cut off with a horse's frightened, hurt neigh, just as a pitched- scream of a girl rebounded and pierced my ears. I looked back to see both horse and girl on the floor and obviously the girl had fainted.

I dismounted, so did everyone, and went to the girl and horse.

It was Renee, one of Sandry's friends, lying on the floor near the horse, her face pale.

'Get back everyone!' I shouted, slowly pushing people back to give the air some room to breathe. I hoped she was breathing. The wind can knock out the breath of you if it the fall was hard enough.

So everyone moved back while I asked for some salts. 'Salts, anyone? I need salts!'

Thankfully, someone had some, so I grabbed it and swung it underneath the girl's nose. After a while, she smelled the awful, nauseating stench and got up, coughing and groaning.

I checked for broken bones—I had gotten into enough fights to know that sort of stuff—and bandaged her broken arm. Everyone around us wondered what had happened and I eyed Renee carefully, for two reasons. One: to see if looked dizzy so I could get to lay her down, and two: to see just what she was thinking. Not that I could actually read minds as in 'oh, she's thinking of juice', but rather words, main words of what the person was thinking.

And for example if you wanted coke and you were thinking 'oh I'd really love some nice, cold, icy coke!' all I'd hear is 'nice, icy coke' or sometimes just 'coke' and from the emotions I could tell that you would love one.

The emotions in Renee's head were "freak" "water" "dress" "dirty".

The freak was me, she was thirsty, her dress was wrinkled and she felt dirty.

Translation complete.

I wondered where gratitude fit in. I'd helped her for God's sake.

'There's water in the wineskin on your horse, your dress is fine and you look as clean as could be,' I said blankly, getting up and dusting the dirt off my clothes.

She then gave me the "stare" everyone seems to love giving me. I could just hear her: 'Like, how the hell did you like, know I was like thinking that? Like oh my God!'

I forced a smile and walked away, mounted my horse and went to set off back to the Palace. But the Yamani "squire" deferred that; he'd looked at me with a nasty grin, his eyes sparkling as usual. But this time they were almost dripping with secrecy. I knitted my eyebrows with frustration and impatience and forced my eyes to unglue themselves from his face. And then I went back to setting off towards the Palace.