Don’t Stop Me Now | Not @ Claire’s
Atta flew the fastest she’d ever flown. Her wing muscles ached, her body vibrating as she ducked and dodged between the branches. The trees began to grow thicker, deciduous giving way to coniferous, and she knew she was close.
“Princess, wait!” cried Althea, zipping in front of her. Atta skidded in the air. “There it is!”
Atta’s eyes followed the path of Althea’s finger. Up and up and up. The nest was large, bending the weight of the larch branches. She could see the wings of the baby gryphons as they expanded them, only to contract them a moment later.
It was clear– they were pouncing.
In the span of this two flutter rest, Althea had been speaking to the scout team, giving orders and putting together a plan. Atta knew the protocol for when a predator got a hold of a fairy. She’d learned it, taken tests on it, read accounts in the journals of Orkney and also here in Enchantra. This was not a mission to be taken lightly, but the success rates were also quite low as the time ticked on. They had already wasted so much time, Nemo fetching them, the troop flying here.
There could be no more wasted time. Atta acted.
“PRINCESS!” Althea yelped. She tried to grab onto Atta but Atta dodged as she torpedeoed straight for the nest.
“That’s my sister!” she yelled. First, to the scouts. And then– to the gryphon, as she got closer. “That’s my sister!”
Atta didn’t know what happened next.
Nemo saw everything. He had slumped against a branch, his lucky wing folded completely down. When Atta jet forward, she’d started to glow. It wasn’t the typical fairy glimmer that happened when they used their talents. It was like she’d burst like a firework, brighter than the sun. Nemo gasped and held his hand up to shield some of the intense glow. She was suddenly faster than even a fast flying talent, in the nest before Nemo could blink.
The gryphon babies floated out of the nest. They writhed in the air, flapping their wings, but they couldn’t get free from the spew of pixie dust Atta must have laced around them. But they weren’t the only things floating–
Nemo gasped again. “Jingles– jingles, the trees!”
In her path to the nest, the pixie dust that had poured from Atta had rained down on everything below. Trees had become uprooted. Leaves fluttered up in reverse order. Everything floated.
“By the blue moon,” uttered Althea. “I– she’s harnessed the power of the Pixie Dust Tree.”
“Can she– can she do that?!”
“Queens can do that,” murmured Althea. She put her fist against her heart, a quiet salute.
The nest was empty. The gryphons were tumbling upward toward the clouds.
Atta didn’t mind them, only fell to her knees and threw her arms around Dot. “Dot!” she cried. “Dot, are you hurt?!”
Dot’s heart went ba bump ba bump ba bumpBABUMPBABUMP as she twisted past one of the gryphons, ducking away from a sharp claw. She was so stupid. She had risked her life and Nemo’s because she just had to prove herself. But all Dot did was prove that she was too reckless to deserve a position as a scout.
She wanted to cry, but tears would only get in the way of her survival. Dot was locked in that mode...but then...something truly incredible happened.
A glow appeared out of nowhere, covering everything around her and the nest. The babies floated out and were surrounded with pixie dust. Trees were floating....leaves strewn about were floating...pixie dust was...it was everywhere.
Dot’s eyes were wide with shock as the gryphons tumbled away, Atta suddenly appearing before her. Dot threw her own arms around Atta and started to cry, clutching onto her sister with everything she had.
“I’m sorry...I’m sorry I’m sorry...I’m...I...I....” she shook her head and buried her face in her sister’s shoulder, the relief letting in all the tears that she hadn’t allowed properly til then.
