Faerie Wings III: The Nightmare of Dreamland: Part Ten

      "Princess Coronation?” asked Brillare. “What do mean, my Queen?”

      “Every five hundred years,” Fyora explained in a storyteller’s voice, “a magical parchment lists the name of the next faerie whose destiny is to inherit the throne of Faerieland. The last faerie princess crowned had been I, and now it is time for a new princess to be recognized as my future successor at a Coronation to be held in precisely three days.”

      “Does this mean you will soon be retiring from the throne, Your Majesty?” asked Illere.

      Fyora shook her head. “I still have a long time to go until I am to pass over my crown, and the princess has much studying and preparing to do until she will be fit to become the next Faerie Queen.” She narrowed her eyes at the four Top faeries in front of her. “As I’m far too busy preparing every essential detail for the upcoming Coronation ceremony, would you girls please do me the honour of looking over our next faerie princess?”

      “Of course, Fyora,” Illere breathed, curtsying quickly. “We would be more than happy to protect the princess!”

      “Only, who is our next princess?” asked Brillare.

      “I believe her name,” Fyora is slowly, “is ‘Delilah’. She also happens to be a faerie at Faeriewood Academy.”

      “Delilah!?!” gasped Brillare, Illere, and Sirena in unison. Neither one of them could believe that their friend, Delilah the Dark faerie, was next in line for the Faerieland throne!

      “Are you sure she’s the one?” Illere wondered. “I’ve never heard of a Dark faerie inheriting the Faerieland Throne before.”

      “The parchment decreed that our next heiress will be a Dark faerie. If it states this, then it shall be true,” Fyora insisted. “Anyways, Delilah’s currently waiting patiently for the first signs of change in her magical abilities, and this change will signal her transition from a Dark faerie to the future Faerie Queen.”

      “It’s strange that Delilah never mentioned this to us before,” Illere commented.

      “Must be to protect herself from any attackers,” Brillare suggested. “Which means we must all band together to make sure Suzette doesn’t harm her with any sleeping spells.”

      “Speaking of sleeping spells, how will we be able to save Kira?” Illere asked Fyora. “Do you have any counterattacks we can use, Your Majesty?”

      For a moment, Fyora was silent. Then she piped up, “I do remember a portal spell that can take you specifically to Dreamland. It was used a variety of times by palace guards who wished to check up on the prisoners. The spell itself is quite simple, and yet it requires a great deal of magical energy. If you girls can all swear to put your whole hearts into the spell and connect them as one, then you will surely succeed with helping Kira escape Dreamland.” With a snap of her fingers, Fyora poofed up a yellow scroll and sent it over to Brillare, who retrieved it and unrolled it.

      “Hooray!” Sirena cheered loudly. “Our problems have been solved!”

      Brillare curtsied once more, thanked Fyora for her services, and led the other three faeries out of the Queen’s office. “Now, were would be the best place for us to create this portal?”

      Ardore stopped. “What do you mean by ‘we’?” she demanded. “There’s no way I’m wasting my valuable energy just so somebody I don’t care for can wake up from a nap!”

      “But you heard what Fyora said, right?” asked Illere. “We need to connect our hearts as once in order to create this portal. If you don’t help us, then Kira will continue to be trapped in Dreamland!”

      “Oh go blah your needs somewhere else,” Ardore sneered. “Kira’s blahs can go with you, too.”

      “But–” Illere began frantically.

      Smiling widely, Sirena walked over to Ardore and linked arms with her. “It’s okay, you guys! If Kira’s gone forever, then we can simply replace her with Ardore! We can have sleepovers, paint each others’ nails, gossip, and read faerie tales! Oh, and we must play with our dolls while we laugh over really corny knock-knock jokes, too.”

      ”Alright! I’ll do it,” Ardore grumbled, stepping away from Sirena. “I’ll join your idiotic group, but only because of my hatred towards Kira.”

      “Then let’s go find a private place to set up our portal,” said Brillare, sounding relieved.

      Sirena nudged Illere and grinned. “I knew she couldn’t resist,” she whispered. “Ardore is so predictable. My little trick worked out exactly how I wanted it to!”

      Brillare looked around the empty hallway. “I think this place will be perfect,” she decreed.

      “Why are we on the second floor of Faeriewood Academy?” asked Illere. “Wouldn’t any other students see us coming?”

      “Everyone’s on their early morning break, so nobody should be roaming the halls,” Brillare explained. “I think this location will work perfectly for our plan.”

      Sirena twisted a lock of her hair. “Do you guys think our teachers would be upset if they find out we’ve been ditching classes today?”

      “I already poofed all of our teachers excuse notes a few hours ago,” Brillare responded. “After all, we needed to inform them about our early morning meeting with Fyora.”

      After she re-read the scroll Fyora had given her a second time, Brillare instructed the other three faeries to kneel on the ground and raise their arms from their sides. Once the group formed a square with their arms, they chanted the spell three times, each time watching as their bodies emitted white light. After they chanted the spell a fourth time, a tiny purple hole appeared in the middle of their square formation. Repeating the spell several more times expanded the hole until it grew into a life-sized purple portal, whizzing quickly in front of the four Top faeries as they continued to kneel around it.

      “Now what should we do?” Illere cried over the loud whirling of the portal.

      “We need to wait and see if Kira will come out of the portal on her own!” Brillare shouted. “As soon as she does, we’ll close the portal up.”

      “Are you sure that’s the way the portal works?” asked Illere. “Because if Kira’s body is still asleep…”

      “GIRLS! STABILIZE THE PORTAL!” Brillare exclaimed at the top of her lungs. The other faeries nodded and immediately chanted, “Stabilize!” In an instant, the portal, which had begun to wobble, stabilized its original position and emitted a white glow around it–A sign the faeries’ powers were keeping it still.

      Now all they needed to do is wait until Kira had walked out of the portal, safe and sound and away from Dreamland for good.

      “That’s not true! I was never a faerie princess,” Kira insisted after Aiken explained his theory.

      “Then why else would your ‘friend’ place you here?” asked Aiken.

      Kira shrugged. “I…don’t know, to be completely honest. But even if this was the reason, why would Suzette mistake me for a princess?”

      “I can’t tell you that,” Aiken confessed, “unless Fyora has been looking for an Air faerie to take her throne in the future. Regardless, you should understand by now this Suzette-girl is nothing but a traitor.”

      “So…you really think Suzette has something to do with an upcoming Princess Coronation?” asked Kira.

      Aiken nodded. “Before I was placed in Dreamland, I witnessed Fyora’s official Queen Crowning Ceremony, and I watched as the once princess Fyora become the new Queen of the Faeries. Besides, the Coronation happens every five hundred or so years.”

      “If there is an upcoming Princess Coronation, then why hadn’t Fyora tell me before I came to Dreamland?” Kira demanded.

      “The Faerie Queen must have wanted to keep it private from the public,” Aiken concluded. “She does enjoy keeping her many secrets.”

      Before she could reply, Kira saw her vision blur rapidly as she fell onto her knees. Aiken watched as her pupils enlarged and a smile crept across her face. Kira now looked more like a faerie doll than an actual Air faerie. “What is the matter with you?” Aiken shouted, shaking her shoulders furiously. “Wake up this instant!”

      Then, to Aiken’s astonishment, a mysterious portal appeared near the ground. His gasped and shook Kira harder. “Wake up, puny faerie! A portal has appeared! Now’s the time for you to escape, not sleep!”

      Kira remained silent. She simply stared up at the flustered blue Kougra and said nothing.

      “This must be another side effect of Dreamland,” Aiken muttered. “If she doesn’t get out soon, she would surely regret it for the rest of her life.”

      “Where’s Kira?” asked Illere. “Why hasn’t she appeared yet?”

      “Maybe the portal didn’t make it through to Dreamland,” guessed Brillare. “Or maybe she’s approaching it right now?”

      “My arms are starting to ache!” Sirena wailed loudly. “Can I put them down yet?”

      “No! Keep them up and push harder,” Ardore urged, partly hoping to escape her fate as Kira’s possible replacement.

      The four faeries felt their arms ache and their legs cramp up as they stayed in their group formation, determined to stabilize the portal until Kira officially escaped Dreamland. Yet, as well as Sirena, the other three faeries began to groan and bite their lower lips, wishing for their friend to appear in a flash so they could close the portal up.

      No longer being able to brace the tension of their situation, Illere stood up and stretched her legs and arms. “If Kira’s not going to come out, then I’m going in to get her!” she decreed.

      “Don’t do it! You might get trapped,” Brillare urged.

      Yet Illere took a few wobbly steps forward, closed her eyes tightly, and ran straight into the portal’s center. For the Top Earth faerie, she had no more time to re-think her plan to retrieve Kira out of her current imprisonment. The time for action was either now or never.

To be continued…