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Chapter 7: Arietty

I woke up feeling extremely disoriented. My head was hurting as if I had a hangover. I felt the ground around me. Wait...ground? Where was I? I forced my eyelids to open. I glanced up and looked around. Daemyn was near me, sprawled on the ground. Feeling slightly confused still, I took in our surroundings. There was a rat scurrying nearby, and...bars. Wait. Bars?! That meant prison! Right?

I shook Daemyn awake (I couldn't scream. That would alert all the guards. If this was really a prison, that is). He mumbled something about girls in bikinis and muffins. Ew much? I shook him harder. He grumbled, "Lemme go back to sleep..." before snoring slightly. I kicked his stomach. He gasped and bolted upright. Hah! Take that.

"Where am I?" He asked.

"Probably prison. It sure looks like it..."

He groaned. "Stupid muffins. Great battle though." I nodded in acknowledgment. I deserved it, didn't I? After all, that was awesome of me. Not the point though.

I peered outside the bars. "Where do you think we are?" I asked.

"Probably on Cupcake Mountain, which is the highest mountain in Muffinland. The king lives in his castle up here. It's so darn cold here. WAIT. THAT MEANS WE MISSED OUR CHANCE TO EAT BACON AT BACONVILLE."

"Who cares about that? We can get some on our way back. Do you think we could bust out?"

He snorted. "Are you freakin' crazy? We just fought that beast of a muffin. Those guards out there are probably twice as strong. And there are like..." He looked outside the bars and counted.

"Like...ten. Damn. Why do they need so many muffins to guard us?"

I shrugged. "How should I know? It must be because we're so awesomely strong."'

"Uh huh. We're so strong that we lost to a muffin that is half as strong as these guys."

"I'm so glad you understand me." I sighed. This was not helping. We needed to do something. "So, what now? We stay in here forever? Starving to death?"

"No...Wait...I'm thinking," he said. Great. Please hurry. "Well, we're going to be brought to the king right?"

I didn't know where this was going. "Yeah..."

"So we'll take that time to escape."

"And how are we going to run away from armed muffins?" Okay. I admit that sounded ridiculous. We would be surrounded by the army. Literally. I think.

"Well, we have wings and they don't. We can always fly."

"I'm sure they have means to trap winged immortals."

"Shaddup. I'm trying to think."

"Well, don't think of stupid ideas!"

"Be quiet!"

Footsteps sounded outside the bars. We both shut up immediately.

A buff muffin waddled up to us. "Come," he said gruffly, and opened the door. We stepped out and breathed in the cool fresh air. He grabbed our hands roughly and bound them together with handcuffs. I tried to spark them with lightning, but nothing happened. They must have been immune to magic.

He led us through the clouds (we were in the sky now. All the mythical creatures lived in the sky) and down the mountain (the mountain was also floating on the clouds). We continued walking until my feet ached and soon, we saw a grand castle suspended in midair. It reminded me of the ancient Romans, with their grand columns and of medieval castles. As we neared the castle, I detected the faint sweet smell of muffins. Normally, that sounded yummy, but not today. It made my stomach lurch.