and they all lived happily ever after
"Okay, everyone ready?" Miyuki looked back at her friends, smiles on all their faces.
They nodded as one, and Miyuki turned back and began moving the books on her shelf. Left to right...lower shelf, right to left, left again, part. The familiar glow appeared, and the girls vanished.
"Miyuki, kuru!" Candy jumped up towards the girl. Miyuki caught her and hugged her to her chest, the both of them laughing happily. "Everyone! We missed you, kuru!"
"I missed you too, Candy!" Miyuki said, giving the fairy one quick squeeze before holding her arms out, looking Candy in the eyes. "Has everything been okay since you left?"
Yes, after the emperor had regained his normal form, he and his fairies had to return home. They had a lot of fixing to do, they had said.
And with one land being saved, Marchenland was saved too, and Candy and Pop had returned home. But the magic was still present, and Pretty Cure still knew the code to enter the Magical Library, and travel to Marchenland whenever they wished. So although their friends had to leave for their home and to train for royal duties, they could see each other whenever they wished.
Candy nodded enthusiastically. She hopped down from Miyuki's arms and pointed towards the beautiful kingdom in the distance. "Everything is great, kuru! Look, look, come and see!"
The girls were once again in awe of Marchenland, just as they had been their last visit. But it felt a little different now. Things seemed brighter, happier. Their was a sweetness in the air, something that made them feel hopeful, like their was a light in their hearts. The fairy tale characters continued to bustle about them, acting out their stories or just playing. Many stopped to bow or curtsy before Pretty Cure, thank them for all they'd done.
The girls stopped short when they noticed one fairy. A cat-like fairy in a black and purple dress, brandishing a wand as she stood over a group of crowned fairies. "I curse you!" she squeaked, the words sounding comical when delivered in such a cute voice. "As punishment for not inviting me to your daughter's christening, I curse the princess to prick her finger on a spindle on her sixteenth birthday, and die!"
"Isn't that..." Miyuki blinked.
"The wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty?" Yayoi finished.
The fairy blinked, turned around, briefly dropping character as she gasped at the sight of the five humans. "Ah, it's Pretty Cure!" Then, like the others, she curtsied. "Thank you for saving our kingdoms! And thank you for allowing me to participate too!"
"Participate?" Akane echoed.
But the fairy wasn't listening, as she cleared her throat and turned back to the other fairies. "As I was saying...prick her finger and die!"
"That's what I wanted to show you, kuru!" Candy chirped, rushing forward and waving her tiny arms for the girls to follow. "This way, this way!"
Candy took them to the edge of the kingdom, where Pop stood with a few other fairies. "Onii-chan, kuru!" she called out, waving again.
Pop looked up from the conversation, smiling brightly when he saw Pretty Cure. "Pretty Cure, welcome back, de gozaru!" he smiled smugly, and waved a paw behind him. "What do you think?" The girls then noticed that behind the other fairies-who they quickly recognized as the Bad End Fairies, was a large ethereal staircase. When they looked up to follow it, they saw that it ended at a large, floating island.
"Wait...is that-?" Reika breathed.
"We no longer have to wait for the full moon, de gozaru," Pop said with satisfaction. He turned to the other three fairies. "Would you three lead the way?"
"We told you it was beautiful, dawasa!" Majo-rin said as she folded her little arms over her chest. The other two had similar proud expressions, delighting in the awed way Pretty Cure stared at their kingdom.
It was nothing like it'd been last time they'd been here! The buildings were all in varying dark colors, but all the windows spilled warm yellow light throughout the darkened kingdom, so it didn't look frightening. The ground was all cobblestone roads and courtyards, a tall and old-fashioned streetlamp with a candle inside every five feet. From those lamps spilled even more warm light, so although the sky above was a dark, dusky purple, there was plenty of light to see by. The full moon and twinkling stars above only helped this, and to look at the sky was comforting rather than frightening.
But the most noted difference was all the fairies rushing about happily. The girls could recognize many villains from their favorite stories-there were more wolves, more ogres and witches, but there was also the occasional wicked queen, regally-dressed ladies that were clearly wicked step-mothers, princes, dwarfs...And all of them looked happy, paused to bow or curtsy as the Marchenland fairies had.
"Pretty Cure, thank you!" a fairy resembling a wicked step-mother said, curtsying with a Cinderella-fairy at her side. "Thank you for restoring our home, shi-shi."
"Thank you for restoring us too, nya!"
"Thank you so much, desu!"
"Alright, alright, rufu!" Wolf-runrun snapped, but not too angrily, as he shooed everyone away. "Let them by, rufu!"
"Yeah, they're supposed to meet someone today, oni!"
"Meet someone?" Nao asked as the fairies dispersed, laughing and talking quietly amongst themselves. "Who do you want us to meet?"
"Is it Emperor Pierrot?" Yayoi asked.
The three fairies shook their heads. "Nope!" Majo-rin smiled again. "Emperor Pierrot has been meeting with Royale Queen every day, dawasa. It's thanks to them, Pop, and Candy that this staircase was made."
"They didn't think it right to keep separated, rufu. So our kingdoms are connected, and all of us can see each other and truly act out the stories! And with us being right next door now, there's no reason for the Marchenland fairies to be afraid of our land anymore, rufu."
Oni-nin opened his own mouth to speak just then, but a faint, rapid footfall caught his attention. "A-Ah! The person we wanted you to meet is here, oni!"
"That person" ran towards the group, slowed to a walk, then finally stopped altogether a few feet away from the girls. Then they looked to the other three fairies, looking nervous. "Should I-"
"Go on, rufu."
Pretty Cure smiled just then, some of them getting a bit teary-eyed. Miyuki knelt down, and the fairy jumped back a step. She laughed softly, held her hand out, palm up. "Hey, don't be scared! Where's that confidence you always had before?"
The fairy stared, tense, before he slowly relaxed, stepped forward, and placed his tiny paw in Miyuki's hand. The rest of the girls knelt down too, getting a closer, better look at their former foe.
The fairy bowed his head, eyes closing and the corners of his mouth tugging upwards in a familiar smile. "Nice to meet you here, Pretty Cure." He lifted his head, those red eyes now showing a real happiness. "I am Jokaa, prince of Bad End Kingdom, ken ken."