....little did she know who was amongst her.) As Alea walked further into the forest, the wonderous sights distracted her from a hooded girl running behind tree to tree attempting to stay hidden. Alea started to suspiciously look behind her because of the constant breaking of twigs and crunching of leaves from the hooded girl running. After a couple minutes, Alea called out, "Is anyone there?" "You can't hide much longer." The hooded girl walked away from the tree, examining Alea while Alea examined her. She was a Dark-haired girl, about the same age and size as Alea. "Who are you and where do you come from?" asked Alea. "My name is Nerala and I am a yearling Guardian of the North Merilia Forest." said the girl. "My name is Alea and I am a princess from the North kingdom." "So, your one of those petty girls placed in royalty." said Nerala with discust. "First of all, I am not a petty girl. Second, I was not placed into the kingdom, royalty is in my blood. Third, I very much dislike being in the castle. I'd stronly rather choose an ecosystem of nature instead of being cooped up at the castle all day, forced to do royal duties." said Alea which was starting to get annoyed. "Oh, I guess your not so petty and selfish after all." said Nerala. "Anyways, what is being a yearling Guardian of the forest like?" asked Alea. "There is many duties to be done, but for a nature lover such as yourself and I, it tends to be enjoyable. My personal routine in the morning is get up, gather Merlinien flowers for the Hot spring lilie mermaids, collect Tisjinia dream seeds for the Merdina Fairies, pick Vervinia Fruit for the Mystic trees, and be on guard on the mile-before-forest-entrance-spot." said Nerala. "Wow that's a lot to take care of. "I didn't even know that fairies and mermaids were real." Don't you get bored of it at all?" asked Alea. "Well, I do get a little over half the afternoon off. Plus, if one of my brothers or sisters gets in trouble, they have to do half or more of one of the other's chores." said Nerala satisfactionally. "I actually have 3 brothers and 3 sisters." said Alea. "I have 5 sisters and 6 brothers. said Nerala. "I can't even imagine what life would be like with THAT amount of siblings." said Alea. "Oh you'd get used to it once all of them dare you to throw a clump of mud at one of the Merdina Fairies." said Nerala. "Pfft, what could be so bad about throwing some clump of dirt at a little fairy?" said Alea. She quickly learned her lesson the hard way as a fairy passed by and Nerala threw a handful of dirt at a fairy and hid behind a tree, leaving Alea in clear sight. The fairy turned bright red with flames all around her, and zoomed towards Alea, picked her up, (somehow) and tried to throw her in the mermaid hot springs. Surprisingly, she didn't fall in. Alea felt this weird sensation throught her body, and realized that she was floating! Alea looked below her and one of the mermaids was looking up at her with their hands faced upwards, as if using magic to levitate her. As the mermaid slowly put Alea back on the ground, the mermaid said, "Don't worry it happens all the time." "Thats Serena. One of the Hot Spring lilie mermaids." said Nerala. "Well then thanks Serena." said Alea. "Any time. We get all kinds of creatures tossed towards us from the fairies. They get mad easily. Usually from one of Nerala's sisters or brothers." said Serena. Alea started to gaze off into the sky, realizing that it was over sunrize. "Shoot! I need to go. It was really nice meeting you guys today, and I'll come back later, but I need to go back to the castle before I get in trouble." said Alea hurriedly. Alea ran back out of the forest and snuck back into the castle, but it was too late. She was stunned to see that there were tons of people, staring at her.


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