A Bird of Praise: Act I

Chapter 5: Slaying The Troll

"Hands up!" A guard shouted, guns drawn.

Gabby and Daniel quickly complied.

"You, too, buster!" A guard said, clicking his gun at Sam for extra emphasis.

"Well, I would love to do that but you see, my hands are kind of full," he said, gesturing to the now unconscious Tara.

"Oh thank god! I thought we were gonna be stuck there forever!" Gabby shouted.

Sam looked at Gabby and furrowed his brows in confusion.

"We were out by the quarry when our car battery died. While my husband was changing the battery, my little cousin wandered off! She's special, so she does that sort of stuff if you don't keep an eye on her! Next thing we know, we ended up in that awful place and so we just ran and ran and... now here we are."

"What happened to her?" one of them asked, gesturing to Tara's bloody nose just as she was starting to wake up again.

"She... fell... and she hit her head!" Sam said.

"Ouch! That's no fun! You okay, kiddo?"

Tara looked at him, still trying to come to her senses.

"She can't speak!" Sam interjected. "Like we said, she's special."

The guards eventually lowered their guns.

"We'll escort you out. Follow us."

As the party followed the guards, Tara's bearings eventually slowly returned.

She tuned in to a casual conversation between Sam and one of the guards about the Hockey Games.

Once the party got in the elevator in their own dimension, everything started to come together for them.

They also noticed that they had a much easier time breathing now than they did in the Mirror Realm.

While they were being escorted out, Sam noticed the building that he went into in the Mirror Realm. On this side of reality, it was under heavy lock and key and guarded with armed guards, confirming that he saw something that wasn't meant for his eyes.

Once they were escorted to the front entrance, they thought they were in the clear.

"Hold on!" one guard called as Sam got one foot out the door, making him wince.

The guard presented a Dum Dum pop to Tara. "There you go, sweetie. You were such a big brave girl."

"What do we say?" Sam asked, rolling with the punches.

Tara took the lollipop and stared at the guard.

"Awww she's shy," Sam chuckled off.

Once they got back to the Bronco by the quarry, Tara immediately peeled off the candy wrapper and popped the dum dum into her mouth.

"You're seriously going to eat that?" Daniel asked in shock.

"Yeah. Why?" Tara asked before he ripped the sucker out of her mouth.

"Tara, did you not see what we saw? That thing can be drugged for all we know!"

"Yeah, well you spent the last 10 minutes completely humiliating me!" Tara retorted, snatching the candy back.

"What?"

"Yeah! So I think I earned this!" she proclaimed, shoving the candy back into her mouth.

Once they got back to the house, they overlooked one tiny little detail. The four were covered in blood, grime and troll slime and Eleanor was absolutely going to have questions about that.