Happy Blogiversary! Q&A + A Chapter From My Story (well, more like two...)

It's Magivers's birthday today!
And I'm so excited to share it with you all. 

I'm thankful for 

• Such a wonderful year of blogging
• So many amazing books
• So many incredible authors
• The ability to share my thoughts with the world 
• Not giving up even when all seemed hopeless
• Having such warm, wonderful bloggers to laugh and smile with 
• Meeting so many amazing people who I share so many things with
• Having so many different experiences 
• YOU 

From the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU! 

Q&A

I know it was on short notice, but thank you everyone who asked me questions!
I enjoyed reading them and I'll enjoy answering them even more so 💖

Here goes! 

📚 If You Could Read One Book Genre Your Whole Life, What Would It Be? 📚

FANTASY. 

Granted, I'll miss out on a lot of other fantastic books (gahh, so happy we don't actually have to choose!), but fantasy has always - and always will be - my genre. It's the genre I read most, the genre I love most, and the genre that is simply my genre.

So yeah... FANTASY all the way! (: 

📕 If You Could Travel Anywhere in the World to Find a Place to Read,
 Where would it be? 📕

That's a good one. 

There are so many places I want to write, but at the end of the day... it will always be Japan.

I could totally see myself sitting under the cherry blossom tree to read. 

Or taking a stroll in wonderous places and finding the inspiration to write stories full of adventures.

Okay, those pictured are messing with my head so I'm going to stop now. 

📙 What Book Would You Like to Live in? 📙

I thought about it, you know... 

I think it's important to understand that you have to choose a world that fits you, a world where you can actually see yourself being in, rather than a world you want to be in just to meet your favorite characters.

I mean, of course I want to be in the world of TMI to meet Jace, Clary, SImon and the gang!

Of course I want to be in the world of Vampire Academy to meet Rose and Dimitri!

Of course I want to be in the world of Illuminae to meet Kady and Ezra! 

But aside from that, I don't see myself actually living and surviving in those worlds. 

So for me, it's going to be the Harry Potter books.
Since I love magic, and since I always wanted to be a wizard ;) 

I may not love the Harry Potter books as much as I did when I was younger but there's no denying that world calls for me. 

🕮 What's the Longest or Shortest Book You Ever Read? 🕮

Why not answer both? 

Longest book I ever read: That would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which was 870 pages long.
Only two books ever came close to that, and those were: City of Heavenly Fire (725 pages long) and Winter (823 pages long. Real close!). 

Shortest book I ever read: to the best of my knowledge, that would be Never Never 3, which was 92 pages long.
To be honest, though, I don't really like short books. It's only if I absolutely love the author, that I read their short stories. I mean... how can less than 200 pages ever be enough?
The two books that came closest to this were: The Demigod Files (151 pages long) and Never Never 2 (158 pages long) 

📘 If You Could Have a Sidekick Who Would it Be (Fictional Character or Real)? 📘

First of: it's definitely going to be a fictional character.
Since no real life person can compare to fictional, sorry! 

And anyways, if the choice is between fictional and reality, I will always choose fictional. Since reality will always be here when I come back.
Reality is tough that way. 

Anyways!
Who will it be, who will it be?
A sidekick, huh? 

Then it must be Kady from Illuminae.
This girl is hella cool, smart, funny, amazing, and kickass.
There could be no better person at my side than someone as real as Kady, to lift my spirits all the while thinking of a plan of attack.
I love this girl! 

📗 If You Could Only Read the Works of One Author for the Rest of Your life, Who Would it Be? 📗

This is a cruel one.
But if I absolutely HAVE to choose (and I don't seem to have a choice in the matter), it would be Cassandra Clare.
Not only do I absolutely freaking love everything she writes, she also doesn't seem to want to stop writing EVER.
Which, honestly, could not make me happier.
And I don't care if a lot of people think she should stop or whatever because I don't want her to ever-ever-ever stop writing.
I'll never tire of it.
Because I always believed a book is determined by its characters and plot, and Cassandra's are simply divine. 

🔖 Which Element Would You Like to Control (fire, water, earth, air) and Why? 🔖

Once upon a time I would have said fire. 
But that had changed.
If I could ever have control of one element, I want it to be air.

So I could fly to far away places without a care in the world. So I could feel the air swirling around me.
And so, if I'm ever in trouble, I can create a hurricane and escape ;)

With fire, earth and even water, I would be grounded. But with air,  I would be free.
Which is why I'll choose air. 

📖 What Are the Three Last Books You Finished & Choose a song that reminds you of them (3 books - 3 songs. A song per book) 📖

If you know me, you know I love music, and even more so to attach it to books.
Which is why this question is going to be very challenging and very fun!
Here goes. 

How to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern

My rating: 3.5 stars

Song: Christina Grimmie - With Love

Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

My rating: 4 stars

Song: Fireflight - Unbreakable

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane
My rating: 3.5 stars
Song: I'm good - The Mowgli's

~ ~ ~

So!
I had great fun answering all these questions - thank you, everyone!
I hope you enjoyed reading my answers (:
And now...
As a thank you for this wonderful year, I share here with you a part of a story I've been working on.
Hmm... I hope you'll like it '^^ 

Please note: English is not my native language. And while I rather speak and write in English than my native language, it still doesn't change the fact I didn't grow into it. So If there are any grammar issues, I apologize in advance. 

Prologue 

once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a princess. And the princess was very beautiful and pure of heart. One day, the princess went to this beautiful ball where she met her charming prince. He was handsome and brave and just. Naturally, the princess and the prince fell in love. The whole kingdom rejoiced at their union. And so, the prince and the princess married and lived happily ever af–

Wait, that's not right. 

I put aside the silver book titled fairy tales, written in a golden wavy writing and pick up a dark-black book titled twisted fairy tales, written in silver writing. 

Yes, that's the one.

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a princess. 

She had a father (the king), a mother (the queen) and a brother (the prince). She was much loved and very happy, respected by the people and kind to all. Every night before going to sleep, the princess wished upon the stars for the safety and prosperity of her kingdom. 

What the princess didn't know was that wishes were only granted in fairy tales. 

She used to believe her life was a fairy tale. In fairy tales, the princess is always rescued by the prince from terrible danger and whisked away into the sunset. The prince is everything she ever wanted; brave, handsome, good and just.

In fairy tales, you always know who the bad guy is. He's the one wearing the black cape and the evil smile.

But then you grow up and realize it's all just an illusion, a trick. A beautiful fantasy meant to lull you out of your naturally build guard to serve as an easy prey for the true evil that's lurking outside. Because evil, you see, is not wearing a black cape or an evil smile. No, evil is sophisticated, charming, perfect. 

Fairy tales are not created by people, they're created by monsters. Fairy tales are a vessel to make you believe in something and not see the truth until it is already too late. 

One day, the princess realized her life wasn't a fairytale. Not even close. It was a dark mess wrapped in a beautiful pink ribbon. 

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a princess. She was much loved and very happy. Until one day she came across a shining black box wrapped in a beautiful pink ribbon. She reached out her hand and the ribbon fell away. She opened the box and the darkness came pouring out. She screamed, desperately trying to seal the box shut. But the ribbon was gone and she knew… the princess knew it was too late. 

The darkness was already out. 

And it was never going inside the box ever again.

                                                         

  Chapter 1

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.

 – Louis L'amour. 

  

I was standing under the cherry blossom tree, the cold searing into my bones, the black cape I stole from one of the fallen guards blowing in the freezing wind behind me. 

I was supposed to run. Hide. Escape. 

But I couldn't. It was of no use. I was no warrior, but I knew a doomed battle when I saw one. I had nowhere to run. I could hide but for how long? 

It didn't matter that I was the princess and this was my castle. Not anymore. 

The strangest thing about being in shock: you feel nothing. You process everything but you don't get the emotions accompanying what you see. Logically you know you should be grieving or terrified out of your mind, but all you feel is… numb. 

I just watched my entire family slaughtered by a brother I no longer knew, the castle I grew up in overridden by enemy's knights and everyone and everything I ever knew killed or captured. 

And me? I was standing under the cherry blossom tree in the searing cold, wearing nothing but a light dress and a black oversized cape. Waiting. 

I didn't have to wait long. They arrived – as I knew they would. A party of six black knights. 

In an old adventure book I once read, there was that saying: "when you have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, choose a place and make your stand." I thought it was poetic, heroic. 'Making my stand' under the cherry blossom tree, I realized how tragic is actually was. Making your stand wasn't the action of a person fighting to win. It was the action of those who knew they were going to die and intended to go down fighting. 

I didn't realize someone was talking to me until a deep, melodic voice jolted something inside of me. Something I couldn't reach. Something I couldn't feel. Not yet. Not quite yet.  

I turned around. Slowly. "Hello, brother," I greeted the person standing in front of me. My voice was as calm and cold as the snow falling from the sky. For a moment, I was glad for my lack of feelings. I would never have been able to face my brother otherwise. I needed to make every last second I had with him count. 

And so I forced myself to look him in the eyes.

He had the same dark-black eyes he always had. The same wavy black hair. The same face. The same build. He looked like my brother but he didn't feel like my brother. Not anymore. 

Or perhaps it was me who did not know my brother at all.

"Emilia." He nodded, assessing me with his cool glare. He never ruled out anyone as a threat, my brother. "Never underestimate what people are capable of," he used to say. 

But it was obvious he didn't see me as any kind of threat now by the way he nodded at the knight standing next to him, inclining his head in my direction. 

The black knight marched forward and grabbed my arms. I stood in my place, not moving, my gaze fixed on my brother. 

I couldn't even call him by his name. To me, it was always 'brother' or 'big brother'. I knew the minute I'll start calling him by his name is the minute he'll be lost on me forever. And despite everything he did… despite the fact that I wanted to claw his eyes out with my bare hands, I wasn't ready to let him go.

I lost everything and everyone, and even though he was the reason for it all, he was also the only connection to my life I had left. He already severed it, but if I severed it too, I would remain completely and utterly alone. A fallen princess. 

"Why?" I asked him as the knight started dragging me away. It was just one small word, containing every single one of the frozen emotions inside of me. 

I didn't care how or when or where. I didn't even care where he was taking me or if he was going to kill me too. I only cared for one thing: why. 

If he told me that, if he gave me that one solace, I could go down knowing why it had to happen. But he didn't. Instead, he just looked at me with his cold glare, raising his sword, sheathing it slowly. My eyes followed his motion almost involuntarily, resting on his blood soaked blade. 

Blood. 

So much blood. 

Mother screaming. Father with a sword through his heart. 

Blood everywhere. 

Someone is screaming.I'm screaming.   

My breath was coming out in gasps as I stared at the drops of blood slowly sinking into the snow. 

The ice wrapped around my feelings wasn't melting, it was shattering. And I was shattering along with it. 

"You're a monster," I choked out, starting to struggle in the tight grip of the knight. 

My brother's eyes met mine. If I could breathe fire, he would be shrouded in flames by now. Every single one of them.  

He shook his head as if I was a child he was trying to explain something very complicated to. Was that a look of pain crossing his face? No, probably just wishful thinking on my part. "No, Emilia," he said. Not 'my sister' or 'little sister' or 'beloved sister'. Just… Emilia. "I'm simply the vessel. The real monster will be arriving soon." He nodded to the black knight who was still holding me way too tightly than was necessary. "Take her to the carriages." And with that, he turned on his heels and walked away, followed by a party of dark knights. 

As I was dragged away by the lone knight, I willed my brother to look back. Just once. Just one last time.  

He never did.

~~~

And this is it for my special blogiversary post! (: 

I very-very much hope you guys had a good time reading what I wrote. 

I know I had fun writing it, so I can only hope you had fun reading it too. 

And once more: thank you everyone for your support and... for being who you are! 

I'm looking forward to a second year on Magiverse, filled with a laughter and smiles :')

Until then...

Anly - Karano Kokoro

We had to look like we were in love, not like we were on the run from a secretive government unit and a pack of homicidal maniacs with mind control powers.  

-- Hunting Lila, Sarah Alderson