Frostbitten Past

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Picking? I get to pick? She had no idea what she was picking, or what Paul's words even really meant. Her brain was muddled with the known and the unknown, and all the things inbetween. She wondered for a moment if she was dreaming all of this up.

Faeries don't exist, right? Her unease was palpable in the room, and she felt claustrophobic standing there with the two of them. Her heart was pounding, and her chest felt tight.

"What is going on right now? Are the both of you crazy?" A fair question, because Andorra was beginning to wonder just how insane they actually were. Her mind was buzzing with the possibilities - being a faerie meant she wasn't human. Paul and Kyle being crazy meant she surely was going to die in that room by their hands.

"Andorra, take a seat. We have a lot to tell you about your parents." Paul leaned against her desk, his hands in his pockets, and he was smiling at her in the same way her teachers would when they were about to send a student to the principal's office. It was smug, in control, and most of all, powerful.

She sat on her bed for fear of not listening. She stuffed her hands under her thighs and looked at Paul, at his smug smile, at his close cropped blonde hair, and at the way he looked like a man who was used to getting exactly what he wanted.

Kyle was right beside him, a younger version of Paul. The striking similarities between the two of them - between the three of them - was too much to be a coincidence.

"This is what you need to know to understand. Faeries live in a place called Anlithamy, which is like a parallel universe to the one we're currently in. The two universes are separated permanently right now, but once upon a time, faeries and humans used to live together in harmony. When humans decided faeries didn't deserve to live and started slaughtering us, we created Anlithamy and moved there.

"There are five faerie courts, similar to how you live in states with governors. We have five courts: the Spring Court, the Summer, Court, The Winter Court, and the Autumn Court. These are the courts of the people. And then, there is the Royal Court, which is where the king and queen of Anlithamy reside. We are from the Summer Court, and more specifically, from the Sun Clan."

The words floated in and out of Andorra's mind. Anlithamy. Faeries. Courts. Clans. She was trying to make sense of what Paul was saying, but she was still caught up on the fact that faeries shouldn't exist in the first place.

"Clan... there are multiple clans?"

Paul nodded, then ran a hand over the top of his hair. "Each court has 3 clans. The Summer Court is made up of the Sun Clan, the Jovial Clan, and the Enkindle Clan. Each clan does something different for the court, and has different powers. The Sun Clan is in charge of the warmth for the clan, the sunlight, and other things. Similarly, your friend Noah is from the Winter Court, and he's a part of the Snow Clan."

Andorra snorted. "Noah is not my friend."

Paul shared a look with Kyle that Andorra couldn't decipher. "The reason why we aren't in Anlithamy is because our two clans were banished in the Great War, which happened about two centuries ago. It is the biggest war that Anlithamy has ever seen, and it happened after the Queen died. All Courts went to battle for power, but the Sun and Snow clan took it too far. We almost destroyed Anlithamy in the process to gain power, and so both of our clans were banished."

"So they banished you to Earth? For what reason?" Andorra looked at Kyle when she asked this question, wondering if he'd been born on Earth, or if he was so old that he remembered being banished.

"Because they thought the humans would kill us. We're more powerful, but humans are cunning in lack of empathy. Also, as Kyle has told me, you've met a daemonium. Those are creatures that hunt faeries that live in this world and will kill them. Coronomus, which is our version of God, banished our clans to earth, assuming we'd die out."