"Ones Quest, Another's Journey"

Part 8:

"Met By Moonlight"



The night air was cool and crisp all around his body; he awoke to find himself surrounded by the sound of children singing out a chant up in the trees. He slowly got up, finding that his pain was gone with a quickness, unlike what he had thought his pain and injury would have been like after he hit that very big tree. Finding this out, he quickly stood up, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his pupils and iris' of his eyes widening a bit more than normal to see around him. Once he got his barring, he started to walk away from where he had lay, but when he looked back, the tree he had broken over was no longer there.

"I could have sworn that tree would have still been there," he said out loud, from that came tiny giggles up in the trees and tiny flashes of light could be seen in between the branches, flickering off and on, but these couldn't be fireflies at this time of year. He dismissed what he saw and walked onward. "Cora! Where are you!" he called out, silence befell his large ears. He called her name out once more and again nothing, he could hear nothing, not even the sound of twigs and branches being broken even by the smallest of four legged forest creatures. He looked upwards, seeing a patch of the night sky above him, the stars twinkling brightly, but suddenly they all moved away in many directions. He blinked and wiped his face and looked up again, the stars he had seen before were now changed in a different pattern. A puzzled look came over his face as he kept on walking onward.

After a good bit of walking, trying to leave the forest her self, Cora finally stopped and got her barring back. She didn't know where she was in the forest and she couldn't find the path she had taken before when she ran into the forest away from Piccolo. To her eyes sight, it was still in the form of the afternoon, the sun shinning bright, but just as she wiped her eyes and blinked a few times, the afternoon day quickly turned to night.

"What the hell is going on here?" she asked herself out loud, soon after she heard some tiny giggles from the trees above her. 'Oh great! Just great! I hope Piccolo can figure this out on his own and doesn't wander off too far,' she thought, making sure that who ever was doing this to them didn't hear her inner thoughts. She looked around a bit and sat back down on a stump, not moving one inch away from where she was now.

A good hour passed from what she could tell and she just couldn't stand it anymore, she knew she had to find a way out of this fairy magic, this fairy realm they had both run into. She got up and began to walk cautiously through the forest, finding that she was smart to see what was 'really' in front of her. She let her eyes glaze over like she was in a trance, but still was able to give the 'fairies' a trick of her own for them to worry about, she made them think she was lost. But in reality of it, she was trying to find her way by the magic and ability of her third eye's sight. In front of her she saw an opening to a swamp, a good ways away in the distance she saw a hazy form in black walking towards the swamp from the other side. She kept her eyes glazed over and kept walking, until she was right at the water's edge. She blinked, and there in front of her she saw Piccolo looking for her, but she wasn't able to hear his calls, she could only read his lips calling her name.

"Piccolo, I'm right here!" she yelled, waving her arms to get his attention, but nothing could be seen from him nor heard. "Great, this isn't good, we have to get out of this realm or we will be dead by morning, or at least by the next few days." She sat herself down on a tree stump and kept her eyes on Piccolo, when he walked away she would walk after him.

"Where is that girl?" he said, and just then as he started to walk onwards around the swamp to the other side, something fell from the trees behind him. Piccolo quickly turned around to find something he had never seen before. Its fairly thin body, about maybe four feet in height, slowly stood up before him. Very long pointed ears and child like small nose and large eyes of bright blue, hair short cut curly locks of brown atop of its head, its fingers long and delicate to the slightest of touches. It wore nothing more than a loan cloth around its waist and atop its head was a reef of twigs and sticks, holly leaves and berries.

"What are you?" he asked.

"Fairy, fae and met by moonlight, come with thee to thy fairy circle," the small being said to him.

"What?"

"Come with thee, it be the time of winter solstice, dance with thee to thy fairy circle."

"Are you a child?"

The young being took Piccolo by the hand this time and tried to pull him forward to follow, but with no avail, Piccolo stood still and didn't move an inch.

"Come with thee, merry met and be free, dance with thee tonight!" the being said with bit of a stronger voice, but still sounded like a child.

"No, I do not have time for childish games and dances. Leave me be!" Piccolo cried, trying to leave the being's grip behind from his hand.

"Sing the song of life and fun, sing with me this night," the being said as he let go of Piccolo's hand and began to dance around him.

Near by, "No, Piccolo, don't pay attention to that fairy! He'll take you into the realm of the fae forever and you will never be able to get out!" she yelled, but with hardly a chance of success.

"Watch the crystal white moon light up the sky, and be one with the Earth."

Piccolo suddenly became dizzy and fell to his knees, almost throwing up with such dizziness. He groaned a bit as he tried to look in front of him, he wiped his eyes and looked forward. There he saw Cora, a hazy; misty like form of her, she was yelling at him, calling out to him about something from the other side of the swamp, but he couldn't make out what it was because he was so dizzy.

The child like being continued to dance around him and chant his poem. "Faery, fae and met by moonlight, come with thee to thy fairy circle this very brisk winter's night."

Cora continued to yell and this time used hand signals for Piccolo to understand. He got the message once she put her hands over her ears and shook her head. He slowly got up, slightly stumbling to the ground, as he looked at the creature and stopped it from dancing, by placing his hand on its shoulder.

The fairy looked up at him with wonder and enchantment, "You come with thee this night, to thy fairy circle?"

"No, but you can go some place else!" he said with a growl. He then put his hand over the fairy's stomach and blasted it clear away a good deal of feet.

Once that was over, Piccolo turned around to see Cora and walked to the other side of the swamp, there they finally met, but both in hazy, misty forms of magic. Cora smiled, but then quickly gave Piccolo some hand signals for what he had to do next. He nodded his head for understanding her and started to concentrate hard on what was needed of him.

His body began to glow in a bright shade of green, so bright in fact that the fairy that had finally woke up from the blast, he had to shade his eyes from the brightness. He hissed as the bright color overwhelmed him and he disappeared into the night, slightly squealing as he disappeared. Piccolo opened his eyes and soon he saw the opening of the portal back into the real world. He jumped through it, right into the arms of Cora; they both fell to the forest floor, into a bunch of soft forest ferns.

"What happened to us?" he asked slowly getting up off the ground and helping Cora up.

"You and I were in two separate fairy realms. We weren't actually fully in their kingdom realm, but at the out skirts of it and even that is dangerous itself," she explained, but quickly hushed herself and listened to the forest around her for a moment.

"What is it?"

"We aren't out of the woods yet. There's something more to this than meets the eye and you better stay close to me, because I know more than you do, especially about the world of the fae."

"Should we stay here or keep walking?" he asked, his ears slightly twitching every few seconds in different directions almost like a deer's ears, but not as much as you may think. His ears were twitching so much simply because he was trying to find what he could hear in the woods, but found it too eerily quiet, even for a Namek it spooked him.

"Keep walking, but slowly as to make them think things and I know how to get out of this," she replied as she went back to her glazed over eyes look. "I hope," she said under her breath, Piccolo got wind of this to his ears and hoped the same thing.

"So, that's what I saw on the other side," he added as he remembered what the fairy looked like.

"What you saw was an elf, a season elf of winter. They are mostly harmless, unless they want to have some trickster fun with humans and that goes for all beings of the fairy realms. They love to have fun and you must be something they have never dealt with before and they wanted to keep you," she said as she walked onward. "Keep your hand on my shoulder so I know you are still there with me," Piccolo put his hand on her shoulder, his grip on her was quit tight and it hurt her just a bit. "Are you afraid of this forest?"

A bit of a long pause then he spoke, "I don't say this often, but well, I am actually a bit afraid of this place. The power I felt from that elf was quit strong and I've never seen anything like that before or even felt anything like that before."

"Their magic or I should say in your case, their energy powers come from Earth and they deal with the nature side of this planet all the time. They are the spirits, some of them great spirits of this planet that in many ways protect it just like Dende, but in a stronger and more powerful way."

"I understand," he added. "So, how do we get out of this?"

"I can't tell you, even by the mind I can't, because they might figure us out and find other ways to take us away. It's just a safety precaution and I'm not taking any chances, sorry Piccolo."

They both kept quiet, so quiet in fact that they both slowed their breathing, were hopefully no fae could hear them coming. Even the steps they took across the forest floor were silenced a good bit, like two cats walking on their hind legs, their feet padded well to keep quiet.

Suddenly, Piccolo stopped, making Cora get jerked back a bit when he had stopped walking. She turned around, seeing Piccolo's ears twitch up and down a bit as he had his eyes closed trying to listen around him. She kept still as he listened hard, his eyes clutched tight when he tried his hardest to listen. She lightly tapped him on the arm, he slightly opened on eye and shook his head, he could hear nothing for the rest of the time, but he swore he did a few seconds ago. Cora knelt down on the ground and put her ear to the ground, she backed away in a gasp from what she heard. She stood up quickly and with all her strength she threw Piccolo over her body to the other side just in time for the ground to give way to a hole from where Piccolo had stood. He hit the ground kind of hard, but was able to control most of his fall with one hand holding him up a bit above the ground. Cora quickly turned around to him and put her finger to her lips for him to be quiet, he blinked and both of them kept still for what it seemed forever.

Cora turned back around to see the hole and out came from its darkness and coldness, three slightly puggy men, holding picks and shovels in their hands and over their shoulders. They wore brown pants, long sleeved shirts, and black boots, they all had fairly long beards, white as snow and their eyes were blue as the sky. Cora kept her hold on Piccolo's hand as the three little men, which stood maybe three feet tall, walked past them, their expressions on their faces were of disappointment and disgust. Once they left, a very good ways away from the two travelers, Cora finally let out a long sigh of relief.

Standing up, "What were those kinds of fae?" Piccolo asked as he brushed off the dirt from his hand.

"Those were dwarfs. That kind, if I'm correct on this, they are the ones that seem to cause all the sink holes around these parts. Some of them that I have seen pictures of live in Germany, they have animal like feet and sometimes have tails. All dwarfs are miners of the richest materials that come from the Earth, which are precious gems, gold and silver. Their mines are well protected from ancient spells and no one seems to be able to find these mines, no matter how hard a person may try."

"But are these dwarfs dangerous?" he asked looking around him for anything else to come up after him.

"Yes, all faes of the fairy realms are dangerous most of the time. The only danger they do have to humans is that if you get caught in their fairy realms, mostly caused by standing in a fairy ring, you will be forever lost in the out skirts of their kingdoms. For our case, I think we could be able to get out, but I'm not too sure of that right now."

Once again, they kept walking onwards, deeper it seemed to them into the forest. It seemed that this one forest would go on forever and it was just a bit too much for Cora, who had to get out of it no matter what the cast of this trip.

Soon, they came across the sound of children giggling up in the trees, both of them stopped quickly and looked up, there they saw many sparkling lights dancing off and on in between the branches and leaves. The colors were of many different shades of blue and white, some bright and some lightly dimmed. As they looked, one of the blue lights came fluttering down to them and landed right on the tip of Piccolo's nose. The blue light dimmed to a nice glow and the tiny figure was finally able to be seen completely.

The tiny little thing that stood on Piccolo's nose was no more than the size of half an inch, its tiny wings were almost too clear to notice. It wore a blue dress that seemed to be made out of snow and ice, its dress sparkling like a tiny star. The hair that could be seen from her head was kind of long and blue-white and her eyes were of light blue diamonds. The tiny female being fluttered over to his antenna, touching it lightly with her tiny fingers, Piccolo slightly flinching from the light touch.

"What is that one called?" Piccolo whispered.

"It's a snow pixie, I think. She almost could be called a winged fairy, but she's too small for that," Cora explained as she looked at the tiny fae closer. "Yes, that is a snow pixie, also called a winter pixie, they are the ones that ride on the snowflakes, which bring down the snow to the Earth."

"What is she doing now?" he asked as the little pixie fluttered over to one of his ears, touching it as she moved around.

"She's curious about you. I think all the fae here are wondering what you are and they want to know more. But if we are lucky, we could get to meet some other faes that are very special and high in rank of the Earth itself," she whispered as she quickly caught eye of something fluttering over closer to them, this fae being much bigger than the winter pixie and it made Cora smile big to see it.

This fae flew slowly and daintily over to the two travelers as she tried to find a place to land. Piccolo put out his hand and the fae landed there on the center of his palm. Her height was about three inches tall, she wore a long slender white dress, her hair light brown and wavy, eyes blue as the sky, and her wings were the look of a clear butterfly's wings, but not so large as to overwhelm the fae's beauty. The fae bowed before Piccolo in pure grace and trust of who and what she was to him, he smiled to her as she came into eye contact with the green guy.

"This must be a fairy," he said to Cora, the fae hearing this smiled at him, her eyes sparkling.

The fairy looked up, seeing that one of her subjects was still fluttering around Piccolo's ear, she snapped her fingers, the winter pixie hearing this quickly flew down to the fairy and bowed her head.

"It's okay, she just wanted to know more about Piccolo," Cora said, the fairy nodding and the pixie going back up into the trees. "Are you Tatiana, Queen of the Fairies?" The fairy nodded happily with a smile back to her.

The Fairy Queen tapped Piccolo's hand with her foot, that causing her to control the movement of his hand to move up closer to his face for her to look at him and he to look at her closer. She smiled at him, seeing his eyes finally, even with all the fairy and pixie light, it wasn't bright enough for her to see his true green skinned color. She looked up and waved her hand, causing the night clouds to move away from the full moon that lay above their heads. Once the moon came into view it brightened up the forest and Cora and Piccolo greatly and there the Fairy Queen finally saw the color of what he was born with. She backed away a bit in surprise, Piccolo smiling down on her with gentleness. She moved up closer to him, coming eye to eye with him and touching the tip of his nose gently with her small hand and fingers. She then closed her eyes and Piccolo closed his too for her to know all she needed to know about what and who he was.

A few minutes had passed and they opened their eyes again, smiling to one another of what they now knew of each other. Cora stood there in wonder and child like amazement as to what she just witnessed, it being the most wonderful thing to ever happen to the fae realms of this modern time period and the last time this had ever happened must have been when the faes learned of humans.

The Fairy Queen Tatiana fluttered up in the air, Piccolo now able to get the control over his hand and arm again. She smiled to them both as she flew away, the winter pixies following her close behind as they all flew off into the night back deep into the forest.

Piccolo looked up at the faes once more and then smiled down at Cora. "What I have seen and heard of these creatures is something to remember forever. I shall not tell the truth to my friends about them, but she granted me to tell you what I now know and that won't be much, because you already know everything you have told me of these faes so far."

"She is a wise and great fairy of the Realm of the Fae. It sure was nice to have seen her, but I wonder what happened to Oberon, King of the Fairies?"

"She told me that he did not wish to see a being like myself, he felt over powered in some way and it made her disgusted of him for a time. So she came to see us and for good reason, she seems to be more lenient on things than what Oberon would have done. But I give him my respect and honor as to any great being of any world."

"Well said, Piccolo, well said. But tell me, how do we get out of here?" just as soon as she said that, two small men dressed in green tailored suits came walking up in front of them. Their hair slightly wavy red; orange as fire, their height being about two feet tall, and both of them smoking pipes, but not in the regular way of being upright.

"Before ye says a word, lassie, we be leprechauns and we are here, by the Fairy Queen's word to take you safely out of the forest and the out skirts of our kingdom. And my name be Peter O'sharin and this is my good friend, Brian Lenahe."

"Nice to meet you both this fine evening," Cora said the two leprechauns smiling and nodding.

"Well, if you wish to stay here any longer we can arrange for that, so lets be on our way now," Brian said.

They quickly made their ways through the forest and out away from the out skirts of the fae kingdoms. As they got closer to the edge of the forest, a great big field lay before them a few feet ahead, the sun began to rose over a hill in the distance.

"Tell me, how long have we been out there in the forest?" Cora asked.

"You have been in the forest for quit some time I'm afraid," Peter began. "If I've been told correctly, you two have been here for three weeks."

Piccolo and Cora stopped dead in their tracks and stared at each other, mouths gapping open with shock all over their faces.

"Nani?" Piccolo said with shock in his voice.

"Aye, lad, it's true. Both of you have been in the forest for three weeks straight. Every thirty minutes you are there is a day gone by and it all adds up to, twenty hours I believe," Brain replied with a smirk on his face.

The two leprechauns hid behind a tree as the sun rose up higher. "You both better be on your way now, before the portal closes or you will be here again and this time maybe forever," both of them said at the same time. With that said, Cora and Piccolo ran as fast as they could onto the grassy field, once they were far enough away they looked back, seeing an eerie darkness over take the forest a little bit, but then the sun over powered it, shinning its golden light into the darkness of the woods.

Piccolo and Cora looked at each other with wide eyes and sighed, falling to the grass flat on their backs.

"Fairy, fae and met by moonlight," they both said in unison, they looked at each other and laughed, both not caring that the Medieval festival was gone to them in a flash of no longer being there at the bottom of the hill.

They both just lay there for a while, watching the sunrise over the Irish mountains. They both kept quiet and to themselves, knowing what they had experienced was something they would never ever forget for the rest of their lives.