Find Your Wings

Chapter 4 - Just a Few Answers

North and I met Star at the fallen tree the next day to talk about what we were going to do now that I found North. Star was already there when North and I arrived.

"What took you so long?" Star asked.

"North was too amazed by the scenery that he walked slower than most of the snails I've met." I joked. Star laughed.

"Star, this is North. He's the guy we were looking for," I introduced them, "and North this is Star. She's a fairy, as you can see."

"Nice to meet you. Star is a pretty name. I've never met anyone with that name before." North said.

"Well, I'm a fairy. Most fairies have unusual name." Star replied.

"I mean, thanks."

"I mean, you too."

"Have a pretty name."

"I mean, nice to meet you too." I've never seen Star blush so much. I think I was on to something.

"What are you smiling about?" Oops. I didn't mean to smile.

"Nothing."

"So what is your plan for the quest?" thankfully Star changed the subject.

"We don't have a plan. At least not yet." North said, "Amber, do you still have the scroll with the prophecy? We should probably look at it to see what we're trying to accomplish before we start forming a plan."
"Yes. I always keep it in my backpack." I said while taking the scroll out. "Here, Read the last few lines." I handed the scroll to North.

"Ok. Here I go. But three things she must do to complete this quest.

The quest that will end on her fifteenth birthday

when the sun sets. Wait, Amber, you didn't say you have a time limit! When is your 15th birthday?"

"In 24 days. Just keep reading."

"But... OK. The first is to find the boy with the chest. Thats me.

then to fall to the depths of something unseen

and to sacrifice something that will never be foreseen. I don't get this. What are we supposed to do?! Make you fall and sacrifice something?!"

Right when he finished talking, there was a blinding flash right in front of us. When the light dimmed a little, and we could open our eyes, I saw the three fairies who had given me the prophecy when I was 12.

"Oh, it's you again." I said.

"Quit complaining. after we're finished here you'll be really happy we came." Ruby was talking.

"What do you mean when you're done here? And what makes you think I'll ever be happy to see you?"

"Amber, do you know these fairies?" North asked.

"Yes, unfortunately. They're the ones that gave me the prophecy when I was 12."

" So I see you found the boy." The blue fairy was speaking this time.

"Don't act surprised. You came here because I found him."

"You're good. But you still need us to complete your quest." Violet this time.

"And why is that?"

"Because you have no plan. Because the prophecy tells you what will happen, not what you need to do. You will fall and sacrifice something even if you don't complete the quest, but you won't save anyone. But we can give you some information that will help you along the way. Like it or not, you need us."

"No. I don't need you. You're the ones that need saving. I'm doing just fine. I'm not an endangered species that no one believes in anymore." The only way to get fairies to do what you want, is to catch them off guard. And that's exactly what I was doing.

"OK then. If that's how you want to play this, then we'll just give you the information you need without any price."

"What's in it for us?"

"You get to keep your little fairy friend." I hadn't thought about that. I had to do this for Star.

"OK. What's your information? Let's get this over with."

"Your quest isn't here. It's in the heart of the fairy world. You need to travel there and find the flower that grows on the top of the highest mountain in the fairy world. These flowers used to grow all around the place until... well, until they didn't."

"What do you mean, until they didn't? What happened? Flowers don't just randomly stop growing because they want to." I was frustrated. Why was I so frustrated?

"No one knows. One day we all woke up and they just... disappeared."

"Well then we have two quests."

"What do you mean two quests?! Star and North said at the same time

"What I mean is, we're going to find out why the flowers disappeared." Why was I saying that? I didn't even care what had happened to the stupid flowers. It was like someone else inside of me that always seemed to start talking whenever I had nothing to say. Sometimes I liked that little voice. Most times I didn't.

"OK then, we'll leave you guys to figure stuff out. Nice seeing you again." Violet and the other two started walking away.

"You're not going anywhere. You still haven't told us anything." I stopped them.

"What haven't we told?"

"Let's start with, where in the world is this fairy-place-thingy we have to go to?!"

"Oh... that. There's a tiny little problem with that."

"And the problem is..."

"It's not really in this world."

"WHAT?!" not in this world? What's that supposed to mean?!

"Yeah... So as a fairy, it's common knowledge that there are multiple worlds in the universe. For example, humans had taken over this world, but they didn't come from earth."

"So what you're saying is, there are lots of different parallel universes, and one of them is the fairy world?"

"Pretty much."

"So now I have another question: how are we supposed to get there?"

"And I have another one," North interrupted, "where is Star?!" I can't believe I hadn't noticed that she disappeared! How did I not see her go away?! But maybe she hadn't gone anywhere? Maybe... no. I can't think about it.

"What do you think happened? Do you think she... "