Kingdom Keepers: Once Upon a Dream

Chapter 33

A/N: Wow, me not keeping up with updates in the way I said I was going to again? Who's surprised not me. For real though, as I'm sure you all know, things are crazy right now, so I'm not totally on my game, but I'm posting two new chapters today to make up for it. Enjoy! I'm excited for you to read them.

Finn slammed the door behind him as he, Amanda, Jess, and Casey made their way into the firehouse apartment. Wayne and Wanda were already waiting for them, and immediately came over to join them.

"You have the pen?" Wayne asked.

Finn held up the Stonecutter's Quill.

"Excellent," Wayne said. "Come here: all of you."

He motioned them to a table which he quickly started to clear off. This was not the old mentor who'd look at him and cry and buy him icrecream, Finn realized; this was the brave Imagineer who knew how to lead, and believed in saving the day more than anyone Finn knew. He smiled; it was good to have him back.

Just as Wayne was about to finish clearing the table, Amanda gasped.

"What?!" Finn asked.

"The blueprints!" she exclaimed. "You needed the blueprints last time! We didn't get them!"

"No," Wayne said hardly, before Finn could answer. "We're not using the blueprints this time. Come in closer."

Without any more of an explanation, he ran to a nearby drawer and rummaged through it for a few seconds before picking something up and returning to the table. He produced a small picture, placing it down on the table in front of them, still silent.

It took Finn a moment to realize what the picture was, but once he did, his heart skipped a beat: it was him and the four other original Keepers on opening day at Disneyland.

"Walt gave me a copy of it," Wayne explained. "I've kept it all these years, and after you came to me last week, I knew I needed to have it ready."

"I don't understand," Finn said.

"When you used the Stonecutter's Quill the first time," Wayne asked. "What were you doing with it?"

"We needed to restore Walt's Kingdom. Bring back the magic so that the Overtakers couldn't destroy it."

"Exactly," Wayne said. "So you used the blueprints, because they represented Walt's original plans for the Kingdom."

Finn stared at him, still not following.

"This time," Wayne continued. "You're using the pen to restore something else, something that's yours; this picture represents it."

Finn looked at the picture again, and felt his chest tighten with anger. All of this was supposed to be his, and all of it had been stolen by the Overtakers. His hands balled into a fist around the pen. He wanted to get back to his own life just so that he could defeat them all over again, so he could make them pay for everything: for Dillard, for Wayne, and now for this.

He startled as a hand touched his wrist, and he looked over to see Amanda staring at him. Her eyes were full of worry, but there was support behind them as well, and he exhaled slowly. They say a picture's worth a thousand words; in that moment, Amanda's eyes were worth a million. Her gentle stare, so undying and connected to him and true, delivered all of the reminders that he needed to hear: he could be angry at the Overtakers, sure, but anger was what got them to where they were now. What they needed to focus on now was what Amanda had always said: they had each other; no matter what the Overtakers had done to them in the past–the good, the bad–it had brought them to each other: more than any amount of anger, that was what mattered.

He slid his hand up so that his fingers laced in hers, and nodded. She smiled as her eyes filled with tears, and Finn's brightened before he turned back to the picture on the table. He uncapped the pen and prepared to hold it over the picture.

"Think of what you believe in Finn," Wayne said from behind. "Picture it and hold it in your heart. If you want it bad enough, the rest will fall into place."

Finn looked at Amanda once more and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back before reaching for Jess with her other hand. Soon, all three were in a semi-circle around the tiny table, and Finn was still only staring at the picture beneath them.

"Okay," he said. "Here goes nothing."

Still holding tight to Amanda with his other hand, he lifted the pen and let it hover over the picture before tilting it forward. After a few moments, a single drop of ink fell out, and landed right in the middle of the castle archway.

***

Dell's head was still pointed down at the floor as he walked away from the castle and down Main Street, wiping tears from his eyes. He was trying all he could to let what had just happened go. He needed to find Finn and tell him what they'd found, what he now knew. There was a task at hand, and he didn't have time to be emotional. But he couldn't seem to bring himself to care about it anymore. After everything they'd been through, it just didn't seem to matter.

Eventually he came across Charlie and found her crouched to the ground, crying. Terry was nowhere that he could see.

"What happened," he exclaimed, jogging over. "Where's Terry?!"

Charlie stood up and wiped her tears away from her face with a forceful shove.

"He's gone," she blubbered. "We had a fight and he just said he was done and started walking out."

Her entire face was red, and running mascara stained her cheeks. Her hair was a tangled mess, some of it soaked in tears. Clearly, whatever had happened had taken a toll on her.

Dell rubbed his arm up and down, and looked down at the floor. A day ago, hell, a few hours ago, he would've reached out to comfort Charlie without a second thought, but since the fight with Willa–if that was even the right word for it–he was becoming acutely aware of just how little he knew these people.

"Where's Willa?" Charlie sniffed, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

Dell looked down at the ground, a twinge of returning pain twisting his stomach.

"I don't think she's gonna be around much anymore either," he mumbled.

No one said anything, and they could both hear the sounds of each other's cries.

"I think I better get out of here too," Charlie eventually said. "I don't even know what I was ever doing here."

"No!" Dell pleaded, though he struggled to find the determination he begged of her within himself. "We have to keep fighting for this, have to keep searching. There's an answer out there I know it!"

"And what are we gonna get when we find it Dell? Look around you; it's too late."

"I know it's easy to think that, but we have to keep going for this. I don't know why I know we have to but I just..."

He stopped as a thought came to him, cutting off all of his thoughts and words. 

A/N: Thanks for your continued support. Stay strong and stay magical!