The Guardians

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

When I told Rose that we would be helping out with the palace party preps, I imagined some resistance from the castle guards seeing as Rose did say that she was banned. But when we got there, the palace guards just let us right on through! And not just that, they even saluted! I gave Rose a questioning look but she just shrugged and smiled. Since she dismissed it so casually, I figured that it wasn't a big deal either. Maybe the palace really needed all the help they could get and the guards were just ordered to let everyone through and salute them as a form of thank you for helping with the preparations. Made enough sense if you didn't think about it too much…

We continued to make our way inside the palace, just following the crowd really. Everyone walked in the same direction until  we reached a huge garden. Hundreds of tables lined the place. Strings of flowers were wrapped around the tables, walls, seats and frankly anywhere where you could put a flower in. Light globes floated in the air above us and gave the entire place a soft glow. Fairies everywhere wore extravagant  clothes that looked like they were for a ball instead of just for helping out with preparations. Come to think of it, it looked as if the place was already finished with preparations. I turned to Rose, confused as I could be.

"I thought you said that the trumpets signalled the start of preparations? Everything seems to be done already!"

"Well yea the preparations for the party is all done but not the preparations for the arrival of the actual princess. You didn't think that we were called here to help prepare the palace did you? That was already done on the eve of the party, which was yesterday night by the way. Now we're all getting ready for the arrival of the princess. All of us are supposed to fly up into the night sky, catch a star, form a gigantic circle and then throw the star we caught in the middle of the circle where the princess will come out from. How is it that you do not know this?"

The expression on Rose's face changed from thoughtful to horrified. She gasped and pointed a finger at me but before she could scream out intruder, a gang girls walked up to us and sneered.

"Ugh. I thought we told you to stay at home? We don't need you messing up the ceremony," one of them spat.

"Yea! Just cause you're an elite doesn't give you the right to mess up everyone else's fun," another chimed before all of them walked away leaving Rose with her head hung low.

"You're an elite?" I asked, testing the waters.

She nodded and proceeded to explain how she had two sides to her. One was extremely mischievous and good and everything but because she was so mischievous she ended causing a lot of trouble for every other fairy out there so she figured that she should keep her playful spirit hidden within herself so she drank a potion that made her the opposite of what she was. Which meant turning clumsy, being bad at everything she did, being shy and incapable of talking back.

"Why would you do that?! Rose you could have just tried to be more disciplined!"

"Hey I did but it was so hard! I always needed someone to be there to stop me before I went over board and the only person that was capable of doing that was…"

"Was?"

"I had a fight with him alright! Now we're not talking…I said some really mean things about him in front of a lot of people and well…I haven't seen him since…"

"Haven't seen who since?" a new voice said.

Rose and I looked up from each other and to the person who recently joined our conversation. It was a guy. He wore a fairy suit made from maple leaves. His hair was fiery red and spiked up in so many directions it made me wonder if he was electrocuted or something. He was lean , muscular, slightly taller than us and had emerald eyes just like Rose. My eyes darted from Rose to the new guy. Rose's cheeks had turned slightly pink and the new guy was beaming at her.