Paradise ***ON HOLD***

She ran away in her sleep...

A/N Told you the chapters would be longer :D Anyway, I just wanna thank all of my AMAZING readers out there! (Chessey, I know) but it really means so much when you comment and vote. Keep it up!!!!

Ever since the day Valerie was locked away, she was alone. Father ignored her. Leo didn’t know she had even existed. The darkness ate away at her. Never again would she see her garden, or the cookie moon.

That’s how you think she’d look at it, wouldn’t you?

However, I’m afraid that you don’t completely understand our optimistic heroine enough. Don’t worry. Getting to know someone is a gradual process.

The way Valerie saw it, it was an invitation. She was betrayed by the only life she knew. She now had a chance to escape and restart.

She spent her time in hiding dreaming. She thought about a world where nothing could bring her down. A place that allowed her not to have to worry. A place that freed her from regrets, from chains, from expectations. The dreams of such a place were all she needed to feel warm in her room, cut off from everyone else.

Besides, it wasn’t completely desolate. She had Toki, who refused to be with anyone but Valerie. He depended on her, as well as vice versa.

From Valerie’s point of view, the lingering pampers from the past were simply a bother. She still had a large, soft bed. Her own bathroom. Plenty of food. If she was going to get out of there and travel, she’d have to get used to the hard life. Or at least, harder than silk bed sheets and gourmet meals.

So she waited, which was the heaviest burden of all. Waiting. Watching for that ideal opportunity to open up and let her through. She had to do anything to keep herself occupied.  She would knit. Dance. Write poetry. Anything to pass the time till she knew she was ready.

Of all of her activities, there were two in particular she dedicated herself to. One was sword fighting. When she’d get the signal from the maid that brought her breakfast that day that the castle wasn’t getting any visitors, she would steal the sword a body of display armor was holding and practice techniques. First Push-ups, sit-ups, and stretching. Then dueling with another empty shell of metal, or dodging flying bullet Tokies. She trained herself whenever she couldn’t, and when the maids would send her the signal to stop, she’d play cards. She taught herself all the skills and all the tricks to winning any game. If she wanted to, she would’ve made a brilliant con.

While building up on muscle and skill, Toki would watch, and wait to follow her to their new world. Deep inside of himself, he watched for when she would mess up. For when she would begin to bleed crimson.

Toki was not some strange, distorted pet Valerie adopted from a store. He was a fuzzy, friendly, loyal, bloodthirsty demon.

To fully understand their strange friendship, we must rewind ten years. 1928.

Little Valerie, with lighter hair and darker freckles, had jumped from her brand-new swing a handy-man that Father hired built. Again. It seemed to be her new obsession, jumping from her seat when pumped as high as her little legs could pump, only to land on the pale red brick floor. She had several scabs all over her legs, with blood dripping from her newest graze. A nameless demon was flying about, over the large and showy house, only to smell the unmistakable odor of blood.

This nameless demon flew down curiously, to see a pretty young girl, drawing stick people on her shins with her own blood. If it had been any other four-year-old girl, they would’ve had enough sense to run away. After all, every parent told their children about how dangerous it is to give a demon, if they should ever meet one, a taste of their blood. Not that those parents knew from experience. No one did, because no one was stupid and reckless enough to try and see what happened when a demon got your blood. Or at least, no one but the particularly curious and naïve girl he happened to stumble across.