• I ran through the neighborhood laughing, my fingers entwined with hers. Our soft sweet laugher could be heard ringing throughout our little neighborhood. Belle has been my best friend since as long as I can remember. Our races aren’t the same, but that never mattered to us. Our parents didn’t really mind as well at the beginning. Sprites and light elves have always been natural allies. Our parents meet threw their jobs in the government, and our mothers became pretty ok friends for two adults of different races. They often traveled between Niteo and Bellus to settle small agreements within the two governments. Belle and I always accompanied them; they didn’t want to leave their precious daughters home alone. Belle and I have similar characteristics such as our light skin, long pretty hair and playful natures. But that was where our similarities ended. As the little sprite that she was, Belle stood around six inches shorter than me at just barely five feet tall where I was a proud five foot six and still growing. Another difference that was very noticeable was that she had a pair of beautiful wings set on her back, then there was the fact that my ears were pointed at the ends and my eyes were silver where her eyes were brown and her ears rounded. We didn’t care though. Racism was never a problem with our generation as it was with all the ones before it. It was the past generations and their strong like of racism that forced us to start new in Varietas.



    I still remembered when it all started. It was about fifteen years back that children started running away from their homes. It was all over the news in every continent. It was mostly the anthro’s children that were running away, but soon enough every race had missing children. At first they thought it was races kidnapping other races children, which almost started an all out race war, but then one of the children came back. They told everyone that they had run away and not been kidnapped. They told of a continent that hadn’t been taken over by any race yet. Its name, Varietas. The name was obvious. Unlike all of the other continents, this one would be made for not one race but every single one of them. At first adults hated the idea of it, there was no way that they were going to let their pure born children mix with the other races. But all of a sudden the parents whose children hadn’t ran away yet started to like the idea. They figured that if the rebel children left to Varietas then their children would stay pure and racist just like them. Turns out that it didn’t go according to their perfect little plan. It never really does.

 Children everywhere started running away to Varietas. It was no longer mostly only anthro children running away, it was an even number of children missing from everywhere. Every single child knew of ways to escape if they wanted. We also all knew the rules to Varietas. For one there was no age limit to how young you could be to come to Varietas, or how cut off age to how old you could be. The main rules were that you had to be open minded and not racist, and that you had to cut off from any contact with the other continents. Which meant that you couldn’t talk to you parents once you got there. I was offered to be taken to Varietas many times before I finally left. At first I didn’t want to leave, I loved my parents and my homeland. Light elves were beautiful people that I figured I would never want to leave. Then it happened to me. After years and year of long distance phone calls and short visits they tried to make Belle and I stop being friends. They didn’t want us to run away, and they thought that by making us stop talking that we wouldn’t run away. They couldn’t have been further from the truth. There was no way that we were going to take that. So the next time someone offered to take me to Niteo where Belle and all the other sprites lived I jumped on the opportunity without a second thought. 

 Sure Bellus was one of the most beautiful of all the nine continents, or so I was told, but I was never so happy to get out and see something new. I packed up a small bag of things, I was told that there would be things for me in Varietas, and left in the middle of the night. I was off to Niteo to pick up my best friend in no time. It took me three days to make it to Niteo, and once I was there I didn’t stay for very long, just enough time to pick up Belle. Hours after she snuck out to meet me we found someone else that was willing to take us to Varietas. They were surprised to see us together; I was told that there weren’t many people that were allowed to be friends with other races.

    Once we made it to Varietas we were both surprised to see the diversity there. Sure we knew that there was no racism between people, or at least there wasn’t allowed to be any, but it was still so very odd to us. There were dark elves kissing light elves, which was unheard of where I came from. Dog anthros and cat anthros hanging out together was another huge surprise to Belle and I. At first I was afraid of the change, but I had Belle with me. Even though I looked tougher, she was always the brave one in our friendship. I held onto her hand for dear life as the man who brought us to Varietas showed us where we could get somewhere to stay. When we got there a girl, she appeared to be much younger then Belle and I, showed us to this small house in one of the neighborhoods. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen and a small sized living room. That was another difference between the other continents and Varietas. Here at Varietas there was no form of money. All you had to do was work and you could have whatever you needed. I was reassured that even though there was three rooms in our house that we wouldn’t have a roommate unless we wanted on. This disappointed Belle, but made me happy. I wasn’t quite ready to live with a stranger just yet.