A/N: Media is how I envisage Reia to look!

I ran until I thought I could run no longer, and then I ran some more.

The marketplace had caused me to lose my cloak; desperately shoving people out of the way and trying to squeeze in between gaps had resulted in me yanking it from my shoulders in effort to get away faster. I regretted it now as the sun began to set, and I was still pounding across the fields, scarcely even aware of what direction I was running. All the while, I could hear the hounds following in the distance.

As I tired, they began to catch up, snapping their jaws viciously. I cried out as I stumbled, the earth catching my feet and pulling me down. My body was moving and scrambling away before I could even tell it to, my heart pumping so hard that I could hear it in my ears, droning out the dogs with its drumming rhythm.

Eventually, I came before a wall and a gate, and I vaulted it so fast that I had to continue running once I hit the ground. Only when a few minutes had passed, and the yapping of the hunt had faded, did I realise I had left the dogs behind at the gate, and I could relax.

My knees buckled, and I fell to the ground, sobbing. I stayed on the ground for what felt like a long time. My body had cooled, my heart rate had plummeted and my muscles began to scream. Exhaustion was creeping over me, so I forced myself to stand.

It was only then did I realise where I was— and gasped.

The harbour! I was in the harbour!

The land met with an expanse of water glittering in the setting sun. The evening light threw flickering shadows of jetties and moored boats bobbing with the gentle swashing of the waves. But the real reason I hated the harbour at this time of year was the gigantic mass of rock and earth that floated over the water, like an overweight cruise liner waiting to dock.

The floating island had been built hundreds of years ago, long before the cities beneath it began to flourish in a haze of smog and science. Nobody really knew anything about it, which caused no end of stories and legends of gossip between the townsfolk, who had all grown up alongside the strange phenomenon and had learned to accept it.

Being a person that liked facts, I believed that we only knew two truths about the island, and they were visible from observation.

Fact number one? The time of year it appeared.

Always, as if in orbit, the island would descend lower towards Earth as the height of summer and the solstice approached. Where it rested now, a few houses above the harbour, was just about where it would reach maximally, for the summer solstice— and my birthday— was only a few days away. Within a month, though, it would disappear back into the sky, to vanish again for the year.

The second fact was what it looked like.

On the underbelly, a huge bronze mechanism whirred and cranked, releasing plumes of steam from pistons, and rotating fans at an incredible rate.

From this belly rose the body of the island, made from what appeared to be rock and high walls of stone, but amazingly, decorated with vines and flowers. Just towering above the walls, the top few turrets of a castle could be made out; glistening glass towers that surely overlooked a great city.

Perhaps I lied; there was one more fact that I alone knew about the island, and it was that I was absolutely terrified of it.

When I was a child, parents would tell their children that the island was there to take naughty children away. As it whirred in its approach, the towns' toddlers would suddenly become a lot better behaved. Having grown up in an orphanage, it was not down to parents telling me that it would steal naughty children, but my sister, fervently denying it.

My first memory is the terror that day she took me down to the harbour whilst the island was there, floating just out to sea.

Before I recount the tale, it is important to tell you a little about my sister.

Reia was the tallest child by the age of five in our orphanage, a long-legged, gawky child with the biggest, curliest blonde ringlets in the entire world. She had the loudest voice, and the most infectious laugh. When the older children tried to scare us by telling us the island would take us away, Reia only laughed boomingly.

'It won't take us away,' she said. I cowered behind her, much more uncertain than she was. They sniggered at me.

'It won't,' Reia repeated as the bigger kids continued to poke fun of us. 'I'll prove it.'

And she did.

That very same night, she snuck us out along the bronze roof tiles, our tiny feet pattering under the moonlight. I followed my sister anywhere, but that night I felt sick with fear.

'Reia, don't go,' I began to cry. Reia, meanwhile, was looking for a way to climb down a drainpipe. As I sniffled, she turned and wiped my nose on her roughly hewn sleeve.

'Mina, trust me,' was all she said, using her shortened version of my actual name, Lumina.

It worked. It always worked.

We had climbed down the orphanage building in secret many times, but this night was different; I was silent and unwilling. I followed my sister down the dark town streets in my slippers and nightgown, Reia holding my hand and chattering all the way.

I followed her until dawn came, and the little dusty road had led us out of the city and to the harbour, where the island was hovering above the water.

It was the first time I had ever fully beheld it, and I never forgot the sight.

The island dwarfed the harbour.

It was huge, so terrifyingly huge to a child that it was like seeing a monster, hungrily waiting for its prey. I remember thinking of the other children's stories of aliens, that this was like an alien, with its awful machinery beating in its own unfamiliar rhythm, the heart of the alien.

The sun was rising behind it, casting the island into a red haze that looked like the walls were washed in blood. The walls alone looked so foreboding that I feared ever being taken inside it.

But the thing that I most remember was the feeling of my limbs freezing, the shudder that clenched through my muscles and even though I was rooted to the ground, the blood that pounded in my ears was telling me to run.

Reia had more difficulty getting me to move much further, and in the end, she went on ahead of me, leaving me at the fork in the country lane while she headed down to the docks.

'I'll be back as soon as I can,' she said to me, squeezing my hand. Hers was warm and soft and pudgy against my cold, clammy scared hands. I watched her leave without saying anything; nothing I would tell her would stop her from doing what she planned to do.

I stood there obediently, shivering, for what could have been hours, but was in probability only half that time. I was still standing there waiting in the same spot when Reia returned, triumphantly waving a water plant from by the docks, as proof that she had survived encountering the island. I wept in relief, and she chided me for being a cry-baby.

We returned to the orphanage to a scolding from the grown-ups, but a sense of heroism from the other children. The older ones merely quietened, and from that day, they left Reia alone.

It was not until I was nine did I learn about who supposedly lived on the island.

Or, more importantly, what lived on the island.

There was a large footprint outside the village shrine one day, and it left quite a stir.

Reia and I had been sent to help clean the shrine when a group of elderly men and women came to pray. They glanced at us, listening intently from where we were sweeping up the floor, before continuing to gaggle at the priest, in tones that were not quite hushed enough.

'It supposedly had six toes—'

'It wasn't a human footprint, was it? It couldn't have been!'

'Do you think—? From the island?'

'My dear, they are said to be angels on that island.'

I let out a gasp when I heard the word 'angel', and the priest sternly put their fears to rest.

'The footprint was not caused by anything from the island,' he said, 'We should not spread rumours about what we are unfamiliar with. It does not make us better people. I have heard from a neighbour that their dog got loose the other night, and it still hasn't been found. It's a very large dog; I think it is easily the source of the footprint.'

Although I believed the priest's words, Reia returned home to the orphanage to relay the story in an entirely different light.

'And then the priest appeared, waving his lighted candle, praying for all our spirits that the beast does not come eat us all!' she roared at the younger children. They shrieked in fear and laughter, some looking horrified and others giggling, hiding their horror. I lurked behind Reia, the shy sister, watching my glowing elder sister take the light that I didn't want.

The younger children adored her. The elder children had, begrudgingly, come to love her too, seeing her as a leader despite being older than her.

I never minded. I, too, saw Reia as my leader. I followed her anywhere. Even when I knew her stories were made up, I half believed them. But I never forgot about the rumour of the angels. Sometimes, when I lay awake at night in the dormitories, listening to the other children murmur and move in their sleep, I would watch the night sky, wondering if I would see an angel.

Whenever I imagined an angel, I always imagined it as Reia.

Regardless of my childhood, my fear of the island had never truly gone away. Even now, as I stood between certain savagery of vicious dogs and this harmless hunk of floating rock, I could feel my bones urging me to take my chances with the four-legged fiends.

It was at that moment that I saw a familiar figure, out walking by the harbour.

Golden blonde ringlets reached to her elbows, sparkling in the evening light. The girl's back was perfectly straight, her shoulders drawn back, as she strolled along the pier with perfect grace. Immediately, I began calling for her, charging down the grassy banks and calling out her name.

'Reia! REIA!'

The girl turned, her full eyelashes blinking in sweet confusion as I raced towards her in an ungainly manner. But rather than turn her nose up at my muddy state, she burst into the happiest smile.

'Lumina!' she greeted me, holding her arms out and drawing me into a deep hug. I only reached up to her chest. She smelt like flowers, god knows how. I gave her a big grin as I pulled away, taking in the sight of her loveliness.

Even in a pale blue hand-me-down dress, Reia was the picture of beauty. Her tiny waist drew in the apron around her middle, and her boots were tied up the front with delicate bows.

I was Reia's shadow, in more ways than one. With my dark hair at my hips and my purple eyes, I was a stark contrast to her sunny fair hair and elfin green eyes. Of course, it was painfully obvious that we weren't blood related sisters, but having grown up together and even having the same birthdays, we both liked to pretend that we were twins.

'What are you doing here?' we asked in unison, and then both started giggling. Reia's was dainty and small, whilst mine was more of a hearty guffaw.

'You first,' said Reia, politely, and so I recounted the tale of the silk.

Her eyes went wide.

'Hounds?' she said, looking horrified. 'That's awful! And he threatened you? Lumina...you should tell the police!'

I smiled, privately thinking that the police would never take note of an orphan being murdered, let alone harassed. But I would not tell Reia such things.

Instead, I nodded in agreement. 'And you?'

Reia's gaze flitted back to the island. 'I came to see it. I come every year.'

My eyebrows rose as if they were trying to escape my forehead.

'You do?' I choked.

'It's beautiful,' she said, shrugging. 'It's not scary.'

At that, she cast me a knowing look, and I quickly brushed the subject away.

'I got you your birthday present!'

'What? Already? But it's not until Thursday!'

'Yes, but...don't you want to know what it is? After I went through so much trouble to get it to you?'

Reia crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. The adorable mole, underneath her left eye, quivered with the face she pulled.

'Did you steal my present? You know I hate stealing, Lumina. It puts you in danger.'

I pulled my bag from my shoulder, giving her a sheepish grin as I opened it.

'I had to get it for you. You're only eighteen once.'

Reia rolled her eyes, and then gave in. 'Alright. But no more stealing after we turn eighteen, okay?'

And I handed her the pocket watch.

I saw the surprise in her face. She peered at it in her hands as if she held precious gold. Her fingers traced the carvings of the bronze before clutching it firmly to her heart. When she looked back up at me, I saw her eyes were filled.

'Thank you,' she said, her voice quiet. 'You're my best friend, you know that?'

I grinned. 'I know.'

She gave me an annoyed nudge. 'Confident that I'll never leave you, eh?'

I grinned even further. 'Of course. You'll never get rid of me.'

Reia knew better than to disagree. Instead, she looked uncertainly at the pocket watch in her hand, and back at me. Her expression had turned into one of puzzlement.

'What is it?'

She cast her eyes down. 'I haven't got you your present yet, and we turn eighteen on the same day.'

I gave her a calculating look. 'Just remember me when you're a rich, famous model or something. I'll be waiting on your success!'

We teased and laughed at each other as we walked back to the orphanage.

 Please click the star to vote if you enjoyed this, and comment to share your thoughts!! This is my third draft of this first chapter. I would be excited to know what you think: critiques welcome!

This chapter is dedicated to Rachael Taylor for all her help. She's a great writer with her own work, the Six! 

Larissa x