For those of you looking to read something lighthearted and humorous, go elsewhere. I'm just not kiddie-friendly.

To the one who calls this stupid, hope you're better at finishing your 'dammed' homework than you are at giving fanfic reviews.

Furthermore, I won't be updating anymore of my stories...not that it's going to make a difference one way or the other to anyone here. I never knew this site was exclusively for 15 and under and since I'm in the 18-25 range, guess I'd be better off to move on.

Krystal's Song

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Ravers Forest, Edge of Sapphire Lake

Cerinia

16.03.5089

The landscape glistened in hues of blues and greens--the kind of place from my dreams. Serene. Sounds of the ocean. Clear blue skies. I knew no one would find me there, and it was how I preferred it after my stormy first few days of camp. In the afternoons, we were given free time to do whatever we wanted. My choice was easy. Complete solidarity. I had finally escaped from my small burrow, or what the guardians often referred to as a foxhole, a term I'd related to battles, not basic shelter for a young vixen like me. However, it became a very comfortable nest for me to sleep in. Even in there, I would dream.

Before continuing, I should tell a little bit about myself. My name is Krystal. I have blue fur, aqua eyes. I'm about five feet and six inches, tall for most vixens but I like it and use it to my advantage. Boasting about one's talents isn't so appealing to me but I have to say that I have a beautiful voice. My eyes are another one of my assets, my personality is enough to keep a stranger entertained for quite a good while if they request it, and I've traveled throughout this world on my own after being given away then confined at a camp where I learned many skills and discovered my abilities of communication between the living and dead. Prior to being summoned to this camp for lost and unwanted children, I had wanted to be a trained guide. On my planet, guides were the ones who assist visitors in their travels all over the galaxy. If I did that, I would have had a chance to see the whole universe...

"How old are you anyhow?"

I looked up from my peaceful spot to the voice I'd heard to a female lupine standing near. Her fur was mostly pale yellow, tinged with patches of white, including one around her left eye. I was so shocked that someone had found me that I totally disregarded what she'd said and got up quickly from what I had considered a cozy little cradle of peace.

"I don't believe this. I walk for miles and still someone finds me..." I snapped, then slapped the dust off of my dark sarong.

"Yeah, miles in circles," She addressed me with a simper and crossed her arms. "You probably felt it."

"Felt what?"

"There's an invisible barrier here to keep us all within range. You know, so we don't run off. You feel a shock if you go beyond the barrier. It tingles, but believe me, it's enough to change your mind about going any farther."

It sounded too amazing to be true, yet there had been a tingle, or a strange sensation from my fingertips to the palm of my hand when I balanced against a tree to shake sand out of my shoes. After slipping them back on, I tried getting beyond that tree but felt a stronger tingling along with an incessant humming in my ears. The sound was so painful, it caused my eardrums to quiver. That was why I turned into a different direction, several times experiencing the same thing until finally I ended up where the edge of the sands met with the sea.

"...I thought I was free..."

"They call it an invisible fence," The lupine talked over my softly-spoken words. "There's been a few foxes who got through it but they smelled like grilled fungus afterwards, and they say the ringing in your ears never goes away. I bet it would even turn your blue fur black."

"Sounds like you'd get a thrill out of that." I joked but at the same time knew it could have very well been true by the icy glare she gave me.

"At least I'm not the one who tricked you into eating that live rodent."

Any other time I might have hauled back a fist and socked her one but at that point I just didn't have the will to do such a thing. I looked toward the water and for a second, thought I'd had an answer to my troubles. I can swim...oh yes, I can. But how far?

"Don't even think about it." said the lupine as she'd accurately read my thoughts. "You couldn't possibly doggie-paddle that far. And where would you end up if you could?" She walked around me, and I noticed her lush white tail had been sectioned by two silver rings. "I heard a huge monster lives out there in the middle of that ocean. They say some crazy scientist created him then discarded him when things didn't go quite right."

Ludicrous. I thought to myself, then watched her walk up to the shoreline and gracefully halt.

"I saw it once...  It has a metal skin and glowing eyes. ....So scary. I think that scientist must have lots of other experiments, and no telling what they're for. One day he'll be defeated, though. There's an old prophecy among the elders in our sect that a true hero will come...one without fear. But they say he won't be from our side of the galaxy. I know it's true because I see it."

"You...see it?"

"In my visions," She turned back to face me. "Just like I knew what was going to happen before I was separated from my parents. We all have some kind of special abilities, didn't you know that?"

It just didn't seem real enough for me, at least not yet.

"We're all born sorcerers. Our parents knew that. That's why we were given away. Not everyone on Cerinia has special powers but the ones of us who do can't be treated as normal. We're too useful to them."

"Useful? How's that?"

"We're secret weapons. The Cerinian military owns us. They'll train us to fight..."

I didn't like the sound of this and joined her at the shoreline immediately. "Train us to fight? For what?"

"To defend the planet if necessary,"

"Defend the planet? But we're just kids!"

"We're not just anything," She replied firmly and poked her index finger a few times into my collarbone. "You and me....and the rest of us...we're powerful Very powerful. Because of that they'll make sure we're safe here, but we'll have to do our part as well.

The fright then rippled through me.

"Now, you didn't tell me your age," She stood right upon me, my eyes about on the level with hers; I'd say she was about half an inch taller. "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

I bowed my head for no real reason. "Yes..."

"Which is it? Fourteen or fifteen?"

I chose the greater one. "Fifteen."

"No you're not!" She riposted. "You're thirteen! I know it because that's what's Miss Prowler said!" Then her voice went down and she moved away, began circling me again. "And the youngest one of us. But I swear you sure are tall to be a vixen," Then she stopped to the left of me and nudged her shoulder against mine. "Same height as me. Actually I can see a plus in that. We can share clothes, of what little they give us. Be good and you might get a long dress like a princess..." She spun round and round like she had already been crowned by the king. "Embroidered with gold, so soft and smooth. You know princesses only have the best."

Finally she stopped spinning and went off balance but quickly regained it. Still, I wasn't really interested in becoming a princess. All I wanted was a place to call home.

"My name is Tira, by the way. Do you know what that means in Dino?"

I crinkled my nose. "Dino? What's that?"

"It's only the coolest language in Lylat. They're going to teach it to us at camp. It's what the fighters use to communicate with each other. Kind of a code the enemies can't trace. They say over time you get so used to it that you'll forget all about speaking our common language. Anyhow, our names aren't really translated in Dino, but if they were, Tira would be pronounced Kahu. It's well known that Kahu was a great princess during the earliest years of Lylat. I'm sure you've heard the story of how she wasn't afraid to go against her king and join the other side, and she even fell in love with a soldier from one of the enemy's brigades."

I'd heard the story many times throughout the years of my upbringing. Kahu was a Titanian princess who died young giving birth to that enemy soldier's cubs. She'd died a martyr, never giving in her fight against a king who ruled with an iron fist. Brave, she was, but I still couldn't bring myself to obsess over it as Tira had done.

"I suppose I would do the same thing if I was forced to live like her people," Tira continued. "They weren't free at all. They basically lived for the king and that was it. They had no lives of their own. They were brainwashed into serving him..."

"Hmm," I uttered. "And so, this camp we're in...was it our choice to be initiated by them?"

Apparently that was enough to make her stop and think. Good enough for me. This idea of being sanctioned to that camp and trained as secret weapons made me extremely uneasy. We were prisoners, held against our will and forced to serve our king just the same as those early days in Titania. ...Titania...now that's a place I'd never been. If I had my own choice, I would have traveled the universe, discovering new places, meeting others of my own nature--blue foxes.

"You're so different from the rest of us," Tira said almost as though she had read my mind again, and I was starting to think it must have been a side dish of her special powers. "You're blue. There aren't many blue ones...not anywhere. I think the most common are red foxes, right?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. I don't really care for red foxes."

"You're kidding. Why not? They're probably the closest you'll get to your own."

"Because they're sly and shifty," I answered, actually uncertain of why I detested red foxes so much, I just did. "And most of them are too short. I'd much rather spend the rest of my life with a cheetah or a leopard,"

"Cheetahs? Leopards? You mean you'd actually go that far?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Well I wouldn't. Anyway, I don't have to think about that. I already have someone. He's a pilot...and he's so ruggedly handsome, has a brilliant coat of gray fur. If you hadn't already guessed, he's definitely a lupine, like me. He's got his own ship, you know. And he's the leader of his team. One day he'll come back to take me away from this, he promised."

"A real pilot? Coming to take you away?" Someone's coming to take you away, but they'll be wearing white coats. I thought. "You know this for sure?"

"Yes. He's a mercenary. My enemy soldier. But unlike Kahu, I'm not going to die in his arms. Me and him will be together for a long time to come..." Tira's tail swung in a half circle and she looked dreamily toward the sky. "Are you a fast runner?"

"Yes." I answered although not knowing what that had to do with anything, but then she appeared to be taken by something in the sky and dashed in front of me.

"Then....RUN!"

I saw her going then looked into the sky and saw a huge ship over the horizon heading in our direction. It was larger than any craft I'd ever seen, oddly shaped, like a huge bird with its head extended far out from the rest of the body. It had search lights that were scanning the area all around and then I realized something shooting from the rods in front of it. As I started running, I looked behind me a few times and saw lasers firing into the forest behind us, and each time one struck a tree, sparks and branches would fly everywhere. As much as I wanted to live, I knew I couldn't outrun that ship, and soon it was right over us, hitting trees that came within inches of falling on us. But Tira and I kept running until at last we reached the edge of that forest and had nowhere else to run because we were then surrounded by the guardians, and right in front had been Miss Prowler, the husky old angry vixen who had brought me to the camp. She smirked, and I looked back into the sky, seeing the large metal goose-shaped spaceship gracefully turn off and head out.

"You girls picked a dangerous time to go sightseeing," she said to me and Tira. "Right on the day the king requested our good Cornerian friends to clear away that part of the forest for the expansion of our camp. They'll be coming back but I don't know when. You'd two had best stay with the group from here on out if you want to play it safe."

I watched the ship belonging to "our Cornerian friends" whom I've never hear of before, vanish into the Cerinian sky. From then on I understood the importance of being careful and learning as much as I could in the meantime about those who were our friends and those who were our enemies.