Heroes of Dreamland, Book 6 1/2: The Last Sakuranoki (OLD)

Welcome to Sakuranoki Farm

Cherry's head snapped up as the sound of the trees speaking to each other in their own language startled her. Of course, having lived on Sakuranoki Farm her whole life, she was used to it by now. It just still caught her off-guard sometimes when one of the trees yelled at the others in an attempt to get the others' attention. That's what had just happened, and since everything returned to being calm immediately after, she started grinning again and relaxed as she sat down under one of the three trees on top of the hill she had just climbed.

These three trees were called the Mother Sakuranoki, because all of the other sakuranoki were just saplings that had a twig from one of the Mother trees grafted into them, and all three of the Mother Sakuranoki had come from the very first sakuranoki. No one knew where that one had gone, but they did know that all of the trees were related to each other, all hundreds of sisters and cousins that were all daughters to the Mother Sakuranoki up above them.

What's a sakuranoki, you ask? Well, 'sakura no ki' is from the language of the Ancients, and roughly translated, it means 'cherry blossom tree.' A sakuranoki is a special, magical kind of cherry tree, known by most as an ever-blossoming cherry tree. Sakuranoki is just its technical name, although hardly anyone knows this anymore.

This farm, Sakuranoki Farm, is where all of the sakuranoki that ever existed were grown. They all started out there as regular cherry tree saplings, but once they had a magical branch grafted into them, they grew into being a sakuranoki within a week or two. And who was doing the grafting? Why, don't be silly, the Sakuranoki Fairies, of course!

Cherry wasn't exactly a Sakuranoki Fairy. No, she was something a bit more than that, although she had yet to find that bit out. Right now, she wasn't sure what she was. She just knew that this was the place where she was happy.

Humming, she opened her notebook and pulled out the pencil, then flipped to a blank page and started to sketch, just like she did every day that she had time. And there certainly wasn't much of anything to do today. All of the Sakuranoki Fairies were gone, busy delivering their trees all over the Galaxy. Honestly, she didn't really miss most of them. It wasn't like most of them really cared for her all that much.

Cherry had been born without wings, a very strange thing indeed. You see, when her Mother Fairy had grown old, gone to sleep, and turned into a pink rose, a violent windstorm had whipped through that very night and torn several of the petals from the flower. Everyone feared the worst, thinking that the Fairy within was lost forever, which would have been a great tragedy, seeing as who her Mother Fairy was. But just a few weeks later, her supposed loss was thankfully proven wrong when the flower had bloomed, revealing a sweet, perfect little New Fairy.

Perfect, yes, except for the fact that she was wingless.

All of the other Fairies couldn't help but dislike the new addition to their world. She hadn't done anything wrong, of course, but she was such an... inconvenience. She couldn't get to any of the places the other Fairies could, she couldn't fly out of the way of any sort of danger, and above everything else, she was kind of... well, to be frank, she was rather ugly.

Now, if you or I looked at her, we would think she was absolutely beautiful. But among Fairies, beauty is not judged by your height, or weight, or eye color, or anything of the things that most species use to judge beauty. Among Fairies, beauty is instead judged purely by the color, shape, size, etc. of your wings. And not having any wings... To the Fairies, that was disgusting. Horrific. Pitiful. Unforgivable. Poor little Cherry (although she hadn't been named that yet at the time) was a freak, and so she was quickly outcasted from living in Rippling City with the other Fairies.

Now normally, Fairies are a kind, sweet, loving species. A Fairy will always be the first to leap in and help you out with anything. But the species tends to be a bit unopen to other Fairies with any abnormality or major difference from a regular Fairy, or to any other species that tries (for whatever reason) to move onto Ripple Star. Visitors are always welcome on the Fairy Planet, but if you try to permanently move in, the natives will do whatever they can to get you to move back out. It's the Fairy Planet, not the Galactic Melting Pot, as most Fairies will explain to you. Besides, many other species are the same way with their planets.