Chapter 9

          I stared down the passage as Gwendolyn stood on a small platform right above a slide like object.

“I-is it safe?” I asked, looking Gwendolyn in the eye.

“Of course! I go down it several times a day, trust me?” she asked with wide eyes.

“Fine,” I sighed, taking her hand and stepping down to the platform with her.

“Ready?” Gwen asked me, letting go of my hand and staring down the dark carved out tunnel.

“I guess so,” I grinned nervously trying not to show my nerves.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Gwendolyn laughed before shoving me down the tunnel, which turned out to be more of a slide.

I was engulfed in a quick blur of darkness before being spit out of the slide and was rapidly whipped and lashed back and forth while Gwendolyn laughed and smiled behind me. 

“This is insane!” I shrieked, desperately trying to grip onto the tunnel’s walls with my fingernails.  I spread out my legs and pressed my feet and hands against the walls, still trying to stop. 

“Keep going slow poke!” Gwen giggled from behind, giving me another shove until I was finally slowing down enough to open my eyes and when I did, it was amazing.

            I saw leaves made of glass and in a variety of color ranging from the darkest blue to the brightest white, however there wasn’t any black.  I looked closer and harder at the inside of the leaves, noticing that they each had a glowing gold sparkly ball in each individual one.  The balls were about the size of a raisin compared to a regular sized human which glistened due to the gold glitter and light spiraling around them. 

“There’s the end!” Gwendolyn yelled to me, wrapping her arms around my waist as we were thrown from the tree slide, landing on another branch. 

“O-oh sweet ground!” I sighed in relief as I hugged the branch and kissed the ground.

“Thank goodness that’s over, I mean what else could have happened?” I added, laughing jokingly under my breath.  Gwen gave me a small smirk before she laughed as she placed her hands on her hips.

“At least the trolls didn’t show up,” she said softly, looking around at the bushes and trees.

“Trolls?” I exclaimed.  Then all went black.

Chapter 8

          “Come,” she said softly extending her hand to me.

“Where are we going?” I asked her skeptically.

“Somewhere special, you’d be one of the few to go to this place,” Gwendolyn whispered, opening a small hidden flap of bark on the side of the room’s wall.

“O-okay then,” I replied shyly as I took her hand.  She smiled at me, locking door and dragging me to the entrance of the tunnel which was behind the piece of wood.

“What’s that your majesty?” I exclaimed and backed up slightly.  Gwendolyn giggled slightly and placed a finger to her soft lips,

“It’s Gwen, now shhhh,” she said behind laughter.  ‘Gwen’ looked back at me briefly before letting go of my hand and began messing with the skirt of her dress.

“Ummm, what are you doing?” I said raising an eyebrow. 

She continued to ruffle and tug at the rose petals on her dress’s skirt before the seams started to tear off the bottom of the dress.  After a few minutes of tugging, heaving, and huffing and puffing, she tore off the bottom of the dress until the dress was right under her knees. 

“Gwen, wh-,” I was cut off when Gwendolyn handed me over an armful of rose petals from her dress, which literally pulled me to my knees.

“Hold those,” she said laughing under her breath while fixing her skirt.

“H-how do you wear this?” I panted while trying to stand up from the floor, practically drowning underneath Gwendolyn’s skirt.

“It’s easy you just suck it in, keep your head up, and try not to fall,” Gwen giggled, staring down at me and offered me her hand.  I felt embarrassed having to take her hand again, but I reluctantly grabbed it, leaving her skirt on the floor.

“C’mon umm, what’s your name?” Gwendolyn asked.

“Annabelle,” I replied. 

“Okay Annabelle, let’s go,” Gwendolyn said softly as she gave me a mysterious smirk.

“What was that for…?” I asked skeptically.

“You’ll see,” Gwen giggled once more before jumping down the passage.

Chapter 7

          There stood another figure.  She was very busy scrambling to pick up broken pieces of glass off the floor without even turning to see who had just entered the room.  The figure looked about twenty-three or so with light skin and a fairly curvy body frame.  Her hair was albino blonde, tightly curled, and was hip length.  She had a crown of whitest roses I had ever seen and vines tied around her head and was held in place by her hair, which was braided into it.  Her eyes were widened and a brilliant hazel with a mysterious twinkle in them which intrigued me.  Though nothing could compare to her dress.  The dress had a sweetheart styled, one shouldered styled top, made out of emerald green leaves.  The bottom of the dress touched the ground in length and flowed behind her.  The skirt was made out of full white rose petals, each lined in tiny crystals which glistened whenever she would walk.

“Your majesty Gwendolyn, we have something we need to ask you”, Nixie said as she curtsied slightly and whipped her hair back off her face.  Gwendolyn turned and faced all three of us before her eyes became large.

“Yes?” she asked, looking back at all three of us.

“We heard a crash, is everything okay?” Liliana said shyly and noticed the glass on the floor.

“Everything’s fine, Liliana just has awakened, that’s all,” Gwendolyn replied while standing up from the floor.

“What’s woken up?” I whispered quietly from behind Nixie as I peered through her transparent wings.

“A child,” Gwendolyn spoke quietly, keeping her eyes locked on me.

“Huh?” I asked, looking at Gwendolyn with I’m sure a stupid look on my face.  Gwendolyn gave me a small smirk before turning to Nixie and Liliana,

“Could you two leave us alone please?” Gwendolyn said signaling the two fairies to leave.  Both of them nodded and buzzed out of the room leaving me and the queen in utter silence.

Chapter 6

          I turned to Liliana as we both looked up into the tree nervously. Peering down at us was Nixie with a small smile.

“Hmmm, I’m not sure….. let’s go ask the queen, she might have a better idea than we do,” she said gently and began to flutter towards the tree’s entrance.  I will admit, it was quite nerve wracking going into a tree while being led by two fairies who I just met less than a half an hour ago.  We finally made it into the tree where I was literally brought speechless by what I saw.

            The inside of the tree didn’t look like a tree at all, more like a giant wooden tree mansion.  The walls were made out of a golden oak wood, with rows of amber colored hibiscus flowers clung to the vines that spiraled up the walls.  The floor was golden as well with small bits and pieces of topaz stones mixed in until it looked like a personalized marble.  There were giant golden iris, lily, rose, and tulip flower statues in the center of the room and were about fifteen feet tall.  As I continued to look around I saw several fairies bustling around with little sacks on their backs as they came in and out of the tree. 

            Nixie pointed towards the corner of the room and showed me a staircase made of the glass leaves as she smiled at me,

“Let’s go,’ she said signaling me towards the stairs.

“We are going up there?” I replied, looking at both Nixie and Liliana dumbfounded.  They both nodded as I gulped and cautiously made my way over to the stairs.  It felt a bit weird being the only actual ‘person’ in the room without wings or any of that fairy stuff. 

            We began walking up the steps, but every time I stood on one of them, it glowed which I called weird because it didn’t do it to Nixie or Liliana.  When we reached the top of the steps, we stood in front of a closed wooden door with a golden knob.  I looked back at both of the fairies and they shrugged. I then took a deep breath, put my hand on the knob, and slowly creaked open the door.

Chapter 4

          She was standing in the corner with her hands on her hips and her legs crossed.  Her body was very curvy in a way, with wider hips, broad chested, and very pale skinned compared to Nixie and Liliana.  Her eyes were a deep blue with a cold hard glare in them, which was unmistakably pointing at me.  She wore a dark blue, snapdragon skirt and a slightly lighter blue corset which was made out of thin vines.  She had dark black hair which was cut short; into an edgy pixie style.  She didn’t have any shoes on and had a straight face across her full lips. 

“Hi, I’m Annabelle,” I said gently to her and smiled.

“Humpf,” Azura scoffed and smirked slightly.

“That’s Azura, and don’t worry she never smiles, laughs, or has any fun.  Such a toad.”

Nixie laughed and gently nudged Azura in the arm with her elbow.

“Ugh, don’t touch me,” Azura scowled at Nixie.  Her voice was lower toned for a girl, with a raspy hint in it as well.  I looked at my reflection in a shiny pebble and realized that my makeup had smeared, probably from however I shrunk.

I sat down on a leaf as I unzipped my hipster purse and found my pocket mirror, lip gloss, mini eyeshadow palette, and my blush and blush brush.  I grabbed my sparkly pink mirror and my eyeshadow, but it didn’t take long for Nixie to notice the pink and sparkly mirror.

“Oh my pixie! That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! Can I hold it?” Nixie squealed and fluttered desperately over me as her wings flapped liked a humming bird.

“Haha, sure,” I replied.

I smiled and handed her the mirror.  She quickly took it from me and had to heave it up since the mirror was fairly large compared to her own one inch body.  Nixie opened it and her wings flapped faster.  She was so intent on the mirror she didn’t notice herself beginning to fly up higher.

“It’s pink! It’s shiny! Oh my wings! There’s my picture in it! It’s a tiny me and it’s alive!”

Nixie squealed with delight, not knowing that the little her she was seeing was herself as a reflection.

“Hi tiny me! You’re so sparkly I’m gonna die! Not really, eek! It’s so pretty!”

As Nixie kept getting more and more excited, her wings kept flapping faster until glitter was all over the place.  I laughed and smiled up at Nixie while Azura was in utter disgust and Liliana hid behind a rock from Nixie’s outburst of excitement.

“This is the most amazing thing ev-“

Before Nixie could finish she hit her head on a tree branch and a pile of bright pink glitter landed right on the top of Azura’s hair.