It took around twenty days to update this time. It looks like my streak of short update times is over already (to be honest, it never actually existed since I've only had one short update time recently.) Sigh :( But on the bright side, in the past 35 days or so, I've updated three times. That's not bad.
Anyywaaay... Thanks to everyone who has read, followed, favorited or reviewed this story. The three reviews I got for chapter 14 made me happy. (I hope I didn't sound like I was begging for reviews last chapter- because that wasn't the intent. I just wanted to know what people thought. If Fanfiction had a like/dislike feature for specific chapters, I'd have been fine with that. Actually, why doesn't Fanfiction have a thumbs up/thumbs down thing- I mean, it works for youtube so it could work for this website too. Anyway, I digress.)
Okay, so in response to the questions in the reviews: 1) The Duke and his henchmen and the king and queen of Arendelle will all make more appearances later in the story- I haven't forgotten them. 2) As to whether or not Zarina will appear and rescue everyone, well, I can't give it away now, but you'll see.
Admittedly, I did spend a lot of time fiddling with 3d models on Blender (a free animation program). I was looking for more models on the internet, and I got super excited when I found rigged versions of young Anna and Elsa on Deviantart. I thought maybe I could try to make some images of scenes in this story (because sometimes I want to do visual art instead of written stuff, like when I have writer's block)... but then I found out they're in some weird pmd format and I didn't know how to get them to work in Blender. I do have a rigged Tinker Bell model from Kingdom Hearts that I found online that actually works in blender, but the textures are messed up... I also just found a 'kingdom hearts 2' Periwinkle model on deviantart (though it's not really from KH2) but it looks a lot more realistic than any of the others. I also found a Tinker Bell model in pmd but her face doesn't move... when I first typed that paragraph, I hadn't found a Periwinkle model yet. I did finally figure out (only a couple days ago) how to get the models to work in some program called Miku Miku Dance, but I still have to learn how to use that...
So I'm going to try to do some other art for this story, but the cover of this story might be the only art I'll finish for this, since I have to learn MMD and I can't even figure out how to scale things for crying out loud. Since I stink at drawing unless I'm staring at the image I want to draw, and it takes me forever anyway, that's sort of out of the question. Which stinks, because I really enjoyed making the cover because it was for this story. I might manage to do some other art but I'm keeping the cover picture as the cover picture- I won't replace that.
And now, after ¾ of a page of author's notes... on to chapter 15!
"Oh no!" Elsa exclaimed, half moaning and half laughing. The mound of sand in front of Anna and Elsa collapsed into a powdery heap with several clumps of wet sand, the remnants of their "sandman".
"Oh no!" Anna echoed, giggling "There goes Sandy" Although Sandy was a girl's name, the girls hadn't decided on what gender their sandman was, since Sandy didn't even look like a snowman; instead, Sandy simply resembled a large mound of sand.
"This is a lot harder with sand than with snow." Elsa said, looking down at the remnants of Sandy "I guess that's why they're called snowmen, not sandmen." Indeed, building a snowman out of sand was rather tricky.
It had taken the princesses a couple minutes to figure out that they needed to get the sand wet in order to build with it. They'd tried rolling their fist-sized clumps around to make them bigger, the way one would do with snow, but that didn't really work. It didn't help that they didn't have a bucket; ordinarily, Elsa would have tried to make one out of ice with her powers, but she'd promised not to use them. So they had tried to do without one by scooping sand into a large pile and then putting wet sand on it and shaping it like a snowman.
"I'll go prepare some more sand!" Elsa said, hurrying over to the shallow water of the lagoon. She stopped when her bare feet were in the water, and thought briefly about how fun it would be to freeze some of it, or to freeze the sand so it didn't fall apart. But she remembered her promise to Peri, and held her magic in just like she did at home when she was around her parents. She grabbed a fistful of sand, and after scooping up a handful of sand, plunged the sand into the water, making it clump together.
"Elsa! Elsa!" Anna was beside her now, tugging on Elsa's arm. When Elsa turned towards her, Anna asked "Which letter of the alphabet has the most water?" Anna looked at her expectantly, until Elsa replied "I don't know. Which one?" (she did know, actually, since she was the one who first told the joke to Anna, but you weren't supposed to blurt out the punchline to someone else's joke.)
"The C!" Anna squealed, laughing and kicking the lagoon water with her feet. "I have one!" Elsa said as they headed back towards Sandy's remains with the wet sand in her hands. As she carefully placed the clump of sand near Sandy, Elsa asked her little sister "What do you get when you cross a snowman with a shark?"
"A snowshark?" Anna guessed. Elsa shook her head and said "Nope... Frostbite!", before playfully pretending to bite Anna, who had collapsed into a giggling fit. Elsa really liked the last joke, because the frostbite punchline was related to her powers, and because she liked snowmen. Although both jokes were lame by adult standards, they were great for younger kids.
They started playing in the sand again, and Anna announced that she was going to build a fairy house. She piled sand into a mound that was taller than the average fairy. Elsa joined in, and they eventually made an entire "fairy sand village", as Anna named it. Of course, there was no way for a fairy to fit in the "buildings" since they weren't even hollowed out, but both girls were still proud of their creation.
Elsa improved the village by drawing roads in the sand with her finger, trying to imitate the dirt paths she'd seen in the fields of Pixie Hollow. Meanwhile, Anna was attempting to draw herself, Elsa, Tink and Peri in the sand. However, her picture wasn't turning out too great and she ended up just doodling over the stick figures she'd traced in the sand.
Once they'd finished, Elsa said "Being a fairy would be fun, wouldn't it?" Anna agreed, and soon the princesses were running around the beach, laughing and pretending they were fairies. They even pretended to enter some of the buildings they'd made in the sand as they ran about, simply enjoying the exercise. Although flying with Pixie Dust was totally awesome, running around was fun too.
Giggling, they splashed through the water, staying in the extremely shallow part of the lagoon where the water didn't even go up to their ankles. They'd tried going a bit deeper, but running in water was rather tiring, and it was even harder in nightdresses.
Delightedly, they ran back up the beach, leaving wet footprints in the sand. They stopped when they heard a roar come from Kyto's cave. The roar was followed by fairy voices. Elsa paused mid-step as she heard the sound of bells. She opened her mouth to ask Anna what they were saying, but Anna pressed her finger to her lips, and made a shh sound. The five-year-old cocked her head to listen to the fairies, nodding when she was sure she heard the words correctly.
"Find the wand..." Anna said. Elsa glanced at her sister and asked "That's what they just said, right?" Anna nodded and Elsa said "Well, let's go find the wand!"
After an brief silence, Elsa asked "Did they say where it was?" Anna shook her head in the negative, and Elsa said "I thought it was in the cave."
They began to reason the situation out. They knew that the fairies had gone to the cave to get the wand, but since the fairies were telling them to get the wand, then it probably wasn't in the cave anymore. That meant it had to be on the beach or in the lagoon.
"Let's start looking on the beach." Elsa said, beginning to walk around and search the ground with her eyes, as Anna began to dig around in the sand. The girls hadn't actually been told what the wand looked like, so they had to search for it based on their very limited knowledge of wands. Elsa thought back to the fairy tales she read every night before bedtime. The illustrations of wands in the book had looked pretty much indistinguishable from a stick.
That was both a help and a hindrance. It was helpful because it narrowed down their search, but there were many sticks and twigs scattered around, having fallen off the Never-trees at the top of the cliff at some point or another (they often lost branches in thunderstorms since they were high up, and thus easy targets for lightning to strike. But Never-trees don't die when they're struck by lightning, so the roots still served well as bars for Kyto's cage). The princesses realized that the wand could be any one of the sticks,
Whenever she found a stick, Anna would announce "Found one!" and then ask "Is this it?" Elsa would reply- calmly at first, but growing more exasperated- that she knew just as little about wands as Anna. Anna would experimentally wave it around; even though Peri had said that only fairies could use wands, Elsa's and Anna's storybooks said otherwise- lots of people used wands in those, and the characters always seemed to know a wand when they saw one. So even if they couldn't use a wand, they should at least be able to know one when they saw it.
However, all the sticks looked the same, and it was rather hard for them to tell if any of them could be a wand. They guessed that straight sticks were more likely to be a wand than curved ones, but just in case they collected curved ones too. Elsa thought that maybe her magic would sense the magic in the wand, but she wasn't positive- she hadn't sensed anything in any of the sticks- so none of the sticks were discarded.
They ended up with a pile of sticks, and were reminded of when they'd made a fire in the woods a couple days before.
"How do we know which one's the wand?" Anna asked, frustrated, as she waved all the sticks again for good measure. None of them produced any noticeable result. After she'd wave a stick, Anna would pass it to Elsa in the hopes that her magic might have some effect. Once they'd waved every stick in the pile, Anna said "I don't think any of these are the wand."
"Maybe we missed some sticks." Elsa suggested hesitantly; they'd spent almost half an hour scouring the beach for sticks and had only found twenty one. Considering they'd found less than one stick per minute, they didn't think they'd overlooked any.
"Where are you, wand?" Anna called out, as if the wand was going to shout out its location if she asked. She got no response (well, she didn't notice one, but the wand actually had responded). Pouting, she got to her feet and headed towards the water, where she began to roam up and down the shore, glancing around.
But Elsa stayed behind. Something had flashed in her peripheral vision. Probably just the sun brightening a shadow, but Elsa thought she should check it out. She sighed and got up, feeling rather pessimistic about finding the wand. After all, they'd found a lot of sticks, and none of them seemed to be the wand. Maybe her fairy-tale books were wrong. Maybe wands were really rocks.
As she thought about this, Elsa walked towards the base of the cliff, where she'd seen the change. The sun was above the cliff, and just a little bit behind it, so the part of the beach by the cliff was in the shadows.
Elsa stepped on something and rubbed her bare foot to soothe the pain. She glanced at what she'd stepped on. It looked like a twig, only it wasn't made of wood- it was made of metal. She picked up the object, and as she did, a strange sensation spread from it, from her fingertips and expanding until it filled her whole body.
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The air was growing hot as flames inched towards Tink, Peri and Vidia. The three fairies were sweating heavily, and the hot air seemed to drain their energy. The fairies had given up trying to use their talents to escape- whenever they did and Kyto felt their snow or water or wind in his fist, he would shake them violently until they stopped.
They tried to maneuver inside Kyto's fist in order to hold hands- even Vidia, although she wasn't the type to hold hands, or show affection at all. Maybe, Peri thought, Vidia was finally deciding to show how much she cared about others before... Peri didn't even want to think about that. Before they managed to hold hands, before any of them could start getting too sentimental or reflect on their lives, Kyto's flames died down.
To say the fairies were astonished was an understatement- they hadn't even gotten singed, and Kyto never missed an opportunity to crisp something. Relief flooded through them, then suspicion. Something was up, because they knew that it was rather unlikely that he'd had a change of heart.
Kyto bent his neck so his head was level with the floor of the cave, and he stared at the Mirror of Incanta, which he had forgotten about in his rage at the fairies when they were stealing the wand. With surprising tenderness, he picked it up with his giant claws, and held it before his eyes.
"I'll deal with you later." Kyto growled at his fairies in his fist. He grabbed the birdcage that had been in his hoard and threw is captives inside it before locking the birdcage door with a special lock that he could lock or unlock with his claw.
Kyto tossed the birdcage unceremoniously into the farthest depths of his cave, cackling as the fairies screamed. The cage crashed the back wall and fell to the floor and all three fairies were thrown around, along with the fairy skeleton that had already been in there.
Tink's vision swam, and when it cleared she realized that the skeleton was right on top of her and she was staring right at its jaws. She hastily shoved it off of her and brushed herself off, hoping maybe she could erase that memory from her mind if she did. Although she could stomach a lot of things, Tink felt like throwing up. That had once been a living, breathing fairy.
Peri and Vidia both looked green, like they were going to puke, but they also managed to refrain from doing so. This was their chance to at least do something to try to escape, and they were determined to make the most of it. They stood up with some difficulty (since their bodies ached), and glanced at Kyto. He was preoccupied with the Mirror, and was looking the other way. Perfect- although, of course, it would have been nicer if he'd been like that when they had been stealing the wand and not stuck in a birdcage.
They pushed on the part of their cage that was level with their chests, throwing all their weight into it, and the cage rolled the tiniest bit. Then it occurred to them that there was enough room to flutter in midair. They pushed on the cage while hovering, grabbing the bars and shoving them down to make the cage roll. Vidia used her wind to help propel it forward, but only a little bit since they were trying to stay quiet.
Inch by inch, they rolled the cage forward, hoping Kyto wouldn't notice the sound of it rolling on the rock floor or the sickening sound of the skeleton's bones rattling as it tumbled down each time the cage rolled, both of which they were unable to stifle.
After a couple minutes, they reached Kyto, who was at his usual spot in the front of his cage, right by the bars. Kyto was still examining the Mirror and gave no indication that he had noticed the fairies' escape attempt. His huge form was blocking most of the exit, but his tail curled a little bit away from the wall to the right of the fairies. There seemed to be just enough space to sneak around him, only they'd need to maneuver the cage around.
So the three of them shifted to the left side of the cage, by what would ordinarily have been the cage floor if it wasn't tipped over, and began to push. Vidia used her wind again, and used more of it than she had for the past couple minutes. The cage slowly turned to the right and they carefully guided it through the gap between Kyto's bent tail and the wall.
They successfully got around Kyto, and it took all they had not to cheer. Only a couple feet away was the entrance to Kyto's cave-cage, and they were right in front of one of the gaps between the Never-tree-root bars. They just had to roll the cage through the gap and they'd be free! Sure, the fall down to the beach would hurt quite a lot and they'd still be locked in a birdcage, but at least they wouldn't have to worry about being burnt by a murderous dragon.
They rolled the cage towards the bars, but to their horror, it was suddenly jerked backwards. Kyto had grabbed the cage with his tail, and he swung both his tail and neck around in order to look at the fairies eye to eye.
"You actually thought I didn't notice you trying to get away?" Kyto roared with wicked laughter. His laughter died down to a chuckle and he shook his head, saying "Oh, this is just to good. You had your hopes up, thinking you were going to escape from me, and then..." He mimed snatching something out of the air and then pounded his fist into his open claw, cackling again.
The dragon's laughter died down after a bit, which wasn't all to promising for the fairies; but then again, he was dangerous when he laughed, too.
"I do thank you for this mirror. It was most considerate of you to give it to me." Kyto said in an uncharacteristically cordial manner as he gently placed the Mirror of Incanta with the other objects in his hoard. "It almost makes up for the fact that you STOLE FROM MY HOARD!" His cordial manner was gone, replaced with anger.
None of the fairies reacted to what he said. They were too crushed at being captured again. It was almost worse to have even gotten that close to escaping before getting caught again than it would have been to just not have the chance to escape. Because now their hope was being crushed all over again.
"Nighty night." Kyto smiled cruelly before he began to spit out fire. They were pretty much in the same position that they had been in while facing flames before, only this time they were in a birdcage instead of Kyto's fist and he wouldn't be distracted by the Mirror of Incanta. They stood and readied their powers, determined to at least fight him for as long as they could. But in the back of their minds, they knew they'd run out of energy eventually, so it was still very likely that they'd die. But at least they'd die fighting, Tink thought.
"Release them or prepare to beat us!" someone cried out. Tink, Peri and Vidia all spun around, and saw Fawn strike a battle pose to add to what she'd just said. With her were Silvermist, Rosetta, Iridessa, Clank, Bobble, Terence and Zarina, who were all staring at her as if she'd lost her mind. Even Kyto was giving Fawn a weird look.
Fawn noticed everyone staring at her and asked "What?" Then she realized what she'd said and corrected it "I meant 'release them or prepare to get beaten by us'."
"What are you doing here?" Vidia asked. "We're getting you out of this mess you made." Zarina told them.
"Just go while you can! Kyto will crisp you!" Peri called out, but none of them moved. "We're not leaving without you." Rosetta told them, and then said to Peri "I'm so sorry for what I said to you on the mainland, sugar. I won't blame you if you don't forgive me."
Tink had other things on her mind. "Are you crazy?!" She shouted at the group who'd just arrived "If you keep hovering there, you'll be easy targets for Kyto!" Vidia rolled her eyes "Says the fairy whose stuck in a birdcage."
Tink shot her a nasty look and said "Last time I checked, you're stuck in here too."
Getting back to the topic, Tink rounded on the group of fairies who'd just shown up, noticing that they still had their normal talents "You didn't even become water-talents?!" She asked, shocked. "How are we supposed to beat Kyto without water? I mean, what is a dust-talent or a tinker-talent going to do against a dragon?"
Said dragon was simply staring at the fairies. Kyto still held the birdcage with his tail, but he hadn't moved since the fairies arrived. He seemed shocked, as if he hadn't actually processed that they were there yet. Meanwhile, Terence said, looking slightly insulted "We can fight Kyto with our own talents."
"Relax, I've got the water part covered." Silvermist said, forming a wave of water that remained stationary in midair. As she built upon the wave and prepared to send it at Kyto, Silvermist said "See why I should have come along in the first place?"
Kyto snapped out of his stupor and spat fire at Silvermist, but she sent the wave crashing down on the flame, extinguishing it. Kyto roared with rage while the other fairies joined the fight.
"Where's the wand?" Terence called out to Tink. "It's somewhere on the beach!" Tink called back "Elsa and Anna are looking for it." The fairies nodded- that meant that as soon as Tink, Peri and Vidia escaped, they could all leave the cave.
Filled with renewed energy now that their friends were there, Tink, Peri and Vidia all used their talents to attack Kyto, but he swung his tail and smashed the cage into the wall. The cage remained intact, and the three fairies in it were thrown around again.
Once her head cleared, Periwinkle tried to frost Kyto's tail so he couldn't swing it. She wasn't very successful, because he would just melt it with his flame. Kyto tossed the cage into the back of his cave again, not too concerned with the possibility that they could make an escape attempt again.
The cage landed right side up this time, so the three fairies couldn't roll it across the floor like they had before. They couldn't really do much to attack Kyto other than shoot water or ice or wind at him, and that didn't really do much other than annoy him.
Tink stuck her arm through the bars of the birdcage and tried to fit her hand into the lock in order to try to pick it. In order to do so, however, she would have to bend her arm at an impossible angle. When she thought about it, she wasn't sure how far she would've gotten in picking it anyway. After all, she was a water-talent right now, not a tinker-talent, and she'd probably end up accidentally spraying water around the inside of the lock and rusting it. She sighed and pulled her arm back into the cage, and then remembered there were two tinker-talents who weren't stuck in a cage.
"Clank, Bobble!" Tink called out "Can you get this cage open?" The two sparrow-men stopped pelting Kyto with seeds using slingshots they'd made and headed towards the cage. "Sure thing, Miss Bell." They came over and inspected the lock, which could only be unlocked with a dragon's claw.
Peri suggested that they try to open it with one of Kyto's claws, and the other four just gave her an are-you-serious look. "What's wrong with that idea?!" The frost-fairy demanded. "I don't see any other dragon claws around for you to open it with."
"Yeah but what are we supposed to do- go up to Kyto and say 'I hate to bother you, but would you mind unlocking this cage that you put us in in the first place?'" Tink waited for her sister to answer, exasperated.
"Will you two just quit fighting?!" Vidia asked, and the others stared at her. Of all fairies, she should not have been the one to say that. Vidia had been in more arguments than any other fairy. "Honestly, you two are driving me crazy!" Ah, yes. Of course. Everything was about her, wasn't it?
The three fairies in the cage listened to Clank and Bobble debate over how to open the lock. In their typical way, the male tinker-talents spent so much time discussing ideas and shooting at least half of them down that the caged fairies wondered if they even remembered that they were supposed to be trying to get them out of the cage.
While they were waiting, Tink, Peri and Vidia watched the battle between Kyto and the fairies. The other fairies were trying to keep Kyto distracted so Clank and Bobble could get them out of the cage. The fairies were faring pretty well, considering Kyto was a couple hundred times their size.
Rosetta was attempting to wrap Kyto up in vines, and had managed to tie his feet up, but those weren't too important. Currently, she was working on binding his neck, trying to get the vines to attach to separate corners of the room and immobilize his head.
Fawn and Terence weren't using their talents, but they were flying around him, trying to drive him crazy like bugs do to people. He kept trying to knock them out of the air, but they were too quick. Iridessa, meanwhile, was simply using her light-talent to illuminate the cave. Originally, she'd been shining light in Kyto's eyes, but that proved to be more dangerous since he'd blindly spew even more fire than normal. Zarina was flying around and stabbing Kyto with her sword, though it couldn't have hurt him any more than a bee sting would.
A fireball flew over their heads and Clank and Bobble screamed, ducking for cover. The fireball barely missed the cage that Tink, Peri and Vidia were trapped in as it scorched the wall. Silvermist arrived seconds later to extinguish another fireball, saying "Sorry I missed that first one."
Clank and Bobble shakily stood up, and Bobble asked "Miss Bell, could ye make a dragon claw out of ice?" It took the caged fairies a second to figure out he was talking to Peri. Why he called her 'Miss Bell' was anyone's guess, since only Tink had the word bell in her name.
"I can try." Peri replied, wondering why Tink hadn't thought of that, as she stuck her arms through the bars so her hands would be outside the cage. Cupping her hands and concentrating, Peri focused her talent as she began to move her hands. Ice began to form between them, and she eventually molded it into a dragon's claw.
With difficulty, Clank and Bobble lifted the heavy ice claw and stuck it into the lock. The lock sprang open and the fairies exited the cage, ready to finally get out of this cave. The other fairies noticed that Tink, Peri and Vidia were free, which was their cue to get ready to leave.
Of course, they needed to successfully escape. Tink joined Silvermist in extinguishing Kyto's fire with her water-talent. The other fairies went on attacking Kyto, but worked their way around him as they did.
Before the fairies even reached the bars, Kyto gave a huge grin and began to inhale again, pulling the fairies back towards him. "Not this again!" Tink screamed in fury, as Kyto laughed and said "Give up, puny fairies! You can never escape!"
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As Elsa felt the sensation spread through her body, she realized she had been right- she could sense a wand when she saw it. She just instinctively knew that this was a wand. Wand madness began to take its grip on her, and even though she didn't know wands granted wishes, she began to think of things she wanted, just like when Peri had first mentioned the wand.
"Is this it?"
Elsa snapped back into reality. Anna was in front of her, holding up a stick that looked a lot like the once they'd already tried. "Yes it is" said Elsa, before realizing that Anna had been asking about the ordinary stick she was holding.
"I mean, no it's not!" Elsa hastily corrected as Anna waved the stick."This," said Elsa, holding up the real wand "is the wand!"
Anna glanced at it. It was tiny, only two or three inches tall. "That can't be it. It's too small. The wands in our books look bigger."
"Well this is it." Elsa said "Trust me, I can feel it." Anna nodded and said "I wanna hold it! Can I hold it?!"
"No way!" Elsa said, without even thinking. She didn't want to give up the wand, even though she wasn't totally aware of it. It was the wand madness that made her like that.
"Come on," Anna pleaded "You all ready got to hold it. I'll be real careful! Just for a bit? Please?"
"I said no!" Elsa replied, holding the wand out of Anna's reach and backing away. It wasn't even really her talking anymore, it was the wand madness that controlled her words. Ordinarily, Elsa would have let Anna hold it, but under wand madness... "Now go away!"
"Why are you so mean?!" Anna asked tearfully, jumping and trying to grab the wand as Elsa continued to hold it out of her reach. Elsa tried to shove her sister away, and accidentally unleashed some of her magic, leaving an icy hand-print on Anna where she shoved her. Anna collapsed onto the sand, practically in tears.
That was enough to snap Elsa out of her wand madness. She let the wand drop to the ground and rushed to Anna. "Anna! Anna? Are you okay? I'm so sorry!" Elsa hugged her sister and kissed the spot where she'd frosted her. Thankfully, beach was warm and the ice soon melted. Just like she hadn't realized the wand madness enter her, Elsa didn't notice it leave.
"Why were you so mean?" Anna asked, crying now. Elsa hugged her tighter and asked "What did I do?", not really remembering what had happened when she was consumed with wand madness because she'd been unconsciously thinking of wishes.
"You wouldn't let me hold the wand." Anna said, sniffling. "Well, it's over there." Elsa told her, extra-kindly, wondering why she hadn't let Anna hold it. It was a rather mean thing to do, and it wasn't like her at all.
Anna removed herself from her sister's hug and crawled over to the wand. She picked it up, and instantly knew it was the wand, just like Elsa had when she first picked it up. Again, wishes began to fill her head.
"I wish the fairies would get back soon." Anna said (that wish wasn't caused by wand madness, she'd already been thinking it). Unknowingly, she waved the wand.
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Suddenly, the fairies were no longer being pulled backwards. Kyto had apparently lost his breath, something none of them had ever heard of. They didn't know it, but Kyto losing his breath was really the wand's work.
Not wasting their chance to escape, the fairies zipped through the bars of Kyto's cave and flew far away. Kyto regained his breath, but they were too far away to be pulled back by his breath.
"So long, Kyto!" Zarina called over her shoulder as the dragon angrily blew out flame. The others laughed, glad to be free. "You know," Tink said "I'm really glad we managed to get the wand out of the cave already, because I don't think anyone should go back there ever again."
Tink and Peri shot down towards the beach, where Elsa and Anna were. The girls looked up and happily shouted "You're back!"
"We told you we would be, right?" Peri asked, flying up to hug Anna, while Tink briefly landed on Elsa's shoulder. Both Elsa and Anna nodded; Elsa got the general idea, even though she still just heard bells, because it was the most reasonable response.
"We found the wand." Anna said, pointing to where she'd dropped it upon seeing the fairies' return. "But at first we thought the wand was a stick, and we found a ton of those but none of them felt like a wand. And then we found this one, and we know it's the wand because it feels different. It feels like magic, even though it's small and metal."
The fairies listened to Anna ramble on about their search for the wand. Tink and Peri were right by Anna and Elsa, but the other fairies hung back, sensing that the moment Peri used the wand would be private.
Tink glanced at her sister, who was simply staring at the wand.
This was it, Peri thought. She'd finally get rid of her talent-problem, the bane of her life. She'd never have to worry about losing her powers, and she'd be able to use them whenever she wanted, even if Elsa was using them. She'd no longer have to worry about Elsa eventually controlling all the powers and her being left with nothing.
With shaking hands, Peri reached out to take the wand, but Tink stopped her. "Maybe it's best if you get your hands to stop shaking first." Tink said gently, and Peri nodded. If her hands shook, she could unintentionally wave the wand and it could misinterpret her wish.
Okay, pull yourself together, Peri told herself Why are your hands shaking in the first place? Stop being so jittery! This is supposed to be happy, not scary! You're finally going to have a complete talent.
Peri calmed down, and her hands stopped shaking. Gingerly, she reached out and picked up the wand from the sand. Instantly, the same sensation entered her, and she had to fight it down, not wanting to be bombarded with ideas for other wishes.
Tink placed her hand on Peri's shoulder, which helped her fight off the wand madness. Peri closed her eyes and whispered the wish she'd had for so long, which she had carefully worded over the last couple days.
"Without taking anything away from Elsa or me, or our talents, make me able to use my talent at the same time Elsa uses her talent. Make my talent unaffected by Elsa's, so that mine won't grow weaker if Elsa's grow stronger, or the other way around."
She waved the wand. Peri opened her eyes, rather surprised to notice that she didn't feel any different. She thought she would have felt something.
Well, there was one way to find out. She looked over at Elsa and asked "Can you use your magic? I want to see if our powers work at the same time." Anna translated this for Elsa, who focused and began to form a snowball in midair.
Peri hovered so she was right in front of Elsa. She closed her eyes, took a couple deep breaths, and readied her talent.
So, will it work? You'll have to wait until next chapter to see. Also, Anna and Elsa appear to be getting wand madness, even though the fairies actually lied to them in order to prevent it. What could they wish for? (that was a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm not taking suggestions since I have it all planned out). Oh yeah, the wand did respond to Anna when she asked where it was- it flashed and Elsa saw it. I'm not sure if it was clear in the chapter that the flash came from the wand. I imagined that Anna was facing the other way.
So, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm not sure if it has as much action as I intended- actually, I guess it had action, just not much fighting action. I've discovered I'm not that great at writing battle scenes. I'm not sure why I put the fairy skeleton in this chapter and last one. I mean, it does add to the creepiness of Kyto's cave, but I wonder if that makes me messed up as a writer, because it's kind of morbid. Well, I can assure you I'm not sadistic.
Oh, yeah. I was at the beach for part of the time when I was writing this chapter, and I tried making a snowman out of sand- I was about as successful as Elsa and Anna. Though there's a live-action version of "In Summer" on youtube, and whoever made that video managed to make sandmen.
Also, I had to google "jokes about the ocean for kids" or something like that, in order to get the jokes I used in this chapter. It was kind of funny, because after I did that, I was reading the fanfic "The sky is awake" by simplesnowflake, and the 'which letter of the alphabet as the most water' joke was used in that fanfic. And I was like "Whoa- that's kind of creepy." Because of all the jokes in the world, both of us used one of the ones I'd found on the internet to use in this story. Yeah, I thought that was kind of funny.
Okay, this is totally random, but was I the only person who didn't know that Elsa and Zarina were real names until recently? Because at first I thought Disney had just made them up, which is sort of awkward.
So realistically, Elsa would be picking up the fairy language because she's been hearing it for days, but in my mind, she's not. I mean, she can interpret things by what's going on, and can even start hearing emotions in the bells (I know I said she couldn't, earlier), but I'm not sure exactly how much she'd be able to really understand. Even with Anna as a translator. Because fairy bells sound sort of the same, and they're super-fast, so it would probably be even harder than trying to understand a Wookiee (I don't get how Han Solo understands Chewbacca, because he seems to speak whole sentences with a roar).
School starts really soon. Bleagh. That means that I'll have fewer chances to update. It's kind of odd, because I started this story in the middle of last school year and it didn't take me long to update. Then again, I had shorter chapters back then.
My goal is to update twice a month, though I'm not sure how likely that is, especially if I'm trying to make pictures of the four main characters on Miku Miku Dance.
Wait, I should be optimistic. Okay. I can update twice each month even with school.
I hope.
Well, see you in September. Twice, if all goes well.