Dusty Red ~ Part 15

In which permission is granted and a door is unlocked...

How is everyone this week? We (me and the rest of my family) are on holidays (just staying at home doing nothing kind of holidays) and I've spent most of my time...(you'll never guess)...reading. I finished several books so far, but soon I believe I shall start on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so that should take me a nice long time to finish...more than a day at least...

I've been (or more correctly, my sister and I have been) experimenting with Dusty Red pictures. I'm still unsure whether or not I'll actually change it but I can say that if it does change it won't be until instalment 20, so I've still got plenty of experimenting time. But I'm staying with the original picture for now at least.

And now...it is time for the story.

Larzik stepped forward and knelt in front on the queen, his head bowed slightly, “Permission to accompany the Dragontwins m’Lady?”

Flicks opened her mouth to voice her objection but it was too late. Queen Alwyn nodded, “Yes, permission granted, Larzik. You shall accompany these two on their journey to acquire the Magic Rune Stones.”

 “One problem,” Skilf said, the queen raised her dainty eyebrows questioningly and Skilf continued. “I buried them.”

“Ahhh,” Queen Alwyn murmured. “That could make complications.” She looked up at Skilf, “Do you remember where?”

Skilf shuffled her feet, “Ermm…well…I…to put it simply…well…no.” 

Flicks frowned, “Well that definitely could make complications.”

Larzik jumped up and down in excitement, “When are we going? When are we going?”

Flicks rubbed her forehead tiredly, “Are you going to keep this up the whole time?”

Larzik didn’t seem to realise the question was addressed to him and continued to bounce on the spot. “I can show you to the entrance at once!” he squeaked.

“Yes, you must leave at once,” Queen Alwyn agreed. 

“But we don’t know where we’re going!” Flicks protested, but Larzik was tugging her out of the room and the queen simply smiled and waved the question aside, closing the door behind them.

Skilf sighed in frustration, “Where now?”

Flicks looked at Larzik who had a firm grip on her hand. “I’m not sure we have a choice,” she replied.

Larzik lead them through the palace by small corridors and narrow staircases. Flicks began to get completely disorientated. “I’m sure we’ve gone down more stairs than we came up,” she remarked to Skilf.

Skilf nodded. “I concur,” she said under her breath. “This is getting rather confusing.”

“Rather,” Flicks agreed.

Larzik turned a huge grin of the two girls, “Here we are, right at the exit.”

Flicks and Skilf blinked in unison, the blink meaning, What? Larzik had led them to a dead end and there was no entrance or exit anywhere in sight.

“Are you sure you’ve got the right place?” Flicks asked hesitantly, fixing a puzzled expression on the Imp-Goblin.

Larzik looked insulted, “Yes of course I’ve got the right place. I know these halls like the back of my ears!”

Flicks looked consideringly at him, his statement wasn’t very comforting since Flicks could not quite believe he could see the back of his ears, them being on the side of his head as ears generally are and his eyes being on the front of his face, where eyes usually are.

“You can see the back of your ears?” Skilf asked cynically.

“Of course I can,” Larzik said, in an injured tone. “I know ‘em as good as these halls.”

Flicks and Skilf exchanged a glance. “Er…yes, naturally, I don’t know how I didn’t see that myself,” Skilf said.

“So, how exactly do we get through this exit?” Flicks asked.

Larzik’s mouth dropped open, “You mean to say you don’t know?”

Flicks sighed, “No I don’t know. But if you just told me…”

“Oh, yes I can tell you, I can tell you about anything in the castle. Plenty of magic doors about the place you know. There’s the hold, as where you can’t even see the door!” Larzik snorted in amusement, “But all the others you can see, and it’s a simple click, flick, snick, snack, and there you’ve open the door!”

“Could I have a straight answer please?” Flicks asked.

Larzik composed himself, “Well, all us Imp-Goblins have do is knock on the door and say, ‘Click, flick, snick, snack!’ and the door opens nice and easy.”

“So,” Skilf drew out the word, “You are going to knock on the door and say the password to get us out. Right?”

“Oh no, when you are here it must be one of you to open the door otherwise the exit won’t let you through,” Larzik replied, puffing his chest in pride at his great knowledge.

“And where exactly is the door?” Flicks asked.

“Why it’s right here!” Larzik said, pointing to a section of the wall.

Flicks stepped closer. She could just make out a faint outline about the size of a small door. Larzik gave her a lopsided grin, “Well, are you going to open it?”

Flicks took a deep breath, feeling rather silly and rapped her knuckles of the door. “Click, flick, snick, snack!” she said, feeling even more idiotic by the second.

As she finished speaking the outline of the door became more and more obvious and Flicks stepped backwards as a grumbling rumble emitted from the wall. Larzik pushed her back, “You must go through now!”

“Just go through? But the door’s still there!” Flicks pointed out.

“No it’s not, just go through,” Larzik said, “It’ll disappear in a few seconds and then you’ll have to do it all over again.”

That decided Flicks, she may as well make a fool of herself by walking into a wall if the alternative was having to say that crazy clicking and flicking sentence again. She closed her eyes and slammed her shoulder into the wall, or at least she would have if the wall was actually there.

Instead she just stumbled forward as she met with no resistance, nearly falling on the ground. And it was probably a good thing she didn’t because who knows what she might have landed on.

Flicks regained her balance in time to catch Skilf just before she hit the ground. Larzik appeared right after her but at a more dignified pace, if an Imp-Goblin can be dignified.

“So where are we?” Skilf asked, looking around, “Outside the castle walls?”

“No…” said Larzik, “We are somewhere else. That is a magic door after all.”

Flicks looked back the way they’d come but all she saw was a large tree, although that wasn’t anything so very different as they were surrounded by large trees.

“And where might that somewhere else be?” Flicks asked.

“Ermm,” Larzik replied, clearing his throat nervously. 

It was all the answer Flicks needed. She slumped down at the base of a tree. “Oh great, just what we needed,” she muttered. “Now we’re lost in some forest we don’t know the location of, and presumably no one else does either. Perfect.”

“Well, you are a figure of very dejectedness if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

~

1. The voice that spoke was one Flicks had never heard the like of before, and yet it seemed somehow familiar, like a voice of a friend she’d long forgotten.

2. Flicks leapt to her feet and spun around searching for the source of the voice, “Who are you?” she called, then added. “Or more to the point, where are you?”

 3. Skilf frowned, looking at Flicks and Larzik in turn, “Did you say something? Or was I just imagining it?”

~

So there we are, I managed to kind of incorporate option three into there as well! (Just for Lydia Scott, one of my lovely commenters.) Although no doubt if I hadn't told you no one would have noticed. I think maybe I'd better not next time, otherwise you might think to...well, let's just say, check up on everything else sneaky I do. I think I'd better change the subject...or maybe just leave now...

Anyway, please leave a comment and use your amazing power to change the course of the future! (Well, Flicks and co.'s future anyway.)

Fare Thee Well!