Faerie Tales
The first place the Gundam Force visits after "The Final Battle! Commander vs. Captain" has no Dark Axis troops, but it is filled with weird creatures and things and one quest that they need to do to move onto the next place...
The first thing Bakunetsumaru felt under his feet was cold stone. Gravel, rocks, and dust; they were on a mountain. He looked to one side, and there was Zero. He stood with sword and shield in hand, hovering just a few inches above the ground. He turned his head to the other side; Shute and Captain, standing uncomfortably (well, to him, at least) close to each other, watching over each other's shoulders. The scenery around him was gloomy, yet not ominous; the sky was a happy blue, but the ground around him was a dead, dusty brown, interspersed with lichens and tufts of grass. The Gundams stood on a flat platform of Earth which stretched out before them and dropped off just a short distance ahead; no doubt, they were not standing on a mountain, as he first thought, but a plateau, and a steep drop waited for them where the ground stopped.
As Zero and Bakunetsumaru got into a ready stance, flashing their swords, Shute glanced to Captain's head fins. "So, any Dark Axis forces?"
The golden "horns" flashed three times with a red glow. "Um... nope."
The three others fell to the ground, embarrassed.
Zero held his hands outward, and his sword and shield dematerialized until they were nothing more than a little ball of magic energy floating between his massive digits. He clapped his hands together, and so they were immediately unsummoned. "All the trouble of saying the long, tearful goodbyes to everyone we loved in Neotopia, to wind up in a place where there is no sign of the enemy?!"
Bakunetsumaru sheathed his swords. "What a waist of time."
"Perhaps there is something down there," Captain pointed his fingers downward, indicating the lower part of the plateau. "We should explore the region and find out what this dimension calls itself for classification."
"Yeha, we're going exploring!" Shute cried with his youthful cheer and vigor as he jumped into the air, punching the sky. "Come on, guys, let's go!"
Shute grabbed Captain by the hand and pulled him to the edge, running at full speed while the lead Gundam struggled to keep up.
Zero chuckled. "And so, off they ran, the inseparable pair, lost to the wonders of childhood innocence and naiveté, unaware of the dangers that might lie ahe-"
"Zero, who are you talking to?"
Zero's eye began to twitch as a vein popped out of his forehead. "I'm narrating! Don't you have a sense of dramatics, you ignorant samurai!?"
"AAAAAAAAH!"
The two Gundams jumped in their place, their swords at the ready. "SHUTE!"
***
Shute shrunk behind Captain Gundam, who was concentrating on targeting his laser on the two unidentified figures by the river before him. "EW! Ew! What is it?!"
"Identify yourselves immediately!" Captain demanded. "Friend or foe?"
Captain was met with a friendly smile from a green-skinned man. The man was Shute's height, not because he was short but because he was stooped over with old age. His long face and straggly beard made him look like a goat, and his sloping brow and large eyes reminded Shute of Frankenstein. Their was no hair upon his bulbous head, which made his large, pointy ears stick out pronouncedly. His long, long arms stuck out haphazardly from his emaciated chest and stomach. He was human from his head to his belly button, but his lower half was that of a goat or deer (like a satyr). His skin was a sickly green, as was the long, ragged fur on his animal half. He sat comfortably on a dry rock, swinging his hooved feet below him.
Beside the green goat man kneeled an old woman, human in appearance (although her back was to Shute and Captain; they could not see her face). He was clothed in a green dress, tied round the middle with a strip of cloth. Her black hair clung to her wet body, and her olive-skinned hands worked on washing a blood-stained cloak in the river where she sat. She did not seem to mind the water rushing past her. Lying on a dead tree on the river back was a bundle of clothes, drying in the weak sunlight, presumably clothes she had already washed.
The green man bowed from his perch. "No need for such fear, my friend. I am Urisk, and I sit here with the Bean-Nighe (pronounced Ben-Neeyah)."
Urisk set his eyes on the cowering boy behind Captain. "It feels so good to have company. I like human people. They make me so happy." How strange... Urisk spoke with a Scottish accent, and he seemed to talk only to Shute.
Shute shuddered out of fear, yet stepped out from behind his Gundam friend. "I don't think they'll hurt us, Captain."
"I agree," Captain responded, putting away his rifle. "Since they are both organic beings; chances that they are hostile creature are 0.1937%."
Zero chose that moment to come flying down to them, brandishing his sword and shouting, "Fiend! How have you hurt my friends?" Bakunetsumaru followed him, although he did not make as grand of an entrance; he fell flat on his face after sliding and screaming down the cliff face.
Urisk gasped and scuttled backwards, holding his arms in front of his face in defense. Captain grasped Zero's arm. "It's alright! He is friendly!"
"Then why did Shute scream?" Zero snapped.
"Because..." Shute didn't want to say he was scared by Urisk, the goat man. He was just so... ugly that it caught him off guard. He didn't want to hurt his feelings. "I... stepped on a rock."
Zero lowered his sword, sighing and asking for Urisk's forgiveness. "I'm sorry, sir. Please accept the apologies of a Knight of Lacroa."
Urisk skipped back onto his place on the rock, stepping forward on all fours. "It's alright, company. I am used to many running away; but I am not used to any staying. May I ask your name?"
Once again, Urisk addressed only Shute. The boy didn't know if it was because he was human or just something else, but he still felt singled out and scared. He hid behind Captain again.
"I am Captain Gundam of the Gundam Force," recited... well, Captain. "My friends are Zero, the Winged Knight-"
Zero struck a dignified pose with his sword.
"Bakunetsumaru, the Blazing Samurai-"
Baku finally managed to wriggle himself out of the rocks, holding his head fins in pain. "Oowee..."
"And Shute, who you seem to be fond of."
Shute gasped and slipped behind Captain's back, hoping he was out of sight of the goat man. "Captain, no! Don't tell him about me!"
Urisk frowned sadly. "Alas, no one responds well to kindness anymore; such evil and sorrow have disgraced our land, such hatred and depression killing at that love and happiness have accomplished..."
"He's narrating too!" Bakunetsumaru screamed as he pointed to Urisk. "Why does everything in this world narrate itself?!"
"Speaking of which, where are we?" Captain inquired.
"You..." Urisk nodded, looking to Shute again. "Are in the Realm of Faerie."
Zero suddenly startled, his eyes widening. "OF COURSE! I have heard of the Realm of Faerie, if only from story tales and bedtime lullabies. I thought it only a legend, but now I recognize you as Urisk, Protector of Forgotten Pools and Ponds and seeker of human kindness."
Zero turned to Shute. "Shute, his attentions are pure. There is no need to be frightened."
Shute gulped, but stepped out from behind his favorite Gundam, still holding Captain's hand tightly.
"So, we are in 'the Realm of Faerie'," Baku repeated with a mocking tone. "But we have no reason to be here! How do we leave?!"
"Leave..." Urisk put a finger to his chin and rubbed it. "Leave... I know a way to leave this place."
The Gundam force began to crowd around Urisk.
"You walk a ways that way, and you will leave the river behind."
CRASH!
Urisk laughed as a drenched Zero made angry eyes at him. "THAT'S NOT WHAT WE MEANT!"
"We mean to ask if their in a way to transport ourselves to other dimensions," Captain stated.
"Di-men-sions?"
Shute thought of a way to explain a thing like that to someone who had never heard of different dimensions. "You know... other worlds outside of your own!"
Urisk snapped his long fingers, a wide, toothy smile covering his face. "Ah, yes! Watch me!"
The others watched as he stomped a circle into the rock with his wet hoof. "A ring of toadstools marks the place of a faerie ring, a place of faerie dances. Stepping into a ring takes you to places unknown; very few have come back from the rings to tell of what they saw."
"Yes, yes, we all know about faerie rings," Zero waved off the information.
"I haven't!" Shute snapped.
"And to where do they lead?" Bakunetsumaru said with a tight voice, his fists clasped in anticipation.
"Different rings laid by different faeries in different areas lead to different worlds," Urisk cooed. "Some lead to foresting paradises, some lead to deserts, some lead to oceans, some lead to lands of stone."
"LACROA!"
Zero snatched Urisk by the neck and lifted him into the air. "We must get to Lacroa! Where can we find these rings?"
Urisk closed his eyes and sighed. "Alas, the rings are dead, for the faeries no longer dance. Their muse is gone to the ages..."
"Their... muse?" Captain asked while cocking his head.
"I learned about Muses in English class!" Shute cheered, excited that he was able to help with the mission. "They're- like- a writer's inspiration!"
"What does that have to do with dancing?" Baku's eyes switched to confused mode; warbled swirly patterns. "Aw, this world confuses me!"
"Anything confuses you," Zero growled.
Urisk sighed again and said, "I will explain further if you put me down."
"Oh, sorry."
Urisk landed with a soft THUMP sound as his body hit the rock. He thumped his chest and continued. "The muse of the faerie dancers is gone. They have no reason to dance. Because of this, there are no faerie rings."
Shute touched his chest in sympathy. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hey, maybe we can find her! Do you know where she is?"
Urisk pointed to the forgotten Bean-Nighe, who had finished her previous work and was working on another. "She is there."
"A washer woman?!" Zero gasped. "The fae's muse was a human?!"
"What about her being a woman?" Shute asked Urisk, bending down to his level.
"When human women die during childbirth, their souls become washer women," Zero explained. "They wash the clothes of those about to die."
"And so this happened to the faerie's muse," Urisk cried. "And the only thing that can restore her is lost to the mountain."
"Mountain?"
Urisk responded to Captain's question by pointing to the horizon with his long fingers, where a towering mountain stood in plain sight. "Mount Gwillyion-Mine is far on the horizon, and the only thing that can restore the muse has been trapped at the top."
"So a little rock or something up there will bring the Bean-Nighe back from the dead?" Shute asked, pointing to a solitary mountain in the distance.
Urisk nodded. "Yes, my little human friend. And with her restored, you will be able to move onto new worlds."
"COOL!"
Urisk pointed across the river. "Follow the path my hooves have left to my old pond. Cross the pond and you'll find yourself in a large field. Follow the edge of that field to Mount Gwillyion-Mine." Urisk traced out a vague map with his hoof. "There will be a road straight to the mountain, but do not take it, for in is the Redcap Road."
"Redcap?" Zero asked. "I am not familiar with this type of fae."
"Evil dwarfish creatures," Urisk shuddered. "They carry huge pole arms and wear caps dyed red with human blood-"
"YEEEH!" Shute felt a bolt of fear shoot up his spine; Captain impulsively spread his arm in front of him.
"Yes, precisely," Urisk ignored the suddenly display of fear. "They will cut you down to nothing by the time you take your third step."
"So, we go across the pond, through the field, and over the mountain." Bakunetsumaru repeated to himself, "Pond, field, mountain. Pond, field, mountain..."
"Thank you very much for your help, Urisk," Zero bowed while he spoke. "Could you join us please, and be our guide?"
"I can't!" Urisk suddenly shot out.
"Pond, field, mountain..." Baku kept saying it, over and over again.
"Why not?" Shute ejected.
"The water!" Urisk looked over his rock with fear in his eyes. "The water, it moves! It moves around my hooves by itself!"
"Most faeries cannot stand running water," Zero whispered to Shute and Captain. "How Urisk arrived here is beyond me."
"Pond, field, mountain..."
"Thank you very much for your help, Urisk," Captain stated. "But we must be going now. Let's go, Shute!"
"Yeah!" Shute climbed onto Captain's back so that he could carry him across the river.
"Do you need me to carry you, Bakunetsumaru?" Zero asked the samurai.
Bakunetsumaru suddenly hollered. "Pond, Field, MOUNTAIN!! Ha! I will not get lost now!"
A trio of little animals (a snail, a grasshopper, and a frog) hopped into eyesight and played a happy little tune, then left. Zero, Bakunetsumaru, and Shute, all stared in confusion. Urisk promptly smashed them with his foot.
"Been popping up everywhere, those things," Urisk growled. "Hate 'em. Good luck, my friends!"
"Bye, Urisk!"
And so the Gundams made their way across, ready in their own minds on to face the challenges of the Realm of Faerie.
DONE!
Notes?
Most obvious one is the trio of things that come out and applaud Bakunetsumaru after his "pond, field, mountain" cheer. If you don't know what that is, you have been living under a rock.
Second is just something I've noticed; most of my SD fics have something in common with the one that came before it (with the exception of "Solution, Self Termination"). Zero's head led to finding out why they had the action figure in Hap-O Jap-O Christmas, which went into 'they did karaoke, how does Shute sing?' in Voice of a Fae, which leads to more faeries being mentioned in this fic! Weird!
The first place the Gundam Force visits after "The Final Battle! Commander vs. Captain" has no Dark Axis troops, but it is filled with weird creatures and things and one quest that they need to do to move onto the next place...
The first thing Bakunetsumaru felt under his feet was cold stone. Gravel, rocks, and dust; they were on a mountain. He looked to one side, and there was Zero. He stood with sword and shield in hand, hovering just a few inches above the ground. He turned his head to the other side; Shute and Captain, standing uncomfortably (well, to him, at least) close to each other, watching over each other's shoulders. The scenery around him was gloomy, yet not ominous; the sky was a happy blue, but the ground around him was a dead, dusty brown, interspersed with lichens and tufts of grass. The Gundams stood on a flat platform of Earth which stretched out before them and dropped off just a short distance ahead; no doubt, they were not standing on a mountain, as he first thought, but a plateau, and a steep drop waited for them where the ground stopped.
As Zero and Bakunetsumaru got into a ready stance, flashing their swords, Shute glanced to Captain's head fins. "So, any Dark Axis forces?"
The golden "horns" flashed three times with a red glow. "Um... nope."
The three others fell to the ground, embarrassed.
Zero held his hands outward, and his sword and shield dematerialized until they were nothing more than a little ball of magic energy floating between his massive digits. He clapped his hands together, and so they were immediately unsummoned. "All the trouble of saying the long, tearful goodbyes to everyone we loved in Neotopia, to wind up in a place where there is no sign of the enemy?!"
Bakunetsumaru sheathed his swords. "What a waist of time."
"Perhaps there is something down there," Captain pointed his fingers downward, indicating the lower part of the plateau. "We should explore the region and find out what this dimension calls itself for classification."
"Yeha, we're going exploring!" Shute cried with his youthful cheer and vigor as he jumped into the air, punching the sky. "Come on, guys, let's go!"
Shute grabbed Captain by the hand and pulled him to the edge, running at full speed while the lead Gundam struggled to keep up.
Zero chuckled. "And so, off they ran, the inseparable pair, lost to the wonders of childhood innocence and naiveté, unaware of the dangers that might lie ahe-"
"Zero, who are you talking to?"
Zero's eye began to twitch as a vein popped out of his forehead. "I'm narrating! Don't you have a sense of dramatics, you ignorant samurai!?"
"AAAAAAAAH!"
The two Gundams jumped in their place, their swords at the ready. "SHUTE!"
***
Shute shrunk behind Captain Gundam, who was concentrating on targeting his laser on the two unidentified figures by the river before him. "EW! Ew! What is it?!"
"Identify yourselves immediately!" Captain demanded. "Friend or foe?"
Captain was met with a friendly smile from a green-skinned man. The man was Shute's height, not because he was short but because he was stooped over with old age. His long face and straggly beard made him look like a goat, and his sloping brow and large eyes reminded Shute of Frankenstein. Their was no hair upon his bulbous head, which made his large, pointy ears stick out pronouncedly. His long, long arms stuck out haphazardly from his emaciated chest and stomach. He was human from his head to his belly button, but his lower half was that of a goat or deer (like a satyr). His skin was a sickly green, as was the long, ragged fur on his animal half. He sat comfortably on a dry rock, swinging his hooved feet below him.
Beside the green goat man kneeled an old woman, human in appearance (although her back was to Shute and Captain; they could not see her face). He was clothed in a green dress, tied round the middle with a strip of cloth. Her black hair clung to her wet body, and her olive-skinned hands worked on washing a blood-stained cloak in the river where she sat. She did not seem to mind the water rushing past her. Lying on a dead tree on the river back was a bundle of clothes, drying in the weak sunlight, presumably clothes she had already washed.
The green man bowed from his perch. "No need for such fear, my friend. I am Urisk, and I sit here with the Bean-Nighe (pronounced Ben-Neeyah)."
Urisk set his eyes on the cowering boy behind Captain. "It feels so good to have company. I like human people. They make me so happy." How strange... Urisk spoke with a Scottish accent, and he seemed to talk only to Shute.
Shute shuddered out of fear, yet stepped out from behind his Gundam friend. "I don't think they'll hurt us, Captain."
"I agree," Captain responded, putting away his rifle. "Since they are both organic beings; chances that they are hostile creature are 0.1937%."
Zero chose that moment to come flying down to them, brandishing his sword and shouting, "Fiend! How have you hurt my friends?" Bakunetsumaru followed him, although he did not make as grand of an entrance; he fell flat on his face after sliding and screaming down the cliff face.
Urisk gasped and scuttled backwards, holding his arms in front of his face in defense. Captain grasped Zero's arm. "It's alright! He is friendly!"
"Then why did Shute scream?" Zero snapped.
"Because..." Shute didn't want to say he was scared by Urisk, the goat man. He was just so... ugly that it caught him off guard. He didn't want to hurt his feelings. "I... stepped on a rock."
Zero lowered his sword, sighing and asking for Urisk's forgiveness. "I'm sorry, sir. Please accept the apologies of a Knight of Lacroa."
Urisk skipped back onto his place on the rock, stepping forward on all fours. "It's alright, company. I am used to many running away; but I am not used to any staying. May I ask your name?"
Once again, Urisk addressed only Shute. The boy didn't know if it was because he was human or just something else, but he still felt singled out and scared. He hid behind Captain again.
"I am Captain Gundam of the Gundam Force," recited... well, Captain. "My friends are Zero, the Winged Knight-"
Zero struck a dignified pose with his sword.
"Bakunetsumaru, the Blazing Samurai-"
Baku finally managed to wriggle himself out of the rocks, holding his head fins in pain. "Oowee..."
"And Shute, who you seem to be fond of."
Shute gasped and slipped behind Captain's back, hoping he was out of sight of the goat man. "Captain, no! Don't tell him about me!"
Urisk frowned sadly. "Alas, no one responds well to kindness anymore; such evil and sorrow have disgraced our land, such hatred and depression killing at that love and happiness have accomplished..."
"He's narrating too!" Bakunetsumaru screamed as he pointed to Urisk. "Why does everything in this world narrate itself?!"
"Speaking of which, where are we?" Captain inquired.
"You..." Urisk nodded, looking to Shute again. "Are in the Realm of Faerie."
Zero suddenly startled, his eyes widening. "OF COURSE! I have heard of the Realm of Faerie, if only from story tales and bedtime lullabies. I thought it only a legend, but now I recognize you as Urisk, Protector of Forgotten Pools and Ponds and seeker of human kindness."
Zero turned to Shute. "Shute, his attentions are pure. There is no need to be frightened."
Shute gulped, but stepped out from behind his favorite Gundam, still holding Captain's hand tightly.
"So, we are in 'the Realm of Faerie'," Baku repeated with a mocking tone. "But we have no reason to be here! How do we leave?!"
"Leave..." Urisk put a finger to his chin and rubbed it. "Leave... I know a way to leave this place."
The Gundam force began to crowd around Urisk.
"You walk a ways that way, and you will leave the river behind."
CRASH!
Urisk laughed as a drenched Zero made angry eyes at him. "THAT'S NOT WHAT WE MEANT!"
"We mean to ask if their in a way to transport ourselves to other dimensions," Captain stated.
"Di-men-sions?"
Shute thought of a way to explain a thing like that to someone who had never heard of different dimensions. "You know... other worlds outside of your own!"
Urisk snapped his long fingers, a wide, toothy smile covering his face. "Ah, yes! Watch me!"
The others watched as he stomped a circle into the rock with his wet hoof. "A ring of toadstools marks the place of a faerie ring, a place of faerie dances. Stepping into a ring takes you to places unknown; very few have come back from the rings to tell of what they saw."
"Yes, yes, we all know about faerie rings," Zero waved off the information.
"I haven't!" Shute snapped.
"And to where do they lead?" Bakunetsumaru said with a tight voice, his fists clasped in anticipation.
"Different rings laid by different faeries in different areas lead to different worlds," Urisk cooed. "Some lead to foresting paradises, some lead to deserts, some lead to oceans, some lead to lands of stone."
"LACROA!"
Zero snatched Urisk by the neck and lifted him into the air. "We must get to Lacroa! Where can we find these rings?"
Urisk closed his eyes and sighed. "Alas, the rings are dead, for the faeries no longer dance. Their muse is gone to the ages..."
"Their... muse?" Captain asked while cocking his head.
"I learned about Muses in English class!" Shute cheered, excited that he was able to help with the mission. "They're- like- a writer's inspiration!"
"What does that have to do with dancing?" Baku's eyes switched to confused mode; warbled swirly patterns. "Aw, this world confuses me!"
"Anything confuses you," Zero growled.
Urisk sighed again and said, "I will explain further if you put me down."
"Oh, sorry."
Urisk landed with a soft THUMP sound as his body hit the rock. He thumped his chest and continued. "The muse of the faerie dancers is gone. They have no reason to dance. Because of this, there are no faerie rings."
Shute touched his chest in sympathy. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hey, maybe we can find her! Do you know where she is?"
Urisk pointed to the forgotten Bean-Nighe, who had finished her previous work and was working on another. "She is there."
"A washer woman?!" Zero gasped. "The fae's muse was a human?!"
"What about her being a woman?" Shute asked Urisk, bending down to his level.
"When human women die during childbirth, their souls become washer women," Zero explained. "They wash the clothes of those about to die."
"And so this happened to the faerie's muse," Urisk cried. "And the only thing that can restore her is lost to the mountain."
"Mountain?"
Urisk responded to Captain's question by pointing to the horizon with his long fingers, where a towering mountain stood in plain sight. "Mount Gwillyion-Mine is far on the horizon, and the only thing that can restore the muse has been trapped at the top."
"So a little rock or something up there will bring the Bean-Nighe back from the dead?" Shute asked, pointing to a solitary mountain in the distance.
Urisk nodded. "Yes, my little human friend. And with her restored, you will be able to move onto new worlds."
"COOL!"
Urisk pointed across the river. "Follow the path my hooves have left to my old pond. Cross the pond and you'll find yourself in a large field. Follow the edge of that field to Mount Gwillyion-Mine." Urisk traced out a vague map with his hoof. "There will be a road straight to the mountain, but do not take it, for in is the Redcap Road."
"Redcap?" Zero asked. "I am not familiar with this type of fae."
"Evil dwarfish creatures," Urisk shuddered. "They carry huge pole arms and wear caps dyed red with human blood-"
"YEEEH!" Shute felt a bolt of fear shoot up his spine; Captain impulsively spread his arm in front of him.
"Yes, precisely," Urisk ignored the suddenly display of fear. "They will cut you down to nothing by the time you take your third step."
"So, we go across the pond, through the field, and over the mountain." Bakunetsumaru repeated to himself, "Pond, field, mountain. Pond, field, mountain..."
"Thank you very much for your help, Urisk," Zero bowed while he spoke. "Could you join us please, and be our guide?"
"I can't!" Urisk suddenly shot out.
"Pond, field, mountain..." Baku kept saying it, over and over again.
"Why not?" Shute ejected.
"The water!" Urisk looked over his rock with fear in his eyes. "The water, it moves! It moves around my hooves by itself!"
"Most faeries cannot stand running water," Zero whispered to Shute and Captain. "How Urisk arrived here is beyond me."
"Pond, field, mountain..."
"Thank you very much for your help, Urisk," Captain stated. "But we must be going now. Let's go, Shute!"
"Yeah!" Shute climbed onto Captain's back so that he could carry him across the river.
"Do you need me to carry you, Bakunetsumaru?" Zero asked the samurai.
Bakunetsumaru suddenly hollered. "Pond, Field, MOUNTAIN!! Ha! I will not get lost now!"
A trio of little animals (a snail, a grasshopper, and a frog) hopped into eyesight and played a happy little tune, then left. Zero, Bakunetsumaru, and Shute, all stared in confusion. Urisk promptly smashed them with his foot.
"Been popping up everywhere, those things," Urisk growled. "Hate 'em. Good luck, my friends!"
"Bye, Urisk!"
And so the Gundams made their way across, ready in their own minds on to face the challenges of the Realm of Faerie.
DONE!
Notes?
Most obvious one is the trio of things that come out and applaud Bakunetsumaru after his "pond, field, mountain" cheer. If you don't know what that is, you have been living under a rock.
Second is just something I've noticed; most of my SD fics have something in common with the one that came before it (with the exception of "Solution, Self Termination"). Zero's head led to finding out why they had the action figure in Hap-O Jap-O Christmas, which went into 'they did karaoke, how does Shute sing?' in Voice of a Fae, which leads to more faeries being mentioned in this fic! Weird!
