On the hunt (Lilac)

This was one of Pokers favorite quotes from one of the most amazing books he's ever read. True he didn't read a lot but it was still something memorable for him.  He always admired the phoenix because of it's stories where it would always 'Rise from the Ashes'. He used it as an inspiration for himself since it meant that the mythical creature would always come back no matter how many times it got hit or destroyed. After all, the path to success isn't a two way road of win or lose. It's a one path highway with multiple failures before you hit success.

After hearing rumors from the other students that they had seem a real life phoenix themselves, Poker was more than hyped to go travel in order to see it with his own very eyes. He stood in front of the portal which lead to the island where it was rumored to of kept the phoenix. He took a deep breathe before finding the nerve to place one foot in front of him in order to travel through it and onto the island.

A stick. A tree. A flower. A bug.
Florence stomped through the forest, touching or picking up everything as she passed. She couldn't believe she had somehow weaseled her way out of the house without her mother noticing, Berlin was going to be so jealous. She felt bad about leaving him there with their mom all alone, but if she was forced to listen to her mum badly dude, just shut up old Irish songs and eat some weird potato thing again for another second, she was going to set her hair on fire... again.

The girl picked up a slimy looking worm from the ground, and put it in the pocket of her corduroy skirt. She'd have to remember to give that to Berlin later as an apology gift, he'd like that. Florence inspected another interesting looking bug to add to the collection, but she immediately jolted up upon hearing the crunch of footsteps coming from somewhere behind her. Paralyzed with fear, the girl sat there for a moment, silently praying it was not her mother, when to her surprise a beautiful, tall boy walked right past her without paying her any mind.

Automatically her interest was peaked. And as he walked away, Florence got up and followed him, the creepy-crawly laying forgotten behind her.

She wanted to call out to him to scold him for ignoring her, but she miraculously held her tongue. She was more interested in seeing where he was going, and she knew if he saw her he would stop whatever it was he was doing. People always felt the need to baby her, it was gross.

She followed him through rows of twisty trees, and over the river, past grandmas house, and even to the side of a large looking hill. But then he abruptly stopped walking, and stood in front of something Florence had never seen before. The child stared enthralled at the portal. What was that thing?
The worm wiggled in her pocket as if reminding her of its presence, but Florence poked with her finger in an attempt to keep it still. That seemed to do the trick, but Florence wasn't sure if it was still alive, were worms supposed to lay like that or was he just faking i-

Suddenly Florence heard a strange whooshing noise, which brought her attention back to her main subject, but he was gone. Florence was aghast, hopping up from her crouch and bounding over to the portal. "Hello?" She called into the strange floating circle thing, cupping her mouth with her hands in an attempt to help the sound travel. "Are you in there?" She listened for a second, but he didn't respond.

Florence leaned further towards the portal, hoping perhaps she might be able to hear him better if she was closer, but almost immediately she lost her balanced and toppled through the portal and into a strange land she had never seen before. "WHOA!!!" She screamed, hopping up and down, and running towards the gaggle of trees to her left, she couldn't wait to show Berlin this cool new land to explore.

Right as Poker passed by the portal he was struck by the beauty of the land. It was such an amazing view that there was no way anyone would not be enlightened by it. Just the sight of the place itself was mesmerizing. Without a moments hesitation Poker grew a pair of wings for himself and took to the sky so he could get an even better view. Not only was the view even better than before but the air was so clear and fresh just breathing in itself was a blessing.

He looked down back at the portal and realized that there was another person who had jumped out right after him. It was a small girl who seemed to of realized the beauty of the island as well. Her squealing scrams and energetic hoping was a fun sight to watch. She had such a positive personality even though she was all by herself. Meaning that her happiness wasn't a facade like other people who only smile when they're around others as if they put on a mask whenever people were around.

It's only natural wanting to associate oneself with highly positive and energetic people so that fact alone drove Poker go fly down and meet the girl. As he steadily flapped his wings to land he began to introduce himself to the young lady in a gentle manner. "Now this is a scene you don't see every day. A child by herself in the forest. I wonder, what brings you here? Though Your face tells me that you obviously recognize the charm of this land so maybe I just answered my own question with that."

Florence had just begun picking at a strange looking mushroom, when she was interrupted by the very soul she had followed to get here in the first place. She stared up at him in awe, taking notice of his large wings with a gaped mouth and wide green eyes. An excited wave electricity coursed through her body, causing her hair to stand up straight with the excitement of her positive charge.

"WOW!" She exclaimed again, running over to him with outstretched hands, paying no attention to his words. "You have wings! That's like... so cool!!" She reached out and patted his impressive feathers, the electric charge quickly leaving her hand and traveling to her object of admiration. However she quickly realized her fault and pulled her hand way, attempting to stifle down her childish enthusiasm.

"I don't have wings." She was very matter of fact with her tone, not bothering to sound sad or disappointment. She was merely stating the obvious. "But if I did, it would be really cool and I'd like... fly all the time."

Florence crossed her arms and shrugged in an attempt to be nonchalant, she wanted to impress the older boy. She was nine after all, and now that she had finally gotten braces, she was practically a teenager. The small girl ran her tongue over the rough metallic surface of her teeth, reminding herself of her cool new status and grinned up at the boy in front of her.

Poker chuckled at the girls excitement, not even caring about the fact that his introduction was completely ignored. It was nice to see such enthusiasm every now and then and that's exactly what this girl had to offer. The fact that the girl was so impressed with his wings reminded him of himself when he first learnt of his own ability to manipulate feathers. It was one of the best moments of his life and gaining the ability to fly right after that felt like a blessing. Maybe this girl would feel the exact same way if she was given the opportunity to soar through the skies herself. Which is exactly what Poker planned to do.

"Yeah. Wing's are pretty cool, but flying is even better! Gliding through the skies, amazing views, fresh air and watching everyone look like ants from afar. There truly is no better feeling~ Which is why you should probably have a go yourself~ In fact, I think I'll help you out with that!"

With the raise of his hand Poker generated a couple more feathers from his wings that went straight to the little girl and began to rotate around her. As they were circling her the feathers began to combine with each other in an attempt to creating two angelic wings on her back. Some of them did miss out on becoming part of the wing compilation but instead they slid across the girl, tickling her as they would go back into the small cyclone of feathers around her in order to go for round two of becoming angel wings. By the time all the feathers had combined all the tickling would of stopped and the girl would be able to witness flight for herself as she would have full control of those wings attached to her.