~*~*~

A/N Hey all!! Sorry this took so long to come out, but I've been pretty busy with one thing and another… but I won't bore you with a details. No fluff as of yet, but a few little things implied, and some plot-furthering. There'll be more action in the next one, this just sets the scene. And lots more chapters coming up, too, because we have the whole story planned out! But guess what… no reviews, no story! Well, that's not true, we'd probably post regardless… but we'll certainly post a lot faster if you review it! So please R/R! I appreciate each and every one of you who has reviewed so far!

~Stef

Oops… almost forgot. Don't own ANY of the characters 'cept for Shera, I share Belvio and Darella, and Kool Person and Patricia C Wrede own the rest!

~*~*~

By the time the sun rose over the castle in the centre of the Enchanted Forest, everybody inside was awake and active. Daystar, Gavin, Mendanbar, and Cimorene had gathered in the study that Mendanbar usually used, and were patiently answering Willin's questions.

"Yes, Willin, we will only be away for a few days at most."

"But your majesty, you have to be back in time to approve the plans for the…"

"Yes, yes, Willin, okay! We will be back in time, although Daystar and Prince Gavin will not return for a month or so." When Willin opened his mouth for another objection, Mendanbar added, "All princes need to go on a quest before they settle down, don't they? It's tradition! Daystar's didn't really count, because he didn't know he was a prince at the time. So let this be his quest. Now, is there anything really pressing you need to lecture me on, or can we go yet?"

"Well there is…" Willin trailed off when he saw the glares that both rulers of the Enchanted Forest were giving him. Daystar was looking at Gavin, and both were trying to smother smiles. "Very well. If you insist, I cannot stop you. Just come back soon."

"How kind of you, Willin." Although Cimorene's tone was not the least bit sarcastic, she had an ironic smile on her lips. "The quicker we go, the faster we'll be back. I'll see you in a day or two. Will you do the magic, my dear?" Her question was directed at her husband, and Mendanbar nodded his head. With a movement of his hand and a look of intense concentration they were at the edge of the forest.

"Here we go…" his voice trailed off. They were standing at the edge of the forest, true, on a path leading out through the trees that slowly thinned. But there was a burned clearing to their right. Cimorene, Mendanbar, and Daystar were all wincing. Gavin looked from one to the other, surprised.

"It's happened before," Daystar muttered, "but I thought the problem had been sorted out. This is big. We'll need to spend quite a while fixing this one."

"I need a word with Telemain." Mendanbar looked very worried. "I'm sure we can find the source of the problem together. In the meantime, Daystar, I will need your help fixing this. Cimorene, you can't do anything, can you?"

Cimorene shook her head sadly. "I can't seem to manipulate the magic of the forest as you can, and the dragon spells I know won't help much at all. I'll tell Gavin the history while you fix it, so he at least knows what's going on."

~*~*~

Remanan came to on a surprisingly comfortable surface. It was a while before he remembered what had happened. He immediately sprang up, only to fall back down again. A groan escaped his lips as a fresh wave of pain went through his head as it touched the pillow. Immediately, Darella was by his side.

"How are you?"

"In pain." Remanan managed a slight smile. "What happened?"

"Aerida clouted you on the head. I couldn't fix it magically while you were asleep, and deemed it unwise to try and wake you. I'll do so now… hold on a second. Try not to flinch, please."

Remanan remembered Darella's treatments of old, and braced himself against the pain. Which never came. The bandage around his head was carefully unwrapped and taken off, and a cool paste of some sort was being gently rubbed into whatever it was on his head that was hurting. It immediately stopped, and Remanan could finally think clearly.

"You may get up now." Darella was back to her matter-of-fact tone of voice. "Just so long as you don't go attacking any of my guests again."

"They were hurting that dragon!" Remanan protested.

"Dragons, even young ones, can take care of themselves. They were practising the spell to counter dragonsbane, and were doing quite well until you interrupted everything."

"Oh. Um, sorry."

"That's quite all right. They've mastered the spell now. In fact, I think that Shiara would like to talk to you. She's very interesting in the jet of light that you tried to blast at her."

"More magic school? I got enough of that teaching Gavin!" Remanan said, but he was smiling. "I guess I owe them an apology, anyway."

"You do. May I ask who this Gavin is?" Darella smiled at him tenderly, happy now that Remanan was feeling better and prepared to admit his mistake.

"Oh, he's a friend of mine that I've been teaching magic. A prince, actually, but he has brains. There seems to be more intelligent nobility around now that Cimorene's queen. Not so unfashionable, now, is my guess."

"Why thank you very much!" said a voice to his right. Remanan turned, and saw a dark-haired girl next to him. She was very obviously a princess, and not much younger than he. He wondered how long she had been there. She continued, still annoyed, "but then again, considering you're a friend of Gavin's, it's not surprising. Heavens forbid royalty could actually be intelligent on their own virtues!"

"I apologise, lady, for…"

"Don't 'lady' me! I'm not completely empty-headed, thank-you-very-much!"

Darella coughed in a way that suggested she had been about to laugh. There was a twinkle in her eyes. "May I introduce the princess Aerida? She is, I believe, betrothed to Gavin."

"Oh." Remanan suppressed the urge to laugh. "I see."

"No I'm not!" Aerida said emphatically. "I mean, I am, but I'm not going to marry him!"

"Gavin?" Remanan turned to his left, to see the firewitch standing there. She continued, "No, I don't think you two would be a good match. Even if he did agree to marry you."

Belatedly, Remanan realised he ought to apologise to the princesses. "Um, I'm dreadfully sorry about, uh, interrupting your practise. I thought you were attacking the dragon, and I, uh, didn't want him to get hurt."

"That's okay," Shiara said cheerfully. "We're not hurt. But I was wondering, could you show me that spell you were about to hurl at my face? It looks effective."

"It usually is." Remanan smiled wryly at Darella before turning back to Shiara. "I would be happy to teach you…?"

"Shiara," the firewitch supplied. "I'm guessing you know Darella, who's been kind enough to house us for the last two nights. This is Aerida, although I think you know her too, and Shera's just coming now."

A blonde came through the door right on cue, and smiled when she saw everyone was surrounding Remanan. "I'm glad you're awake. I was beginning to wonder whether Aerida's saucepan had damaged you fatally."

"Thank you, and no, it's hasn't. You would be Shera?"

"And you're Remanan. Pleased to meet you." Shera was also a princess. She looked suspiciously like many of the empty-headed ones that had plagued Gavin's siblings, but her eyes proved that she had more inside than was outwardly apparent.

"And you." Remanan smiled at her, and then turned back to Darella. "When am I fit for teaching, fair Seeress?"

Darella laughed. "As soon as you've eaten something. Actually, we were all about to have some dinner. Sit down, and I'll serve it."

~*~*~

"So basically, the wizards sucking up magic into their staffs cause small patches like this? So why is this so big? It's like a… clearing." Gavin said.

"I know." Cimorene's face was worried. She bit her lip for a moment, and then went on to say, "Mendanbar and I will go to Telemain and see if the problem can be found. In the meantime, I have a feeling this might be a part of your prophecy."

Gavin nodded. "So do Daystar and I stick to the original plan, then?"

"I should think so. It seems now to be more important than ever. Let's go see what my husband and son are doing." She rose to her feet without assistance, and Gavin followed her the short way back to the clearing. Or rather, what had once been a clearing. Mendanbar stood there cleaning off his sword, but sheathed it when he saw Gavin and Cimorene back. He and Daystar came up to them, both smiling grimly.

"That's settled, my dear. Would you care to come with me to pay a visit to Morwen and Telemain?"

"I just hope they can help. I told Gavin that he should just continue on with his quest as usual. That was right, I take it?"

"Yes, that's right. Ask the people you meet about any magical objects missing jewels… say you're making a study for the King of the Enchanted Forest when you're asked. Try the stone on them. If you find what it belongs on, summon me immediately. You have a mirror and packs with food each?"

"Yes, father. Morwen's food packages and a mirror each. Our crowns are hidden in the packages just in case we'll need them. And we have changes of clothes. Can we go now?"

"Don't be cheeky," his father admonished, his face straight. "I'm not that much like Willin. Shall we go, then?"

"Yes," Cimorene replied. "Be careful, you two, and check in on us every night with the mirror." Then Mendanbar pulled on something invisible with his hand, and they were both gone.

"Shall we go, then?" Gavin asked.

"Yeah."

Ten minutes later, Gavin stopped in his tracks. "Blast! That's my father's kingdom!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"I'm meant to be rescuing Aerida, remember?"

"Oh, right. Well… we could always just skip your kingdom."

"No. Dad's got quite a few broken magical swords, rings, and other things. We really should go and look at them. Can we disguise me?"

"As what? That might be pretty hard…"

"No, wait. What if I made myself invisible?"

"Can you do that well?"

"Well enough that no wizard can detect me. A magician might be able to, and I guess a dragon could see through it in a heartbeat. Witches couldn't, though."

Daystar looked thoughtful. "You're pretty good, then."

"No. I just had a very good teacher."

"If you say so. Go on then, make yourself invisible."

~*~*~

After the magic lesson Remanan had given, they sat around the familiar table once more for dinner. "So when are you planning to continue on?" Remanan asked the three princesses.

"Oh, as soon as Belvio gets back. He's gone to scout the area for any problems. We thought we'd go from village to village with Shera's cart, pretending to sell things, until we find out what we need to. Prophecies have a way of revealing themselves, and Darella said she couldn't tell us any more." Shera replied.

"That's true," Darella put in. "If I tell you, you'll be expecting what is to come. If you are expecting it, it will be likely to happen a different way, one that will perhaps not be so easy to counter."

"I don't know if that's reassuring or not!" Aerida said. Then she looked at Remanan. "Um, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I really don't get along with Gavin, and what you said sounded exactly like something he would say…"

"Don't mention it," Remanan said, smiling. Then, "Gavin can be a bit of an idiot. But we all can, and his heart's in the right place. Besides, he takes his responsibilities seriously."

"Yeah, I guess." Aerida smiled at him, and he smiled back. After a few seconds, there was a cough. Both Remanan and Aerida blushed heavily and turned back to the others. They were all grinning.

"Um," Remanan said.

Shera grinned mischievously. "Don't worry about it. You should see the way Daystar and Shiara carry on."

She laughed and quickly ducked to avoid the hand that Shiara had aimed at her face. By the time Shiara had stopped trying to kill the blonde princess, Aerida and Remanan had got their recently increased blushing under control.

"Um, do you three mind if I come with you? I actually don't have much planned at the moment, and maybe a magician could be of some use to you if you come up against anything."

"We'd love to have you along!" All three princesses said at the exact same time, and then grinned at one another. Remanan suddenly realised just what he had got himself into.

Aerida said, "As long as you are okay with Belvio, that is."

"What's Belvio?" Remanan asked, suddenly remembering what Shera had recently said.

"Belvio is Aerida's dragon." Shiara explained.

"You mean," came a voice from the door, "that Aerida is my princess." They all turned, and saw a dragonhead poking around the door. "I just got back. There weren't any problems except a wizard about a three-minute flight from here. I ate him." Belvio's grin was smug.

"Good." Shiara said. "You do that if you find any more. Belvio, this is Remanan."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Remanan said, and excused himself from the table to bow to the dragon.

Belvio inclined his head and then said, "Is he coming with us? I like him. I'm sure he knows what to do with wizards." Remanan smothered a grin at the statement from the obviously young dragon, but nobody else at the table bothered to smother their own grins.

"Yes, he is coming, Belvio," Aerida said. "Are you going to join us?"

"No, thanks, I'm full." Belvio grinned again. "We're leaving tomorrow morning?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then. There's a tree out there I'd like to try out. See you in the morning!" And Belvio left.

"A tree he'd like to try out?" Remanan asked, his eyebrow raised.

"Oh, Belvio likes to sleep around trees." Aerida supplied. "He says it's comfortable." Then, "Thank you for the really excellent meal, Darella. Do you mind if I go to bed now?"

"Of course not. Go, children. I'll see to it that you have food for the morning."

The princesses thanked her and left the room, leaving Remanan with Darella.

"I haven't seen you in a while," the Seeress commented. "And you're off again."

"Yes. You wanted me to go with them, didn't you?"

Darella smiled at her student. "I thought you would like to go with them. That is why I asked you to come in the first place."

Remanan smiled lovingly at his mentor. "You know everything, don't you?"

"I know you well. Come back and see me when you've finished this. And invite me to your wedding." Her smile was mischievous. "Now go to bed. You need your sleep too."

Remanan went off to bed, and was still smiling when he fell asleep.