Sorry I've not updated it a while. Hopefully this extra long chapter should make up for it. I now know where I'm going with this story, the plot's plotted, the characters roughtly designed. All I have to do is write it now. :S
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Bridge to Terabithia characters or creatures. There are a couple, like the Tinkle Fairies and Princess Pari who I do own though, but I don't really care about them.
P.S. I'm sorry if it was a little unclear about whether Terabithia is a real place or not; I was still deciding at the time. Now I know what I'm doing, it should become clearer later. :)
'You see it?'
'Yes! Yes! I see it!'
Two young children crouched in ferns, watching the giant troll pass by. They watched the fronds in its hair swish back and forth as it moved forwards. Both children eyed it warily when one said, 'I'm going to tickle its feet!'
'Be careful! It's huge! It might not see you until it's too late.'
The younger child stuck her tongue out. 'I'm not scared of it. It's only Jan-nice.' She leapt up to charge the troll, before glancing back, unsurely, at her older brother. 'They always have ticklish feet, don't they?'
'Of course.'
'Right.' With that, the young girl charged forwards, squealing at the top of her lungs. The giant troll stopped and looked down in surprise as the brunette leapt at its legs and poked it with a stick.
'Ouch...' the troll said in a low female voice. She raised her foot up so her ankle was out of reach of the little girl, who ducked underneath the giant's foot and began tickling. The giant troll's shoulders shook as she began to laugh. Without thinking, she began to lower her foot.
'May Bell!' the boy in the ferns yelled. The little girl squealed and curled into a ball as the foot descended. Another figure leapt out of the bushes, scooped her up and carried her over to her brother. Her brother sighed in relief.
'Thanks Sir Galihud,' he said to the tall thin figure dressed in silvery armour. The figure saluted. As usual, his armour squeaked at the elbows. Jesse managed a smile before turning on his sister. 'May Bell, I warned you!'
The young girl, May Bell, uncurled and slowly got to her feet. She gave the knight a big smile before sulking at her bigger brother. 'I'm sorry, Jesse,' she said quietly, 'but I didn't mean to...'
'It's my fault, your highness,' Jesse looked up at the anxious face of Jan-nice the tree giant, 'I should have realised the young mistress would try an attack like that. It is tag after all.'
Jesse sighed. 'I don't think you are at fault,' he told the giant, 'you were having your feet tickled.'
May Bell had wandered over to a log and sat down, sulkily. Her silvery crown glittered in the dappled sunlight. 'I'm bored of tag,' she said aloud.
Jesse turned to her. 'What do you want to play then?' he asked her. 'Or we could go Squogre hunting. There are still many down by South River that need to be got rid of, and Cook does a nice stew with their meat. Or we could try heading East to the ocean and seeing the Water Warriors training...'
'I want to go Unicorn riding,' May Bell said.
Jesse frowned. 'There are no unicorns in Terabithia. There are Nar-nir, which are sort of like unicorns. Do you want to have a go at riding one of them?'
'What do they look like?'
Jesse closed his eyes. 'They're six-legged horse shaped beasts, with longer manes that run down the sides of both front legs. Their eyes are wide and completely black apart from a ring of forest green. They have two horns upon their heads which are short in size and are often used to control them when riding them. They can be wild but when tamed, are incredibly loyal and can ride faster than most dragons can fly. They use their long tails which are mostly hair with one long strand of bone to flick flies away from their thick fur. They hate rain and can often be found in the southern plains of Terabithia. They can be called for like this,' Jesse put his hands together and hooted like a trumpet. He could hear hoof falls before he had lowered his hands and when he opened his eyes he could see two Nar-nirs standing before them. Both were brown in colour but the larger one was several shades darker than the second.
Jesse grinned and turned to his little sister, who did not look impressed. 'See?'
'No,' May Bell said flatly.
Jesse frowned. 'Why not?'
'I don't want a nar-nar,' May Bell said crossly, 'I want a unicorn. They're better.'
'There are no unicorns in Terabithia,' Jesse said stubbornly.
'There are unicorns everywhere,' May Bell said. She reached forwards and stroked the air as if there was something there. If Jesse squinted he could picture a glossy, dewy-eyed creature with a silvery pink mane and pure white fur.
He shook his head. 'Unicorns don't fit the landscape of Terabithia,' he said. And it was true; the brilliantly clean creature seemed out of place in the muddy, leaf-strewn forest.
May Bell's frown deepened. 'I want a unicorn,' she snapped.
'No,' Jesse said firmly.
May Bell's face contorted and then she strode away. 'Fine,' she said, 'I don't want to play.'
Jesse threw up his hands in frustration, turned and walked off in the opposite direction. As the two siblings parted company, the tree giant, the knight in squeaky clean armour and the two Nar-nirs disappeared in cloud of imagination.
Jesse's anger thickened the further he got from his sister. It had been several months since he first crowned May Bell the second queen of Terabithia. At first it had been fine. They had had fun playing similar games to those he had once played with Leslie. The Dark Master had been vanquished, so Jesse told May Bell, but his servants still plagued the forests.
Together, he and May Bell had driven the Squogres south and hunted the Hairy Vultures until they fled to the Golden Mountains. They had made citadels out of the nests for the Solider Fairies. They had freed half his captured birds into the care of the Bird Women who would use the birds' voices to sing with by placing the creatures in the cage where their necks should be. May Bell began experimenting by placing more than one bird in at once to create different harmonies, after Jesse had reassured her that the birds were not harmed in the process.
Then Jesse had begun inventing more people for May Bell to meet and even tried encouraging May Bell to imagine her own people. The Tinkle Fairy was one of her creations. The purpose of the Tinkle Fairy was entertainment. They lived in colonies near the Soldier Fairies, who visited them on their days off. Tinkle Fairies were jesters. They were designed after a mixture between a bumblebee and a grasshopper as both children agreed this was the weirdest combination. They had bells on the end of their arms and legs and antenna, which rang whenever they moved, giving them their name. Their favourite way of entertainment was sneaking up on people and shouting "Boo!" because everyone could hear them coming and it nearly always brought a smile to faces.
Jesse heard a "Boo!" near his ear, but brushed his hand at the area and carried on walking.
It had been after the holidays when they had had to return to school when the arguments started. This was probably the best example of something. May Bell recently had become enthralled by a series of books about fairies and unicorns and other "girly rubbish", as Jesse called it. The books were centred on a fairy princess, which was the first thing May Bell introduced to Terabithia.
Jesse allowed it by making his own adaptations to it. Her name Princess Pari, and she was based off a moth, not a butterfly like May Bell insisted. She was a warrior princess who led a tribe of fairies nearest to the Golden Mountains so had to be tough in order to defend her people from the smaller of the dragons who preyed on them.
She met with Jesse and May Bell to talk about a truce between them and the fairy royals, which the siblings had agreed upon. Their Solider Fairies went to the aid of Princess Pari when she called them on her grass whistle. One time Jesse had gone with them to see a dragon for himself. However, because, according to Princess Pari, the dragons are no bigger than Prince Terrien was, when they saw Jesse coming, they had fled back to the mountains where the greater dragons resided. Jesse had been pleased to help, but disappointed not to see a dragon. Later, he had mused that this must be because he was still uncertain what a dragon from Terabithia looks like.
After the success of the princess fairy, May Bell had attempted other creatures, most of which Jesse put his foot down on. Next came Mermaids, which Jesse had adapted into Merpeople, each of whom was a different fish and who lived under the sea, the navy of Terabithia. Their marine Captain was based off a shark, whilst Jesse's favourite solider Murphye, was based off a flying fish.
Jesse flatly refused three creatures: unicorns, Pegasus (which May Bell tried after unicorns were refused) and elves. The elves May Bell tried to introduce were the softly spoken, wise and beautiful types that fantasy children's books were full of. Jesse's idea of an elf was more like the Terabithians he already had. He didn't need more people who didn't do anything.
May Bell's head, Jesse decided, was being filled with useless garbage she could do nothing with. If only Leslie were here, Jesse thought, sitting down at the foot of a tree and burying his head in his hands. She would understand Jesse's need to be creative, not to give into the stereotypes. She would be laughing alongside him about the new trend for romances with supernatural beings as being totally ridiculous. Jesse had once tried imagining a supernatural romance between a human and a Terabithian. He had cracked up in the middle of the English lesson, earning him a lot of weird looks, but he had been amused.
Instead, he had had to discuss the idea with Janice on the bus home. Janice, the ex-school bully and Jesse's newly required friend, had totally agreed with him that the supernatural romance idea was absurd, and then admitted liking one of the latest novels about a girl and her boyfriend who comes back as ghost and they decide they could still continue their romance. Jesse had scowled and gotten into an argument about ghosts with her. They had sat in silence for the rest of the journey home.
Jesse pondered his new friendship with Janice. It had started shortly after Leslie's death and had been extremely awkward at first. Janice had just sat next to him on the bus after giving Gary Fulcher, another of Jesse's school tormenters, a bloody nose. After a while, they had gotten into conversation about Leslie. Then Jesse had asked whether Janice would like to go running with him as a way of combating her overweight problem, which she was teased about behind her back. To make it fun, they had turned it into a game of tag, something that Jesse then recreated with May Bell in Terabithia.
After a holiday spent running, Janice had lost weight and gained popularity again. Despite this, she still sat next to Jesse on the bus home and went running with him every Saturday. She still wasn't quicker than him thought, as Jesse was now the fastest in his year.
Jesse missed Leslie.
He had a new friend in Janice. He had a new Terabithian companion, May Bell. But neither compared to Leslie.
If only...
Jesse sniffed and raised his head slowly. He realised that the sun was going down. The trees had darkened and it was getting difficult to see. Remembering that his parents asked him to be home before dark, Jesse pushed himself up off the tree to head home.
Then he saw her. She stood in between two trees ahead of him. Her hair was blowing in a wind that didn't exist, which also toyed with the loose ribbons on her white dress. They shone in the darkening light. Jesse blinked. The girl didn't disappear.
Jesse frowned, wondering where he had seen her before. Then he remembered.
It had been a while since he had seen the girl in the white dress. In fact, since May Bell had come to Terabithia, she appeared to have disappeared altogether. But now she was standing, not five paces from him.
Despite this, Jesse couldn't make out her face.
'Hello?' he asked.
The girl turned and fled. Jesse was after her in shot.
Jesse may have been the fastest in his year. He may have been third fastest in the school. But this girl was much quicker than him. She disappeared from his sight after he'd been running five minutes. Jesse was amazed he'd been able to manage even that.
Jesse skidded to a halt and panted heavily, leaning against a tree for support. Who was she? Why was she here? Where did she come from?
Jesse recognized that it was too dark to continue after the girl now. Instead, he headed in the direction he thought home was in and trudged off.
He was unaware of the white figure flitting after him between the trunks.
Jesse arrived home in a foul mood. It had begun to rain heavily after he reached his bridge and he was drenched by the time he got home. His mum sent him upstairs immediately with orders to get changed and "don't drip all over the carpet!"
Possibly worse still, May Bell wasn't talking to him. A part of Jesse didn't care if his seven-year-old sister was still angry at him. She was the one trying to pollute Terabithia with her fairy tale nonsense. But a part of him understood and wanted May Bell to talk to him again, the part that kept reminding him of Leslie. It may have been her imaginary world, but now he had introduced May Bell to it, wasn't it hers too? Jesse told this part of him to shut up and slammed his bedroom door shut angrily in response.
At long last, Jesse had his own room. It had been his older sister Brenda's, but after a discussion between his parents about the fact that Jesse was now eleven and growing too big to share a room with his two younger sisters, they had moved Brenda out into Ellie's room and helped Jesse move his stuff in.
Speaking of which... where were they?
In a new pair of jeans and a fresh t-shirt, Jesse searched for a box which was hidden under his bed. Pulling it out, he opened it up and flicked through the numerous notebooks inside. Most of them had been Leslie's. These were the books in which she had written about Terabithia. A couple belonged to Jesse and he had filled them with drawings of the Terabithians; the ones that Leslie described including the Solider Warriors (who were dragonfly based), Squogres (squirrel-ogres) and Hairy Vultures (fur covered vultures). She also talked about a couple of other creatures Jesse hadn't been introduced to in their short time together: Grublins, cave dwelling goblin like creatures with wrinkly skin that writhed like a grubs, Larymphs, who lived in rivers and looked like squid-cat hybrids, and the dragons of the Golden Mountains. These were the creatures that Jesse found hardest to draw. Were they like the dragons from medieval stories, strong scaly beasts with features slightly like a horse? Or were they more like Chinese legends, long and thin? Were they like real lizards or were they more monstrous?
Jesse found what he was looking for in some of Leslie's earlier books. He could tell it was from when Leslie was young because of her handwriting. It was something he hadn't read for a long time. He was surprised it was among Leslie's books about Terabithia Mr Burke had given him because the actual content was not really about Terabithia.
She flits beneath the sunlit trees. Dappled sunlight glitters in her hair like stars in the night sky. They make her dark eyes shine. They make her white dress glow, whiter than snow. She walks barefoot to feel the earth beneath her toes.
She is as fast as a doe. No mortal man can catch her.
Her laugh is like the tinkling of a harmony of bells. No tune can match it.
She has wit as quick as a snapping whip, the witch's daughter.
But her heart is as free as the birds in the sky. She is as innocent as a young child.
They call say she'll grow into the white woman's shoes. She is the new snowdrop, they say.
I say: her name is Alva. She's the girl in the white dress that waits by my garden gate for me to play with her. No man can catch her, but I can because I'm a girl.
She's my best friend.
Jesse pondered this. It was clear that Leslie had had a previous imaginary world before she and him had made Terabithia. Jesse frowned. Leslie had never mentioned anything like this. Presumably, this was something private that she'd never wanted to discus.
So why was he now seeing her, the girl in the white dress?
Will try and update soon, but promises cannot be made due to something stupid called A-levels that the Government insist are important. :S
So I'm doing this instead of revising. Yay!
