Pearl hated school games.

Everytime she played a game like puffer-ball, she always seemed to know the opponents next move. They said it was a talent, but she thought it was a curse of divination.

Angel spun around, the puffer-ball in her hand, preparing to shoot through the bubble hoop. Pearl snapped back to reality. "Left," a little voice whispered in her head. Unwittingly, Pearl swam to the left, and the puffer-ball landed neatly into her waiting hands. "Again!" She muttered angrily to herself as she lobbed the puffer-ball back to the line of water nymphs. When she looked up, Angel was beside her with a puzzled look on her face.

"Okay Angel, I know that was weird and seemed like I was cheating, but I swear it was a fluke!"

Angel's eyes narrowed. "That was exactly what I was going to say. How did you know?"

"Ummmmmm..." Pearl stammered, "I'm your bestest friend? I mean I'm definitely NOT clairvoyant."

Pearl didn't know if Angel bought it, but if she didn't, she made no sign of doing so. They swam along the river bed in an uneasy silence, which was soon broken by the ringing laughter of the school-nymphs returning to lessons in the School.

The School was like any other school one would find in the realm of the water spirits. This particular one was the School of Wisdom, the most valued trait of the water nymphs. Legend said that when the Hunters of the Living defeated the Shadow, their essence separated into the essence of Wisdom, Freedom and Speed. Wisdom went to the water realm, Freedom to the sky realm and Speed to the land realm.

Pearl hated the School too.

No matter which class she was in, she seemed to know exactly what the teacher would say, what the answers would be, when the test would be, what results she would get (though it would always be 100%)... Everyone except for Angel thought she was cheating, and made it very clear what they thought of her. She couldn't help it. Everywhere she went, she could hear the taunts of the other school-nymphs in her head, and even though her few friends never mentioned it, she could hear them too. She could hear their thoughts and it scared her to a point where if allowed, she would race to her secret haven in the water realm. Well, not really the water realm.

Unlike her kin, she was entranced by the other realms around her, the ones she knew she could never touch for the Hunters made sure that each was isolated, lest the intertwining essence of the three Hunters would wake the Shadow from his slumber.

Pearl's haven, or The Fort, as she liked to call it was as close as she could get to Land, a place so foreign to her that the only thing she knew about it was that the land nymphs, no dryads, were blessed with the essence of speed and were a secretive group. Her Fort was a small cave made by one of the Scavengers, a different type of the Living that belonged to none of the realms and did not try to communicate with any of the spirits. The Fort was tucked away in the riverbank and filled with all sorts of treasures that Pearl had found, along with a lone Scavenger that constantly decided that it liked the comfort of the Fort, so Pearl let it. Besides, she enjoyed the company. Scavengers had no thoughts for her to read and paid little attention to her. To it, she was no more different than the other water nymphs.