Kokoro lay sprawled on her canopy bed, bawling her eyes out. She was still having trouble comprehending the latest situation she had gotten herself into.

After the Fairy Queen had finished laughing, she called back the yellow-haired fairy and told her to escort her to an extra chamber in the upper part of the tree. The fairy was having so much trouble lifting the crying girl off the floor that the queen, no longer amused, waved a hand at her and transported her and the fairy to the room. Now Kokoro was crying on her new bed as the fairy that had escorted her pulled numerous dresses out of an elegant wardrobe and draped them over her arms.

"How could I possibly have gotten engaged to a fairy?" she wailed. "I don't want to get married! I'm only fifteen! I just wanna go home!"

"Jeez, get over yourself!" the fairy yelled at her, throwing the dress she was holding back into the wardrobe. "Stop acting like a baby and start acting like an adult! If you don't, Queen Esmeralda will turn you into a mouse!"

"You don't understand what I'm going through," Kokoro replied, her voice muffled by her swollen throat, and the fact that her face was buried into her pillow.

The fairy sighed and sat down at the edge of the bed. "Honey, you have no idea how well I understand you."

Kokoro sat up and wiped her red eyes. "W-What do you mean?" she asked softly.

The fairy brushed her yellow hair behind her ear and sighed again. "About fifty years ago, when I was your age, I got lost in this forest. A fairy found me, and she invited me back to her home so I could warm up. I went to her house, and she offered me some tea. Once I'd drank the tea, she told me I was going to have to marry her son."

Kokoro leaned forward. "What did you do?"

The fairy shrugged. "What could I do? Besides, by then I had already been here eight hours, so I couldn't leave. So I married her pig of a son. But ten years later, he left me for some other girl. Some fairy who deals with teeth or something." She chuckled softly. "Actually, that was probably the best day of my life."

Kokoro knitted together her brow. "Wait, what do you mean you were already here for eight hours? Does it matter?"

The fairy looked surprised. "Honey, I hate to break it to you but… if you stay here for longer than eight hours, or about one night, you turn into a fairy." She gestured at her face. "You're already halfway there."

Kokoro lost all her color, and she jumped off the bed and ran to the vanity mirror. Then she screamed.

"What's happening to me?!" she cried, patting her face. Her ears had grown long and pointed and her chocolate-brown hair had changed to candy-apple red. But what frightened her most were the iridescent pink wings that had sprouted out of her back.

The woman sighed and picked up the dresses she had tossed on the bed. "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought when I grew these," she said, wiggling her yellow wings. "But it's really not that bad, turning into a fairy and all. There's the whole flying thing of course, and you can do magic."

"B-b-b-but I liked being human!" Kokoro exclaimed, grabbing chunks of her bright red hair. She sank to her bed. "I can't turn into a fairy," she mumbled.

The fairy sat next to her. "I'm telling you, it's not that bad. But..." her eyes became distant, "do you really have Baron von Gikkingen helping you?"

She turned to the older woman in surprise. "Why?" she asked curiously.

The woman turned away. "You're so lucky," she murmured. "There are lots of stories about him here, about how he always helps someone in need. I hoped for years he'd come rescue me and take me back home, but he never did…" She shook her head. "Never mind. You, young lady, have to get ready for the queen's ball."

"Ball?"

"Yeah. It's in celebration of your engagement to Prince Aidan," she explained. "The queen told me you have to look gorgeous, or she might change her mind and turn you into something worse than a kettle or mouse."

Kokoro chewed on her bottom lip. She really didn't want to go to a ball, especially one celebrating her engagement to a man she didn't know. Who would, under these kind of circumstances? When she had asked Queen Esmeralda where her husband-to-be was, she simply replied that he was out of the city, and that he wouldn't be back until the day after tomorrow. By then, she now knew, it would be too late to become a human again.

Besides, she couldn't dance to save her life. She was horribly clumsy, couldn't dance without crushing her partner's feet and falling down at least once. She really didn't want to step on someone's feet if they had the ability to turn her into anything with a tail.

After about an hour of choosing and fitting, Kokoro finally settled on a beautiful, flower-like dress. It was a simple, strapless gown; at the top of the gown, it was the same color as her hair, and as the fabric descended to her feet, it gradually faded to a pale pink. A green bodice was fitted over the top of the gown. The apple-green bodice had billowy, off-the-shoulder sleeves that stopped before the elbow, and it had a deeper, V-shaped neckline that revealed the top of the red dress. At the waist, the bodice flared out into pointed, leaf-like pieces of fabric, and when Kokoro looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help comparing her dress to a tulip.

The fairy, who Kokoro had learned was named Belinda, arranged a ringlet of pink flowers on her head. Belinda then tied on a green ribbon with a teardrop-shaped ruby dangling on the end, and Kokoro slipped on a pair of standard dancing slippers in a lovely shade of green. When Belinda turned away, Kokoro grabbed the stone from her skirt pocket and tucked it into the green bodice. Just in case.

When she finally looked at herself in the mirror, Kokoro gasped. She had never seen herself look so beautiful in her entire life. Even her glittery pink wings, which waved freely in her backless dress, and vibrant red hair did nothing to contain her beauty.

She smoothed down the dress with her hands and tried to prevent her eyes from watering. As she thought of all the people she would never see again, a kind, cat-like face popped in her head.

Her eyes widened, and she blinked them a few times to confirm she wasn't dreaming. Now she could see that the handsome cat was not just in her thoughts. Actually, he was standing right outside her window.

Inside, Kokoro danced for joy. Baron had finally come to save her!

~*~