(a/n) Thanks for the reviews! I'm so glad people are so open to this sequel! I hope it'll be fun for y'all :D

Anyway, here's the next chapter. It's still setting the plot and again the chapters are short. I can only write so much in a certain time limit. -=sighs and shakes head=- hope you like it.


Welcome Goddess...

I fell and fell and fell... It seemed endless. All that surrounded me were swirling clouds and light. Every so often I would catch glimpses of a silhouettes beyond the clouds. A glimpse of a face, a leg, an arm... They were people, every single one of them falling through this strange vortex. Some were falling up, some were falling sideways, some diagonally, they were falling in so many different directions. I had no idea what was happening, to them or to me. We were all falling from someplace to someplace but... where were we going? Were we heading to the same place?

I noticed quickly that I was the only one who was falling downwards though. None of the people who fell around me seemed aware of my presence as I was of theirs'. Did they not see the others? Were they not aware? I instinctively knew that I was the only one aware of these many bodies passing to and fro in this strange swirling vortex. Whoever these people were, I knew that they were far away from their homes...

At some point along the journey, the little elf creature had released my hand and disappeared. I hadn't even noticed until it was too late. I had begun to tumble, head over heels. I was flipping over and over until I I couldn't tell which way I was falling anymore. I was so dizzy but somehow I had managed to hold onto Aunt Liz's journal. It remained firmly clutched against my breast, as if it were the only lifeline that I had.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I continued to tumble through this strange vortex, ignoring the dizziness, the nausea... Finally, blessed blackness overwhelmed my senses and I slipped away into unconsciousness...

Falling...

Falling...

Falling...

Stop!

I gasped in surprise, my eyes bursting wide open as I found myself looking down into the face of a statue. I was hanging upside down, nearly nose to nose with a statue of a very beautiful woman, whose face was gazing up towards me. I stared into the stone eyes of the woman, who stared blankly in return. The eyes were lifeless and dull of course, but I had this nagging feeling that this wasn't the way she was supposed to look...

An intricate pattern wove itself from the center of her forehead toward her temples. I studied her face with interest for a moment. A breath, maybe two, exhaled past my lips and then there was a flash of bright light. I shut my eyes against the brightness but it did not cease in stopping the searing pain that began to make itself known on the center of my own forehead. I cried out in protest and squirmed away, trying to break free of the force that was holding me aloft.

The searing pain continued for a heartbeat more and then, as quickly as it began, it stopped. A soft whimper escaped my lips as my head began to pound, the sudden headache that now began from the strange light was beginning to do a number on my senses. I was still hanging upside down above the statue of the woman but whatever force that held me aloft had finally decided that I had hung around long enough. With a gasp, a surprisingly strong gust of wind slammed against me, throwing me back. I flipped over and landed butt first onto the banks of a nearby stream.

I groaned, my head was pounding, my body was trembling and the worst part was... I had no idea what happened, where I was, or why I was here. I reached up to rub my forehead, feeling a slight tingle from where the terrible pain had been.

"Look! Look! She's here!"

I dropped my hand and looked around me, hearing the tiny voice that spoke and recognizing it as the elf creature I had seen before I fell into the vortex. My eyes settled down on the little elf dressed in yellow, its smile was large as it raised a tiny hand and waved at me. "Hi! I'm Carlos!"

Two other elf creatures were standing beside the one who called himself Carlos. They were dressed in red and blue and looked identical to Carlos save for the color choices. They smiled at me as well and waved their tiny hands in hello.

"I'm Arthur!" The elf in red stated, there was an air of authority about him, as if he was the designated leader of the group.

"And I'm Billy, yeah!" said the elf in blue, his grin was large as he studied me, his pointed ears twitching every so often.

"You're Dahlia, yeah?" asked Carlos, taking a few skipping steps toward me and stopping beside me. I simply stared at him, all words had been stripped from my mind. All I could so was let out an odd croaking noise in response. I was completely overwhelmed by everything that had happened thus far and all I could so was sit there on the muddy banks of a stream and stare at this elf.

"Of course, it's her," said Arthur, moving over to stand beside his friend in yellow. "She looks like Liz Liz!" He pointed to me, more specifically my face, and gave a nod. "She has Liz Liz's nose and her mouth! She even has the same mark on her neck." He hopped up onto me and slapped a tiny hand against the right side of my neck. My birthmark... How did he know that I bore the same birthmark as Aunt Liz? It was just a tiny mark on my neck, a simple little brown mark that a lot of people mistook for a hickey...

"I don't..." I backed away from the elf, which only succeeded in getting even deeper in the stream and soaking up the black pantsuit that I still wore. Had it been only several hours since the funeral? "How do you know my name? How do you know my aunt?" The questions were pouring forth now that I had found my voice and they didn't seem to want to stop. "What are you? Where am I?"

The little elves seemed confused at my questions and they looked at one another for a moment. Carlos was the one who took a step forward and gestured to himself and then the surrounding trees. "We're harvest sprites! You're by the Goddess Spring in Flower Bud Village. Liz Liz was a good friend of the Harvest Goddess. She told us you would come to help us save the Harvest Goddess."

"The... Harvest Goddess?" I stared at Carlos, the look on my face of obvious confusion.

"Here it is!" Billy had stumbled forward, carrying the lavender journal that seemed much too large for him to carry alone. I must have dropped it when I was falling through that vortex... "She has Liz Liz's journal! She must be the one!"

I gasped and shook my head, moving out of the stream to reach out and grab the book from the little sprite before he hurt himself. He gave it to me with a smile and I sat down on the green grass, the butt of my pants completely soaked. I didn't pay it any mind as I opened the journal to the first page. Where before it was blank, now there was a familiar handwriting working its way across the page:

I've finally reached Flower Bud Village. After all that I had heard from Lydia about this particular town and its history, I could not wait to see the sights. From what I understand, Gotz had trained here to become a carpenter. It gives me butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. Gotz is a carpenter in a little place called Mineral Town that rests far away from this sleepy town. He had been born here and was raised here by his father, a man named Woody. I'm surprised that Lydia was so willing to divulge so much detail regarding that man. I guess my twenty questions did little to help... But still, I had no idea that a single glance at someone could take my breath away. I wondered if this feeling meant something? I shouldn't read to much into it and yet...

Lydia said that this town was a very musical place, every month there would be some kind of festival celebrating one thing or another. No festival was complete without music. I think I'm going to like it here...

The first page ended there and I flipped to the next page, expecting to see more writing but it was as blank as ever. That was Aunt Liz's handwriting... was this her journal? And who was this Lydia and Gotz?

The harvest sprites had been watching me the entire time I was reading and I looked at them, tears welling in my eyes. "You knew my Aunt Liz... You must know why I'm here, right?"

The sprites looked at one another once again before the one in blue who had the journal, Billy, moved closer to me and reached up to touch my forehead. The tingling on my forehead turned to warmth at the sprite's touch and I winced, my head still hurt. "You're here to help us save the Harvest Goddess, you're here to help the people of Flower Bud Village remember. You're here to help watch the passageway between this reality and others. You're the new Harvest Goddess now until our Goddess wakes up."

My mouth dropped at those words as I stared at the little sprite, my heart was pounding so hard, the blood was roaring so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear them. The harvest sprites smiled at me as one and gave a bow to me, the warmth on my forehead grew even worse and my headache began to numb my senses...

"Welcome Goddess!"

I let out a cry as my headache turned even worse, the searing pain on my forehead blinding my vision. Welcome indeed... Welcome to a world that I had no knowledge of and among strange sprites that were a little too cheerful for my liking at the moment. I shook my head, mumbled something about a mistake, and then I fell forward, my breath easing out in a relaxed sigh. Ah... blissful blackness...