Chapter Three

More Questions Than Answers

Marillier rushed forwards whilst calling for them to follow her, "We are inbetween planes, it is dangerous if we stay too long." Marillier lifted her hand into the air and whispered something, the air around her hand began to fill with lights, like those of the Northern Lights, it began to pulse and she slowly brought her hand down. She stared at it for what felt like ages but seconds at the same time. She then swiftly closed her hand and eyes and the light went out. The hallway seemed to darken a little bit and stretch out, almost as if they were in a horror film. Okay, don't really know what was going on there maybe she'll explain, Marillier walked forwards once more, ignoring them. Oh-kay, I guess not.

Enrique sidled up to him, "Dude, what is going on? I thought she was meant to be asleep. And where are we?!"

"Yes, well, what happened was…" Lance's was shaking his index finger as if it would procure the answer, "Sorry, I haven't made it that far yet. I don't actually know."

And with that Lance moved away to see what Marillier was doing, she had stopped rushing forwards and was looking at one of the paintings in the hallway, She said we needed to leave, why is she wasting time?

She was staring at a portrait of a King, not that Lance believed it was an actual King but rather a fake to make the place seem more realistic. He was a broad shouldered, dark haired man with a serious face and wearing a crown. He was sitting on a big throne with a dog by his side, Lance didn't bother to look at the dog any further, he had bigger things on his mind. Plus, he didn't know many types of dogs.

"Hey," he began, Lame, he thought to himself, "Are you alright?"

She turned to him and pointed at the King in the painting, "Do you know who that is?"

Lance's eyebrows shot up, showing he was surprised, "That's a real person? I thought it was just a fake."

She glared at him and said, "That was my father."

He realised how what he said might have sounded and put his hands up, "I-I didn't mean it like that."

She sighed and relaxed her posture, "You couldn't have known. I was just surprised to see a painting of him here. The whole place looks so similar to my own home. Such a strange coincidence," she murmured the last part to herself.

A giant crash shook the floor. Marillier fell towards him having momentarily lost her footing. He grabbed her arms to keep her from falling further and she was somehow standing right against him. He realised how close she was and quickly, after making sure she wasn't going to fall, stepped away. He was sure he was blushing. When he glanced at her, however, she was blushing and glancing at him too and for some reason he felt a little happy to have caused that reaction.

His friends, however, were having none of it.

"Alright, what is going on?!" Richard shrieked. Lance winced at the high pitch.

Marillier didn't like him at all, "I thought I had already explained it so how do you still not understand?" She said all this with a don't-you-argue-with-me-or-you-will-be-made-a-fool tone and Richard did not like it. He fumed as he glared at her not daring to argue in case she made fun of him once more, I mean, she was a princess.

Lance tapped her on the shoulder and she spun round. He held his hands up to show he wasn't being aggressive.

"Shouldn't we be going wherever it is we need to go, you did say time was running out."

At this she threw her hands up and smacked her forehead with one of them, "Oh! I can be such a hypocrite, thank you for reminding me. I just became so taken with all the similarities! You are correct, let's go. Quickly!" And with that she took off down the hallway. Well, thatwas not the answer I was expecting. Everyone stood a little stunned just looking at each other with confused faces. It was almost as if there were two of her, the calm, clever and collected one and the, well, opposite one.

Simon asked him, "Sooo, is she okay?" and then pointed to his head.

Lance was, for some reason, incredibly insulted by this comment and replied with maybe alittle bit of venom in his voice, "She is fine, thank you very much. How about you try being stuck in a curse asleep for 900 years." He suddenly stopped, not sure what had come over him.

Everyone looked at him shocked. His friend Simon looked a little hurt, "Relax, I wasn't being rude."

Lance didn't know what to say so he just mumbled that they should follow her and spun around and followed the path she had taken.

He found her scrambling at the bottom of the wall a ways away. What she was doing, he had no idea. For a second he wondered whether his friend might have been a bit right.

"Uh, Marillier. What are you doing?"

She snapped her head up to look at him as if finally noticing him.

"Ah, you are finally here. Took you a while, eh?" she jumped up and pushed him a little.

Lance looked at her wide eyed. Was this the same person that had insulted Richard and spoken with so much grace it was hard not to stare at her and completely forget what she was saying. This person in front of him had literally just said, 'eh', about as colloquially as possible and pushed him.

Lance just continued to stare, not quite sure what to do. She looked at him expectantly but he couldn't muster more than an 'Uh…'

Suddenly the lighting dimmed dramatically again and it once more felt like a horror film and Marillier was suddenly in his face once more, "We need to get going. Where are your friends?"

This was the Marillier from before, all bossy and serious. He had no idea what had been happening but he was relieved.

"They are coming, I think. Should I go and make sure that-" He was cut off by someone grabbing him and spinning him around.

He was so surprised that somehow he got into a fighting stance though he had never done any type of fighting before and prepared to punch the assaulter as he had named the person in his head. The person was no other than his friend Henry however and when he saw Lance's stance he quickly removed his hand not sure what was going on with his friend. Lance didn't know either.

"Um, I just wanted to let you know that we had followed you and there was no need…" Henry trailed off not sure what to say.

The room dimmed further and the shadows seemed to grow.

"What's going on?" one of his friends squeaked.

Marillier jumped to explaining as they all waited, "As you know from what I said earlier, we had been transported to a place inbetween the spirit plane and the material plane. Well, that was only for a while and we have dallied too long. I fear that are time is up and we are now being thrust into the shadow plane and will no doubt have to leave immediately, if possible. We do not want to stay there any longer than necessary."

The lights dimmed once more almost punctuating her words.

Enrique came up next to him and didn't mention any of Lance's previous behaviour for which he was thankful, "The shadow plane? What is this?! D&D?!" Enrique hissed in Lance's ear. Before he could answer though,the lights dimmed once more before the whole place was thrust into darkness and their shadows became murkier.

Lance gulped before answering Enrique as honestly as possible, "I dunno know man, I dunno."

A shadow reached out, almost physical darkness, and swiped at Henry. Henry jumped out of the way but not before a piece of his clothing tuned a little black and it looked like it had been soaked in ink, the ink then seemed to become thicker and became what seemed to be slime, it bunched together at the end of his top and fell to the ground with a plop before dissolving into the darkness. He looked up wide eyed and swallowed, "Don't let them touch you?" His warning turned into a question and all eyes went to Marillier.

"If they touch you for too long you might find yourself not wanting to leave," was all she replied, "Let us go, quickly this time."

As they walked further and further ahead, the shadows became thicker and more life-like. Lance didn't know if that was because they had spent more time there or if it was because they were going further and further in. As they went further in Lance couldn't even make out the original walls anymore, everything seemed to be made of darkness. After what seemed like ages and probably was ages, they turned a corner only to arrive at a dead end. The wall was black and foreboding and Lance didn't want to be close to it for any longer than necessary. Lance made to turn back but Marillier stayed put and she was, what seemed to be glaring at the wall?

"Uh, Marillier. What are you doing? It's a dead end," This was surprisingly Richard who said this. He seemed to be talking nicely to her (The first time ever a nice word has come out of his mouth, Lance thought), probably because he didn't want to be ridiculed again.

"Quiet, boy. Can you not see this is not merely a dead end, it is not even close to a dead end," So much for not being ridiculed, Lance thought. After dismissing him like that she turned back to the wall and whispered something into her hand whilst closing her eyes like she had done before. The lights appeared again and grew bigger. The shadows seemed to shrink away a little at it. She turned her hand to the wall of darkness and the ball of light left her hand and flew into the wall. Instead of the light hitting the wall like, well, light does, it seemed to burn a hole through the dark wall until it hit something hard and disappeared. The darkness shrank away a little before coming together more forcefully to cover the hole.

"Well, um, dead end. Like I said," Richard said this and trailed away at the end as everyone turned to look at him.

Marillier rolled her eyes at him, something he had never seen her do, "No, idiot. It's not a dead end as I already told you before. It's a doorway. A doorway out of here."

She turned back to the wall and her hand lit up again, she turned back to say something but stopped. Lance wondered if the weird version of her was back again and hoped not but instead she pulled back from the door.

"Young men, I suggest you prepare your finest weapons, a fight will no doubt ensue."

What is with the language, I don't even know what that word means! Everyone looked at each other confusedly and then back at her. With this said she promptly moved her hands around a little whilst murmuring something and white lights began to move around her body, they disappeared and a sword that seemed to be made of light was in her hand and her dress was gone replaced by a blue tunic, trousers, a belt, boots and a bit of chainmail? Her hair was neatly plaited into a crown plait.

"Time's up everyone," she said softy, "it's best if you look around."

Helloooooo again! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you thought of it, you can review or PM me!

Thank you again to AspiringAuthor101 for another kind review. Check out their story, it is pretty good so far.

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