Diclaimer: Any character or theme or name and anything else from the movie I DO NOT OWN. The plot for this story I do own, as well as Veriea and the species Forenien. These two are my creatations and mine alone so NO TOUCHIE! If anyone rips off my character or species I will send the real Veriea after them; she may not be a blood hound but she will still find you.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Thanks for the feed back Gaeliceyes and Istani and thankyou to InTooDepp, my faithful reviewer from the begining. Thanks to the lurkers too but if you review, I'll give you cyber cookies!

I'm very sorry that I took so long to update. Half way through this chapter my AI muse left me high and dry and did a disapearing trick so I had to drag this chapter out kicking and screaming.To add to the confusion, my H muse left too and my General muse gave birth to pentuplets, all 'Veriea' stories. I have so manyideas for other stoies I think my head my finalyexplode. It would bea shame to let the ideas go to waste so I'm busy getting the gist of them down for later so I don't forget.There is also stupid school again. This story may be on hiatus for a little while so I can get my other stuff out of the way and hunt down my AI muse. Hopefully though, there will be some updates- I will try my best but I can't promise anything. Please don't forget about me,this story willcontinue. Really, I know where I want it to go...it's just the getting there that's the problem. Thanks for sticking with me for this long anyway.

Huggles and Glomps all 'round!

Pronouncation:

Veriea: Verr-ree-a(i)

Forenien: For-en-ee-en

Enjoy the story ; P

Chapter 7- Faint

The water was freezing cold.

She came up spluttering and coughing, having been unprepared for the sudden chill that enveloped her and shivered violently. When she finally got her breath back, (as well as a great deal of salt water down her throat accidentally) Veriea started swimming for the shore, wanting to escape the water before the cold seeping into her. It wasn't long before she was dragging herself out of the salty waves and up the beach, dripping wet and covered in sand.

The damn sand was everywhere.

It was in her hair, it was in her ears, in her clothes, in her mouth; she even had sand in places she really didn't want to think about there being sand in. It was itchy and gritty and all in all, uncomfortable and unpleasant. As if being cold and soaked through to the bone wasn't enough.

But she had succeeded.

She had vanished the ship.

She had done it.

A wave of nausea and dizziness overtook Veriea, cutting her elation short and she stumbled further up the beach before collapsing into the sand. Why did she feel so tired and weak? Her stomach growled, accompanied by a sharp pain, reminding her how long it had been since she had eaten. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' she berated herself. She should have know better by now, after 6 years, that to use so much energy when she hadn't eaten, especially for vanishing; she still had to bring them back.

She forced herself to get up.

When the other ship came they would see her if she stayed where she was. The island's center was speckled with trees and small shrubs, pretty much as generic as an island could get except for the cliff caped peninsula. It was almost flat on this side of the island, as if it were a gigantic wedge of the Earth's crust hutting out of the ocean, the thickest end being the cliffs and then sweeping down to this end and sprinkled with plant life- then again, that's exactly what it was.

Veriea decided that the safest place to hide would be at the higher end, the rocky cliffs, and started to make her way towards them but hadn't gone very far when she saw the other ship coming around the peninsula. She crouched low behind a shrub, making sure to keep an eye on the ship but ensuring that she also could not be seen, settling down to wait it out. Mostly she was forcing herself to remain awake and alert from moment to moment. Veriea was afraid that if she let herself fall asleep, it might be for a very long time- or forever. She wasn't sure how long it took for starvation to kill a person.

She didn't think she was quite that food deprived yet –after all, she'd been fairly active for the last couple of hours without problems except for the usual hunger pains- but she still didn't think it was wise to let herself drift off, particularly since much if it was magical fatigue. After all the magic she had performed in this state, she was surprised that she hadn't gone comatose.

She remembered when she had first started figuring out what she could do and what strange new abilities she had; she had done the typical childish thing and run amok. She'd had an inconceivable amount of 'blonde' moments too, despite being a red head. One of the stupidest this had been to run about in forenien form, stalking and scaring all the kids who had teased her over the years.

From that time in her life, two of the hardest lessons she had learned were that she had to watch how much magic she used and that being able to turn into an 8 foot fox was something you should really keep a secret. The third hardest was that being alone, though it really sucked at that age, was definitely for the better.

Veriea dragged herself out of her thoughts, not wanting to go where they were leading her and shivered, from both the memories of her past and from realizing it was actually quite cold. She looked for any sign of The Dauntess and finding none, crept from her hiding place to check the horizons more thoroughly, fighting off her drowsiness.

Now that she was sure that they were in the clear, she returned to the beach, the fact that the sun was now in the other side of the sky, that hours had passed vaguely registering. She wadded out into the shallows and then began half swimming, half walking out further. When she could no longer touch the sandy bottom, she felt a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach but pushed on, switching smoothly to breast stroke so that she could keep her head above the water. Veriea had never like swimming in deep water and much preferred being able to feel something solid beneath her but she continued and she decided she was far enough out when she could look down through the crystal waters and not see even a glimpse of the bottom. She treaded water for a moment until she had her breath back.

Truth be told, she wanted to throw up.

But she'd have to have something in her stomach for that and she needed to concentrate right now so she squashed down the feeling, doing some deep breathing, trying to remain focused on what she had to do. She held her hand out in front of her and closed her eyes. A tremendous splash and a wave that very nearly drowned her let Veriea know that she had succeeded a second time. She could hear the crew cheering from the deck.

Yet she couldn't get her eyes to open.

"A bit cold? It was bloody a lot more than 'a bit cold''!" She heard Jack's voice yelling. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He sounded pissed- but why did his voice seen so far away? The darkness was calling her, she felt her consciousness slipping away…but the last thing she heard was faint cry and a muffled, booming splash from somewhere above her.

End Ch 7

Okay, so this chapter was kinds fluffy and nothing much happened but it the things you learnded will be important latter! Please review and tell me what you think! And remember all you lurkers out there; reveiw and you get a cyber cookie!