Beyond the Fairy Gate

Chapter 25

Nyline

The kingdom of Vaccoon loomed in the distance taking up most of the mountain side. From the height of the airship Nyline could see all the way to the farming lands in the far west and east with the main city in the middle. It came right up to the forests edge and climbed up the mountain in the distance. The entire kingdom was surrounded by a large stone wall that encased every piece of land all way out to the tiny little shack in the far, far west. The inner city was surrounded by an additional wall that seemed to section off the main city itself. Almost every building was a skyscraper and was made out of a black shiny material that changed colors in the lighting. Each building had rows and rows of windows on each side. Some of the large buildings had little balconies that jutted out from the building with iron fences.

Even while living in the human world, Nyline had never seen a skyscraper, there were no high rises where she was from and she wasn't sure if any of them went quite as high as the some of the ones here. Maybe the Empire State Building would rival it? She wasn't sure.

The airship crossed over the second retaining wall that enclosed the main city and Nyline could see the people below. They were small but she could see many of them stop and look up at the ship. Several children started pointing at it while others just stood and stared.

"Lady Nyline?" Nyline jumped at Sigma's words causing her to look towards the girl. In this lighting she could see Sigma's hair was more strawberry than blond, but she was gorgeous with her softly glowing green eyes. Nyline could see for the first time that she had a speckling of freckles that went across her nose and cheek bones.

"I'm fine," Nyline whispered her eyes looking down at the people who looked as small as ants.

"Don't lie, Lady Nyline." Shanell scoffed making her turn and look at Sigma.

"I'm not lying, I'll be fine. It just takes time." Sigma took a second of looking at Nyline in the face before she walked over and looked over the edge.

"You know, Vaccoon's boarders are closed." Nyline's brow rose.

"What?"

"It's true. We do not interact with any kingdom outside our own. Any trade that happens within our walls and everything we use we produce ourselves."

"That's really amazing."

"You see way over there?" Sigma pointed all the way to the edge of the forest where it looked like a farm was. "That is one of our seven farms that provide our grains, meat, cheese, milk, and other produce."

"They have the most land in our entire kingdom and we give it freely." Shanell spoke as she walked over and leaned against the railing. "Everyone else we just build up."

"Is that why everything is so tall?" They nodded.

"As our population grows, we must expand somehow, but with our barrier we are limited. It is hard to grow as a population when you only have so much land."

"What do you mean?"

"You see the outer wall?" Sigma pointed to the large stone wall that surrounded everything all the way out to the farmlands. "That is all of our land, its small but it's ours. That outer wall is where the barrier ends. Anything past that isn't protected."

"What are you being protected from?"

"A very long time ago," Gabriel spoke as he walked up behind her, then in a very soft voice he continued speaking close to her ear. "When our kingdom was first started, we were constantly raided by not only humans but also daemons. They hated us. They thought that we had tainted our blood lines and wanted to destroy us for it. The original king and queen put up a barrier for the daemons and the wall for the humans. They wanted our people to be protected from the problems that were the outside world. So, we closed our boarders, shut the world out, and stayed out of view. Eventually, the world forgot who we were and why they hated us, instead we became the cursed kingdom, who didn't welcome foreigners."