Legacy.
Chapter Five:
Nosedive nearly jumped out of his skin when a tree to his left literally exploded courtesy of Angel and another new spell she was trying out from her ancestor's journal.
"Angel I get why your doin that an all but could ya warn me first?"
"Sorry." She blushed slightly, "Not bad though huh?"
"What blowing up the oh so dangerous tree?" Dive teased.
"No!" She cried indignantly, "I mean the spell, it was a Burst Rondo. An explosion spell, it says here that they're more powerful than any explosive made by human methods."
"Cool does that mean I got my own personal nuke around?"
"Very funny," she frowned at him, "listen before we go into Saillune I think we should put on something to hide our faces or something."
"Why? I thought you said Draganus wouldn't know where we went?" Dive said kicking some dirt onto the camp fire and packing the last of the gear they'd bought with them.
"Well yes, but that doesn't mean he or Maleficent haven't already guessed where we may have gone and told his troops to keep an eye out for us does it."
"Guess not." Dive said, "Is purple hair normal on this planet?"
"It's not common if that's what you mean," she replied and watched as he rummaged through her pack, "what are you doing?"
"Improvising." He found what he was looking for and pulled out a cloak he'd seen her pack, "here, this should hide you're face just fine and didn't you say there were people that looked like animals here too?"
"Yeah beast men, although I've never heard of a duck man before." Angel replied making a face at the old cloak that still smelled of moth balls, she shook it out and put it on.
"No biggie it doesn't mean there aren't any though does it?" He pulled out some clothes and rubbed them in the dirt, "how's your acting Angel?"
"Okay I guess but why are you ruining those clothes I just washed!" Angel fumed.
"Because you're gonna be some fancy lady and I'm gonna be you servant." He told her then pulled the clothes on.
"Ew, you're actually going to wear those?"
"Uh huh and when we're in there act like I can't talk," he said grinning, "Those creepos are looking for a duck who can talk and fight not a servant who's dumber than a rock right?"
"Okay whatever you say Nosedive," Angel turned away and looked in the direction of the city, "I have a bad feeling about this." She said to herself.
Inside the city it was surprisingly prosperous. People were rushing around everywhere buying things, selling things and doing what most normal people do and what surprised them the most was the considerable lack of saurian guards. They made their way through the city following the directions in the journal to a large temple. Inside was a large statue of a dragon and the odd shrine maiden milling around. Angel signalled to Nosedive to follow her lead and walked over to the back of temple and found a tiny lever which she pulled to reveal a small cabinet behind a slab on the wall, inside was a ornate box which Angel picked up and looked inside.
"It's a unicorn horn!" She whispered excitedly, "A real unicorn horn! Ahh!" She yelled when someone grabbed them from behind and pulled them back.
"You would dare steal from Cephied's temple!" A man boomed, "This is most unjust!" The man, who was quite tall and not all that good looking, pulled back the hood on Angel's cloak and his eyes bulged. "By Cephied! Queen Seyuri! You're alive!"
"Actually no," Angel said ignoring Nosedive's groan at her denial, "I'm princess Atchika her daughter."
"Well then my dear please come to the castle and tell me why you are here," he looked to the guards who were still holding them and they instantly let go at his harsh stare, "You're mother was a dear friend of mine as your family and my own have been friends for many centuries."
"Sure, why not!" Angel said noticing that the man she assumed to be the prince of Saillune still had the horn they needed. They were led along the streets of Saillune to the castle at the centre and shown inside. The prince gave them both adjoining rooms and allowed them some time to freshen up along with some fresh clothes to wear.
"Wow." Nosedive said under his breath when Angel came out of her room in the dress the prince had provided, she'd even bothered to do up her hair as well. She saw him and blushed crimson.
"I guess we'd better not keep the prince waiting huh?" She giggled when Dive kept staring at her whilst shaking his head no then snapped out of it and offered his arm to her. They followed a maid that had been waiting for them down to the dinning hall and sat to wait for the prince.
"If that guy's the prince who's the king?" Dive asked as he studied a few of the paintings and tapestries hanging on the wall.
"Saillune never has a king," Angel told him then laughed at the look he gave her, "since a prince called Phillionel the rulers of this city and kingdom have been called prince rather than king, I'm not really sure why."
"He doesn't look like a prince does he?"
"No he doesn't." she smiled, "But I remember him being very kind and funny, the rulers of Saillune are taught to honour justice beyond anything else."
"And rightly so princess," the Prince boomed from the doorway, "it is this love of justice that has kept my city safe all these years from those monsters that destroyed your people my dear. I am truly sorry but when my army arrived at your palace it had already been sacked and we found no survivors. When we realised that they would come to attack the rest of our fair world I ordered my army to return to Saillune to protect it."
"As any good ruler would do." Angel looked down at her hands trying not to remember that horrible night.
"I did however make sure that the bodies of the royal family were retrieved and brought to Saillune for a proper burial, and once we were sure Saillune was safe I sent back a small squad to bury the rest of the fallen."
"Thank you sir." Angel felt someone place their hands on her shoulders and squeeze them reassuringly, she looked up to see Nosedive.
"Please call me Benjamin or Ben would do. After all we're all royalty aren't we?" Angel smiled at him and looked up.
"Thanks Ben."
"Now tell me why have you returned after all these years? I thought for sure you were dead along with your family," Ben sat down at the head of the table and looked at her, "although I have to admit we could never be totally sure having not found a body."
"The saurians that killed my parents are still after me," Ben sucked in a breath, "my friend and I are looking for a way to stop them once and for all and to do that I need that horn to find Avalon."
"How do you know that is where you will find your answers?" Ben asked.
"I had a vision of my mother," Angel told him, "she told me to find the old lands and, well she told me about a possession of my fathers, the journal of Lina Inverse. It existed so I guess if she got us this far then the rest must be true too right?" She looked up at Ben hopefully.
"Of course, you may have the horn and I will give you all you need to make the journey," he told her, "I would go with you myself but the high level magic protecting this city is linked to me so I cannot leave without endangering my people."
"We'll be fine on our own sir." Nosedive said not sure if he was allowed to call him by name when he wasn't any kind of royalty.
"It's Ben my boy, now Atchika you must tell me about your young companion here."
"Oh this is Nosedive, we met through a friend," She said glancing sideways as five or six maids brought in various dishes and placed them on the table, "The saurians took over their world as well. It seems when they were banished the first time around they didn't learn their lesson and went after other planets. But one of his kind banished them to subspace a millennia ago. When they escaped they had discovered technology and that's when they came back here. Once they'd finished with this dimension they went back to his and enslaved their people once more."
"I am truly sorry for what those monsters have done to your home boy."
"That's okay." Dive said sitting down beside Angel.
"Well now let's not waste any more time dig in kids!" Ben shouted as he grabbed his knife and fork and began shovelling food.
Prince Ben was true to his word, he gave them a small ship to travel in along with enough supplies to last them for a month if need be. He also gave them plenty of clothing and enough money to see them through for a while then bade his goodbye and watched as Angel and Nosedive took off and sped off west to the kingdom of Farrell.
"So how do we find this place again?" Dive asked looking at the journal and reading the odd extract where the writing was clear enough.
"We land near the forest of shadows in the kingdom of Farrell then we have to make our way to a secret temple somewhere inside." Angel adjusted their course slightly, "then we use the horn in a spell and the doorway should open for us to get to Avalon."
"What's so great about this place, I mean other than the fact that they're the 'old lands'?"
"Well Avalon, according to legend is the final resting place for heroes; it's a place where time virtually stands still." She frowned, "Well maybe that's not exactly how to describe it, lets see. Uh when some one has become a hero to the people and in the gods' eyes then they have earned themselves a place in Avalon. Whether they choose to go there or not is up to them. However Avalon is also the home of many magical beasts, a haven if you will. For example fairies live there, along with unicorns, Pegasus, Alicorns, anything born of pure magic has a home there. There's also supposed to be many Fey there."
"What's an Alicorn and what are fey?" Dive asked looking up from the book.
"Well an Alicorn is a cross between a unicorn and a Pegasus and a fey is a cross between a fairy and a human," Angel told him then looked away, "that's technically what I am."
"Really!" Dive exclaimed.
"Uh huh, my father was fey and my mother was a human, so I have fey blood in me." Angel said.
"So if everything stands still does that mean you'll have relatives there?"
"I don't know." Angel said honestly. "It was said that once my ancestors finished their travels they returned to Avalon to have a family, but no one knows if they stayed there. No one even knows if it is possible to die a natural death in Avalon at all, you are blessed to live there so you usually have an extended life because of that." Angel paused and looked back out the window, "Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev could very well still be living there even now."
"Hey is that it"? Dive asked spotting a huge creepy looking forest coming up on the horizon. Angel nodded and set the ship down near the edge of the forest. They took all the supplies they could carry and headed straight into the dark and ominous forest in front of them. "Can you see anything, cause I can't"
"Lighting!" Angel said making him jump and a ball of light appeared just above her palm, she held her hand up and indicated that they should carry on. "Do you hear that?" Angel asked after a while.
"Hear what?" Dive fell silent for a moment but still couldn't hear anything.
"Flare arrow!" Angel yelled her power words and a bunch of red beams shot off just off to their right and exploded, coupled with a scream and a group of dark bodies were now heading their way, "Lesser demons! Be ready to fight Dive!" Angel muttered a few words and threw a whole load of fireballs at them but there were still more coming.
"What do we do!" Dive asked getting nervous as he didn't think his sword Ben had given him would be any use.
"Stand back!" She muttered another incantation and, "Burst rondo!" The ground ahead of them exploded taking all of the lesser demons with it and leaving a massive crater in it's wake. "Wow I really didn't think it would do that much damage. That one the other day wasn't nearly as big!" Angel laughed nervously, "maybe we should get going before anymore come along huh."
"Maybe!" Dive chuckled. They followed what looked like an old animal trail in what they hoped was the general direction of North, their directions said it should be at the base of the hill built into the centre of the mountain; they found the base of the mountain and began searching for the opening of the shrine. Nosedive left a stick he'd pushed into the ground where they could see it with a piece of clothing tied to it so if they had to come back they'd know where they started from. "Angel! Over here!" Dive yelled when he'd found what looked like a cave opening with foliage almost obscuring it from view.
"What is it? Did you find it?" Angel ran over to him and helped him cut away the vines covering the entrance.
"Not sure but we won't know until we look right?" Dive crawled in then jumped down off a ledge, "Come on I need that light thing you do."
"The thing is a spell and I cast it not do it!" Angel yelled as she crawled through the opening, "Ew, I hate places like this there's usually . . . SPIDERS!" Angel screamed and went as fast as she could, forgetting about the ledge she fell.
"Gotcha!" Dive said as he just caught her.
"I hate spiders." Angel pouted.
"They're not my favourite critters either." Dive admitted as he put her down. Angel cast another lighting spell and she and Dive carried on through the cave keeping an eye out for any more eight legged creepy crawlies as she did. After about ten minutes they came to a huge room, in the middle was what looked like some sort of alter and a hole at the centre. Angel took out the unicorn horn and looked at it then the hole then went and put it in. She then said a few words that Dive didn't recognise and stood back. Moments passed and nothing happened then the alter began to glow, brighter and brighter until they could barely look at it, then a triangle formed and behind it was a beautiful grass meadow with unicorns grazing.
"This is it come on!" Angel excitedly grabbed his hand and pulled him through the triangle which instantly disappeared behind them.
"What now?" Dive asked as he looked around. There was an ocean to his left and slightly to his right in the distance he could see a dazzling white city with the odd building dotted here and there on the rest of the never ending green.
"That city should be a good place to start." Angel said already walking briskly towards it, "Hurry up Nosedive!"
Well there ya go another chappy, look at that I haven't updated in months and all of a sudden I get the inspiration for two. Ah well hope you liked it. Toodles Angel xxx.
