The first thing I notice after we fall out of the portal and my head catches most of my fall is that this environment looks almost the same as the environment when we entered the portal. The earth is just as hard, the trees are in bloom and showing off their variety of colours and the beautiful sky.

I spit out a piece of earth and roughly wipe my tongue with the back of my hand, pulling a disgusted face.

"Aire, are you all right?" Next to me, I see Cian standing up and patting his clothes off of the earth. He holds out his hand to me and gratefully I take it, then he pulls me up.

"Yeah, only the landing was a little harder than I expected," I tell him. Cian throws his head into his neck and laughs out loud. I look at him dryly, which results in him only laughing harder. Well, at least one of us finds this amusing.

"Hahaha," I say sarcastically.

"Okay, okay, I'm stopping already," Cian says half-smiling. He does stop, but when he turns his back to me to get his bearings, I see that the corners of his mouth are curled up.

"We should go this way." He points to the right. Doubtingly, I look at him. Is he sure? I bite my lip to keep my bubbling doubts to myself and not speak them out loud. Cian now puts both his hands to his sides as well and looks around with much less determination.

"Cian..." I begin cautiously. He turns to me and I see the facade of certainty on his face again. "Are you sure we should go to the right?"

Uncertainly, he runs a hand through his hair, causing a few strands to fall in front of his eyes, and frustrated, my cousin blows them back up, out of his sight. His brown locks have grown quite a bit since the last haircut, and the wave in his locks is a lot more apparent than when he has it short. You could almost put a ponytail in it.

Cian looks left, then right, then left again. "He really has no idea which way to go," comes to mind.

"Yes, we're going to the right," he finally decides and without another word begins to walk in that direction. My fingers wind around the handle of my suitcase again and I quickly pull it with me across the uneven ground.

Silently we walk side by side, pulling the suitcases behind us. I want to break the silence but have no topic of conversation and after a few minutes, the silence between us becomes a pleasant silence, one I don't want to break.

Only a few hours after the sun has reached its zenith, we arrive at one narrow, winding road. Not a living soul crosses our path, making all this feel like a dream to me.

"How much farther?" I ask Cian exhausted. We've been walking for hours and haven't taken a break yet. I'm starting to regret not exercising for a long time because I feel sweat coming out of all the pores of my body and I'm panting like a dog.

"All we have to do is walk down this road and we'll be there." Cian enthusiastically clapped his hands once, probably because he chose the right side as we made our way into the forest.

Although the forest looked like a dead normal forest, I became increasingly aware of a kind of peaceful unnatural feeling that seemed to be through the forest. I can't describe in words exactly what it was, but I'm sure I've never felt it before.

Now that the silence has been broken anyway, I decide to keep the conversation going. "So..." I begin. Cian looks at me sideways and raises an eyebrow questioningly.

"We are now in the elf kingdom of Ailluin, right?" I ask and Cian nods affirmatively. "So, how many elf kingdoms are there?"

"In total, there are five elven kingdoms: Ailluin, Myriil, Inialos, Thallan and Paeral." His breath falters for a moment as he utters the name of the last elven kingdom. "But there are still three kingdoms left. For Thallan and Paeral have been destroyed by Vulmon. For over a decade he has been trying to subjugate the entire elven dimension and so far he has come a long way and every day he gets farther and farther." His jaw tightens and his loose hand balls into a fist in anger.

"But then, isn't it very dangerous to be walking here right now? When at any moment this realm could be attacked as well?" I ask him nervously, looking around quickly for an army that suddenly appears on the horizon. But I don't see anything suspicious. Cian shot a pebble on the road with his foot forward. I hear him take a deep breath as if it's hard for him to tell all this.

"Vulmon had taken the previous two realms using his surprise, but it no longer works. All three of the remaining realms are now resistant to anything and have extra men running around securing the realm." This new knowledge partially reassures me. Who is this 'Vulmon' anyway and why? Why will you subject two entire realms to you, what is his motive for all this?

I turn my gaze to the sky, still so clear blue and not a cloud in the sky. The sun has dropped quite a bit again and the temperature is dropping. Where did I get myself into this?, I almost want to ask myself. A few days ago I didn't know about the existence of fairies at all, I thought they were just fairy tales for little children and now here I am, all sweaty, lugging a suitcase behind me, moving in a world I've never heard of after two enormous wings grew out of my back.

I hear Cian kick another stone forward. My eyes turn from the sky to the stone and I watch as it bounces a few times on the earthen surface and then comes to rest.

"Our final destination is the point where the three remaining empires come together. There we are safe from Vulmon," Cian tells me. I look sideways at him to see how he feels about this whole situation, but no emotion except slight anger can be read from his face.

"Why go there, Cian? What's there?" I ask. Finally, he catches my eye.

"Negaron, that's the best elven school there is. This school was built when the other two realms were attacked by him." He spits on the ground as he refers to Vulmon. "Elves are prepared for war there," Cian adds casually. But I'm left standing from shock. Does Cian want to take us to a school that teaches how to go to war? I, an orphan girl, have to go fight the dreaded Malekith. Not a hair on my head.

I want to start yelling at him, to ask if he's okay in his head, but then I hear other sounds. The sound of people. Only then do I see that we've come to the end of this terribly passable road and arrived in a town.

"Out of the way, ma'am!" I hear a voice call close to my ear. I startle and cringe, before quickly taking a few steps forward, toward Cian, and no longer standing in the middle of a major road. I was so in my world and listening intently to Cian, that I only now realized I was stopped in a major crosswalk.

I look back, at whoever was yelling at me. My eyes lock and can barely believe it.

A whole procession of heavily armed men walks information behind each other. Their shoes rhythmically touch the ground and their arms swing with the movement.

There are soldiers walking. Here. In the middle of the street.

Only one thought passes through me as I look as if stiffened at the serious-looking men and women, "What have I gotten myself into?"