Running. Running running running. I hate it. That's irrelevant right now though. So, we’re not having the best of days. But hey, at least we’re not… oh wait. I done messed up haven’t I. I have. Great… We’re too far in to see anything but desert in all directions now.

“CRÉME! DID YOU REALLY JUST LEAD US INTO THE DESERT?!?!” The very annoyed, squeaky/puberty voiced, 2’ 5 1/2” bean of a child you can hear yelling at me is Violetta.

“Not on purpose, but even if you were faster than me, we’d still be here, now calm your little puppy paws down.”

“NO! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!”

“Violetta, Créme has a point you know, we were all running for our lives, and since she is the fastest of us three, we just naturally followed her here. If any of us have any reason to complain, its that we didn’t know there was a desert near our city!”

My defender there is Acacia, and she could beat any politician in an argument with her logic, even with her soft child-like voice! So, yeah we’re a rag-tag little group aren’t we? And what makes it worse is that we’re stranded now in a desert that we didn’t even know existed.

“Did any of us bring a water bottle or even some food?”, I ask.

“Créme, when Dexter and Star told us that the city was going to explode in an hour, we packed a few things, the rest you could just get, and ran. It’s stupid that no one bothers to teach history or geography like they used to, we’d know why we decided that the Seclusion was such a good idea and what the land around us was like. But nooo, we can’t learn these things unless we’re chosen to be a hunter, gatherer, or collector. But whatever, since it's night, we’re lucky we decided to stay up late. Or we’d be dead where we were with everyone else.”, Acacia has now decided to make this more complicated.

“Well, I’m hungry. Can’t we hunt, since we’re predatory shapeshifters?”, Violetta, of course, states the obvious.

“Violetta, of course you’re hungry, but we don’t even know how!”, I say, pointing out what she should have already known.

“Yeah, but Créme, use your logic, we can at least try to hunt, even if we don’t know how.”, says Violetta.

“We are the polar opposite of stealthy! And if we weren’t, you stick out like a sore thumb anyway! So, you wouldn’t be able to hunt with us very well.”, I retort.

“But, we’ll be hunting at night, right Créme? So all of us would be hidden in shadow, even Violet.”, Acacia, once again, winning the argument.

“I told you I hate being called Violet.”, mutters Violetta.

“Why don’t we stop arguing and get some food, even though we’ve probably chased away all the prey by even existing.”, I murmur so the animals don’t hear and run if any are left.

“No, I’m pretty sure it was Violetta’s screams.”, Acacia says, just to make a jab.

“How about we shut up and start hunting?”, Violetta has officially declared that she is leader now(even though obviously she’s not, I am. She’s too short to be a leader) with this sentence.

“I’ve got an idea, one of us will hunt tonight, and the other two will start digging a hole here to stay in for the day. And we should also start moving along through the desert every night, then find a camp to dig a little den to sleep in ‘till dusk. Acacia, go hunt. Violetta, stay and dig the den with me.”, I say calmly as to not punch Violetta’s stupid face.

“Alright.”, Acacia, don’t respond, just go hunt.

“M’kay.”, and Violetta, why not start digging?

We watched briefly as Acacia shifted into fox form, mentally mapped out the space we we’re in, and then ran off a short ways in silence and stealth. Then we changed into our respective forms, me, a small brown leopard-size cat with a darker brown stripe on my left ear, Violetta, a tiny timber wolf with curly fur and large paw pads, and started digging. We made it shallow enough that it didn’t take all night, but deep enough that we could stay sheltered from the sun and heat during the day. By the time we finished, it was almost dawn, and our paws felt like tiny stumps. A few moments later, Acacia returned with a few kangaroo mice, a baby owl, and a little desert bird, all dead of course.

To us, it was a little reward for all the work we had done, and for even surviving this long. We went to bed hungry anyway, since we were used to getting more food than that on a daily basis. But hey, we’re still alive. All we needed was food, a den, and water. Acacia got the food, found a little oasis area quite far away, and Violetta and I dug out a little den. And no I’m not going to say what else could go wrong, because then everything else will go wrong. Instead, throw at us everything you got world, we’ll be ready with a new plan.

*~*~*~*~*

Yawn. That's my opinion of morni- wait, it's not morning! It’s evening! I forgot that this whole weird scenario happened. I hoped it had all just been a nightmare or a bad dream. But if it is, it’ll never end. This nightmare, if it is one, has become reality. It’s endless, and there’s nothing I can do about it(Yay, existential crisis). But still, yawn. I will never not think that waking up, no matter the time of day, is summed up by a lot of yawning, oh yeah and breakfast. Which reminds me, I’ve gotta wake Acacia so she can take us to the oasis.

“Acacia! Wake up! We’ve gotta find the oasis!”, I quietly yell.

All I get back is an incomprehensible muffled noise. So, Acacia doesn’t wanna get up, fine, I’ll get an airhorn and get her up. Don’t ask where I’ll get it from, I can just get one from the Void. Wait, that would scare off breakfast. So I’ll just kick her out into the night air and see if that wa- nevermind she’s up.

“What could you possibly want, it's like, 11 o'clock or something, and I’m tired! So, LET. ME. SLEEP!!!”, Acacia screams loudly, forgetting we need breakfast and scaring off all the food.

“Stop yelling, you’re gonna scare off all the food!”, I exclaim quietly.

“Wah? We gettin’ up alreadie?”, Violetta groggily asks.

“Yes, now maybe if Acacia would get up we could head on out and hunt, meet up back here, and then Acacia can lead us to the oasis.”, I mutter smugly

“I’m up, I’m up!”, Acacia says upsetly.

I wait as they both get reoriented with the situation we’re stuck in, and then we leave. Now I’d like to go on about how stressful hunting is, but that would take to long. So instead let me bore you with the fact that I fell on my face five times(stupid sand, kept tripping me with concealed roots n’ stuff), shouted at a bird because it flew away before I could catch it, and had to chase a turtle down it’s hole. Oh, and all of these things happened in cronilogicial order. I don’t care that I probably said that wrong. That's what I do, I say stuff wrong on purpose do when I accidentaly say it wrong people will think i did that on purpose, cause that's what I do. Now back to whatever I was

talking about, cause I forgot. Oh yeah! So I also got stuck in the turtle’s hole after catching it and Acacia had to pull me out. It was so demeaning! But we all meet back up at the den, and I almost forgot where it was, but I found it! I just started following the scent trail left behind by Acacia and Violetta. When we got back, we ate in silence to deter any hungry desert creatures, waiting for an unsuspecting meal.

A little fennec fox watched us eat together, confused, and races away saying, “Nothing miss!”, after Acacia asks it, “What are you lookin’ at?”, with an annoyed snarl. When we finished, we started the long trek out through the cool night breeze to the oasis. Oh, I hope she didn’t forget where it was! It took maybe about an hour to get there. I'll spare you the boring tale of how we all felt like we would die before we got there. It was strange, erie even. Like a dozen, maybe a thousand, eyes were watching us from the palm trees. I saw the dead volcano first. It stood there, and adding to the spooky vibe the place gave off, there was a city carved into it. It looked abandoned, but there were tiny figures moving about in it. There was a softly glowing lava carved castle at the top, where the eruptions would usually take place. If I squinted though, I could make out two small shapes, one pure white and one pure black, weaving their way down the volcano towards us. My sisters are looking all over the oasis, except the volcano, like they can’t see it. I asked them about it, I was right, it's invisible for them. They said there’s a huge weird empty patch of land at the other side of the lake, but nothing else.

Odd, if the volcano was real, it must be enchanted with some strange spell, making it invisible to intruders. But if so, then why can I see it? Oh well, we only came to make a little temporary home, not to invade or whatever. I saw from my peripheral vision, the two figures standing in front of large group or army, but when I look directly at them, they melt into the soft midnight light from the slowly drying lava, oozing from a little space near the lake. I heard paw steps behind us, and occasional wing beats, but nothing too serious. Acacia says the pressure of the situation was getting to me, and Violetta says she could hear the sounds too. I asked Acacia about the disappearing army, she had seen it too, but Violetta thought we were crazy.

There was one thing we all knew was real, someone, or something, was watching every move we made.

It was creepy, the volcano only I could see, the odd sounds, the disappearing army, and the watching feeling. I just don’t trust this place, it's to perfect, and yet to erie. I saw a winged wolf in the trees, preening. She saw me, and flew off. But I just know I saw her. She was there, and she was real, just like the volcano, the sounds, and the figures with their group! I could tell

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

there was some strange magic about the place. I saw a little wolf pup splashing in the water, before his mother ushered him into the trees. He had had a mermaid tail, fins, and strange, webbed ears and paws, so did his mother. A wolf sat at the top of a nearby tree, brooding over a small treasure pile he had. He had dragon wings, and even horns! He had all the features of a dragon, except, he was a wolf. His wife, or sister, landed next to him soon with more treasures. They looked quite similar. There were normal looking wolves too, but they had a strange aura around them, a mistic cloud. I didn’t trust it. Suddenly, a greyish white she-wolf(she has wings of course, fish antena, and a fined tail) with soft brown eyes lands in front of us. She looks to be only a little older than us, and has glowing neon pink bracelets on her front legs, and a glowing neon pink band around her middle, it looked quite scruffy, and maybe it was supposed to.

“My name is Snowfall”, she told us, “and the Queens would like to see you three.”

She had a voice similar to that of a young girl, younger than us even, but much softer, and with a slight accent. We followed in silence, similar to how prisoners would follow a jail guard. We passed a few wolves swimming in lava ponds, and some in the lake. It was a beautiful place, even with its strange aura. It was actually starting to look more alive, there were little farms, with flamingos pulling plows over little fields, wolf pups plucking dead birds of paradise, quails herding pheasants under their wolf owner’s supervision, and large ants swarming their hill with a she-wolf giving them their weird syrup. Soon, we were climbing the volcano. Acacia and Violetta could suddenly see it right before they got 5 steps in front of it, and were confused, where had this come from? As we climbed, we could see blacksmiths, mothers and fathers with their pups, diners, tropical birds on leashes, storefronts, window shoppers, schools, and even orphanages. On their other side, off of the volcano, I saw little villages hidden among the oasis and an underwater city in the lake. It was much bigger than it had looked from afar.

It was beautiful, I didn’t know what to think. It took quite a while to get to the castle I had seen at the top from across to lake, even with Snowfall’s longer strides and us slightly jogging to keep up. We entered past two she-wolves, both dragonesk with darkly colored armor, a rapier, and a spiked helmet. I feel like they nodded at us as we passed, not at Snowfall but at us.

That’s confusing, aren’t we prisoners? We walked through a long hallway of sorts, with more of the guards armor lining the walls, a rapier sitting in its stand between each set. We entered the throne room through a grand and detailed doorway coated in symbols, it was beautiful in there. The room was about the same size as a ballroom, but thinner. There was a mosaic on the floor, of an erupting volcano with a normal wolf leaping out, a winged wolf flying out, a dragonesk wolf leaping into flight from it, and two wolves, both mermaid-like, one had hind legs and the other didn’t, both were running down the volcano. There were symbols on the bottom, I assumed it was their language, but I couldn't read them. On the ceiling there was a similar mosaic, but it was of two she-wolves leading the other wolf creatures to this oasis, the volcano wasn’t dead yet, but it looked like it was dieing. One wall was covered in tapestries, the one we were in front of was just the doorway, the one in front of us had a tapestry of a grey cat, huh wonder why there's a cat, hanging above two thrones, and the last wall, the one to our left, had a map of something on it, maybe a map of the land, I couldn’t tell.

Snowfall entered with us and walked to her own space next to two winged she-wolves, one pure white and one pure black. The silhouettes from across the lake! They were the same height as Snowfall, even though they seemed much older, and fully grown. I assumed they were the Queens, since they sat in the two thrones. Then, they stood and bowed to us! Us! You have no idea how confused we were, to have the Queens of a civilization this big and well protected bow to us! I thought we were prisoners! Acacia slightly sputtered while Violetta’s jaw basicly hit the floor, and I fell over like a goat in shock. MAN that floor HURTS!!!!

“Hello young ones, I am Queen Raven”, the black she-wolf said.

“And I am Queen Lola”, the white one said.

They both had slick, soft, and calming voices, similar to music boxes full of lullabies.

“We are quite pleased to see you three here”, said Lola, “We’ve waited for quite a while to see you.”

“Ever since the three Crystaline gems shot over us thirteen years ago, so close that from the top of the castle even the smallest pup could reach them,” Raven said, “we’ve waited.”

“But how did you know it would be us? It could have been anyone, they could have even lived in the oasis for all you know!”, Violetta asks them, curiosity masking all caution.

“The first crystal to pass let off a soft brown glow, and the cats yowled to it, the second star shone with soft orange light, the foxes howled to it, and the last one to pass us glowed with a soft grey sheen, and most of the villages howled to it. Crystaline usually never falls from the sky, we always hoped to see it happen.” Lola stated, “When we saw you, we knew you three must have the gems, and you do.”

We each looked down to our chests, where the dark blue Crystaline gems had embedded themselves the day we were born, right in between our collar bone and breast bone. They had given us a bond to the rare magic gem, and given us the powers of summoning things from the Void(me), seeing all possible futures(Violetta), and telempathy(Acacia(Telempathy is both the powers of telepathy and empathy combined)). Crystaline is the toughest crystal, gem, or(when melted down) metal, on earth, and has the strongest magical connection possible. It's been so high in demand that it's almost run out on earth, there's plenty in space but the Dove won't let us leave without a permit since the Secobie and Yupend are still out there.

“When you came to get us,” I said, confusedly, “It seemed like we were where we shouldn’t be and would be thrown in jail.”

“If that was the case, then why didn’t I just grab you all and fly you up here myself, instead of letting you see the land and all of its beauty and secrets?”, Snowfall asked us, boy, she could rival Acacia with that!

“Snowfall, there are three of us, we would have weighed you down in your flight.”, Acacia says.

“I saw that there were three of you from here, I could have brought two guards with me to carry the other two of you.”, Snowfall points out, with the obvious intent of winning the argument.

“That's true, but what if there had been trees blocking your view?”, Acacia asks.

“Well then I would ha-”, Snowfall begins, but get cut off by Queen Lola.

“Snowfall, if you’re done with your little debate, you could show them to their rooms.”, Lola says, with a laugh in her bark.

“Yes mother.”, Snowfall says, before jumping off what I just noticed is a mini throne.

Now there’s a plot-twist for ya! Snowfall is Lola’s daughter! We follow Snowfall too a nice little, well it's actually quite big, room just down the hall from her room. There’s three parts of the room, bathroom, entry/misc room, and bedroom. In the bedroom part, there are three canopy beds, a creamy pink one, which I immediately claim, a violet one, Violetta would like it, and a gold one, which Acacia would probably want. My bed has silk sheets, pillowcases, and drapes. The pillows are soft and easy to sink into, the blankets were as soft as the silk sheets, but made with velvet.

On my bedside table, there was a little cloud-like clock showing the time sitting next to a little china cat music box. It was pure white, with little blue eyes and a pink nose, sitting on a very soft blue little china pillow, with china flowers, two pink; one blue; one yellow; and one purple, on its back over some light green leaves. It played a sweet melody when wound, and there were little mews after some notes. In the entry/misc room, there was a little play area, filled with toys and other cool things, a large one-way window, taking up almost the whole wall it was on, and the massive doorway, complete with beautiful door.

And last, but definitely not least, the bathroom. The toilet was short, and a pearly black color, it was quiet when it flushed, with a soft *fisshhhhh* sound, which I'm glad for(I have a fear of loud flushing toilets, you know, being a weird child and all). Instead of a bathtub or a shower, there was a hot tub with three paw sensing dispensers, when you put your paws under, they dispense the liquid they hold. There’s one for soap, one for shampoo, and one for conditioner. The hot tub never drained, instead it filtered out the non water elements after you press a button when you finish bathing, and put them into a fertilizer canister, and recycled the water back to the lake as it gathered more from there. I think the tub kept the water hot with a fire or lava under it, but I don’t know. The soap was a light pink and smelled of roses, the shampoo was light violet, and smelled of lavender, and the conditioner was baby blue and smelled of bluebells. The sink was perched atop a pure marble countertop with red mahogany wood as the bottom part and drawers, while the sink was a pearly white and was imbedded into the marble, using the same water as from the lake, but mixed in with the pink, rosey soap, the sink has a golden faucet, when it senses your paws, it turns on, and then there’s the dryer, you sick your paws in and it pushes warm tropical air against them, making your paws fluffy, warm, and dry. AND IT'S SO PRETTY!

Oh boy I love this place! It’s amazing, and I want to live here forever!(existential crisis warning!) But, I know I probably can’t. Everything we ever knew, growing up, is just all gone. Our school, our house, our friends, our brother, our parents, the forest, our city, everything. We can’t settle into a new place forever, can we? I don’t think I can, or ever will. I can’t understand, why us? Why our home, our city? Why did it even happen at all? The way the explosion happened, the bodies will be too blown apart that the magiks can’t even produce a ghost.

“Hey Créme, w- are you crying?”, Violetta asks me, after running in.

Yeah, I’m crying. So what?

“No. I’m not, I’m fine.”, I lie, hoping she won’t notice.

“Well, we’ve been called to dinner, they said we can stay at the table, or ask for them to take our food here, to us.”, Violetta tells me, “But I think it would be polite to go to the table and join whoever else is there. Unless they stare at us to much. Then i'm coming straight back here with my food. I don’t like being stared at.”

“I’ll stay here to eat my dinner,”, I say, “I don’t want to be near other creatures we don’t know yet.”

“Don’t you trust them?”

“Yes, I trust them Violetta, but I don’t know them well enough to eat with them.”

“Alright Créme, I’ll tell Acacia. Bye”

“Bye.”

I stayed where I was to splash in the hot tub for a bit, but then Violetta ran back in and asked,

“What do you want for dinner? Snowfall wants to make sure we’re happy with what we get.”

“If there’s french toast and cream puffs, I’ll take that.”, I say.

“I’ll ask her.”

Violetta runs out and I hear her talking to Snowfall in the entry/misc room. Since their voices start drawing away, I assume that there is french toast and cream puffs. I splash around for a bit before I leap out and shake off. I don’t know why, but it feels more natural to be a cat than a human, huh, I wonder if all shapeshifters feel that way. Meh, I’m gonna look through the books that are here. Oh! They’ve got Starfall! I haven’t read that in forever! Soon, Violetta rushes back in, she brought my food, and what I assume is hers.

“Snowfall wanted to watch a movie with us, but I don’t see a TV.”, Violetta says, as Acacia and Snowfall troted in behind her, chatting happily.

“The TV is the window, it has three modes, window, disc, and wireless.”, Snowfall says, “It's easier that way so we don’t take up room with a TV and a window.”

“What movie do you want to watch?”, Acacia asks.

“I’ve seen all the ones we have by now, but how about Starfall?”, Snowfall responds, asking another question.

“Sure, I see you’ve got the book as well.”, I say.

“Yep, we’ve got almost everything that you could possibly want here.”, Snowfall says.

“Well let's get watching!”, Violetta says happily.

The movie wasn’t as good as the book, but hey, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t cool! After we finished watching the sun was starting to rise, so we all went to bed. Me with my soft creamy pink bed, Violetta with the violet, and Acacia with the gold. I fell asleep long after the soft rays of sun had already reached into the room to tickle our dreams and scare off nightmares, or in this case, daymares.