Um...

First of all, writing rants is definitely not dying. Kelia. Jeeze. O_O
Secondly... someone remind me WHY I was determined to have White Rose in first person? I've been trying to work on it for a couple weeks, and every time I opened it up just like... gagging.
It was not working, people.
So I um... started over.
That's only 20000 words in the trash. Gulp. What I'm doing is telling it from several peoples perspectives, in third person. What I have here is bits from everyone I might use... not sure if it's an actual beginning or an experiment of sorts to see who I want to stick with. I don't think I can really use ALL of them because it might get too confusing... but I dunno. Read, and tell me what you think. :)

Zara ran. She didn’t know where she was going, or why she was even leaving. Mirany and Emmy could undoubtedly use her help now, with the castle in ruins, and the princes undoubtedly rendered useless. Maybe she could even fix what the fariies had done... but no. She’d brought this on herself, and now, of course, Mirany was paying the price for her. She had never meant it to go this way. She had been so stupid.
She shook her head and stopped moving abruptly, skidding to a halt at the base of the moutain. The night was dark, except for a sliver of moon that peeked through the tree’s, casting an eerie light over the path. Her heart was beating at a ridiculous rate and she placed a cool hand on her head, calming herself. The fariie’s face flashed unbidden to her mind, but instead of the fariie who had sentenced Mirany and her brothers, it was Trilian. Trilian... She sucked in her breath and hissed quietly. She had not thought of him for what seemed a long time. She wouldn’t let it happen again.
Zara looked down at her hands and grimaced. It was as if she could see blood on them, glittering in the pale moonlight, though she knew they were really perfectly clean. The blood of twelve princes on her hands, for if - no, when Mirany gave in and spoke, they would die, just as the fariies had foretold. Mirany would blame herself, of course. A wave of nausea washed over her and she clenched her teeth.
Time to go home.

“What exactly are we supposed to do with ten birds for two years?” Trilian said, his voice as calm and even as ever, despite the slight edge of irritation in his words.
“I thought you would think of something.” The older fariie smiled at him, and if Trilian had not been fariie himself he would have been blinded by the light coming off his face.
“Of course.” He half bowed, keeping his thoughts carefully to himself.
“It was not your decision to make young one,” the older fariie spoke again. Apparently he had not been that good at masking his opinions. “We did what was best for the child.”
“You did what you thought Zara deserved,” Trilian said evenly.
The older fariie shrugged. “Perhaps. But the girl needed to have her powers under control to begin with. She will be of no use to us if she cannot even do that. It will be a great test.”
“You speak of her as if she is a tool.”
The fariie raised one delicate eyebrow. “Is that not what she is?”
Trilian bowed again, and turned away, before his thoughts could betray him.
“Trilian,” the older fariie called, stopping him. “You will see that the birds are given tasks?” It was posed as a question, but he knew it was a command. Trilian nodded once. It wouldn’t be difficult.

All was dark in the castle. Emmy tucked her legs further underneath her and tried to lay still, but her mind hadn’t stopped whirring. She missed home, vaguely, or the comforts of her bed at least.
“How are ma and da going to do without me?” she whispered to the bird that lay bundled next to her head. They had found Mattew shortly after the fariie and Zara had disappeared, croaking faintly on the floor, a small black raven drowning in a pool of blood. Emmy shuddered at the memory. She and Mirany had both been in shock, she thought, but they had picked up the bird despite it, washed him and cleaned his wounds. Emmy had wondered once, in the fog of pain and shock, why they were even doing this for the betrayer. But he was still Mirany’s brother, and now just a helpless bird. They couldn’t have left him there to die. She just hoped now that somehow he would pull through. If the blade the king had thrust into Mattew’s side was poisoned... Well, they could only hope it hadn’t been.
She closed her eyes and wished desperately for sleep, but the scene that had taken place just hours before kept playing behind her eye lids, never giving her peace. The moment when the fariie had proclaimed his sentence and she’d looked into Stesha’s eyes, as he disappeared into a flurry of feathers...
He was gone.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard, tasting blood, but it relieved the ache in her chest and the urge to cry. Emmy knew Mirany wasn’t asleep either, just as she knew she wouldn’t hear her best friends voice again for two years, and she didn’t want the sound of her stifled tears to start another epidemic of sobbing. They’d done enough of that shortly after the whole catastrophe. No, there was nothing to do now except try to sleep, and on the morrow, figure out what they were going to do to fix all this. The fariie had said she would rule for Mirany, and if that was what she had to do - leave her family, her village - she would.
Besides, she knew above all, she had to do everything in her power to help Mirany. She could not possibly remain silent for two years without a little help, and nothing, nothing, could be allowed to force her to speak. She would die before she would ever let that happen.

Mirany awoke with the morning sun, although she could only sense the light, being closed inside the cold stones of the castle. Her cheek was pressed uncomfortably against the uneven floor but she lay quietly for a long moment, hardly daring to breathe as the events of the past day came rushing back down on her.
Her father, dead.
Zara, gone.
Her brothers, birds.
And silence.
She sat up abruptly, knocking over the bowl they had used to clean Mattew last night and sending it clattering across the room. The sound rang out and she winced, looking quickly at Emmy to see if she’d woken her. Emmy’s blond hair lay spread around her head rather like a halo, except for the griminess and traces of battle. Mirany breathed out a sigh of relief on seeing that she still slept, although she couldn’t say peacefully. She had a worried expression even in sleep.
Mirany’s eyes traveled to the bird laying next to Emmy, and suddenly she was very, very, very angry. At Mattew, for betraying them; at Zara, for coming up with the plan, but not explaining; at the fariies, for cursing them all with this. At her own stupidity. She should have trusted Zara. She should have guessed what she was doing, instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion. She should have... She shook her head and pulled on her grimy hair, filled with such unutterable self loathing. She wished she had been the one to be turned into a bird. For the princes lives, her fathers death seemed hardly worth the price. But they were not dead yet, she reminded herself, glancing at Mattew again. If she could but save them from that final fate, maybe there was still hope.
Maybe.

“Eriq,” a soft voice whispered on the wind. He looked up, startled, and listened. A flash of silver and gold streaked between the tree’s, and he sucked in his breath, silently dropping his bow. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to seem a threat, for he knew instinctively it meant him no harm.
“Eriq,” the voice came again, and this time a small face appeared, peeking out from behind some leaves. It looked like a breathtakingly beautiful child, it’s face glowing in the late afternoon light.“Follow,” it breathed.
Eriq glanced back at his sisters, still seated on the picnic blanket but a few feet away, but they were distracted and before he could think better of it, he had followed the child into the woods. They walked quickly for a moment, before the small boy turned to grin at him. He was a fariie, Eriq realized, probably far older then him although he looked about six. Eriq had never seen one before but he’d heard the tales, read the legends. The noblemen all said they had gone into hiding, not seen in these parts for centuries.
Clearly, they had been mistaken.
“You know what I am,” the fariie spoke, sounding faintly delighted, “but you do not know why I am here.”
“Would you care to tell me?” Eriq said. The fariie laughed and stepped forward, placing a glowing hand on his arm. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to draw back as every instinct in him would have.
“Mirany needs you,” the fariie boy said, looking into his eyes. Eriq found he could not look away from the golden eyes, and an image of a fiery haired girl, standing in the middle of a large room and looking intensely angry suddenly entered his head.
“Who-” he started, but the fariie shook his head, and turning, ran lightly away, apparently having completed his mission.
“Find her,” the fariie called over his shoulder. “Find her, and you will find yourself.”
He was left standing, staring after the traces of gold that glinted faintly on the forest leaves. If he had not known, he could have sworn there had been no fariie there that day. Perhaps there had not. He knew his sisters would call him crazy, at least. But then, his sisters could not possibly see the image of the red haired girl that danced in his head.
Her name was Mirany.
Who was she?

That's it for now. As a kind of threat though, come september the challenges are starting back up.
Be scared. Be very scared.

With love,
The Founder.