Morphling

Chapter 1 - Noah

Three Months Later

  As dawn approaches, I carefully morph into a bat. I have some time before the daylight. When I know that I have not been seen, I fly through the streets and lawns of the kingdom. I barely pay attention to where I am heading, but I soon find myself in a place I should not be, the home of the fuslings, the castle. However I have the urge to fly up to the castle window and look inside. The window I fly up to looks into the throne room where the king and queen are speaking to some official. I feel slightly bad as I get closer in order to hear the conversation, but not bad enough to leave.

  "...This is very bad. We need to do something." The King says.

  "I agree, but who is that trustworthy? Is there anyone in the kingdom who is up to the task that you know will follow your orders?" The official responds.

  The Queen answers, "This is of much more importance than..."

  I turn away from the window and look up into the sky. The sun has almost risen and I need to get away from the castle. I might have stayed to listen, but I am not dumb enough to test the limits. I quickly fly off, but I do not get much farther than the front door of the castle when a guard notices me.

  He says, "Look a morphling where it should not be."

  The other guards turn their attention to me and suddenly multiply. Fusions. I suddenly am trapped. They know I am a morphling, which is my fault for being a bat as the sun is rising. Bats are nocturnal; I should have morphed into something less... noticeable, not that it would have been useful.

  The guard says, "There is nowhere for you to go. Do not try to pretend otherwise."

  Despite what I want to do, I morph back into myself. I am suddenly very aware of the trouble I can get into, all because of my stupidity. I stayed too long, I had too high of hopes to think I could get away. I should never have accidentally wandered into the castle territory...and stayed. The guards come up to me once I am back in my human form and drag me into the castle. If I was in another situation, I would try to fight my way out of the guards grasp and flee. However, this was not something I could try to escape from. When the guards pull me into the throne room, the queen is about to leave.

  A guard says, "I hate to disturb you, my majesties, but this morphling was found trespassing outside."

  "I was not trespassing. I was merely flying back to the town." I lie.

  "Don't try to play an intellectual game with me." The guard states.

  The queen stays put in the throne room. I know she is staying up later than she wishes, because the morphling part of her is of the night. The morphlings of the night, usually sleep all day and are up all night. We only really cross paths with the morphlings of the day at dawn and dusk, when it is switching from day or night to the other.

  The queen asks, "Why were you trespassing?"

  I reply, "I did not mean to. I promise I wanted nothing. I was trying to leave. Please, I would do nothing to endanger this kingdom."

  The king says, "We might can let you pass this time. Now tell us, are you a morphling of the day or of the night?"

  "I am a morphling of the night, King Sebastian. Why do you ask?"

  Queen Adrianne answers, "Do you by chance happen to know either of our daughters, Persephone or Pennamore?"

  I respond, "I know Persephone a little bit, but not really Pennamore. Why?"

  The king and the queen turn to each other and start talking. I wish I could hear what they are saying. I wonder what is going on. My question is, who does not know Persephone or Pennamore? Everyone knows at least one of them. Morphlings of the night know Persephone and the morphlings of the day know Pennamore. The fusions do not exactly have a set time to be awake, so it can go either way with them.

  Suddenly the king says, "We want to know if you can help us with something."

  I respond, "That depends on what you want me to do. If I could die helping then I do not want to help."

  The queen says, "We want you to go to Welsh and find Pennamore who is hopefully with Persephone. Then once you have found them, bring them back here to Change."

  I am a little in shock. Why are Persephone and Pennamore in Welsh?

  I exclaim, "Why in the world are they in the kingdom of the foreigners?!"

  "Three months ago those foreigners came here in search of the Annex Guide, but instead they found Persephone and captured her. Pennamore went to rescue her sister. We were not that worried that it was taking a little time, but the foreigners invaded a couple nights ago. They found the Annex Guide, so now they will know all the secrets of the morphlings, fusions, and fuslings, if they can figure out how to comprehend it. It is very dangerous for Pennamore and Persephone to be in that kingdom, but the only way to get in touch with either of them is to send someone to find them." The King answers.

  I am surprised at this. How was it that I did not notice the disappearance of Persephone? Pennamore I can understand as she is not like me in the way her sister is.

  I say, "I did not know that, but I do not even know Pennamore. How would I find her?"

  Queen Adrianne states, "We hope that Persephone is with her. You would know Persephone or so you say, but either way Pennamore looks exactly like Persephone."

  I nod. "Why do you trust me to do this?"

  King Sebastian says, "Well you are here and a morphling of the night which means this will not be such a hard mission for you. Besides, we need someone who will not test loyalty to this kingdom."

  I do not really understand the purpose of this. It is not like I am some spy. However, I can not help but wonder if I can actually do this. Save the princesses. Can it really be that difficult?

  "I guess I can try. I will not promise anything, but I will do what I can."

  "Then leave as soon as you can. We need our daughters back." The queen says.

  I nod and run out of the castle, back towards my house. I will leave tonight. That means I need to get to sleep or I will not have enough energy. That will be very important, until I get to Welsh anyways.