Semper Fidelis - Sunrise and Sensibility Ch. 1

Part 1 - Here

Chapter One – At the Restaurant

Twelve years later…
Hi. My name is Grace Rock and this is a completely true story. (Well, maybe not. But I wish it was!!)
My mom and I were at a restaurant with my best friend Ann and her mom on a Saturday. I was currently rereading the Door Within trilogy and loved it, and I couldn’t wait to talk about it with Ann. But our Moms started conversations that were NOT about the trilogy, and the topic never came up.
At last our food came and we fell silent. I polished off two rolls in quick succession, having not eaten a thing since lunch (yes, I had even missed my snack!). I was just raising my third roll to my lips when Ann suddenly asked, “Have you ever heard of The Realm?” I paused, replied, “There’s a million Realms, how am I supposed to know which one you’re talking about?” and sank my teeth into the roll. Yum.
Ann smiled. “Of course there are! I should have said, Have you ever read the Door Within trilogy?”
I almost choked on my roll. My eyes gleaming, I frantically chewed, at last swallowed, and burst out, “YES!! I love those books!! I’m rereading them right now!!” Ann grinned. “I know, aren’t they awesome?” Then: “Do you believe it’s real?”
I considered. “Not really, but I sure wish it was!” Ann smiled wider and casually said, “You know, I’ve been to The Realm.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You have?” She replied with a grin, “I sure have! And what’s sad, is that none of the people that were in the books are still around.” She sighed. I grinned. “Convenient! Now you don’t have to worry about trying to sound like the characters.” She looked confused but continued. “And there’s a new enemy guy named Orthodontia!”
I burst out laughing. She, being used to the name, merely giggled. “Orthodontia!?” I chortled. “That’s ridiculous!” “It’s not his real name,” Ann said. “That probably means something like ultimate darkness or true darkness or something like that. But he calls himself Orthodontia because he thought it sounded cool and it was something to hide his real name. If anyone knows his real name, they’re not gonna turn to him. Ever.”
“You have a point,” I said. Then: “Was crossing the Schism scary?” “Oh yes,” said Ann with a shiver. “It was really scary. And – ” She snorted. “I didn’t know direction very well before my training, and I thought I was pointed the right way, but I wasn’t!!!  I walked right off the path after a few steps!!” We both laughed. “But I got through, obviously,” she continued, “and I ended up in Alleble and trained in sword-fighting and stuff, and had lots of cool adventures. Then right before I left I had to fight in this huge battle and something happened that I don’t want to talk about right now.” She pushed the thought away before finishing. “So, I guess that Orthodontia guy is public now.”
I grinned. “You HAVE to send this to me. I never thought of doing a fanfic! You have an awesome imagination.” She sighed. “It’s not my imagination.” “Well, what else could it be?” I asked, biting into my roll again. “Real?”
“Yeah, it’s real,” said Ann. I smiled. Yeah.
“One thing that IS real is that she was gone for four hours,” said her mom. I looked up from my yummy roll. “Gone?” “Yeah, for four hours, and I was in The Realm for two weeks, like Aidan was,” said Ann. “And another thing that’s real is the Granddaughter of Light, my sword.” Her mom smiled. “You should see what happens when she speaks the runes that are engraved in it!”
“My entire basement has become a sword-training center,” added Ann. “You could learn to swordfight Monday afternoon if you wanted.”
My jaw dropped. I was glad I had finished my bite of roll. Then my head whipped around to Mom. She sighed. “I guess so. As long as she doesn’t hurt herself,” she said, looking over at  Ann’s mom, who reassured her, “Oh, she won’t. All our training swords are dull and most of them are made of wood.”
“YES!!!!!” I yelled as loudly as I could. I couldn’t wait to have my first sword fighting lesson!!!