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Part 1.
IP: 76.28.225.70
Posted on March 17, 2014 at 10:55:37 AM by DANNY

Danny, as one of the smaller Omniety participants, found himself at the outer edge of the crowd, bouncing from foot to foot in a desperate attempt to see over the heads of those in front. He hung on every word the strange man said, his heart thundering with the thrill of adventure. Danny wasn't normally the sort to enjoy such things - he'd far rather be curled up with a good book or tagging along with Dr. Gupta on house calls, usually - but there was something... so magical, about the whole thing, and Danny just hadn't been able to resist. Unable to bear the excitement as the crowd thinned and each new participant disappeared into the tree, the young man cupped his hands over his mouth to keep from crying out. Surely something wonderful, something fantastic, was about to happen. Danny felt it with a child-like certainty he'd thought gone, lost on the day his father died.

At last, Danny's time came. The young boy shot a grin, a thrilled, excited grin, in the direction of the strange Omniety man and clambered up inside without a second of hesitation. Darkness closed in around him as he crawled through, anticipation stealing his breath. And then, abruptly, someone was shaking him.

"Danny, boy, wake up!" said a voice. It was a strange voice, high-pitched and melodic and undoubtedly female. He'd never heard such a voice. Danny's eyes opened slowly, focused in on chocolate brown eyes just inches from his own. He yelped and the eyes receded. "There you are! I thought you were going to sleep all day!"

"Uhm, I'm sorry, do I... know you?" Danny asked. The voice, he now saw, belonged to a girl about his age. She was dressed in a huntsman's comfortable leathers, her pale face was scattered with a thousand freckles, and her hair was the soft brown of a sparrow's wing. A sparrow's wing. The word came out, a hair above a whisper, before he could stop it. "General?"

The girl's head tipped back as she howled with delight, punching him (a hair too hard) in the shoulder. "I knew it, I knew you'd remember me! Wait 'til I tell Jomm, he'll owe me bread crumbs for weeks!"

Danny struggled up until he was sitting upright, finally managing to tear his gaze from General's face to look around. They were in a garden, a garden that was similar to the ones at the castle but somehow more... fantastic. As if the colors were brighter, the smells more pronounced. The sun felt just perfect on Danny's skin, the day was not too hot but not too cold, with a pleasant breeze to stir the leaves.

"Where are we?" Danny asked, suddenly breathless. It was so beautiful it hurt, and all he could think of was seeing more.

"This is anywhere you want it to be, buddy," General replied mysteriously. She pounced her to feet, offering him a calloused hand and helping him to his own. "We can go anywhere you want, Danny, do anything you want."

Danny's heart beat quickened, his grin was instant. But then doubt sunk in. Wasn't he supposed to be finding his way out of the garden? Isn't that what the man had said? The memory was somehow foggy, as if it had happened weeks ago instead of mere minutes, and it seemed so... so unimportant, at that moment.

"Where should we go first?" General asked. The bird-turned-girl beamed at him, and Danny felt himself smiling back. What would it hurt, to stay for a little while?

So Danny stayed. He and General played tag amongst the stars, danced jigs on strange planets millions of miles from home, and fed strange spiky dinosaurs apples. They raced each other down sandy beaches and over bubbling volcanoes, never once feeling the heat. There was no hunger here, no pain or exhaustion. Danny laughed, truly laughed, and smiled, and felt better than he had since his father's death; there were times where, though he would never admit it to anyone, he wondered if even then, had he ever felt like this before? General was smart and adventurous and funny, braver than any girl he'd ever known, and for the first time Danny knew, just knew, he had a best friend.


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