“So, then…I’m like a princess?” said Shawna, looking across the dusty splintery table at Capella.
Lula was busy outside turning flowers pink, despite that every time she changed one and floated away Capella would make it wither and die with a flick of her fingers. Yesterday had felt like a million years ago, the shocking truth another lifetime, but unfortunately none of it a dream. The ogre had only been another solid and smelly reminder of that. They had finally shooed it away by threatening to sing peppy nursery rhymes.
“A princess?” sneered Capella. “Who said you were a princess?”
“Well,” she stuttered. “I…I just thought, because you said my real parents here were—”
“I said they were sorcerers, you stammering bee-brain, and most likely better ones than you.”
Shawna blushed, then glanced down at the furry thing on her shoulder. Sparkle, the hideously pink bat, had taken quite a liking to Shawna. He clung precariously to her shirt with a vacantly pleased look about him. She scratched his chin, deciding he was quite cute with his black little fox-like face, black pointy ears, and adoring brown eyes. He had a little rune with a symbol resembling a Y tied around his neck, and she wondered what it was for. Sparkle squeaked with pleasure when she scratched him under the leather string.
“You are powerful indeed,” Capella said with a snort. “That bat likes no one. He’s your pest now.”
“You are powerful,” said Mira, craning her neck through the nearest window. “You were born of two very powerful sorcerers, Warwick and Adhara, but they did not realize how powerful you would be, or what your birth would truly mean.”
“I doubt I’m powerful,” Shawna said defiantly, clutching the cracked tea cup in her hands. “Is that really why my mother, my real mother, she tried to—”
“Of course,” interrupted Capella. She started rattling away like an auctioneer. “Sirrush blabbered something about annihilation and salvation, and you and some other brat having something to do with it. Your mother disappeared. Your father sent you to safety. You were then discovered by the molochs, and now here you are wasting my time and my tea.” She inhaled, and took a sip of tea, while the frog croaked from somewhere in her matted hair.
Shawna still couldn’t believe it, even though Capella had explained it all earlier that morning. How could such a thing be true, and how could her own mother have…have wanted to kill me?! It made Mary seem like a saint in comparison. She gripped her tea-cup tightly in her hands. At least my father tried to protect me from her and those things. A tingle skittered up her back. Molochs.
“So, who’s the other one?” she asked.
“Other what?” said Capella. “Really girl, trolls use more words than you do.”
“The other brat.”
“Don’t know.”
Shawna bit back a retort when Mira looked at her and snorted.
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” muttered Shawna. “Then tell me…please, what happened to my mother? Where’s she now?”
“I’m afraid we do not know,” said Mira. “An uncertainty that provides great risk.”
A large blue butterfly fluttered in from the window, and Capella snapped her fingers. It poofed into flames, and little ashes fell to the table top. Shawna looked aghast at the tiny pile of ash.
Capella wrinkled her nose. “Nasty little blood-suckers.”
Lula flew in from behind Mira’s head, looking very irritated in all her golden glittering glory.
“Stop killing my flowers!” she shrieked.
Capella didn’t even blink. “They smell like vomit.”
Lula stamped the air with her foot, and looked ready to turn her into something fluffy and pink.
Remembering a name from earlier that morning, Shawna turned back to Capella. “Can you tell me more about the La-sash person?”
“Lesath,” said Capella, impatiently. She exchanged some silent looks with Mira before turning back to her.
Shawna wondered for a brief moment what they had said, and didn't appreciate their secrecy.
“Lesath is a very ancient, very powerful, creature that has been trapped in a Shielded Realm—”
“Shielded Realm?”
“Do you want me to talk, or hear yourself talk?”
“Sorry.” Her face felt warm, which made her flush even more.
“As I was saying, Lesath is a very powerful being of a Shielded Realm, one of the five you must travel to. I am not going to explain all that realm nonsense because I don’t feel like it.” She held up a hand when Shawna opened her mouth. “Ach, no. Battles, and babbling, and bellyaching bore me. All I will say is that the only one who now knows the entire curse, or prophecy, whatever you want to call it, is Sirrush, the silver dragon. That’s how that wriggling tail of a rodent, Adhara, heard of this doom.”
“She talked to a dragon?”
“Talked to a dragon? Are you madder than an Ogre in a dress? You don't talk to dragons. You grovel in the dirt, and hope they don’t eat you.”
Shawna had a hard time imagining her powerful sorceress mother groveling in front of a dragon.
“Dragons are slippery as fish-innards,” Capella continued, scratching her thick twiggy dreads. “Especially Sirrush. They always lie, but in the end they just might reveal a fraction of truth, depending on how much they don’t want to eat you.”
“So, she could have been told something that wasn't even true?” Shawna said.
“Perhaps,” said Capella, catching the frog mid-leap as it tried to escape her marshy tangles. “Or perhaps she heard what she wanted to hear, or what the dragon wanted her to hear. Or it could certainly be true, for all we know. Regardless, you need to see Sirrush, and find out the truth for yourself.”
“I do? Why?”
“He demands it.”
Shawna nearly yelled before catching herself. “He demands it? You mean, we have to go see a dangerous fire-breathing dragon?”
“You forgot moody.”
“What?”
“He’s a moody, dangerous, fire-breathing dragon. And no, dear,” Capella said. “I’m not going, you, Mira, and that flying glitter-pimple are going. Why would I want to wander around facing all kinds of death, and danger, and lovely things like that when I can remain comfortably at home?”
“But, why doesn’t he just come here and tell me everything?”
Capella threw her head back and laughed so hard that she actually toppled backwards in a heap of rags. Her bare feet and hairy legs wiggled in the air as she continued to chuckle, before she finally righted herself and the chair again, then sat down. She wiped tears from her eyes as Shawna continued to watch in somewhat horrified amazement at all this. The frog was dangling on a long dread and eyeing the floor.
“A-ask h-him,” hiccupped Capella. “M-might as well ask him to file his teeth down and to start eating plants while you’re at it. That’s more likely to happen.”
Capella suddenly dropped her jovial mood and squinted at her, then abruptly clapped her hands together, and said enthusiastically, “Well, pleasant as your company is, are you ready?”
Shawna leaned back in her chair, and Sparkle blinked open his eyes as he wobbled.
“For what?”
“To get the blazes...er, em…to travel onward, princess.” She was looking at Shawna like the young girl was a joke, or possibly just feebleminded. “Enough of this chit-chat and sitting around, you have things to do, dragons to find, a world to save.”
“Wh-what?” Shawna sputtered, truly alarmed. “I thought…but what do you mean a world to save?!”
Capella refilled her teacup with the thick feces-looking liquid. “I mean, a place with plants and animals. A big place, generally.”
She sipped her tea, and stared at Shawna, still squinting an eye. The frog croaked. Shawna squinted back, and wondered if keeping her mouth shut would be a better idea.
“You—” she started to argue, unable to stop herself.
“Ava,” said Mira. “Patience. If we told you all we
know before you are prepared you would run screaming from the room.”
Shawna raised her eyebrows, and considered doing just that.
“Yes, Ava,” Capella said. “You—”
“It’s Shawna.”
“I’ll call you Dinky-Tits if it pleases me, now listen.” Capella cleared her throat, sounding like she was drowning in her own spit. “There’s no point in beating around the wasp nest; the truth will sting even worse if we do.” She cleared her throat again, this time sounding like she was hacking up a loogie. Shawna gagged, and Lula giggled at her.
With a last, “hrm hem,” Capella continued. “We can tell you this much: an incredibly, exceedingly important journey depends on you…which is a very frightening thought indeed. Lesath’s realm has been hidden from us, and we must find it. You must find it.”
Capella continued talking before Shawna could even begin to form a question in her mind, though she was burning with a million of them. “As our fine equine said, everything will be revealed in time. First of all, go to Sirrush.” The frog leapt and plopped onto the table top. “Without the knowledge of that prophecy, he so carelessly blathered about, your purpose here will be pointless. Although, it probably is anyway. Great Lords of Lunacy”—she threw up her hands—“what did that over-sized lizard say to make you the center of attention?” She raised a wiry eye-brow at Shawna. “I can see that you like it, though.”
“Like it?” Shawna said. “What exactly am I supposed to be liking?”
“Being the center of attention, of course.” Her warty escapee gave a squeaky croak when she snatched him up and shoved him back into her hair.
“I am not!” Shawna said, defensively. “I don’t want to be here!”
Sparkle opened his eyes, looking offended at being so rudely awakened once again.
“You brought me here!” Her voice was rising with every word. “I don’t like anything about this! I’d rather—” she went silent then looked down at her tea.
“Rather what, my screeching-peach?”
“Leave her be,” said Mira. “She’s had a lot happen.”
“Quiet, horse,” Capella snapped, making Mira snort and throw back her ears. “I want to hear what our spoiled little pet wants to say.” She was peering intensely at Shawna. “You better decide quick, girl, whether you’re leaving tomorrow, or doing what you’d rather be doing.”
Shawna didn’t know what to say. She just leaned further and further back in the creaking chair, staring at Capella, who leaned further and further forward.
In a low serious voice, Capella said, “Would you really rather be back in that house? Would you rather we never brought you here? Would you rather be like those pathetic people that kept you for their own selfish purposes? You would have been rewarded just as they were.”
Shawna’s eyes widened. Two dark emaciated human bodies with red eyes and lipless mouths stood on the porch, reaching for her. “They were—” she whispered.
“Yes. They were ‘taken,’ as we call it. Taken by the molochs as you would have been if not for Mira and myself…and there are more of them. Far more than you can even imagine, and more keep appearing while entire villages keep disappearing. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Shawna nodded numbly, and slowly put her still full teacup down. It rattled against the saucer. She flexed her fingers and put them under her arms. The frog made one last bid for freedom from Capella’s tangles, missing the table entirely & belly-flopping onto the floor.
Shawna eyed the dazed amphibian. “We just have to talk to this dragon? And then that’s that? That’s all I have to do?”
“Ha!” Capella barked. “Nice to see you have a sense of humor about it all. Chester,” she grumbled, opening her palm. Chester zoomed up into her hand like a yoyo. “I’m going to throw you in a slowly boiling pot.” She shoved him back into his dreaded prison. Chester blinked one bulbous eye then the other at Shawna over a thick tangle.
“We must travel soon,” said Mira. “Tomorrow at dawn.” She looked directly into Shawna's panic-stricken face. “It will be all right.”
As Mira retreated from the window, Shawna immediately felt more relaxed and confident towards a journey she barely understood. I wish I’d had unicorn magic when trying to talk to boys. She exhaled, absent-mindedly raised the cracked teacup to her lips, and took a sip.
“Uuuugh!” she choked, spitting out the foul liquid.
Sparkle dropped backwards off her shoulder, and nearly pulled her shirt off as he clung to it upside down. Mortified, she tugged at her shirt and tried poking him awake, but he just continued to snore.
Capella laughed, snorting like a warthog. “Troll tea, darling, good for the skin.”
Shawna just stared at the viscous, brown-gray liquid not wanting to imagine what it might actually be. Luckily, as she was trying not to throw up, Lula flew in through the window.
“Come outside.” Lula beamed, then flitted away while everyone followed.
Shawna gasped when she stepped into the sunset. Sparkle swayed upside down on her shoulder, and she tugged her shirt down again. Capella wrinkled her nose at the view like she had never seen anything so disgusting in her life. The entire hillside was swathed in dancing lilies, roses, tulips, and daisies in every shade of pink imaginable, giving the illusion of a rolling coral sea. Mira came galloping up from the hill's crest, obsidian coat shining almost violet in the light. She trotted up to them, swishing her tail.
Lula fumed. “You trampled my flowers!”
“They look better now,” said Capella.
Sparks in her eyes, Lula sneezed so fiercely that she smacked into the leaning cottage.
Shawna turned towards her. “Why did you make so many flowers if they make you sneeze?”
Lula sniffled while Capella chuckled.
“Flowers don’t make me sneeze,” answered the blushing fairy, matching the shade of a rose she was sitting upon.
“Just what you need on a dangerous quest,” scoffed Capella. “A fairy that sneezes from her own fairy-dust.”
“You do?” Shawna said to Lula, not hiding her surprised tone.
Lula wrapped her arms around her knees and shrugged her tiny shoulders, then smiled timidly up at Shawna.
“Do you still want me to come?”
“Well, yeah, of course I do.”
Lula's shoulders relaxed again, and her smile broadened.
“We are honored to have you with us,” said Mira, “and I am sorry for ruining your flowers. It was difficult to resist a run through them.”
“Horses,” grunted Capella, shuffling back into the cottage.
Mira's eyes glinted from her gallop, and she pawed the turf, tossing her head.
“In fact, I could use another run. If you don't mind of course.”
“No, go ahead.” Lula waved in resignation as Mira turned and bolted away. Shawna was stunned by her powerful speed and grace.
“Like I could stop a unicorn from doing what it wants to anyway,” Lula sighed from her flower. “Do you think she'd look good as a pink unicorn?”
Shawna laughed with her, feeling strangely at home with her new friends in this extraordinary world, although her heart thudded with dread for the morning to come.