The journey onwards

Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios.

Once again, Coraline was walking a path of the other world; once again, her travelling company had increased; and once again, the path that she was walking was not like what she would have expected – the path from the shadow of the moon! ...And then there was yet another thing:

"Is it just me, or has none of us gotten tired from all this walking?" she asked Cat, as he feline friend was busily chasing on patch of moonlight after another, pointedly ignoring the patches of sunlight instead.

"Well, according to our friend here," Cat was getting back into good spirits – or at least what passed for good spirits for him – "and by our friend I meant Wybie Lovat, speed is related to distance."

"No," Wybie stopped looking around at the various birds that flittered all around the oak grove and turned to his friends for once. "Velocity of things is speed times distance!" He paused. "And since when do you talk?"

"Oh, he always talks whenever we're in the other world," Coraline said wryly, "and have you noticed it only now?"

"Well, I had a lot of things to think about, starting with the oak lady," Wybie said a trifle defensively, "and besides, you have kicked me in a very sensitive area! I didn't exactly notice our cat starting to talk, you know!"

"Well, you noticed now!"

"Yes! Yes I have," Wybie said in a manly voice and paused. "Um, what are we fighting about again?"

"I think I asked Cat why we haven't gotten tired-"

"Because there is no time here – it cannot affect your bodies with something like physical fatigue that you have mentioned," Christabell spoke-up suddenly in a curiously detached tone.

"Oh. So, you mean if, let us say, we wander here for long enough-"

"Wybie," Cat spoke up before anyone else could, "don't forget that time is in full control back on the other side of door. We wander here long enough and we won't have any place to go home to – literally!" He paused. "Well, maybe you won't. Cats – or owls, I suppose – don't really need homes, and the ladies are already at home, so to speak."

"What?" Wybie went from amazed (in a good way) to horrified in an eye blink. "But Coraline is, Coraline is-"

Coraline could not help herself – she wiggled her new tail in Wybie's direction. "Hello, Wybie! Have you missed this as well?! I cannot help but remember that you stared in that direction a very short while ago."

Wybie turned red, horror forgotten in face of mortifying humiliation. "Well, I-I was under the influence of the dryad duchess or whoever! I mean, have you seen her? She's amazing!"

"Wybie, she's a living – no. She's a human tree or a tree in a human shape or something like that."

"No, she is not."

"Coraline," Christabell said in the same curiously detached voice, "your friend, unlike you, still has human eyes. He cannot see the locals for what they truly are, and the gahonga's initial charm did not help matters either."

"The ga- what now? Are you talking about the girl that brought me here?"

"Wheee-eee! Wheee-eee! Foolish human, talks about it as if it had been a girl!"

"Hah?" Wybie blinked, as did Coraline.

"The gahonga belong to the branch of fey that can exchange their gender from male to female just like you could exchange hats or shoes," Christabell explained. "They have no sex like people or even the tree spirits do."

Wybie's face changed expressions again, this time into that of deep revulsion. "You mean I was- she was an 'it'? Gross!"

"Probably so," Christabell nodded, "very likely so."

"Fine, but back to Coraline – what had happened to her?"

"It was the other hag, Vyrdahlia," Coraline explained before anyone else could. "She fed me some of the local berries to make a part of the other world however."

"More precisely, she planned to turn Coraline into an Unseelie hag like herself," Cat added. "Fortunately, our other friend came just in time and killed the hag with a shovel, thus making Coraline into a free spirit once more."

"Oh, well thanks," Wybie turned to Christabell, then paused. "Um, wasn't she evil the last time we talked, Jonesy?"

"She isn't," Coraline shook her head, becoming aware along the way that her hair had become longer and shinier than it has ever been before. "She may have been confused and forced to play a role in this world, but I don't think she is even that anymore."

At that moment, Christabell abruptly stopped and whirled around, her face becoming an unnaturally pale shade of white. "Why are you saying this?" she exclaimed, her voice barely more than a hissing whisper. "Why are you saying those things about me? You don't have to – you don't need me anymore!" The last sentence was a screech almost despite Christabell's will. "You don't have to keep me around!"

"Look," Coraline moved forwards, grabbing Christabell's hand – the same hand that she had once cut off with a door, seemingly so long ago. "Nowadays, you're my friend, and people do not discard friends like artificial puppets so easily. People are friends with each other because they want to, not because they need to – well, not only because they need to. And besides," Coraline exclaimed, her own face flushed from embarrassment, "I still do owe you for your rescuing me from Vyrdahlia and her twisted plots – she was going to make me into furniture, I think. Christabell, you are a decent and honourable person in your heart – why do you keep on thinking this?"

"Because she was so used to using her head alone," Cat said wryly, startling the others, "and so she still won't use her heart, albeit only due to the force of habit, for you gave it such a jumpstart, that it won't be denied for much longer!"

Black button eyes cannot form emotions, but the two patches of crimson on Christabell's cheeks commented on Cat's question clearly enough. "Coraline, child," Christabell said softly, putting her arm on Coraline's shoulder, "I am afraid, perhaps even more so when I was about to smash the skulls of my other mother and her cohorts into Terraxia's face – for back then I knew what I was up against. Now, I am confronted with something that I know totally not, and that's why it is so terrifying to me – but for your sake I will be brave."

That is so girly, Wybie Lovat thought, as he saw the pair shake hands in a friendly way, but he kept quiet.

After all, a remark like that could always get him kicked in his unmentionables again.

[Break]

"Well, we're here!" Cat suddenly exclaimed, as everyone else slowly stopped paying attention as where they were going, and were just concerned in going in an appropriate direction, the appropriate direction here being a small, clear-cut path that had led away from a juniper bush that the small, but grown, group had found shortly after exiting the oak grove. From then on it was just an easy walk, following the clouds, really, as the quintet found themselves standing before the most amazing any of them (except possibly for Cat) have seen.

The field was covered in poppies, the bigger than any of their counterparts from the human world. The ones on the left were red, red as blood in arteries, with a darker, almost black, design at the base of their petals. The ones of the right were identical to them, save for their colour, which was as white as the first snow of winter. However, whether right or left, white or red, all of those poppies smelled amazingly that the whole group just stood there briefly, exhaling a heartfelt "Aaah".

Of course, Wybie Lovat, being who he was, was also the first to break the silence. "Girls," he said slowly, "I think we got company – you better take a look."

They took – and stared. "Isn't that Winnie-Pooh?" Coraline finally exclaimed.

"I'm P'oh, not Winnie," the small teddy-bear-like creature dressed in red clothing said proudly, "and I am in charge of the Poppy Gardens of Happiness!"

"Really? How's that works – ow!" Wybie asked, even as Coraline kicked him in the shin.

P'oh's little eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

"And who are you to ask that? Why are you here to begin with?"

"The duchess-paragon of the dryads told us that you will give us the way to the Lady of Summer," Christabell spoke quietly.

"She did? She spoke to you? Then that sprite, Splanxty, spoke truth! The Unseelie covey is gone from our lands!"

"Yes," apparently it was Cat's turn to speak. "The greatest hag of them all, Terraxia, is now bound just like the duchess herself has been bound, and the rest of them are gone, their skulls smashed against Terraxia's rock-hard face."

"Yes!" P'oh jumped in the air enthusiastically, "the balance has been restored! And," he added, calming down somewhat, "I do owe Splanxty an apology, even though it's her raccoon friends who have started this feud, by eating my precious poppies!"

"Why?" Wybie had to ask.

"To achieve perfect happiness by eating their seeds, of course! Don't you know anything?" P'oh said scornfully.

"I think I might have heard something about poppies bringing people happiness," Wybie said carefully, "but raccoons – not so much."

"Especially giant ones," Coraline could not resist by adding.

"My poppies bring happiness to everyone, regardless of their species or their size," the tiny fairy said haughtily, "but that is beside the point. I want you to apologize to that sprite on my behalf in exchange for the path to the Lady of Summer - that is all."

"Well, fair enough, but what we are really on a schedule here," Cat said firmly. "Where can we find Splanxty and stay on the path to her ladyship?"

"Ah, that's easy," P'oh said, smiling slightly. "You'll find them at the mountain well on top of the White Mountain."

"And where is that?"

"Right there," P'oh pointed them in the direction of the clouds.

"I don't see it," Wybie admitted finally, "just... clouds!"

"Well, I do," Coraline also admitted, "but isn't it a bit far away from here?"

"Well then, you better start walking," P'oh shrugged, even as he handed out five dry heads of poppy, each full of seeds.

"But won't it take too long-" Wybie blinked, as he remembered that in this, other world there was no time at all, and thus, a trip, no matter how long geographically won't take any time at all.

"So, what are we to do with them?" Cat muttered suspiciously, even as they all examined their new gifts.

"Oh, just get there," P'oh replied, even as he vanished back among his poppies. "Splanxty and the rest of the sprites will take it on from there."

"Then what are we waiting for, people? Let's go!"