A/N#1: First Chapter!

The only sound in the forest was that of her running bare feet pounding on the soft, warm earth beneath her. The short breaths of exertion came out quickly as she pushed forward, running faster than ever.

Emmalee had just received the news that she had been dreading for over a week, ever since her Father had come down with that sickness, the one that didn't seem to be getting better.

"Emmy slow down!" A voice yelled from behind as a young man about eighteen followed behind the running girl, his black curly hair was blowing in the breeze as he struggled to keep up with his very quick friend.

"Shut up Ben! My Father is on his deathbed!" That was the only reply he recived as Emmalee dogded every tree in her way, heart pounding in rythmn with her feet.

The years had been well on the infant who had been stolen from her real home sixteen years ago. The hair on her head was a deep chocolate brown with multiple highlights of red and blonde showing up whenever she was in the sun, he frame was slender and she barely stood at five foot three, but the feature that everyone acknowledged were her emerald color green eyes.

The should be princess didn't get the life of luxury she would have gotten if she hadn't been a toy of a revenge plot, but for the most part her life had been happy, and content.

She lived with the man who's doorstep she had been dropped on, an elderly man named Thomas Highsman, who she now knew as Father. Though the girl knew he wasn't her Father, that was the closest she was to ever get to one.

Finally, when Emmalee was about to drop from exhaustion, the sight of her familiar cottage came to view and with that a second wind caught her and once again she was running at top speed towards the cottage, through the meadow that lay in front of it.

When she reached the house, a cold feeling all of a sudden set over her, and she felt all emotions coming on at once. Grasping the handle of the front door, Emmalee took a deep breath making sure a smile was on her face, the last thing her Father needed was a frown when he was about to leave the world.

"Is it hopeless?" The young girl whispered to her companion as he came up the steps behind her, panting, hands planted on his knees.

"I'm so sorry Emmy, I don't think there is anything we can do," Emmalee let out a long sigh, courage coming to her to face the horror of what lie inside.

"Father? I'm home," Whispering, both of them tip toed inside the house, closing the squeky front door behind them.

The cottage looked as it always did, the living room was small but everything was in perfect order, including the stupid lamp shade that always persistantly leaned either left or right, the woodsy smell that usually occupied the house was still there but a smell on top of that blocked it almost completely out of the senses, it was being replaced by sickness and death.

"My child," A shaky voice answered quietly from the back room of the house. Emmalee walked unsteadily and nervously towards her Father's room, already not wanting to see the sight that would surely greet her.

There he was, lying on the bed, the sheets pulled all the way up to his chin. The wrinkles on his forehead seemed even more pronounced and his eyes were merely little slits,
the blue almost completely hidden behind them. The sunlight peering unevenly through the window, danced in the silver and grey hair atop his head. That man was shivering despite the fact that it was warm outside, quite unusual for November, and the covers were pulled all the way up.

"Father!" Then she broke, all the tears that had been kept behind those emerald eyes of hers for a week, realeased. Even though she almost felt guilty about crying in front of him, when he was dying, she couldn't help but feel like a weight was being lifted off her chest.

"Emma-" The old man wheezed out, feeling his heart begin to give off weird thuds, he knew his death was near and he couldn't leave this world without telling the beautiful girl he raised the stay safe.

"Yes?" Emmalee almost cringed at the sound of how childish her voice sounded, so small and vulnerble, two things she never wanted to be.
"Take care of yourself, please don't do anything stupid, and always remember that I love you very much, the day my life changed for the better was the day you arrived on my door," And with that said, the man let out one last breath and was gone.

Emmalee sat for a minute, not believing what had just happened, and how fast is had. She always hated reading books where authors killed off there characters too quickly and it seemed to out of the blue, but now she saw the reality of it. Everyone had a time to die, and his had come, she just didn't expect it to come so fast.

How long she sat there, staring at the man that had raised her, holding his hand as it turned cold, but the sun was setting when Benjamin came to retrieve her.

"Emmy, what are you going to do?" The funny thing was that was the exact same question had been forming in her mind all afternoon, what was she going to do?

Standing up, Emmalee looked over herself in the mirror on the wall. She was wearing a pair of dark brown tight fitting pants that should be tucked into boots, which she would grab,
and a long sleeved white shirt that usually had a small black vest over it. She was dressed for the woods, she was dressed for travel.

"Let me grab a bag," Benjamin looked at the girl in front of him curiously, a hint of worry in his eyes as he watched for any sign of if she was going to go into shock. But all the boy could see was that michevious glint that seemed to always radiate from those beautiful green eyes of hers.

"Where are we going?" The boy asked as Emmalee pushed passed him, across the hall where her small room was.

Heading to the closet she grabbed a handful of clothes and shoved them into her satchel, and pulled her boots on over her brown pants. Trying to pack fast the young woman ran to the kitchen and began to grab different types of food and throw them in her bag, not even bothering to check the labels.

"Where else? I don't have a reason to stay here and the last time I checked neither did you," That sounded a bit harsh, but Emmalee was right, Benajamin's parents had died years before when a massive fire whiped out half the population of Lux. He lived in a small shack down the creek from where they lived.

"Well again, where are we going?" She seemed to think for a moment as she shoved her lucky blanket shyly into the bag, afraid of being called a baby for wanting the silky gold fabric along for the journey but Benjamin said nothing and for that she was glad.

"Get ready Ben, we're headed for Corona."

Miles away in the town of Mason, a girl the same age was also getting ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

AN#2: Please Review!