How Honey Lemon makes it to Corona
"Honey, I'm home." Gogo said as she opened the door to the apartment. "And I brought you some sushi for lunch."
Gogo deposited two grocery bags on to the table. "I got your favorite, even; seaweed salad."
She pulled out the deli takeout container from the bag and waved in the air hoping to gain her friend's attention. Only Honey Lemon didn't seem to care.
Gogo frowned and walked over to the lump of covers on Honey Lemon's bed.
"You can't stay there all day. You need to get up and eat something at least." She told the mess of blankets and pillows.
An annoyed groaned was the only answer the covers made.
Gogo gave up. "Fine. I'll just leave this in the fridge till you want it. I just came by to check on you. I'm heading back to the lab soon to help out...... Hiro, thinks he's found a break through."
That got Honey Lemon's attention.
She flung the covers off of her with a huff and sat up. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were wrinkled, and her face streaked with tears.
But she didn't cry now. She only pouted at Gogo before sulking over to the table. She peered at the food with distaste before grabbing a chocolate bar from the bag instead and plopping down in the beanbag chair next to her bed.
Gogo tried her best not to roll her eyes at Honey Lemon's childishness. They were all still reeling from the events from last week and each was handling the situation differently. Only Honey Lemon's idea of 'coping' was to sink into a depression.
"You've been wearing the same tank top and shorts for three days." Gogo admonished. "Don't you want to take a shower and maybe change into some clean pajamas at least?"
Honey Lemon didn't answer. She instead gave Gogo another challenging glare before taking another bite out of the chocolate bar.
Gogo took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then slowly exhaled through her nose as she retuned Honey Lemon's stare.
"Do you want to come with me to the lab and see if Hiro's made any progress on the portal?" She carefully asked.
"Who cares." Honey Lemon dismissed before sinking further into the beanbag and gnawing on the candy bar.
"You do, apparently." Gogo pressed.
"No I don't." Honey Lemon said firmly. "I'm tired of caring. I'm tired of crying. And I'm tired of everyone pretending like they can fix things."
Gogo frowned. This wasn't like Honey Lemon at all.
"Honey, I get that you're upset. We all are, but you can't seriously be suggesting that we just give up."
"And why not!?" Honey Lemon stood up abruptly, dropping the candy bar on the floor, wholly forgetting about her hunger in her anger. "Why not give up? He gave up on us first!"
"No! He left Gogo. Varian left us!" Tears stung her eyes and she clasped her hands as she looked at the ring on her finger. "He left... me."
"Yes he did! He stole back the amber and opened the portal, and ran right back to that horrid old Corona! He promised." Now she couldn't stop crying. "He promised, Gogo. He promised me. He promised that he would stay. He said that we would be together and... and happy... and... And was all a lie!"
She yanked the promise ring off of her finger and threw it to the ground.
Only for it to roll when it hit the floor and fall through a crack in the boards.
Honey Lemon gasped. She ran to where the ring fell and started clawing at the floorboards.
"Nooo! No. No. No! No-oo-oh." She sobbed.
"D-don't panic." Gogo soothed. "I'll go downstairs and get Globby. He can reach down there and pull it out."
She gave her sobbing friend a tight hug before heading out the door to ask thier neighbor for help.
Honey Lemon barely registered that she had gone.
She sat there still continuing to cry. Why did everyone leave her? Was all she could think.
As she cried, she failed to notice the eerie green light coming from her full-length mirror on the wall.
She did however notice her engagement ring floating upwards from the crack in the floor and stopping to hover in front of her face.
"Lose something?" Came a teasing voice.
Honey Lemon jumped at the sound and that was when she saw the woman in the mirror.
She was a petite woman, short and stout, dressed in a flowing ball gown of lace and ruffles, made of a dark velvet. Her graying hair was done up into two buns on the side of her head, yet her face remained quite young. She was seemed both ancient and youthful at the same time.
"Go on, take it." The woman said with an encouraging smile and with a wave of her hand the ring bobbed up and down in front of Honey Lemon.
"How... How are you doing that?" Honey Lemon asked.
"Magic." The woman said simply; her smile growing wider.
It was hard to argue with her though, when you had the evidence of such fantasy floating in your face.
Honey Lemon hesitated to take the ring back though.
"It's okay. It won't hurt you." The woman gently laughed. Her voiced sounded kind, yet there was something omnoius in the way she made light of everything.
"Who are you?" Honey Lemon pressed.
"A friend; or at least I'd like to be."
Honey Lemon eyed her warily before timidly reaching her hand out to grab the ring. It stopped floating the moment she touched it, and she had to quickly snatched before it fell through the floor once more.
She pulled the ring close to her heart as she took a minute to breathe a sigh of relief.
The woman sadly smiled, "He misses you, you know."
Honey Lemon blinked and looked up again the woman.
The woman snorted. "Why of course I do. Everyone knows Varian."
The smile finally fell from the woman's face and she looked reluctant to talk about it. "For the moment... Though I don't know for how much longer."
Honey Lemon's throat tightened as she stiffened with fear.
The woman pressed onwards, earnestly now.
"The king has him. He's been conscripted to build weapons of war for that monster, but there's no telling when Frederic will grow tired of his dancing monkey. Meanwhile, my people are suffering tragic defeat after defeat. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."
Honey Lemon wracked her brain trying to remember what little she knew about Varian's world as she tried to piece together the woman's words.
"The k-king? The one who imprisoned Varian? He has him enslaved!?"
"Yes, my child, and he wages war against the poor. Against those that wish to be free of his tyrnical rule. He has even turned his army against his own people...my people."
The woman closed her eyes as if shutting out bad memories, then the mirror glowed green once more. Her eyes snapped opened and she looked at the sparkling magic in horror.
"Quickly, we don't have much time."
"Time, yes, the portal will be closing soon. Listen, my name is Zhan Tiri. I'm the leader of the Saporians. We're fighting for our homeland, and I came to ask you for help." She sobbed and held her hand out towards Honey Lemon pleadingly.
"Me?" Honey Lemon squeaked.
"Yes you. You're the only one who can reason with Varian. He needs you. He's so driven by guilt that he can't see the danger that he's in, nor the harm that he does to his people. And I fear his own life will be forfeit once Frederic decides that he is of no use to him."
Those last words filled her with dread. She didn't know what the woman talking about in regards to war or who was fighting who, but she knew Varian was in trouble if that dictator of king had him in his clutches.
"I'll call for help." Honey Lemon jumped and ran to grab her phone. "We'll get everyone togeth-"
"There's no time!" Zhan Tiri interrupted. "I had to use a very rare and hard to come by spell to reach you. I can only keep the portal opened a short period of time, and I only have enough ingredients to cast the spell twice. Once to bring you here and once to send you back. If you're to come, then it has to be now, or never."
Honey Lemon froze and her eyes widen at the implications of what the woman had said. This was her only chance to find Varian. Her only chance to ever see him again.
And if anything went wrong, she would be trapped in another dimension, forever....
She stared at the ring in her hand. It was beautifully made; it's slivery gleam glinted back at her. Varian had hand crafted it out of platinum and made them a matching set. His ring held a moon and her's bore the image of a shining star.
"See, they lock they together when they're connected." He had told her. "The moon holds the star. Just like I hold you, moya zvezda."
She clasped her eyes tightly as she rembered the nickname he called her, but the teardrops still fell. Oh, how she wished he was here right now to hold her; to tell her everything was alright.
But he wasn't, and he was never coming back... Unless she went after him herself.
"Okay, I'm in." She said.
She put the ring on, pocketed her phone, and grabbed her chime purse from off the coat rack. Then she paused.
"J-just, let me just text, Gogo and tell her where I've gone."
She pulled the phone back out and hurriedly started typing.
Zhan Tiri gave an exasperated sigh. "Come ooon. The portal is almost closed!"
Honey Lemon looked up to see that Zhan Tiri was correct. The portal was shrinking with each passing second and soon the mirror would be just a mirror once more.
She hit send on phone, took a deep breath, and ran towards mirror. She jumped through portal mere moments before it closed.
It was only afterwards that she realized she had forgotten to put on shoes.
