— The Earth's thermosphere —
As the pot continued soaring in the air, the seven Rainbow Fairies, having managed to fully recover from the deadly storm that whisked them off Fairyland in the time it took for the pot to fully beach the boundaries of the magical realm via the rainbow that bridged the two worlds before it faded away due to the curse on Fairyland, were now floating through outer space, heading towards Earth. Any dangers that they could've been subjected to, such as suffocation and burning up, was protected by a magical spell perfected over time to make magical beings such as fairies resistant to human physics.
"It's beautiful…" Fern said, gazing in awe at the many bright stars which dotted the sky.
"So this is what the mortal world looks like," Ruby added, also having flown up to the pot's edge to see the beauty of space.
"What's wrong, Ruby? You feel like you've seen this before."
"Well, having grown up close to the royal family, they liked to tell me stories of how they used to send expedition groups into the mortal world," Ruby explained to Fern. "Oddly, they told me that they stopped quite a long time ago, but they never said why."
"Mmm…. Mortal world?" Sky had just woken up from her slumber, having been one of the four fairies to fall asleep to pass the time they were in the pot. The other three were Amber, Izzy and Heather, the latter two having fallen asleep right on top of each other. How cute. "Are we in the mortal world?"
"Yes we are, sister," Ruby replied. "Fly out and see for yourself."
"O-okay. I wondered why the pot was moving so slowly all of a sudden," Sky said, and she got up fully, using her wings to fly to the rim of the pot like Ruby and Fern did.
When she did, she was able to get a good look of the stars of outer space, and was beyond stunned.
"Wooooow. It's… it's amazing!" She exclaimed. "I've always wondered what it looked like, and it's far more beautiful than I ever imagined!"
"Is it really though?" Saffron spoke up, sceptical of their awe. "Why are you so amazed at all these stars in the dark like we don't see them every night?"
"It's because we're actually in the sky this time, when normally we just see it from the ground," Fern responded. "That's what makes it so thrilling."
"Like we weren't brutally trapped in a tornado forced to fight for our lives before this whole space-travel," Saffron grudgingly said.
"Oh, But there's no need to be so sad about it," Fern said, trying to comfort Saffron. "Soon, we'll land on a mortal planet and get rescued by the King and Queen easily!"
"I would agree with Fern, but unfortunately, we must be wary," Ruby added, wanting to bring her own concerns in. "Jack Frost's ferocity and rage might make it so that he would send his troops to thwart their attempts to save us."
"Mhm, that's true," Fern complied. "But that doesn't mean they can easily be stopped."
"Hopefully," Ruby added. "And judging by the descriptions the royal family gave me about the mortal world, they don't seem like they would be able to get in their way either."
But before Ruby could continue, Sky piped in from afar, still leaning on the pot's edge. "Sister, can you come with me, please? I spotted something strange."
"Of course, I'll be there," Ruby said, and she flew to where Sky was, leaving Saffron and Fern to converse for themselves.
"So what is it that you spotted?"
"Something we've never seen before," Sky pointed towards what she saw. Once Ruby saw it, she soon found herself in a mixture of awe and curiosity, much like her younger sister.
It was a rather strange and alien creature, one that had never been seen before in the entirety of the magical realm. The creature appeared to be some sort of winged beast, with a white, circular body that had a metallic tint to it and blue, rectangular wings that were attached to the body by grey sticks. Its head appeared to be a grey dish - an unnatural head, compared to the dragons and bugs they have seen so many times - with several lines sticking out of it and connecting near the middle.
"You're right, sister," Ruby said. "It is strange."
But while the creature appeared foreign to the fairies, to the inhabitants of the mortal world, the humans, it was not a strange creature at all. In fact, it was not even a creature. It was something the humans made with their very own hands - a communication satellite - used to create radio signals for their own applications. Applications the fairies have never seen before due to the very-long time skip between their last visits and now.
It was an indirect message that the human world had, in fact, changed a lot from the Middle Ages.
"Wait, what's going on?" Saffron said, fluttering over to where Sky and Ruby were with Fern.
"We're seeing something very unnatural," Ruby explained. "It appears to be some kind of weird winged creature."
"What's it doing?" Fern asked.
"I think it's sleeping," Sky replied, looking at the satellite's slow orbit. "Best not to wake it up."
"I don't think it's a creature, though," Saffron said. "It looks more like an object."
"You're right," Ruby responded. "It does look like an object. I don't see any eyes or a mouth like all other animals have."
"So why is it there? What's its purpose?" Sky said. "If it's an object, then who made-"
"Everyone, look! There's more of these things!" Fern interrupted, now having moved to an opposite side of the pot. The other three awake fairies fluttered to see what Fern was on, and indeed, there were several satellites in the deep black of space, also orbiting Earth, all in different shapes and sizes.
"Oh my god," Saffron exclaimed. "They really are everywhere!"
Sky was the next to speak up. "So, judging by the fact that there are hundreds of these things and they're all orbiting planets, what do you think created them? There's no way they could come naturally."
"Hmmm, I'm still thinking about it," Saffron said. "I know quite a lot of things, but I've never seen these floating objects in Fairyland before, let alone anywhere in the whole magical realm."
Soon, Ruby joined in once again, having come to her own conclusion observing them silently and wanting to share it with the others. "What if they were man-made?"
Saffron, Fern and Sky looked in confusion. "What? There's no way I could imagine the mortals building these things, let alone so many of them!" Sky said in disbelief.
"I know it is a rather absurd thing to consider, but it is the only possible conclusion I could think of," Ruby continued. "Saffron said it herself: we have never seen these objects anywhere in the magical realm."
"But if these were made by humans, then how were they able to make them?" Sky then questioned. "And why did they need to make them?"
However, before Sky could ask any more questions and the others could answer them, the pot started moving faster and faster, distracting them. Ruby and Sky looked to the other edge of the pot, the one closest to the direction it was taking, and saw that planet Earth, the planet that was for so long just a small dot, was getting larger and larger until they could see the landmasses below the clouds in it. The landmasses where its inhabitants - the humans - resided.
If the sighting of all those satellites weren't an indication that they were now in Earth's atmosphere and orbit, then this certainly was. As they went into the mesosphere, they could see their destination come closer into view.
"Where are we landing?" Saffron spoke up, confused as she felt the pot moving faster and faster.
Ruby flew close to the pot's edge as she could without flying out. Between the clouds and the extreme heat, she was able to see where the pot-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow would end up.
"Rainspell Island," Ruby replied. "We are landing on Rainspell Island."
Rainspell Island is the name of an island roughly the same size as the Isle of Wight located off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom, more specifically in the northeastern coast of England 50 kilometres away from the coast of County Durham in the North Sea. Having been under the control of England and subsequently the UK ever since they discovered it in 1278, the island is administered as a non-metropolitan county, and its culture and people are thoroughly integrated into England's.
Today, the island is a major tourist attraction, one of the most visited places in the UK, and the most visited place in England outside of Greater London. Reasons vary, whether it be its picturesque beaches, cliffs and fields, the rainbow which tends to always appear even when it wasn't sunny or raining at the same time, or just that quiet, nostalgic feel that made tourists feel like they were in primary school again. Of course, many who went there constantly left reviews that said that the place felt like something out of a fairytale, at least the non-urban parts.
That was because, unaware to the humans, Rainspell Island never had any natural formation like the other islands in the world, but was created to serve as the gateway between the Earth and Fairyland, hence the perpetual rainbow. Every time the fairies would explore the human world, they always ended up landing in Rainspell Island before sending explorations to the surrounding lands. Only the fairies used this method of exploring the human world, as the other magical beings had their own ways.
And now, Queen Titania's pot was sending the Rainbow Fairies there to make sure the rescue groups would find them easily and return them to Fairyland without any major trouble.
The minute the news broke of where they were going to land, Fern immediately went into an enthusiastic frenzy. "Rainspell Island? Finally, we're landing!"
"Yeah, we need to wake everyone up for this," Saffron said. "This pot has been slow for way too long."
"Okay!" Sky said reluctantly, and soon, Fern and Sky got to waking up Amber, Izzy and Heather, albeit Fern did most of the work since Sky didn't want to disturb their peaceful sleep.
"Amber! Izzy! Heather! Wake up, we're almost about to land in the mortal world!" Fern shouted respectfully, full of cheer.
"Uurgghhh…. We're landing?" Amber was the first to wake up. "Sweet! I'm tired of being cramped up in this pot!"
"Finally, it's sooo boring here. Hopefully it's a smooth landing…" Izzy got up next, clearly disgruntled by the rude awakening.
"…just a few more minutes?" Heather was the last to wake up, yawning just before she did.
"But Heather, we're finally landing on the mortal world! Wouldn't you want to see it?" Sky said, trying to convince Heather into waking up.
"Mortal world? Yeah! I've always wanted to see what it looks like!" Heather replied, having been successfully convinced to get up.
"Well, seems like everyone is up and awake," Ruby said, hands crossed. "You all need to hold on to the pot very tightly, because from what I'm seeing, it's not going to be easy."
"Come on, we caneasilydo that," Izzy snarked. "Besides, the Queen probably put some spell to make sure we'll leave it alright."
"Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it," Sky said, quite worried. "What if she didn't?"
"Well, there's a reason she summoned this pot," Fern responded.
"I guess so," Sky said in return.
While the Rainbow Fairies were chatting, Saffron was with Ruby and Heather on the other side of the pot looking out to see if they were landing, flying closer to the pots' edge to get a look.
"Well, it looks like we're more-or-less going to land at any moment," she confirmed, still perched on the edge.
"Good," Ruby calmly replied. "This exile will be a lot shorter than we thought it would."
"Hang on a second…" Saffron suddenly said, confused and trying to look out.
"What is it?" Ruby asked curiously.
"I see something in the air… looks like some kind of dragon," Saffron replied.
— 29th May 2005, Somewhere above the North Sea —
Deep in the troposphere of the Earth was a lone Panavia Tornado F3 fighter jet, doing its usual routine of drifting through the air of the North Sea. That fighter jet belonged to the Royal Air Force, with the job of patrolling and defending the UK's airspace. Nothing unusual came around in their daily routine, something that started to bore the pilot in its cockpit, an ordinary airman named Charlie Gibbons.
"This is getting boring…." He grumbled beneath his flight helmet. "We're wasting so much fuel just flying this jet around the sea instead of something useful."
However, he would be proven wrong when he saw what appeared to be a meteorite entering the Earth. This was a weird meteor, it was black and circular in shape, when normally meteors were rocky. Regardless, it was still heading towards Rainspell Island, one of the most idyllic places in England.
No no no, he couldn't let that happen! If it did, it would at best destroy the island and cause massive chaos in his country! He took his family there for their summer holiday, he wouldn't let it be destroyed! However, he still had to obey orders from his superiors lest he be seen as a rebellious lunatic by the rest of the army.
"Sir, this is Pilot Gibbons reporting from the North Sea. I've just spotted an unidentified object heading towards Rainspell Island. What are your orders?" He spoke through the radio communication systems.
"We know. Our satellites picked up on the object before you saw it," his captain replied from the ground. "To make sure it doesn't cause harm, we suggest firing a missile to ensure that it is diverted off course into the ocean."
"Roger," was all Charlie said, before he ended the call and fired a missile from the jet.
"A dragon? This is the mortal world we're talking about, why would they have dragons?" Sky asked, sceptical of what Saffron said.
"Yeah, I'm not so sure either. It doesn't even look like a dragon!" Saffron replied, also confused. "It has no arms and legs, just a body, wings and a very deformed head! If anything, it looks like a huge bird!"
"Is that true? Has the mortal world domesticated these mythical creatures?" Fern joined in, curious about what Saffron just said.
"Na-naw, I can't just believe that!" Izzy was the next to speak up. "From what Red and Blue said, they still lived in old wooden houses! There's no way they could possibly be able to tame them!"
"As much as I would like to believe it, the others are right, Saffron. There have never been any sightings of magical creatures in the mortal world," Ruby added next, pointing a finger up to emphasise their point.
"Sooo… what is that thing?" Saffron asked, now more curious than before.
"Let's see… the humans aren't capable of taming large birds or dragons, so they must've escaped from the magical world, right?" Amber said, trying to make sense of what Saffron spotted.
"They had a silver colour. I'm pretty sure we've never seen a silver bird or dragon ever in our lives, and once again, they were never anywhere in the magical realm," Saffron replied. "They don't look natural, either."
"Then they must be man-made," Ruby concluded.
"What?!" The other fairies save for Heather gasped once more in confusion.
"It's the only conclusion I could get. From the strange things in outer space, to the flying thing Saffron described, I have a feeling man has changed significantly since the last time we met."
"But, how would they be able to build these? There's no way they could get the resources needed!" Sky asked, once again in disbelief.
Heather then stepped in to support Ruby's claims, the last one to join the conversation. "Think about it. If Ruby really was correct about what Titania and Oberon told her, then we haven't met the mortal world for a long, long, long time. It would give them enough years to make these inventions."
"Agreed," Ruby added. "Oberon said they explored the mortal world when they were children. To think it was that long ago in Fairyland's time, the mortals would have long developed as of now."
"That… sounds plausible, actually," Saffron said, feeling relieved that there was a believable explanation for all these strange things in the mortal world. "Perhaps man has changed in ways we haven't seen before."
But before they could continue speaking, a pop sound was heard from the beast's direction, and a strange fizzing sound that grew louder as time passed.
"What was that?" Sky was curious about the sound.
"I'm wondering too. It sounds like it's coming from the man-made object," Fern added.
"I'll go and see-"
"Actually, I will check, Saffron. There might be a danger ahead," Ruby said, afraid of a potential attack.
As she flew up to the rim of the pot again, she could see a trail of smoke from one of the silver thing's wings. It was reminiscent of a dragon's fire breath, or…
"Oh dear," Ruby said in horror. "I think it fired something towards us."
Saffron was curious and afraid of what it was. "What was it?"
But before any of the Rainbow Fairies could do anything, the projectile finally hit the pot.
And it exploded.
A massive ball of fire rocked one side of the pot, flames burning through the metal in its rim as large chunks of it were flying away in smoking fireballs. But they weren't the only things flying out of the pot. From the sheer catastrophic blow of the missile and the gaping hole made by it, the pot had overturned from its normally static position with its lid facing the sky, turning to its side. And from that attack, the Rainbow Fairies had started falling out of the pot, whether it was from the blast or the change in direction. And it felt so much more painful and terrifying than being trapped in an icy tornado hurled away from home.
"AAAH! HELP! I'M BURNING!" Izzy screamed, clutching the burning parts of her clothes as she was flung away.
"NO! NO NO NO NO NO!" Heather desperately dived after Izzy, frantically trying to protect the Indigo Fairy from the flames only to fall out as well.
"HEEELP!" Amber cried in agony and fear she had never felt before in her life as she spilled out of the pot, flames burning at her wings and clothes.
"PLEASE, WHY!?" Fern asked anguished, tears sobbing as she was the furthest to fall from the pot, curled up in a foetal position to protect herself from any more injury.
These agonised screams and crying continued as the pot overturned and 4 of the fairies continued falling out. Soon, they were gone from view, and Ruby, Saffron and Sky were the only ones still desperately clinging to the flaming, broken spot as it spun through the air.
"No, no, no, this isn't good at all! What did we ever do to that thing?" Sky said, shaking in fear and anguish as she clung to the rim of the pot.
"I-I don't know! I don't know…." Ruby said, being the only one still within the interior of the pot as it tumbled through the air, holding on for dear life; she was closer to Sky near the rim.
"I d-don't know either," Saffron added, being opposite of Sky near the rim, "I think we should c-continue holding the pot until it reaches the land."
"B-but how are the rescue teams going to find the other four?" Sky asked, worried. "We can't see them anymore!"
"Sky has a point," Ruby said, desperately trying to reach her younger sister's hands. "Amber, Fern, Izzy and Heather have been blasted off with no idea where they are!"
"I thought this would be easy," Sky said in sorrow as tears started rolling down her cheeks, "Why did this happen?"
"Don't worry Sky! W-we can still survive this!" Saffron said, trying to cheer her up.
"Does it matter?" Sky replied, the sorrow having taken over her mind. "Only three of us are still in the pot. For all we know, the other four of us might've died in the wind!" Tears flew off her face in the wind with her curly hair.
"D-don't worry," Ruby said, also trying to comfort her sister. "They're probably also somewhere on Rainspell island, trapped, confused, but still alive. Oberon and Titania will find them eventually, and even if it might be tough, we'll still be back to Fairyland eventually!"
"But what if they aren't?" Sky asked, still afraid.
"Trust me, they will survive," Ruby replied, a warm smile on her face. "At least you're still here."
"Th-thank you…" Sky softly said, tears still on her face but a similarly warm smile replacing her afraid expression.
"Now take my hand and get back inside. If I couldn't save the others, at least I can save you two," Ruby then said, outstretching her hand out for Sky to grab.
"O-okay!" Sky replied, trying to resist her fears and release her left hand from the rim of the pot to hold Ruby's.
But before they could put them together, they were interrupted by Saffron shouting in alert. "EVERYONE WATCH OUT!" She shouted, pointing towards the air.
"Wha- OH NO!" Ruby screamed in horror.
Before they could do anything else, the jet's wing made contact with the pot at the part of the rim Saffron and Sky were holding on to. Saffron's hands were burned by the feeling and she was sent tumbling through the air screaming. Sky got it even worse, all the air knocked out of her in a sharp blow as the wing collided with her waist and pulled her away.
"NO!" Ruby shouted in anguish, seeing her only remaining associates ripped away from her, leaving her alone in the damaged pot. "No…"
The impact of the jet wing had caused the pot to spin even quicker than after it was bombed, and the grief-stricken Ruby was left desperately clinging to the pot, gnashing her teeth as tears streamed down her face in pure despair and pain. For the first time, she was separated from her 6 sisters-in-arms after being with each other for most of their adult lives. What especially hurt her was the fact that her literal sister, who she spent virtually her entire life with, and was the closest fairy she ever had, was gone, literally pushed away from her sight. And from what Ruby could see, it was a very painful ordeal.
She continued clinging to the pot's inside, but she wondered why she still did that when all of her sisters were separated from each other, possibly to places the fairies either never even knew existed in the mortal world, or, judging by the foreign things that were all but artificially made, changed beyond recognition by the sands of time and human innovation; she was the only one left in the pot they would search first. Rescuing them was a lost cause now. She just wanted the flames on the other side of the pot to spread to her side and burn her alive at this point.
But they didn't. And so she was left to cry as the pot breached the troposphere and eventually crash-landed in Rainspell Island.
"Wh-what is this place?!" Amber thought, having hidden herself inside a scallop shell to protect herself from any further harm. After having been bombed by the silver thing, she ended up falling head first into the glass window of a giant metal carriage (a car). While it managed to put out the flames she got from being blasted out of the pot, it still got several cuts and gashes all over her waist. In desperation, she had to wriggle herself out of the glass, getting more cuts in the process, then tried to fly away as much as she could, injured but still trying to prevent the humans from seeing. When she became too weak to even fly, she fell to the ground rather harshly, but at that point she was above a beach, so the soft sands comforted her peacefully.
Now here she was, trying to recover in this shell. She had been repeatedly using her magic wand, which had somehow managed to stay with her throughout her ordeal, to heal the wounds she attained, but they weren't working for some reason. She never considered it was because she didn't pull the glass shards out of them, and so she rested, believing she somehow lost her magic powers. As she laid in the pot, she wondered what that metal carriage was, and how humans were able to find and use its material.
"Urgghhh…. Come on, come on!"
While Amber was in a safe spot, Saffron very much wasn't. After being knocked off the pot by the jet's wing, she fell directly into a steel tower with strings connecting it to other steel towers. She couldn't even recover her fingers fully before she fell into the strings.
And it hurt.
It felt like Saffron was being struck by lightning, her nerves fried by the electric shocks from the strings' open tears, her skin burning as she was further tangled up in the broken string. From the tears, she could see brown metal still producing sparks, causing her to conclude that this was something man had made.
But how? How was it possible that the mortal world could harness the power of thunder? For a long time, she thought thunder was a natural element, only ever seen in lightning strikes and thunderstorms. Storm the Lightning Fairy was the only person she ever knew could control those lightning strikes. Saffron had the feeling she'd be pretty pissed upon realising the inhabitants of the mortal world managed to do something she's always prided herself on if she told her about her experience in the human world once she came back.
But as much as she liked doing that, wondering wasn't her main concern right now. It was surviving. She was just electrocuted, tangled in wires that restrained her wings and limbs and were still giving slight shocks to her and still smarting from the feeling of sharp steel to her hands, suspended sideways high above the ground. Looking at her surroundings, there were more strings above her and several strings below her, and lots of trees and grass. If she cut herself out now, she would've been fried even more by the electric strings and later turned into bloody paste in the ground. And she was too weak to use her wings.
"Guess I'll have to stay here, trapped…" she sighed in resignation.
"Sixty-One, Sixty-Two, Sixty-Three, Sixty-Four, Sixty-Five…" Fern had resorted to counting the motes of soil to keep herself busy in this cave. Ever since she was blasted off the pot-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow, she had desperately tried to use her wings to get control of herself and survive, only to completely fail at doing so and get trapped in a ditch in the grassy floor of Rainspell Island. It wasn't long before she pulled through and landed into where she was now. It was painful and very rough, but at least she was safe from any further harm.
But it started to bore her out how little she could do, not even interact with plants. Hence why she was counting soil to spend the time. However, there were several ants in the cave that were willing to interact with Fern, being responsible for giving her the food needed for her to survive. Leaves didn't taste that well, but Fern still ate them with hope, believing that the Fairies would find her and bring her back to Fairyland in no time.
"Ninety-Five, Ninety Six… no wait, I already counted that one. Ninety-Six, Ninety-Seven…"
Out of all the Rainbow Fairies, Sky had the worst ordeal. Pushed off the pot by the sharp blow of the dragon's wing, she couldn't even react before all the air was knocked off her by a swipe that would've cut her in half. When the stinging pain subsided, Sky was able to see what exactly pushed her off.
It was a grey plain… she had never seen something so dull and sharp before in her life. Never in childhood, never in the palace, never anywhere in the magical kingdom. How could something be so grey and dark?
Touching on it made her skin burn from the coldness. It was so hard and cold, only Jack Frost would be able to conjure something like this. No, he couldn't, ice was blue and see-through, and if punched strong enough it could break! If it wasn't ice, then what was it?
Oh right. Cold steel. Sky had come to this realisation once she was firmly on top of the wing instead of grappling to its side, on all fours due to the sheer wind and how weak she was. The thing that burned their pot and abducted her from her friends was not a dragon at all. It was a strange metal thing she could never comprehend. She crawled slower to the front of the thing, near the glassy surface on the top of its "head", where she could see a blue circle with a white one inside and a red dot inside that circle, etched on its side.
And inside that glass dome was… a person?
Sky's mind was even further broken by this. How could someone be inside this thing? Yet at the same time, it made sense. If this thing was created by man, it could explain why it looked so metal, and why it breathed fire from its wings.
But before she could get more information about the thing that attacked the pot, it spun, doing a 360 in the air. Sky couldn't get to adapt to this sudden movement, and she was flung off, going dizzy from constantly spinning in the air. She felt the urge to vomit. As she spun through the air, she went through the clouds, the dizziness continuing to ravage her.
Eventually, she could see the rocky coastline of Rainspell Island quite well, and some comfort could be taken in with the fact that she would make it to a place in the human world known by fairies. However, when she found herself getting closer and closer to the cliffs, she immediately realised that it was going to be very painful. Still reeling from being hit by the jet, she used what little magic she had left to make sure she wouldn't risk any more pain.
Keep me from the rocks that would bring me my fate,
Protect me in a bubble none will penetrate!
Before long, Sky was encased in a bubble that was transparent enough to see from, but opaque enough to ensure her safety. With a sparkle, it bounced off the rocky cliffs that would have otherwise crushed her, before bouncing off the sand of the beach and right into a tide pool.
"At least I'm safe here," Sky thought. "I really need to recover from everything…"
In a more…. interesting fate compared to the others, Izzy had not found herself anywhere near grass, but instead fell into the building of what appeared to be a book shop, before falling into a display of a nutcracker book and then into that world the book contained. She was easily able to satisfy the sugar plum fairy by picking jellybeans for them before leaving, and soon she found herself in the bookstore, seeing that there was no one around. She took this as an advantage to fly out into the open, heading for the door, but only when the alarms started blaring and a shocked scream rang the air did she realise the cashier was still there, preparing for tidy up. She used her magic to transform herself into a human, but at this point everything was taped by the security cameras, and there was no use explaining.
Now here she was, locked up in the only Prison in Rainspell Island's largest town for "trespassing", when really it was that and covering up the fairies' existence. She was certainly their most irritating prisoner, always chatting with and attempting to bribe the cops who would visit her cell branch.
"Hey you, what's your favourite song?" Izzy said, getting the attention of a cop who came to inspect their branch.
"Why do you wanna know?" Richard Jenkins responded in annoyance. "We're cops, we don't talk about that stuff here."
"Well, everyone has some interests," Izzy continued. "It'd be very boring if all you did was lock up a bunch of guys!"
Richard finally caved in, finally unable to take in these questions. He sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you."
"It's country music. When I grew up, it was in the farms of America where my pa used to sing old folk songs while he was workin'. Eventually I moved here to start anew amidst the struggle at home, but it's still one of my fondest memories in that time."
"Huh. That was surprisingly heartfelt," Izzy said. "Never knew you lived in the country. Besides, what's America?"
"I don't think you fairies will understand." Richard replied. "This is probably your first time on this planet, right?"
"Suppose so," Izzy said in return, shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe America is probably some really cool place!"
Richard smirked at that thought.
"Anyways, when am I gonna leave?" Izzy then said, her detached nature making way for a slightly more serious demeanour as she clutched onto the bars of her cell. "I have a family like you, and I want to see them again!"
"Sorry, but my boss said we're gonna have to keep you here. We clearly can't afford to keep paranormal stuff like you lurking around Earth."
"Well, that sucks," Izzy begrudgingly said. "Just, you can't go to help when your station gets attacked."
"Right, like that's ever going to happen," Richard sarcastically said before walking away and leaving the cell branch, leaving Izzy alone with the criminals also locked up in the branch.
"Man, those guys are assholes," Izzy thought.
Like Izzy, Heather ended up in a town. Unlike Izzy (and luckily for her), Heather didn't get caught by the humans. She eventually had to hide in a nearby fair, fusing herself in one of the portraits to ensure she would never be spotted. From what she could see, the humans had become much more technologically advanced than what the King and Queen would say of them, using metal carriages to transport themselves and holding metal boxes that they used for lots of things.
How long had it passed for them to master the power or metal and electricity? How long had it been for their clothing to be radically different from before? This wasn't what she heard of the mortal world when Ruby told her stories of the fairies' expeditions to the area. This was… different. Like a whole other world.
But it wasn't time for her to marvel at humanity. Her life and safety was on the line. They had somehow managed to own creatures capable of doing great harm to them, harness powerful elements such as electricity, fire and wind to their will, and invent devices and utilities that had purposes incomprehensible to Heather's eye. And now they were hunting her and her fairies down, having separated her from the companions she had long been living with for most of her life.
"They wouldn't bother searching for the paintings in a funfair," Heather thought. "I'm safe here. When can I get out to reunite with the others, though? And more importantly, where have the others gone?"
It didn't take long for the pot-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow to crash into Rainspell Island after that encounter with the fighter jet, tumbling and smoking as it did. When it did land, it did a rough one in the clearing in the centre of the Island's forests, kicking up mud and grass everywhere that put out the flames on the side. It had also landed on its lid, trapping its sole occupant inside and unable to escape had there not been a huge hole in the lid from where the missile struck it.
Still recovering from the rough fall, Ruby got up to see her surroundings. Seeing nothing but pitch black save for a small crack of light, it didn't take long for her to realise that she was effectively trapped in the pot. To combat this, she soon pulled out her wand, which had luckily stayed with her the whole journey, and decided to summon a light so she could see.
All that came out was a small flame that quickly put itself out. She attempted to use more magic to make a bigger one, but the wand just worked before. I was able to make fireballs with this!
"I wonder if my sisters-in-law are suffering from this problem…" Ruby thought to herself, but the mere mention of her scattered sisters caused her to slump down to the grass floor in despair. "Oh no… oh dear, my sisters… where have my sisters gone?"
She ended up laying on the floor, hopelessly trapped in the near-darkness of the pot as she put her hands to her face, tears welling up in her eyes and streaming to the floor, sinking into the mud around her. The despair and pain was too much for the leader of the Rainbow Fairies to bear.
"Why did I let this happen? Why did I let ALL OF THIS happen?! We're all gone, forever lost in this world, and I let it all happen! It's all my fault, it's all my fault!" As she wallowed in her misery, it didn't take long for her to hit the ground in frustration, crying as she did so.
And soon she couldn't even do that as she curled up in a ball, sobbing in pure guilt and sorrow. "It's all my fault…"