S a v a n ians and Animalians once coexisted in peace, but when the Purehearts ordered them to be driven out, the Savanians carried out the deed. Now the Animalians live on the outskirts of Savanna. Dawnaria, are you listening?"
Dawn, who had just begun to doze, jerked her head back up. "Yes, Mr. Hansen!" she called woozily, her voice echoing off the large, empty room. The Purehearts used large rooms for everything, and since Dawn took private lessons, it made things a little awkward. The large, brown room was filled with rows of chairs, like the church down Cereus Road(It wasn't much bigger than the schoolroom, either.), but it was completely empty except for Dawn and her teacher. Even though Dawn was sitting in the front row, she still had to shout to be heard, as did Mr. Hansen. This added to the list of reasons why Dawn wished she could just go to regular school like everyone else.
Mr. Hansen sighed and shook his head. "No, of course you aren't. Dawn, why aren't you paying attention? You're normally so focused!"
Dawn rolled her eyes, giving up on hiding the fact she was really trying to catch some z's. "Because this is the third time we've gone over this this month."
Mr. Hansen glared at her. "It's important you know this information. You will need it when you become queen. Anyways, the Animalians were a rowdy, unpredictable group. There were too many of them as well, and they risked overwhelming us Savanians. They could not stay with us, or we'd all be slaughtered. So, the king at the time, King Harren IV..."
Dawn lowered her head again and sighed. This was going to be a long day.
* * *
Dawn walked home with her head down. When you read 'walked home', you might imagine Dawn walking down a beautiful stone path with greenery surrounding her, birds chirping in the trees above her and bees buzzing from flower to flower below. If you imagined anything like this, I'm sorry to say that you're incorrect. 'Walking home' for Dawn meant walking down long, long, bland, gray halls to her room, for the schoolroom was part of the very large castle she lived in.
You'd think she'd be happy to walk home inside, with access to food and water along the way, and no risk of getting soaked in a sudden rainstorm or the like, and you'd think that she wouldn't have long to walk anyway. Again, if you thought that, you'd be wrong. She wasn't allowed to eat anything outside of her breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks someplace in between. Dawn would rather be soaked in a rainstorm than walk down the halls, anyway. Did I mention that the halls were very long?
Anyways, enough of that. Back to Dawn.
Dawn walked home with her head down. There wasn't anything to see, anyway.
"I wouldn't mind being poor," she thought, "if only I could walk down a beautiful stone path outside surrounded by greenery, birds chirping and bees buzzing, whenever I came home from school. Actually," she thought, reflecting on her past imagining, "I would much rather be poor than rich, even if I didn't get to do all that whenever I came home from school. Even if I were hungry and thirsty and dirty and hot and tired all the time, I'd much rather be poor than rich. Being poor would be better than this."
Her legs were beginning to tire of walking down the halls, which she took as a sign that she was getting close to her room. Dawn's room was the only place she could truly be herself. She had filled it with color, unlike the rest of the castle, which was mostly black, white, and gray. Dawn's room was painted pearly white, with white-and-sea-green furniture. The floor was white wood planks, topped with a sea-green carpet that covered most of the room. Like all rooms in the castle, it was all very large, so Dawn had lots of space to fill her room with whatever she wanted. Dawn changed it up every month or so, but for now, she had a white king-sized bed with sea-green curtains and blankets in the far top left corner, with a large white table next to it that had a turquoise vase and flowers of many colors in it in the middle, with leftover plates of sushi(Her favorite food)scattered on it. (Dawn guessed that the maids hadn't gotten to her room yet with their everyday cleaning.) Dawn had several odds and ends laying about on the floor that she instructed the maids to leave alone, might she need them one day. She also had all kinds of games set up that she had yet to finish playing, such as a checkers game she'd started with her cousin half a year ago, or several jacks that the maids privately complained about stepping on while cleaning Dawn's room. A table tennis table was in the bottom right corner by insistence of her Aunt Hill, who was convinced that table tennis somehow improved your health, though Dawn had already lost all the balls. Dawn had many more things in her room, but it would take far too long to describe all of it. Remember, the castle had very large rooms.
Dawn strode across the room (Which took nearly a minute) and flopped onto her bed, pulling her covers over her face and huddling under her blanket. She took a piece of paper out from under her pillow, along with a flashlight and a pencil, and turned the flashlight on. She stared at the page.
Dawn had been planning her escape for a month or so. She was nearly done devising her plan. She had it all set up: In middle of the night, Dawn would remove her pillow from her pillowcase, revealing the supplies she'd have put in the pillowcase beforehand: Several peaunut-butter sandwiches, 3 bottles of water, a flashlight, a blanket, a packet of gum(To help with thirst), a notebook, 3 pencils, 2 erasers, and, a grand touch, a pocket knife. Dawn would unlock her window, having stolen the keys, and climb onto the ledge of her window. Then, she'd swing herself down so that she was on the ledge of the window beneath her, and repeat the process until she had climbed down the 9 floors(Dawn had specifically picked this room when she first got it as a 6-year-old, imagining that she was on cloud 9). Finally, Dawn would...
That's where Dawn was stuck. What would she do next? Where would she go? She wasn't sure.
Come on, come on, anything, anything... Dawn thought to herself as she skimmed through her ideas. Home? NO! To her cousin's house? They'd call her parents. To the village? She'd be caught. Into the forest? What was she supposed to do, just wander around in a dangerous forest at night? Dawn was stumped.
But Dawn wasn't one to give up. She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning over her paper. Come on, come on...
The Outskirts.
The Outskirts?
Dawn opened her eyes and straightened herself. The Outskirts? As in where the Animalians lived? How was that meant to work?
Dawn thought it over. If she cut through the very edge of the forest, then continued walking from there... Soon she'd reach The Outskirts.
Dawn grinned, then began to write... Then stopped.
But why? Why would Dawn go to The Outskirts?
Dawn thought for a moment. Finally, she reached a conclusion: She was meant to go there.
She didn't know why. Or how. But she knew it. And she wrote the plan down and decided that night was as good a time as any to leave.
* * *
Dawn sat up. Finally, she heard snores from every corner of the castle, and her room was filled with the silence when you're the only one awake in the house. She yanked her pillow out of her pillowcase, as swiftly as a tarantula might pounce on its prey, and shoved her blanket into the pillowcase. Dawn walked to the window.
She gulped. She really was quite high up. Maybe this wasn't a good idea.
Too late for second thoughts now!
Dawn jumped.
And grabbed the ledge.
And slid down as if she'd done this a million times.
Huh. Maybe this won't be as hard as I thought.
Dawn slipped.
