A World Divided

Chapter 1

 Kanon sat in class, staring out the window next to her desk. The teacher droned on about some random thing that she didn't care about, and she could feel eyes staring at her. Ones of admiration, jealousy, love, and hate. How annoying, she thought. All this just because she was somewhat pretty and her father was someone "important". She snickered at the thought. "Important"? More like murderous.

Kanon forces herself to hold back a flinch as the bell rings, signaling the beginning of lunch. Finally she could grab some lunch, her diary, and write away.

Except, her diary wasn't there.

She grabbed her bag and searched inside for it, but found nothing. Only her music notebook and lousy textbooks she never cared enough to look at. No one could read her diary. Not because of a crush or something. Because it could incriminate her.

Well, screw eating, she thought. She stood up and went straight to her locker, hoping it would be there. Nothing again. She cursed under her breath and thought about what would happen if someone read it. Nicholas, her "father", could throw her out of the house, and she'd be painted as a traitor to the humans. They can't know. They can't know about her elven parents, and how much she truly loved them.

At the thought of what could happen to her, Kanon began to search all over her school for her diary. She looked through every classroom, every hallway, she even searched in the noisy cafeteria that made her feel like her ears would fall off. Nothing.

She was searching again through her locker, when someone came up to her. It was the new kid, Hero, who all the girls had been fawning over. He pulls her diary out of his bag, and Kanon's heart drops to her stomach.

"Looking for this?" Hero taunted. Kanon panicked and stepped on his foot. He immediately yelps and drops her diary.

"Jeez, Kanon! I was just returning your little diary to you." Hero said. "Anyways, so about those elves-"

"If you say anything to anyone about what you saw, I will make you pay for it." Kanon threatened when the realization that Hero had read her diary kicked in.

Hero just smirked. "I don't plan on it. You could be a useful asset."

Kanon stared at him for a moment. "A useful asset? What are you talking about?"

"I'll get to that in a second. Anyway... who are those guys?" Hero questioned.

"Why should I trust you not to say anything about this?" she asked.

"Because I'm an elf." Hero disclosed with a grin. "Me revealing that to you better not have been a mistake."

Kanon was left in shock. After the war had begun, and the elves and humans had started fighting, Kanon's hometown had been raided and she was taken from her adoptive elven parents and placed with the leader of the humans, Nicholas Austin. Why would an elf trust the daughter of the person who was slaughtering them? And his ears weren't elf-like at all, they were round just like hers.

"Now, I know you have a lot of questions," Hero started, "And I'm gonna answer them. If you answer mine first!"

Kanon rolled her eyes at him. He must be lying. But she was tempted. God, it would be such a stupid idea, she thought.

"Fine." The word came out of her mouth before she could even think about it. She had to admit, her curiosity was killing her. Who was this, and why was he saying he's an elf? Was he a crazy person? A liar? A spy? An actual elf?

"Great!" Hero began. "First of all, as I said before, who are those people?"

Kanon hesitated before answering. This was the stupidest thing she'd ever done... but if there was even a chance... "They were my parents." she responded finally.

Hero just looked confused. "But you're a human... and they're elves... and you don't look anything like them. How does that..."

Kanon rolled her eyes at him once again. "My biological mom went on a trip to Swan, took me with her, forgot me there, and they ended up adopting me."

Hero nods. "Oh, I get it now. So... what are you doing here now?"

"After the war started, my hometown was destroyed, they killed my parents, and I was adopted by Nicholas so he could force me to talk about how evil and bloodthirsty you all are."

"That selfish little..." he huffed.

Kanon just nodded in agreement. Pokra, where elves come from, was full of wonderful magic. Magic that Nicholas wanted to harness for himself. So he'd started making up fake stories about how elves wanted to kill all humans, and how they'd burn them in big fires.

"Are you done with your questions now?" Kanon grumbled.

"Just one more." Hero started. "Can I trust you?"

"...I guess you can."

"Great! Well then, you can ask me some questions now."

Just as Kanon opened her mouth to speak, the bell rang through the halls. She cringed at the annoying sound.

"Oops. Uh, I guess we should go to class." Hero started to leave, but Kanon roughly grabbed his arm.

"Not until you answer my questions."

Hero sighed. "Fine. I'll answer your questions. Let's go somewhere hidden, though."

"Right in here." She pointed to an empty classroom that's used for storage and reached down into her pocket, grabbing a pick lock made out of a paper clip. She quickly walked up to the classroom door and started to pick the lock.

"Oh, so you can pick locks?" He smirked. "That's useful."

"Useful for what?"

"We'll get to that later! Just keep pickin'!"

Just as he said that, the door unlocked. They walked inside the dark room without a word and shut the door behind them, blocking out most of the light from the hallway and leaving them in pitch black darkness. They could hear the storm of students coming down the hallway to get to their next class. Kanon couldn't help but be thankful that she wasn't in that mess. Hero turned on the light. Kanon was a bit disappointed because she actually much preferred the dark over light, but she said nothing as not to appear weird.

Turning back to Hero, she asked, "So, what's up with your ears?"

"My ears?"

"Yes, your ears. They're not elf-like at all."

"Oh!" Hero said before taking a little red pouch out of his pocket. He opened it up and took out a little pinch of a dark purple powder that shimmered like a bunch of little stars in the night sky. Kanon quickly recognized it as Pokran magic. He threw it up in the air dramatically as if he were in some sort of musical and it disappeared. As it did so, his ears became pointy and his hair turned from brown to a fiery red.

"I see. A human disguise." Kanon said.

"So do you trust me now?" Hero asked with a smirk on his face.

Kanon hesitated. "...I guess." she said after a moment, rubbing her hands together nervously.

"Okay! Because I have a proposition for you!" Hero yelled out excitedly.

Kanon stared at him blankly for a moment. "And this proposition is?"

"How would you like to be a spy?"