One second we were falling but the next we were standing in a forest clearing like nothing ever happened in the first place. I looked around in confusion, did the portal work?

I flinched at a sudden bright light that appeared in front of me. I had to cover my eyes with my hands and close my eyes it was that bright.

"Are you okay Vaden?" Beatrice's voice asked making me drop my arms and open my eyes in surprise. The light had vanished and in its place was Beatrice with a soft smile.

"Ah, yeah I'm fine. Where's Ash?" I asked looking around again when I realised the witch was no longer beside me.

"I-I'm over here." Someone groaned behind I bunch of bushes.

Beatrice and I went over to where the voice was to find Ashwini on her knees holding her stomach leaning over a puddle of vomit.

"I'm never doing that again." Ashwini groaned again while falling back onto her backside on the ground.

"Are you okay?" I asked worriedly kneeling beside her.

" She'll be fine in a moment. The portal jump only effects a few people making them feel sick and dizzy, but it'll quickly leave in a matter of moments." Georgia's voice answered me.

I looked over my shoulder and gasped in surprise. It was definitely Georgia but her hair had grown to right down to the back of her thighs and was a deep blue like the darkening sky before night. Her eyes were also a bright sparkling blue. What amazed me even more than the change of hair colour were the astonishing set of blue and black butterfly wings that extended out of her back.

"Woah!" I exclaimed without meaning to.

Georgia giggled softly and with a nonchalant hand pushed her long hair back over her shoulder making me realise that she was wearing midnight blue robes that wrapped around her small body. When did she change? Anyway, it doesn't matter, she's a bloody fairy!

"You should get used to it now before we get to the capital, you might insult someone with your staring." Georgia smiled at me making me blush when I realised I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

"I'm sorry." I apologised and quickly helped Ashwini to stand.

"It's okay, but just letting you know now there are all kinds of people around that would attack you for staring." She warned me.

"Then I better put a blindfold on or I might not be able to stop myself, especially if all fairies are like you. You're absolutely stunning!" I couldn't help but say with a soft astonished smile.

"Thank you." Georgia laughed at me.

I felt a pinch on my side making me jump and look at Ashwini in confusion. "Why'd you pinch me?" I asked her rubbing my side.

"Because our lady over there is getting jealous." Ashwini grinned looking over my shoulder.

I looked to where she was looking to find Beatrice with her arms folded glaring at the ground while her lips pursed unhappily. I tilted my head to the side in confusion before understanding what Ashwini was saying. I felt my chest flutter and I couldn't help but smile.

We all walked back to the clearing to find three stark white horses with what looked like multi-coloured paint in strange patterns all over them. I gapped at them in awe while walking up to stand by Beatrice.

"They're amazing. Why are they painted? Wait, what about Ruddy and the other horses?" I asked quickly.

"It shows others that we're a part of a royal party, sort of and I sent the horses back to the estate before I went through the portal." Beatrice answered looking better than before.

"I'm sorry if I upset you by staring at Georgia. I've never seen a fairy before let along someone with blue hair." I whispered to her while softly touching the back of her hand. I felt my chest quiver strangely when I felt her hand turn and interlace with my own.

"You didn't upset me..." Beatrice sighed and looked down at our interlaced hands. "It's strange... I've never felt like I do when I'm around you. Everything seems so much easier to bear when you're near me, but when we touch or your attention is on me, as selfish as I feel and sound by saying this... my world becomes brighter, my mind eases from the burdens I have to carry and it just makes me want all of your attention on me at all times... I'm sorry I don't mean to sound so, selfish or needy."

I lifted my free hand and placed my finger tips to her cheek making her look up at me. I gave her a soft smile as warmth filled my being. "Since I've met you I've been captivated by your looks and soon your strength in handling yourself and those around you. I admire you Beatrice. Thank you for needing me. Thank you for wanting to be around me. You're not the only one that feels like a burden gets taken off when we're around each other. You do that to me too. For four hundred years I've been alone, unwanted, disliked... abused. I was in a dark world surrounded by nothing but hate. Then I was saved by you and lady Aviva. my world is so much brighter with you in it now. I can't thank you and lady Aviva enough for that."

A slow easy smile fills Beatrice's face while her eyes start to sparkle their amazing silver. I don't see how my attention can go to anyone but her when she looks at me like that.

"Vaden... I-" She started to say before being interrupted.

"Hey love birds! We have to go!" Ashwini shouted out from where she sat astride one of the painted horses. Ashwini smirked at us knowingly making a blush burn my cheeks.

I squeezed Beatrice's hand and looked to see her smooth pale cheeks were also a flushed pink making me have the strangest urge to kiss them. Before I realised what I did both our faces were a darker red and I had to quickly let go of her hand while going towards one of the other horses. I breathed in jaggedly while placing a disbelieving hand to my tingling lips that had met her left cheek. My stomach felt giddy while my chest felt like a rampaging animal was inside it. That felt amazing.

I quickly glanced at Beatrice while I slid up onto one of the quiet horses. I strange quirky smile coming to my face that I just couldn't control. How strange.

I nudged the horse softly with my knees and it started moving off. I was beside Ashwini a moment later and glanced at her. I swallowed nervously when I saw the look on her face, it told me without words that she saw what I did and knew how it was affecting me. It didn't help that she had this awful grin on her face that embarrassed me.

"Shut up." I grumbled for some reason needing her to know that I didn't want a comment from her.

"What? I didn't say anything." She basically cackled.

"Crazy witch." I muttered under my breath. She didn't say anything so I don't think she heard me, thankfully.

I looked around us and found that Georgia and Orrick weren't in sight anymore. "Where's Georgia and Orrick?" I asked.

"Up there. They don't need horses." Ashwini answered while pointing above us.

I looked up and gasped softly in awe. Georgia and Orrick were flying above us and I was amazed by the sight of their wings that sparkled in the sun glittering with a strange substance that fell off of them. I reached out a hand to the glittering substance that fell from their wings and caught some, but I couldn't identify what it actually was. Small little bits sparkled in the light, some sparkling an amazing blue and some a bright healthy green telling me which wings they were falling from respectively.

"What is this stuff?" I asked looking at Ashwini.

"You should pocket that stuff Vaden. It's highly valuable and rare, well, not in this realm but back in the mortal realm it is. We witch's use it in some of our magicks because it's so powerful." She answered eyeing the stuff like it was pure gold that I was holding. "It's a powdery substance that falls off certain fairy's wings. Not all fairies can do it though, only the strongest secrete it from their wings. It's the same with Celestial's, angles. Celestial powder though is even more valuable than fairy powder. I've never seen it or used it but I've seen what it can be used for and it's amazing! I really want to meet a Celestial one day."

"Woah..." I muttered looking down at the glittering powder on my hand. I could feel mana inside the powdery substance and was amazed by how strong it was for such a small amount of mass the actual powder held.

"Here, wipe it off with this and keep it. I've also heard that it's like a good luck charm." Ashwini offered a piece of cloth to me which I accepted gratefully. I wiped the powdery stuff onto the cloth before rolling it and placing it into a pocket on the inside of my vest.

"Thank you." She just waved me off with a smile.

As we rode I looked around and found that there were some strange trees that I've never seen before. They had silver markings running up their trunks and form patterns on their leaves. Some plants were the same. When we got close to a particular large tree I couldn't help but gasp. The silver essence crawling along the trunk was actually water. That's when I realised that it was exactly the same stuff as what was at the mountain garden. Pure, physical mana.

I reached out a hand and slipped my fingers into the stream. I smiled softly as the mana came out of the tree and wrapped around my fingers before going back into the tree when the horse I was riding continued on and I moved too far away from it. It felt like the tree, the mana, was greeting me.

"Woah... that's so cool how you do that." Ashwini commented breathily still riding beside me while Beatrice had started leading the way.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I thought that stuff was just strange fairy stuff, but you can manipulate it so I'm assuming it's mana?" She wondered while looking at me.

"It's the same liquid mana as what is in the crevices in the mountain garden." I told her. "So yeah, it's mana and it scares me."

"What? No way, why?" She asked.

"Because it's just so utterly and completely pure. I can feel that it's the purest thing in all the realms. Mana is in everything, but compared to that, it's almost like when it's inside something the mana's pureness is... diluted or something." I shrugged, I didn't know how to explain how I felt.

"Is that why you wouldn't go near it when I first started teaching you about mana?" Beatrice asked from in front of us.

I nodded my head. "Yes, it was so pure I wasn't sure what it could do, and there was something inside me that was just telling me that something would happen if I ever touched it. That feeling was right of course since when I stepped over it I was transported to another... realm? Time? Dream? I'm not sure what call it, but I met this strange girl there that looked like-... never mind, it was strange." I shrugged stopping myself from telling them that the girl in the vision thing looked like a younger version of Beatrice. "But nothing like it has happened again, well not since that full moon when Mercy was changed and I heard that girls voice."

"Wow!" Ashwini exclaimed looking at me with wide eyes. She was about to say something again but was interrupted by the loud sound of flapping wings.

We all looked up to see Georgia drifting down towards us smoothly and elegantly. "We're arriving at the capital in a minute." She told us easily floating in the air just above us while we continued to move.

Looking around us I was confused because in every direction there was only forest, which was actually becoming denser the longer we travelled along the path.

"Wouldn't there be houses or farms that we have to travel through till we get to the capital?" I asked curiously looking back up to Georgia.

She shook her head. "No, we live off the fruits, nuts and seeds that grow from the trees throughout the realm. We don't believe in destroying nature to build us homes. We instead live up in the trees so that we don't have to defile the earth. Plus, it's not like it's hard to get around since we can fly."

"Oh, that makes sense." I muttered to myself while nodding. I looked around again and soon found that we were actually surrounded by beings. I could feel so many different mana signatures surrounding us in the massive trees that seemed to only be growing higher and higher the further we go along the path.

My supernatural hearing soon picks up a rustle in the leaves of some bushes on the edge of the dirt path along with high pitched giggles. As we passed the bushes my heightened eyesight easily picked out the faces of young children looking up at us as we passed, awe and curiosity clear on their faces.

"This is where we have to walk." Beatrice called from in front of us when our horses suddenly stopped.

The dirt path we were travelling on suddenly ended with a wall of trees that made it impossible for a horse to continue on through. I was impressed by the massive size of the trees around me. They were easily taller than the four story tall estate back home.

I looked up trying to see any homes or fairies but found nothing but thick branches, wide leaves and dense greenery that blocked out even the light of the sun. I dropped from the back of the horse I was riding still looking around at the giant mana infused trees intrigued by everything I was seeing.

Georgia and Orrick landed on the ground in front of us while the horses went off on their own. I frowned at their retreating rumps but didn't say anything since no one else was.

"You'll have to climb up to the first level then we can continue on towards the Khal feshith (king tree)." Georgia stated pointing up at the canopy above.

"We'll see you up there Georgia." Beatrice stated.

"Okay." She nodded back before spreading her wings and with a pump of her delicate looking things she flew up through the canopy with ease.

"Follow me." Beatrice turned to Ashwini and I after Georgia left.

Beatrice lead the way to a tree that had what looked like rungs chiselled out of the trunk to make it easier for non-flying creatures to get up to the first level of what I can only assume was going to be a very large city.

I stopped Beatrice from climbing first with a hand on her shoulder. "Please allow me to go first just in case something happens." I asked her seriously remembering that my first priority was to protect Beatrice since she was my Mistress's, lady Aviva's, sister. She will always hold priority over these fairies and not just because of my personal feelings towards her. It was part of my duty while in the service of lady Aviva, something that I will take completely serious while she is not around.

"Okay." Beatrice agreed seeming to understand why I needed to go first into an unknown territory even if she has been here many times before.

"Thank you." I smiled softly at her before easing myself up the tree rhythmically moving my body using the rungs carved into the tree to keep me going. I stopped just before the top of my head would have hit wooden boards that stopped me from going any further. I didn't see a handle to push or pull to move the boards but I didn't have to do anything because they soon moved out of the way and revealed Georgia hovering over the hole.

"I thought you'd come up first." She smiled down at me while offering a hand.

I smiled back thankfully while allowing her to help me up even if I didn't need it. I was amazed by how soft her hand was but soon let go when I was struck right to my core by my surroundings. My mouth went dry in absolute amazement while my heart felt like it was both speeding up and slowing down at the same time in excitement and shock.

"Bloody hell..." I breathed feeling like my eyes were about to fall out of my head by the sight of what felt like I just walked into a whole other world!

I stood utterly frozen by the sight of stunning wooden buildings that had vines and moss crawling up their walls while flowers that glowed stunning colours grew out of everything lighting up the world amazingly. The lighting made everything seem both bright and dark since no sunlight could get through the branches and leaves that created a ceiling over the world. It created a beautiful scenery that was warm and welcoming and just plain magical.

What just completed the magical feeling of this new world was the stunning and utterly beautiful creatures that walked around basically glowing just as bright as the flowers. Fairies of all different colours, sizes and light walked around or flew with their multi-coloured or basic coloured wings glittering in the light which filled the air.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Georgia asked from beside me seeming to take in everything much like I was.

"It's utterly stunning." I sighed feeling... feeling I have no idea what inside my stomach and chest but whatever it was made me tremble.

"You'll get used to it." Georgia laughed though I didn't believe her. "Just wait till we get to the Khal Okrenegwin (Kings Temple)."

"Holy three kings!" I heard Ashwini gasp making me realise that both Beatrice and her made it up the tree. I almost laughed at the witches face, which was highly amusing to look at, but I knew I had the exact same face when I took in our new surroundings as well.

"Come on, we still have two more levels to get through till we make it to the temple." Georgia told us and started leading the way down what looked like a street. It didn't even look like we were up amongst trees. The floor was made of wooden boards held together by the growth of the moss, vines and the glowing flowers. The buildings were lined up on either side of a wide area made for people, fairies, to walk easily through the city.

I felt eyes constantly on us but I couldn't careless when my own eyes were drinking in literally everything and everyone we were walking pass. A giddiness filled me like a child getting given a treat for being good. I felt like I was getting the best treat in my life!

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