Heroes of Disney #1: Rise of the Firebird

Ch. 27: I Won't Say (I'm in Love)

After we managed to coax Spring downstairs, we immediately began explaining our side of the story. Spring listened intently, but had no problem believing our story. Even the fact that I was from Earth. I guess she could tell I wasn't a Disney character.

Once we were all done explaining, I asked, "Could you tell us about how you ended up here?"

She frowned, but she explained anyway. "I'm from Fantasia 2000, incase you didn't know that already. The Firebird Suite, the same segment as The Firebird himself. You probably know all about it, Jamie, but I'll go ahead and explain anyway. I am a spirit that can make things grow and sprout in the ground, just by gliding over that part of the land. The only land I could not work my magic on was near a volcano. Curious why my magic wasn't working there, I went inside the volcano to investigate, and awakened and angered The Firebird. He destroyed the land, and me as well, but I can't die, so I just came back to life with the help of an elk. But the land was destroyed. I found out I could restore it with my tears, and everything was alright, because The Firebird never came back. Until a few months ago. I was scared he was going to get me again, so I went into hiding. I moved from place to place, hoping he wasn't tracking me down. Eventually, I ended up here, and have been living here for the past several weeks. I'm a coward for not trying to help Mickey and everyone else when they needed it the most." She started crying.

"Hey, it's not your fault. You have every right to be scared, Spring. After all, the Firebird did do that stuff to you." I tried to comfort her.

She managed to stop crying for a minute to smile at me, but she started crying again.

"Why don't you go to Earth?" I asked. "I mean, you'd probably be more safe there than here."

"Only a certain amount of characters can be on Earth at a time. I tried going, but the limit to the amount of characters on Earth has been reached." Spring said, looking up from her crying.

"Oh." I said. Spring went back to her crying.

Then I had an idea. "Do you wanna' come with us? We were going to go find the next lost realm and explore it. If you don't, I understand."

Spring looked up from her crying. "Of course I'll go. I feel it's time to do my part for this world, other than making it grow. I need to help save it.

I smiled. "How old are you, Spring? I can't really tell." I don't know why I asked it. Guess I was just curious.

"Jamie! Don't be rude." Tiana reprimanded me.

"No no, it's ok." Spring wiped away her tears and smiled. "I'm almost one-hundred forty-seven. Next year I'll be, anyway. Well, one-hundred forty-seven in my time. To everyone else I'm only sixteen."

"Wow."

Spring blushed.

"I mean- I didn't mean to-"

Spring laughed. "It's fine. Believe me, there are woman much older than me."

I shyly smiled.

We walked out into the daylight. Well, not much daylight. It was barely sundown. We continued down the path back to where Perry had parked the vehicle.

Soon, we were all aboard in Perry's hovercraft, Perry driving with Tiana in the passenger seat, and Spring and I in the back. I guess Spring didn't want to fly because it may have been too tiring, which I completely understood. Tiana had actually offered me the passenger seat, but I decided to stay in the back. And NOT because of Spring. I just like sitting in the back is all. Even though there is a lot more room in the front. But Tiana and Perry didn't believe my excuse.