Prologue

The white hot ray swept over the surface of the planet below, setting any creature unfortunate enough to be in it's path on fire. Trees,flowers,Norns,Ettins and Grendels disappeared in flames. Above all this a small ellipse of black hovered in space. The planet's inhabitants were annihilated and the planet reduced to black ashes.

Chapter 1: Visions

Jarrett awoke with a start, breathing heavily and cold sweat beading his forehead he looked over to his beautiful mate, Rhiannon. She twitched and turned over, sighing in her sleep. It had all been a dream. Jarrett sank back and tried to go back to sleep. He couldn't He knew that dream, he had dreamt it many times before, more intense each time. Something bad was going to happen, soon. He didn't get much more sleep that night

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Deanna, the female leader, stood looking out of the window. She glanced over to her mate, Galen and her mischievous nature took over. She set up a simple pulley by attactching a piece of string to his arm, the middle to a hook in the ceiling and the end to a carefully balanced glass of water, and waited. Galen turned over in his sleep and inadvertently tugged the string. The water emptied over him, much to Deanna's amusement.

"Grah! ::gurgle gurgle:: What the hell was that for?" he gurgled

"No reason.I was just looking at you and- what's that?" she replied looking out of the window

Galen stared out the window at the saucer shaped craft descending on them. A few Norns were already racing towards the ship. Cries of "The Shee" and "They've returned to us" carried a long way.

The pair ran out to greet the visitors. The hatch opened and a tall shimmering blue figure with a blinding white crest emerged. Galen made a low bow, looked up and saw that Deanna wasn't doing the same and dragged her down.

"Greetings great Shee, we welcome you back to us" he said grandly

The female Shee smiled and tickled the nose of a small baby Norn who had ventured close enough to grip her leg. "It's good to be back" she said, the smile faded. "However we cannot stay for long and have only returned to collect a few of you to take with us when we go."

"Who will you take?" asked Kwani, a pretty little child.

"We will discuss that bit in great detail. We have to choose the most intelligent and best looking Norns...generally the 'best' eight or so of you." the Shee, Matkah, replied.

Galen was getting irritated with all the talk of 'best' and suggested that they all go and have a bite to eat and then meet in the great tree that was at more or less the centre of the world. They separated.

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"So it's decided then." Matkah confirmed. She handed a list of names to a male Shee sitting beside her. Deanna assumed that it was her mate. she looked sideways at her own mate who seemed unusually tense.

The Shee read out his list."Rhiannon,Kwani,Laird,Rufus,Saskia, Rowan,Galen and Deanna."

There were sighs of relief, screams of joy and cries of "Aww, no fair!"

Rhiannon raised her voice to ask about her mate, Jarrett, but the Shee answered her unasked question.

"Don't even bother asking. We've made our decision and we are not going back on it now. We have chosen you all carefully, you all ought to be honored. We leave tomorrow. No need to bring anything unless it has great sentimental value, we will provide everything."

Rufus and Rowan began to cry. They did not want to leave their friends and family behind. A pale mauve motherly looking Shee picked the pair up a hugged them until they stopped. The Shee looked over to Matkah with a look that said 'See. This is how you deal with them.' Matkah rolled her eyes impatiently. With the Shee there were two types. The type that adored Norns and fawned over them,(this was the type that had created them in the first place) and the type that had next to no tolerance of them. Matkah was this latter type, but she was following orders from her superiors so...

"Excuse us," said Deanna and Galen simultaneously, "Until we leave this soil, WE are the leaders and as such I advise everyone except those who are leaving to go home and leave us with the...uh...visitors." Nobody moved and Galen started getting irritated.

"Well? Go on then. Disappear. Shoo, shoo!" he said flapping his hands at the crowd.

"NO! I shall not be moved." cried Jarrett.

"You shall do what Galen says." Deanna replied rushing to her husband's side.

"I shall not do anything while I know we all shall perish if you leave us..." Jarrett's voice had started out determined but had taken on a whine towards the end. Deanna was touched.

"Awww that's so sweet of you Jarrett!" she gushed, "You will find other leaders, not as good as us but-"

"Don't flatter yourselves. I was talking about how Albia will fall to bits if you go. I had a vision... Ahem!" he said as Galen fake-coughed trying to disguise the word 'loser.' "The vision predicted that Albia was destroyed, along with it were the Creatures that inhabited it, eg ME!!"

"Darling, your blood pressure!" tutted Rhiannon

"To hell with my blood pressure!" Jarrett screamed hysterically, "It won't matter much when I'm being flash-fried in my own juices!"

"You are embarrassing me dear..." Rhiannon said through gritted teeth. "Try not to take this so badly."

"Yeeees. Of course Rhi," began Galen, "He's just that little bit jealous." Turning to Jarrett he said, "Aren't you, you selfish little naven?"

Jarret didn't like being ridiculed, especially in front of his very much sought after mate. He stuck out his fist and Galen went flying. Galen touched his nose and looked at his finger. It was covered in blood.

"How dare you!" Galen raged.

"I dare!" Jarrett answered right back, "And I'd do it twice!"

The crowd gasped. The penalty for hitting another Norn was harsh, for hitting the leader it was terrible and for the perpetrator to admit that he felt no regret for it...well...it goes without saying that it couldn't get much worse than it already was.

"Exile!" screamed the crowd "Make him go and live with the Grendel."

"I grant your wish." said Galen as best he could with Deanna holding a wad of tissue that Matkah had given her to her mate's nose "May I never see your sorry hide again."

"You won't." snarled Jarrett,"And may you be sorry when you realize that you'll never see ANY of us again and may you wish that you had listened to me!" He bellowed and stormed off.

"There's one in every community" Galen shook his head irritatedly. (not quite sure if that's a word) The Community parted, going their own separate ways.

***********************

After hugs and cuddles and copious amounts of tears the Chosen Norns boarded the space craft and were shown to a beautiful terrarium where they were to live.

"Wow!" wowed Deanna

"Beautiful" sighed Rhiannon in a rapture.

"Can I see the bridge thingy that you talked about." asked Kwani

Their guide (Lethia) smiled down at her. She couldn't see why not.

They made their way to the bridge and were greeted by the smiles of the Shee that were there.

"Come on in." they said.

Kwani and Rowan ran to the viewport window with Saskia and Rufus, hand in hand, close behind.

"Wow! That is just SO cool!" the foursome cried.

The captain laughed at the youngsters' antics and innocent enthusiasm. "Fire when ready." He said. A white hot beam seared the surface of Albia. The Norns jumped back.

"What the hell d'you think you are doing?" cried Laird, who, other than those we have already met, was the only other adult.

"Destroying Albia." The captain replied,"We have no choice, we can't let any other Norns other than yourselves to survive."

"Why the hell not?"

"We can't make the same mistake as we have done in the past. This time we will protect you like we should" The Shee answered.

"So what you're telling me is that Jarret was right. If all of us had refused to come you wouldn't have done anything?"

"We would have been forced to stay with you." Lethia corrected.

The eight Norns stared out of the window, just in time to see their old home burst into flame.