Norma stared at the orange, furry creature, her eyes wide.
"You're saying Once-ler's been cutting down these trees? B-but they're so beautiful! Why would someone cut down such a beauty of nature?" She asked, her voice laced with utter disbelief.
The Lorax sighed while rubbing at his temples slightly. "He wants their tufts for that idiotic invention of his, if you could even call it that. It's more like a piece of garbage!"
Norma narrowed her eyes. "His ideas are not stupid and certainly not garbage!" The Lorax rolled his eyes and quirked his bushy eyebrow at her. She continued glaring, her hands at her hips and her mouth in an upturned pout.
"Whatever. Anyways, I need you to help me get him to stop. I've been trying for around a month to convince him to stop but he's as stubborn as that mule of his. I'm the guardian of the forest and it's my job to protect the trees and the animals but I can't do that on my own with Beanpole chopping down my poor truffulas." For a moment, The Lorax looked heartbroken.
Norma could see that he loved the animals and trees with everything in him. Slowly and hesitantly, she nodded, her eyes sympathetic. "But what exactly is it that you need me to do? Because you haven't exactly explained…" her voice trailed off as her eyes wandered to her right where several barbaloots played, basking in the sunset.
At this, The Lorax smiled. The barbaloots were still happy. For now, the trees provided shade and food, a luxury The Lorax feared might not be available in the near future should he be unable to accomplish his plan.
"We found a picture. It was of you and Beanpole. It was easy to tell you two had something going on. I realized that if there's one thing that idiot loves more than his thneeds, it's you. It's obvious from the picture. He's head over heels. And that's not something you get over so easily." He spoke with such confidence, a deep wisdom embedded in his being.
"Some days he'd get this far away look as if waiting for someone to show up. I think he was waiting for you. It's plenty easy to tell you both have feelings for each other, whether you were an item or not, I can tell. I just know that if you two reunited, he'd become distracted from his mediocre invention and just from the way you look at this valley I can tell, you love nature. He won't want to harm something you love. I'm sure he'd give it up for you. That's what I need you to do."
Norma absorbed this information silently, letting the things he said sink in. If the valley really were in trouble, Norma would fight for it. Nature was something she adored and she couldn't let anything or anyone destroy it. Not even Once-ler. She then thought of the consequences. If Once-ler found out about this plan of The Lorax's, he'd surely distrust her forever. She truly did have feelings or him, deep feelings that ran all the way to heart. She wouldn't be able to bear it if she lost him forever.
Making a silent choice, she took a deep breath, letting her doubt and fear leave her for a single moment. "I'll do it." With those three words she sealed the deal.
…
Sitting at his desk, hunched over several stacks of paper, Once-ler sighed. Building a business wasn't easy. He'd soon need to hire more people once the factory was fully built. I'd take about a year but there wasn't much else he could do to move progress along.
The stacks of paper in front of him were thousands of thneed orders, waiting to be filled. And Once-ler was responsible for checking every last one. Turning to face the window, he stared at the setting sun, gold and pink and ruby painting the sky, the colors of the truffula tufts. It looked almost as if the softer than silk covered trees blended with the sky.
He was tempted to go out there and talk with the animals, to go see The Lorax, his sort-of-friend. But no. He stayed put in his towering chair and turned back to the work, contemplating how long it would take to make all the thneeds by hand. He wished very hard that the factory could be already built.
'Progress must grow' he thought to himself. 'But progress can move very slowly at times.' And then another thought came to his mind, one with the voice of his nearly forgotten love. 'I'm so proud of you for making your thneed a success, but why would you cut down trees to get it?' He shook the voice from his head and rose from his seat and proceeded to his temporary bedroom.
It wasn't much bigger than that of the bedroom in his cottage but he needed to be near the factory to oversee its construction. It would do until the actual bedroom of his factory could be built. The first part be built was obviously his office and soon after, his mother's bedroom.
Flopping down upon his tuft filled bed, he closed his eyes ready for a good night's sleep to relieve some of the stress of maintaining the thneed business. He was asleep within minutes, his dreams carrying him across marshmallow clouds.
Everywhere he looked, thneeds hung off of people in several manners and marshmallows floated through the air. He wore his green suit complete with gloves and his coattails fluttered in the breeze. He felt a tug on his tie and looked down to find Norma staring up at him much in the same way as the day he last saw her. She tugged further and her lips met his in a passion filled kiss. Lost in his fantasy, he failed to notice the fading colors of the wonderland around him.
The faces of the people melted into gray and all around him the world dissolved except for him and Norma. He stood on endless black, his legs soon starting to sink with the colors. Upon separating, he realized the situation and started panicking. Norma sunk in the dark and he grasped for her hands but just as he touched them, she let go. And she was gone.
And then his eyes opened with a start, a loud knock coming from the glass door in his office. He messily got up from his bed and walked into his office, expecting to see The Lorax ready to bug him once again. His eyes practically shot out of his head when he saw who it really was. There in all her natural beauty was the girl of his dreams—literally.
She stood just outside the glass door on the balcony, the many stairs besides her leading down to the valley floor.
He rushed for the door, his hands grasping the way they did in his dream, except not for Norma's hands but for the doorknob that leads to the angel with curls.
The moment he opened the door, Norma flung her arms around Once-ler's neck, having to leap at him to be able to reach, and embraced him with all her might. His arms tightened around her slightly plump body as suddenly she pulled away from him just enough to place her lips upon his.
Breathless by her kiss, he almost lost his grip on her but managed to keep his hold. Her kiss was filled with so much passion and emotions. The most prominent, longing.
Nearly 4 months since the last time they saw each other only made their longing intensify. Though Once-ler had been losing the feel of her kiss upon his lips, under the surface he had been hoping, praying for the day he would see her again.
They both wanted this as much as the other, their feelings solidifying into something Once-ler hoped she'd call love.
When they broke away, Once-ler let Norma's feet touch the ground and kept his hands at her shoulders. Once-ler stuttered upon his words. "W-what are you doing here? And—w-wow, that k-kiss…"
Norma smiled as she leaned into Once-ler. "I came to find you. Being away from you was too much. I had to be with you." Her words were laced with truth, her words half honest. Once-ler didn't seem to notice how she didn't act like herself. His grin grew and all of his tiredness was washed away with the love that throbbed in his chest.
Norma looked over his suit, her surprise notable. She wasn't expecting such a transformation from the silly boy she'd fallen in love with. But she smiled nonetheless, thrilled to see him again. Once-ler suddenly wrapped his arms around her once again in an embrace and spun her around, him ending up facing his office while she faced the valley.
As Once-ler looked at the office before him with his head nuzzled with Norma's, he thought that nothing could be better. As Norma looked out at the wondrous valley filled with so much life and color with her check against Once-ler's shoulder, she thought about risks she was taking, and the rewards that came with it.
A/N: I hoped you guys enjoyed and please review! By the way, thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter but I think I didn't make myself clear. I saw a lot of anon. reviews and for me when I see that many anon. reviews one ofter the other, I feel as if someone might have just reviewed several times, using different names just to get me to update faster. It's not that I don't appreciate them, it's just that I'd like to see the majority of reviews come from actual people. So from now on, more than half the reviews have to come from people logged on for me to update using my system.
1 Review- 1-2 weeks wait
2 Reviews- 6 days-1 week wait
6 Reviews- 2-4 days wait
8 Reviews- 2 days wait
I didn't put a one day update because I'm currently working on chapter 5 and I might need a bit more time to get it as long as I'd like.