Breaking a tale

Dawn - A visit to the high fairies.

The ride down the mountain was one of the best days of my time in the tale, it really was the perfect day. The sun shone high in the bluest sky I had ever seen, as we rode along chatting and laughing with each other as Squeak flew along beside us, I watched him fly, in awe at his power and grace. The name Squeak didn't really suit him anymore but we had all got used to it so didn't have the heart to change it. He was a majestic dragon, his scales rippled and glinted in the sunlight as I watched him swoop and dive in between rocks and trees. I was slightly nervous about him being spotted but I soon found out that we were the only people around for miles. The world felt so much better now we had a purpose. We were no longer just running away, we were running towards something, and that something was a way home. All of us had a new sense of hope as we rode towards the fairy lands and it crackled around us like electricity.

Slowly we made our way to the fairy lands. Now we were in sight of a way home, we savoured every moment in this world and even though none of us wanted to admit it we were really going to miss being here when we got home. We travelled along paths during the day and slept under the stars at night. The supplies we had gotten from the old woman's house proved very useful. I had also managed to learn how to control the sword so that I could light fires in the evenings but not burn down the forest as well. After a few days of travelling the forest began to change. The flowers became more colourful, the grass brighter and the streams seemed to sparkle, we knew we were getting closer to the fairy lands. The closer we got the more magical the forest became until eventually, we came to a signpost that read "Welcome to Sequoia, the fifth plinth of the fairy lands"

I felt all of the hairs on the back of my neck bristle up in excitement and held back a squeak of joy, we had made it, we were so close to getting home. I could tell the others shared my excitement, Biron was grinning and his eyes were bright, Luna was smiling as well but for some reason, there was a sadness behind her eyes. The forests in Sequoia were so much more alive than the rest of the kingdom and as we rode we were surrounded by living creatures. I had to keep hold of Lantern to prevent him from chasing after the masses of rabbits and butterflies that followed us. Even though we had been riding through the forest for a good thirty minutes we still hadn't seen any fairies and I was starting to worry. I had thought the fairy lands were quite small but maybe they were bigger than I had first thought. I was also slightly worried about Squeak. He was staying close to us and Biron had put him on a lead to prevent him from flying too far away but I was worried that the fairies would try to kill him, I didn't know if they hated dragons as much as the humans. I just hoped they wouldn't hurt him.

After an hour of riding through the magical forest of Sequoia, we came to a village. We stopped just before the entrance of the village and found a nice group of trees to tie up our horses, we also decided to leave Squeak and Lantern there as well just in case something went wrong. We walked into the village and quickly found that we were the centre of attention, everywhere we walked fairies would turn and stare at us and whisper to their companions, no doubt questioning why we were here, obviously humans didn't usually come to the fairy lands. We weren't much better and stared at everything we saw, the village was incredibly strange as there were no houses on the ground, the roads were lined with large trees and you could see treehouses peeking out from above the leaves. This wasn't the only incredible thing about the village, the fairies themselves were not like anything I had ever seen before. They looked like incredibly elegant humans and to my surprise, most of the adults we saw stood taller than me. For some reason, I had got it into my head that the fairies would be small so seeing them so large surprised me.

They all had the most amazing hairstyles and colours I had ever seen. Most of the fairies had pastel coloured hair and there seemed more purples and pinks than the other colours although I did see a few with jet black hair. The fairies' wings and eyes also matched their hair and some of them even co-ordinated their outfits to match There was such diversity in the type of wing as well, some fairies had glittering butterfly wings which shimmered in the wind whilst others had scaled dragon wings which glinted dangerously in the sunlight.