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Hi all. I know you're wondering what this crap is, but it's my Final Fantasy, Crystal Cronicles story I've been working on since November. Please, be nice to it, but review OK??

Echoes of Valar...[We are the Final Cry of Men]

~*~Disclaimer: ~*~
Mackenzie: Katie does not own any Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles references mentioned in this fic.
Geoff: *pops outta nowhere* Am I in this chapter at all?
Katie: No, but you come in soon. It’s in the script, didn’t you read it?
Geoff: *shifty eyes* I prefer to think of myself as a sort of…free actor…scripts are beneath me!
Mackentosh: Don’t DARE diss the script!
Amy: He dissed the script? The horror! The horror!
Katie: Yeah, there’s some major stuff in here for you.
Geoff: Gimme! *snatches script out of thin air* Coolness…awesome….okay, I’ll do a script.
Katie: *sarcastically* so glad you lowered yourself to our level.
Geoff: Oh don’t worry. I’m not at your level if, oh, only for one chapter.
Katie: -_- ##
Amy: *hastily* Moving on….here’s the fic!


“Hey, did you hear?”

“That story about the 5 kids who suddenly vanished?”

“One of ‘em was Mackenzie, right?”

“Yeah, she’s been gone for two weeks now. Supposedly, she vanished in this very school…,”

These words were exchanged among the many kids in Paul Hadley Middle School for the past two weeks; ever since the vanishing of 5 kids. One was Mackenzie, supposedly. She had been kidnapped, supposedly. Or murdered, supposedly; nobody really knew what actually happened to her. Rumors flew everywhere, and the odd mishap was still the best piece of gossip.

The hall in which the kids had vanished from was now called ‘M-Hall’ and nobody went down that way anymore. This caused teachers to get upset and parents get called, but still…no one wanted to go down the hallway. It was haunted…supposedly.

Hi. My name is Kaitlyn Denise Moore. I am fourteen years old. I attend Paul Hadley, and now am in the eighth grade. I have…well, I had five best friends. Now my group is just two. They are me and Amy. Nich, Morgan, Hanna, Sarah, and Mackenzie were once with us, but they’re gone now. The girl who vanished first was Mackenzie. It really freaked me out, along with everybody else, and I had no clue what to do.

At first, I thought Mackenzie was just playing hooky. She never really came across as the kind of girl who liked school. But when she didn’t come back after the first week, me and my friends got really scared, and searched the school and the entire town calling out for her. We organized a search party also, though to no avail.

That was ages ago. A millennia, and yet, I can still see their faces perfectly in my mind. I can’t really remember everything that happened in that other world. I’m still fourteen, but I feel like a grand weight has been placed on my shoulders. Let me tell you the story of how my friends truly disappeared…

It was a dark, cold, and silent January evening; Friday the thirteenth, to be exact. Amy and I were planning on sneaking into the school and putting up search posters for our missing friends…again. I couldn’t just dump my friends though, could I? I was wearing all black, my hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the base of my neck. Amy had her hair in two low piggie tails and also wore black. We would need the coverage of night.

“You ready?” Amy asked breathlessly as we neared the school. It looked ominous; it loomed up higher than it seemed in the daytime with its pitch-black windows and no cars in sight. I nodded and together, we made a break across the street and climbed the chain-linked fence that had been put up after the disappearances. It had been built for extra security measures.

I landed with a soft ‘kush’ on the dewy grass on my feet like a cat. Above me, Amy toppled over the edge and fell not but two inches from me. I stifled a laugh with difficulty and helped her up.

“You’re evil,” Amy snarled under her breath, taking my hand and standing. She readjusted the straps on her back and made her way towards a window. I followed after her, a stupid smile still plastered on my face. I stopped. Something had moved in the window, I was sure of it. Was it Mackenzie?

“Amy, wait up,” I whispered urgently. She halted and turned to face me. For some reason, I could feel beads of sweat prickling on my brow and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I didn’t like this eerie feeling I was getting. Was that the supposed-kidnapper in there?

“What is it?” Amy asked, staring at me.

“I see something…,” I whispered, treading lighter than normal.

I peeked into the window through which I had seen the shadow. I saw the make out of the media center across the hall. I tilted my head from side-to-side, peering down the halls: nothing.

“What’s your deal? I don’t, and didn’t, see anything,” Amy said unexpectedly from behind, causing me to jump. I slapped her. “Katie!!” she yelped.

“Oh, Lord. I’m sorry, Amsters. You startled me. That’s all,” I explained. “Here, gimme the knife,” Amy bitterly handed me the weapon, point towards me. I gingerly flipped the knife around and used the point to carve a hole into the window. I then licked my palm and pushed it onto the circle. It popped out into my palm.

While Amy disposed of the glass, I reached in and twisted the little knob which kept the window locked. It popped; I pushed the window in and climbed through.

“C’mon, Amy,” I muttered, looking behind me. ‘There’s that feeling again…that feeling of being watched…’

I helped my BFF climb through and set her down on the floor. Boy was the school dark.

“So, where do you wanna start?” Amy asked casually, refolding the knife into its safety position and putting it into her pocket. She stiffened. We were in ‘M-Hall.’

“Oh, come on!” I snarled, grabbing Amy’s wrist and dragging her down towards the office and the end of the hallway.

Clackity-clackity-clack.

“What the heck was that?!” Amy whispered frantically in my ear. We had both stopped and were listening intently for any sign of further noise: nothing. I shrugged off the fear.

“Oh, Amy, it’s probably just…cockroaches! Yeah, cockroaches,” I replied, trying hard the mask my feelings from Amy.

Clackity-clackity-clack.

“Katie! Something’s moving! It’s big!!” Amy moaned, gripping my upper arm painfully tight in a vice-like grip. I cringed. I had seen it too. It looked…well…relatively human. It had hooves…

Clackity-clackity-clack.

“KATIE!!” Amy shrieked.

‘Wait a second…hooves? A hooved human? Nothing human has hooves…’ I thought. I was concentrating deeply.

“KATIE!! IT’S COMING TOWARDS US!!” Amy cried.

“What? Huh?” I mumbled, still in my reverie. Amy sighed and jerked me along at a pace I never thought possible for her.

“Snap out of it, Kate! We’re being chased!!” Amy bellowed. That did it.

“Huh?” I looked over my shoulder. The thing, whatever it was, was chasing us. And it was fast. When I turned back around, I landed face-first on the corner and fell backwards. I felt my body hit the ground and warm blood trickle down between my eyes. I felt woozy.

Then I heard, “Y-Y-You stay a-w-way from her, you, MONSTER!!” Amy was standing beside my body with the knife opened and pointed at the thing.

“Amy, what…is it?” I asked thickly.

“It’s…it’s a...I don’t know what it is, Katie! It’s a beast of some sort. It’s got the back end of a horse, but its face…its torso…It’s so familiar…Mackenzie??”

“?!” I sat up real fast, causing myself to swoon. I turned around and used my hands to steady myself while I got a good look at the thing Amy had described. It was a centaur. It bore the resemblance of…

“No…it’s not possible!! Mackenzie?” I asked quizzically.

The thing I believed to be Mackenzie stayed in the shadows, so I couldn’t see its face. I heard Amy dig around in the backpack and pull out the flashlight. She turned it on and pointed it at the beast.

“It IS you!” Amy gasped. I felt my own mouth hang open at the sight of this Mackenzie-type centaur. It resembled Mackenzie, there was no doubt about it, but it was old…so very old. Her once long brown hair was now white, and braided down her back. Her eyes were now the lightest blue, and she no longer had the mischievous face of evil. I also took in the fact that she was wearing some kind of…old-fashioned armor of sorts. In one of her gnarled hands, there was a spear. Long, wooden, and sharp.

“What happened to you?” I asked Mackenzie tenderly. No way was this normal. Mackenzie slowly came further into the beam of the flashlight and knelt down in front of Amy and me, laying the spear across her knees. She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

“Um...know what she’s doing?” Amy asked me. I shrugged as Mackenzie sniffed us. Then she spoke. Her voice was cracked and wheezy.

“Katie? Amy: my old friends!” Mackenzie exclaimed, encircling us both in a huge bear-hug. Her spear clattered to the floor. ‘That’s the biggest understatement of the century.’ I thought sarcastically. I couldn’t help it. It’s part of my nature, really. Her cracked voice really surprised me.

“What’s with the armor?” Amy asked. Mackenzie sighed and sat down on some nearby steps.

“It’s good to see you guys after 60 years too, you jerks. So, did they find the fountain of youth or something? How didja stay so young?” Mackenzie asked, eyeballing us. I felt weird: fountain of youth? What kinda crap was that?

“Um…Mackenzie, it’s still 2007….,” I said slowly, sitting next to Mack and placing a hand on her shoulder…er, armor plate.

“No way, you mean, it’s not 1281??”

“Um, do, I’m sure she’s sure,” Amy added, nodding her head and taking the seat opposite me, “So how about you? Did you find the fountain of oldness?”

“Were you kidnapped by scientists and mutated?” I asked interestedly, poking Mackenzie’s legs.

“Don’t touch those! It’s still sore after that last war!” Mackenzie snapped irritably, slapping my hand away. I eyed her, ‘War?’

“Explain to us where you were gone for two weeks and how this…erm…happened to you,” Amy commanded, sitting up straight and looking concerned. Mackenzie sighed, resigned to her fate, and began. Man, this was gonna be good!

‘Well, as you may know, I had set fire to the Brittany Spears poster in the library,” Mackenzie began, getting that far-away gleam in her eye. Amy smirked and looked at me. We had planned on doing that also. “Well, somehow, I got caught and I had the whole teachers’ staff chasing after me for the longest of time. I ran all over the school before I managed to lose them. I planned on hiding in the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall down there,” she pointed back the way we had come, “but then the teachers showed up and I just decided to try and bolt out the doors The last thing I could remember at that moment was a locker door flying open and this bright blue light sucking me in. It felt like I was being sucked through a large rubber tube,” Mackenzie stopped for a breath. I thought over the tale skeptically. “I can’t remember much after that, except for the war I just fought in,” Mackenzie bent down and grabbed her spear. She pointed the flashlight down at it. Blood was caked along the shaft.

“Nasty,” I said sarcastically. Mackenzie smiled.

“I’m glad you guys are all right, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back. I have some…unfinished business to attend to,” Mackenzie said conversationally, standing up and galloping down the hall.

“Big Mack, wait up!” Amy called.

“Yeah, WE WANT TO HELP!” I cried. Dang, horses are faster than I thought. I realized this as I tore after Mackenzie on my two human legs, my chest heaving. The searing stitch in my side and the cut on my forehead burst into flames. I screamed and crashed into Amy who, in turn, hit Mackenzie, and we slid past the window I had broken quite fast.

All of a sudden, there was a loud BANG and locker number 666 flung open with such force that it dented the locker beside it: A bright light emanated from it. I was blinded. The next thing I knew, all sound had been shut off and I was soaring through a tightly compressed tube. My ears popped really painfully and I tried crying out, but my voice fell flat. I couldn’t breathe. I blacked out.

Ch. 1; Part 2
When I next woke up, I took great, huge gulps of air, filling my lungs with life-giving oxygen. My eyes flew open and I blinked several times before my jaw dropped for the second time that night…or day as it was here. A bright, hot sun beat down on my black clothes from directly above. I then realized I was sweating. And lying under a bush…on top of Amy and Mackenzie!!

“Oh, my god, I am soooooooo sorry!” I cackled, rolling off my friends. I slapped them both a couple of times and they woke up.

“Ahh, I remember this place now…,” Mackenzie whispered fondly.

“Um…I don’t think that we’re in Kansas anymore…,” Amy whispered nonplussed in a stupid tone of voice. I nodded my agreement, and wiped sweat from my face.

“Mackenzie, where in the world are we?” I asked disbelievingly, getting a good look at my surroundings. I was in a large, stone courtyard. The grass I was sitting on was tall and prickly, and made my hands itch something fierce. A huge stone wall surrounded a 100 by 40 foot perimeter of the grass which had bushes of flowers and other plants and wildlife growing on it. I turned and got an even bigger surprise. There was a large stone house crudely built with chopped and cracked black and grey stones stacked on top of one another. It had about three floors. A dirt path wound its way from an arch in the wall to the front door.

“Welcome, my friends, to River Belle Path,” Mackenzie said.

I cried out and jumped up hysterically pointing around me. “This…is not…normal…!” I stuttered, wondering how I had gotten here. ‘I definitely saw that blue light though. I’m positive of that…,’

“So, Mackenzie, you recognize this place?” I heard Amy ask calmly, standing up and brushing the grass off her bottom.

“Yes, actually, this is the palace of Queen Goldberry,” Mackenzie explained, shaking her horse butt. (No pun intended. ^-^) “She’s the ruler of the kingdom of-,”

“River Belle Path…,” I mumbled, freezing where I stood.

“Right,” Mackenzie chirped, seeming immensely pleased that I, with my limited intelligence, had grasped a concept so quickly.

“I’ve read about it before…somewhere…In a book, that much I’m sure of. It was a huge, leather-bound tome in a very old library that burnt down five years ago! It was a book about this ancient city!” I exclaimed, punching a fist with my palm. I got excited very easily then.

“Riiiiiight, Kate. Now, let’s go get you guys cleaned up in the palace. I’ve been working as….an agent of sorts, I guess you could say,” Mackenzie said, leading the way up the long stone path to the great oak doors set on oil-bearing hinges. It was huge! And Mackenzie, the only one having the height advantage, was the one who had to ring the large brass knocker set about seven feet off the ground.

“I could’ve done that…,” Amy muttered mutinously.

The doors swung open after several awkward moments. I fidgeted nervously, trying to remember anything I could out of the book, but nothing came to me. I noticed that Mackenzie, despite her age, stood straight, tall, and proud and never showed the curve of her back. I decided I’d better do the same, to look presentable. I discussed this with Amy and she agreed.

We each got on a side, with the centaur between us. When I flung my arms down to my sides, I hit something in a hard, long, plastic tube. I looked down and saw a sword. I gulped and looked up. I gasped.

What seemed to be a mutation of my friend Sarah L. and a bear stood before me. I restrained the urge to scream with joy.

“Ah, Mackenzie, you’ve finally returned! It’s been days!” Sarah-Bear exclaimed, throwing her arms around Mackenzie and Mackenzie did the same. Sarah had also aged, but not nearly as much as Mackenzie. ‘Freaky time thing, really,’ I thought nervously, as I looked at Sarah and waited for her response to us.

“You brought enemies to the castle?!” Sarah bellowed, slamming the doors in our face again.

“No wonder she’s a bear! She’s gotta have brute strength to be able to slam those huge, heavy doors like that!” Amy snarled viciously. I nodded my agreement over the bickering of Mackenzie and Sarah through a little window-type thing in the door. Sarah only reopened the doors when Mackenzie yelled,

“SARAH, DO YOU NOT RECOGNIZE THE FRIENDS YOU HAD BEFORE YOU CAME HERE?!”

Then Sarah stepped out cautiously and peered intently at me and Amy. I had that really strange feeling that I was being stripped and poked like some kind of lab rat. I hated that feeling. Amy went under the same procedure before Sarah mumbled something inaudible and led the way into the castle.

“Finally,” Amy sighed.

I gasped. It was so beautiful, so much more magnificent than I could have possibly imagined. There were high ceilings that came to tall peaks every now and then, held up by huge pillars painted red and gold. The pillars lined an obviously-old velvet rug that was about fifty feet long and patched in places. Otherwise, the floor was made up of roughly-hewn stones like the walls, which had many old portraits of scary looking half-human half-beast creatures. What kind of people lived here? At the end of the carpet was a large golden throne with a satin cushion, and set with many glittering jewels. It looked like the cleanest thing in sight. The ruler must have been kept in high honor.

There was a woman sitting in the golden throne, I noticed, with long flowing gold hair in a long braid, and deep, dark brown eyes.

‘What’s with the braid thing?’ I wondered.

“Your majesty,” Mackenzie said, bowing low to the woman.

“You’re full-human?” Amy questioned in surprise. Mackenzie gasped and mumbled a flurry of words. This was obviously very rude, even I knew that….Even though, I myself, was about to ask the same question.

“I apologize a thousand times over for my friend. She’s rude when she’s plastered,” Mackenzie explained hastily, her face a bright red. The queen eyed me and Amy with a cold indifference I found rude. I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. It was a hate-hate relationship, and that was A-OK with me. But for now, I decided it was best to go formal. This woman could seriously hurt me if she thought I was disrespectful.

“Your Majesty,” I said in my most sickly-sweet voice as I curtsied. I felt sweat trickle down my back and had a strong feeling I stunk. What a horrible feeling! And in front of a ‘queen’ yet! ICK! Soon after, Amy bowed. Rather reluctantly too, it seemed.

“Your Highness, these are my friends I told you about from ‘Beyond the Shrub.’ They are the main reason I left. To get help for us in this war! I believe they may be able to bring us more warriors!” Mackenzie chirped, mopping her brow with the back of her hand.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa: warriors? There’s totally something I’m not getting here, and it’s truly freaking me out. First of all: where the heck am I? Two: Are there other people from our world here? And three: Why do you need warriors?!” I asked, taking the offensive for the first time since coming into the rather dank palace. The queen glowered at me, and I shrank behind Amy who smirked.

“One: You are in River Belle Path. Two: I am not sure about your other world, but I believe my servant, Mackentosh here, may be able to answer that question, and three: there is a war going on in my domain, the likes of which has never been seen before. But I am weak now, and unable to participate in it. Mackentosh will explain further. For now, I will give you two accommodations and a change of clothing. I do not wish many of my people to know of the land Beyond the Shrub, lest they abandon me, for your peace. I go now to my chambers, and Mackentosh, do not disturb me unless it is dire. I am feeling ill,” Queen Goldberry said, standing up and stretching. She groaned as her bones ached. She reached for a plain wood cane at the ground and stumped off.

“Yes Your Majesty,” Mackenzie muttered, bowing as the queen waved her off.

“She seems…nice…,” I said untruthfully.

“Well, I don’t like her at all! What’s her deal, calling you a servant?!” Amy exclaimed as Mackenzie led us through several more wood doors to a room at the end of a long hall, lined with portraits. I paused at one, and peered at a golden nameplate beneath it.

“Whoa, Mackenzie, so there is a war!!” I cried, pointing at the plate. It read, ‘the above is a portrait of our most beloved warrior, Mackentosh the First; the first Beyond the Shrub anyway. The above portrait was first painted…’

“1221?!” I screeched, wheeling around and almost knocked Amy upside the head with my right arm. Mackenzie looked sheepish as Amy and I studied the undeniable picture of Mackenzie when she was fourteen; long brown hair with a dyed strip of blond and blue eyes.

“I shall explain further after we get you settled in. You will find the rooms below what I have acquired through hard, almost unbearable labor, but they will suit your purposes,” Mackenzie said, flinging open a door. Inside was definitely not what I expected a palace to have. The floor was still stone, as were the walls, but on either end of the windowless room was two, feather-stuffed, four-poster beds. A little trunk lay at the end of each, and a boiler sat in the middle of the room, smoking slightly and giving off heat, making me sweat even more in my clothes. An oil lantern hung by each bed.

“These are ours?” I asked, hurrying over to one of the trunks and running a hand along the edge of a red one. “I claim this bed,” I told Amy. She nodded and sat down on the edge. “So…I demand that you now sit down and explain this whooooooooole situation to me,” I ordered, giving Mackenzie the all-knowing look no one could resist. Mackenzie sat down on my trunk, and Amy and I took seats on the floor in front of her.

“Story time,” Amy chirruped.

“Dangit, Amy! This isn’t ‘The Seeing Stone,” I snapped, thwacking Amy. “Continue, Mackenzie,”

“Ok. It all started sixty years ago-,”

“But wait! You were only gone for two weeks!”

“Shut up! I’m getting there! Let me explain then you can draw your own conclusions. Anyway, as I was saying…two weeks ago or sixty years RPB time, I was running from the teachers. I ran past locker number 666 and I got sucked into this world. It was then that I was found under the shrub in the courtyard by a guard; a half-cheetah, half-human man. He was tall, and kinda good-lookin…,”

“Get goin’ with the story already! I’m fryin’!” I snapped irritably.

“Oh, yeah, well, I was taken to the queen under pain of death, so I was quiet the whole time she questioned me. I was young and small, and disrespectful to her, so I was put into service; at first only as her maid, serving her every whim and what not. I worked very diligently for years, until I was twenty to be exact. By that time, I had grown in stature, and towered over the one I served. I was sized up and set armor, forced into the battles of the land. Only guard duty at first, and there were few enemies who could defeat my Queen back then. After about ten more years, a neighboring country, called Conal Kurach started to send enemy spies into our territory to check on our defensive plots and layouts of our weak points. It came to be such a heated debate that when Conal Kurach attacked, we were nearly wiped out. We managed to only just push them back. Nich, Hanna, Morgan, Sarah, and I, that is to say. We were the only ones who were not away from the castle when it was attacked. As you noticed, we are not a strong people. The braid is a symbol of the warrior. We are mutations created by Queen Goldberry. She believed that human-animal fusions would be more powerful than just plain humans. That is why there is little wildlife left. I got the portrait you pointed out because I was severely injured while protecting the Queen,” Mackenzie pulled back the fur on her left hind leg and showed a large scar that wrapped almost completely around her leg joint. “Spear; hurt like everything, too. The others arrived years after I did, for different reasons, as they will explain to you, I am sure,” she said. I smiled. It was just like her to put it that way. “Oh, you may want to change now,” Mackenzie said, noticing the sweat tingling on my forehead.

“But, wait. Why did the queen call you Mackentosh?” Amy asked, not even trying to hide her snicker. Mackenzie groaned and said it was just a nickname, and that we had better get changed before dinner so that we could meet the rest of our long-lost friends and not stink like poo. Mackenzie shut the door behind her, and I immediately began digging through my trunk.

“What is this weird stuff?” I mumbled, digging through several low-cut, tight dresses with large, puffed spreads. I found one at the bottom which was a lilac in color with no sleeves. I also pulled out a white under-dress and slammed the trunk shut.

“Hey, Amy dare I wear my tennies to this fancy luncheon?” I chuckled. Amy gagged and I turned around to see if she’d found a dead cockroach in the bottom of her trunk.

Amy gagged and threw a dead ‘roach at me while I was rolling around on the floor, laughing. I dodged it and Amy pulled out a midnight-blue dress like mine and a white shirt to put under it. “And yes, I shall follow your example and be as disrespectful as I can to her highness,” Amy cackled.

As we began to get undressed, I heard something going on outside. I couldn’t hear very well, but it sounded like there were several people bickering with Mackenzie who had apparently been playing guard for us.

“What’s that, I wonder?” I asked Amy, as I pulled the white top over my head. Amy shrugged, and pulled her hat off. That’s when the great door burst open and we were both covered in what felt like a giant avalanche of people: Hanna, Sarah, Morgan, and Nich, all of which seemed to be around twenty years of age, and all with long braids down their backs.

“@&!^$(!?!?!?!?!?” I bellowed from underneath Hanna. I pushed her off and dug Amy out.

They backed off when Amy and I, despite being several inches shorter than they, advanced menacingly upon them.

“Like, peace, dudes,” Nich stuttered, backing against a wall, holding up two fingers.

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!!!!” We bellowed, and together, we dumped the lot of them on the stoop out by the door and told Mackentosh to keep them in line while we changed.

“Well, that was one heck of a, howdy eh, Amy?” I asked chipperly

“Tell me about it,” Amy groaned, doing the buttons up the front of her shirt. She did up my buttons in the back, and we headed out to the hallway where Sarah, Hanna/polar bear, Nich/monkey, and Morgan/lemur all sat with their backs against the wall with Mackenzie prowling in front of them like an over-sized bat. Amy mentioned this, and got hit.

“You look nice,” Morgan told me, tickling my neck with her furry black-and-white tail. I cricked my neck and grabbed her tail. She yelped, and pulled it back. I stuck my tongue out at her.

“I can’t believe you guys managed to find us here!” Hanna exclaimed, throwing an arm around Amy and me and pulling us close. I could feel her sinewy legs brush against my dress.

“Tell me about it! Did you know that we had to break into the school?” Amy said, hoping this would perk everyone’s interest so she could tell our story before I did. I broke free of Hanna’s hold and walked up to Mackenzie who was holding her spear still and leading the chattering group.

“So, you’re taking us to the dining hall?” I asked, looking up at her.

“Yup,” she said. “It’s there,” she pointed at two large red doors. “Please, use your manners. I brought you here, so I could be put to death if you do anything too reckless or stupid. And don’t stare at the people you will see in there,”

I quickly looked down to make sure that my tennis shoes were well-hidden before stepping back into line with my friends.

“Hey, Nich, nice ponytail,” I heard Amy said as she yanked on Nich’s long braid. “Glad to see you were allowed to grow it out. War treats you all right?” asked.

“Yes, it did treat me rather well, and-don’t-you-touch-me-either!” Nich snapped at the rest of us as we all poked and prodded Nich with interested fingers.

“Remember, you guys! Manners…!” Mackenzie whispered urgently to us under her breath.

The air around me was still cheerful as we entered the dining chamber. It was built surprisingly like the Great Hall in Hogwarts. My friends and I took a seat at on e of the emptiest long tables and began to chatter. Around the room were tons of humans of every skin color fused with tons of different kinds of animals. I tried my best not to stare, for Mackenzie’s sake.