Nod, what's going on?" I asked shakily.
"Shh, you don't have to worry about that now," he said comfortingly brushing the hair off my forehead.
"Was it true? About me having some sort of magical potential?"
"I-" Nod started and was cut off by the door opening, tall woman with beautiful brown hair and lovely caramel skin walked into the was wearing a dress made completely of light purple flower pedals and shoes of dark green. She was graceful and regal. A man followed her. He was a leaf man, judging by the uniform, but it was different from the uniforms I was used to, with a slightly different design and color.
"Hello, M.K., my name is Marina, I am the queen of this forest," she said.
"Queen?" I asked.
"Um, well," Nod said, "Mandrake's new headquarters turns out to be in a different forest, this forest, the one across the river, each forest has a queen and Marina is the queen of this forest. Konor is the leader of the leaf men in this forest," he gestured toward the leaf man in the strange uniform. He had reddish brown hair and startlingly light green eyes. He also had the hard look that Ronin had that said he was in charge.
"As to your question, when the late queen Tara brought you into this word for the first time, she trusted you with a great power, similar to her own. She hoped that you wouldn't need it, but if mandrake was able to bloom the pod in darkness, she wanted to give us a chance of fighting back by giving you that power. The power would have awakened if the pod was taken by darkness, but since it was not and you turned back into a human, the magic became dormant inside you. But now that Mandrake is back the potential for the power to awaken has returned. It is similar to the pod, if you are in full moonlight at midnight of the second blue moon of the month then the power is light and can be used for good, but if you are in darkness, then you will belong to the darkness and Mandrake will be able to use you for evil," Queen Marina explained, but my head was still full of questions.
"How did he find out? He was stuck in a tree," I asked trying to remain calm.
"We aren't sure but we think he read it in a scroll when he was in the Rings of Knowledge," the queen replied.
"How much time do we have?" I asked.
"Three days," said Konor speeding for the first time. His voice was hard, his accent was even stronger than Ronins and he spoke as though he wanted get the words out as fast as he could so that he could stop speaking.
"Excuse me, but we must leave and make war preparations," the queen said and both she and Konor left the room.
"Nod, I'm scared," I said. I always hated it when the female characters in books said that, it always make them sound sappy and weak, but I was terrified. Nod sat back on the hospital bed, pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head.
"It'll all be okay," he whispered. I was so comfortable and relaxed that I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
I opened my eyes to the same hospital room that I had been in before but something was wrong, the lighting was strange, a bluish white color.
"Nod?" I asked, still half asleep, "how long was I-" I trailed off realizing that I was alone.
I got out of bed, not realizing that my leg didn't hurt, and walked over to the window. A full moon hung in the sky like a crystal ball. Then I looked down and a cry tore itself out of me. The ground was littered with bodies, Ronin, The Queen, Queen Marina, Konor, and countless leaf men. The door banged open.
"M.K.," Nod said breathlessly "we have to leave! Mandrake-" he broke off and started to fall. I ran to catch him and was horrified to see an grey Boggan arrow sticking out of his back. He groaned but I couldn't check if he was ok because someone grabbed my hair and dragged me to my feet. I screamed for Nod as I was dragged out of the room by Mandrake.
"And now you're mine," Mandrake said.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
I shot out of bed my heart trying to beat itself out of my chest in panic.
"What's going on?" Nod asked sitting up out of bed.
"Nod?" I asked, grabbing his arms and staring into his eyes. I could hardly believe he was here, I had just seen him die.
"M.K. what's wrong?" Nod asked.
"A dream, it was just a dream," I said sagging in relief, Nod caught me and made sure I didn't fall.
"Queen Marina says we have to leave or Mandrake will attack here, she doesn't want to endanger her people," said Nod in one breath.
He helped me up and I leaned on his shoulder as we walked out of the room. Outside there was a small group of people that would be leaving with us, the new queen, Ronan, Ronan's second in command (not Nod), Queen Marina, Konor, and one other new leaf man in the same uniform as Konor.
Nod helped me up onto one of the hummingbirds, putting me in the front of the saddle and sitting behind me so that I didn't have to hold onto him. I didn't mind. I still felt tired seeing as the little sleep I had was unrestful.
"Where are we going,?" I thought I said, though in my drowsy state it probably sounded something like, "were wgone?"
"We are going to your house," Nod said, "it's the last place he'll expect us to go."
I blinked and must have dozed off because the next time I opend my eyes the sun was starting to turn a beautiful orange color. A few crickets had started to play their music and everything seemed calm and quiet.
The serenity was broken when one of the hummingbirds shrieked and started to fall. Instantly I was awake and Nod steered our bird to the ground, shouting that the others should do the same. The bird that was hit was ridden by unknown leaf man, from Marina's forest. He quickly jumped down and landed safely on the ground. Everyone who was on the ground scrambled for shelter from the rain of Boggan arrows that was now upon us. Someone screamed but I couldn't turn to see who it was because Nod pushed me into a small hole at the base of a tree. The new queen and Marina quickly followed and I found out who had screamed. Queen Marina collapsed to the ground, her lavender dress now stained red. Konor cried out and was quickly by her side. He hesitated a moment before he lifted her in one of his arms to examine the wound. We all could see there was no hope for Marina, a huge, grey Boggan arrow was sticking out of her side, but Konor didn't want to believe that.
"You'll be okay, you're fine," he said.
"No," corrected Marina weakly.
"But what will we do?" Konor asked, tears welling up in his eyes," what will the forest do? What will I do?"
"Defeet Mandrake, protect my people."
"But we will have no queen," said Konor with tears flowing down his cheeks.
0~~~~~~~~0
Hi! Sorry I took so long but school and stuff -.- But guess what? It's summer! And do you know what that means? That's right! More time to write! So expect more of all of my stuff soon!
