Another step back, another tap on the nose. Another and another. Until the dinosaur bowed its head and began moving backward even faster. When it was a safe distance away from the comparatively tiny flying man that had intimidated it into retreat, it turned its back and disappeared between the high trees.
"How in the hells did ye do that, flying boy?" Rory asked when the faery captain returned to us.
"All creatures speak a language," he said. "Some of them speak verbs and nouns. Others communicate with power and the instinct to survive."
"So you scared it away?" Louie asked.
"In a way, yes."
"I thought this way was the safest one," I said, once the initial shock wore off, "and that your scouts alerted their wildlife to our presence."
"This is the safest way," he replied, in a tone that made me not even want to think about the dangers the other paths might entail. "And our scouts did their job, but this beast was directly on our path. There was no way to avoid this encounter."
I nodded even though I couldn't have been further away from understanding any of it. We had arrived as strangers in a strange land, had been threatened by battle-ready faeries, and brought to a forest where dinosaurs hunted. All in the name of an audience with the Faery Queen.
The idle chatting we had initiated when we first entered the forest was replaced by a constant state of alertness. It was as if I could hear every soft crawl on the grass bed, every quiet chirp, and every small branch cracking beyond my limited sight.
The farther we walked, the denser the forest became. The branches became longer and heavier with leaves, obstructing almost all of the light coming from the twin suns above.
We moved without talking for what seemed like hours, while negative thoughts and doubts about this whole thing started taking seed inside my head. We were following a person we'd just met on the promise that he'd keep us safe. On the other hand, he could have had us killed when we first met his squadron, and he did save us from the dinosaur. In any case, we didn't really have a choice. None of us had any idea how to return to where we'd entered this world, much less how to return to our own.
Right when I was becoming increasingly uneasy with our predicament, I was hit by a ray of sunlight finding its way through the tree canopy. The route in front of us suddenly looked brighter and the plant life receded, turning into lush green grass that barely reached my ankles.
"These are the faery fields on the outskirts of the palace," Irulathun said. "Please allow me to preemptively ask your forgiveness for whatever excitable behavior the little faeries might show."
"Little faeries?" Louie asked, and the man pointed at a shimmering cloud traveling toward us.
At first, it looked like a swarm of locusts or bees, but as the cloud approached, I could make out the outlines of tiny faery bodies, their translucent wings reflecting the suns' light. Briefly examining a few of them, I realized each one was no higher than level 4 and judging by their size--as small as a pigeon--they must have been very young.
"Hello, Irulathun! Nice company you have there," said a young girl.
"Oh, another fluffy-butt," said a boy and pointed at Louie.
A couple of them landed on Louie's back and he started to run around, enjoying all the attention he was getting. A fair few of them also gathered around Leo and me, picking at our leather armor and letting it go, touching us and asking us questions about where we'd come from, our age, and whether we'd like to play with them.
Rory though, attracted by far the most attention from the faery children. They pulled his beard braids, sat on his pauldrons, and showered him with questions.
"Yes, I was always this thick," he said, answering one faery's question and immediately another, "Yes, me hair was always this red. Yes, I do shave me mustache. No, ye can't know why."
The moment the faeries caught a whiff of the dwarf's accent, they started imitating it, annoying him even more.
"Don't the little buggers have homes to go to?" he asked Irulathun, as we continued across the open plains, the palace overlooking them in the distance.
The triple towers of the stone palace stood tall--the two suns, which were now high in the sky, surrounded the middle one, illuminating it from both sides. The red stones of the building glittered as the hard yellow stars shined on them, and now that I was closer to the structure I could make out large windows made of colorful stained glass. Each of them portrayed beasts of all types bowing à-la-Lion-King, while the middle one showed a host of faeries paying their respect to a luminous ten-winged entity.
"They all live in the palace, until their thirteenth year of age," Irulathun replied, before noticing we were staring at the masterfully crafted gigantic windows of the palace. "They're even more beautiful on the inside. Especially when the suns are past their prime."
"Is that the Faery Queen in the middle?" Louie asked.
"Indeed. Our Queen Karaerin, mother of all faeries, goddess of the forests and its creatures."
"Wait a second," I said and stopped walking so abruptly that Leo bumped into me. "The Faery Queen is a goddess?"
"She is," the man replied nonchalantly. "Does this alter your plans to request an audience with her?"
"No, I suppose it doesn't," I replied and continued walking again. "It's just that I've never seen one. Hell, I didn't even believe in gods a few months ago."
"That must have been hard for you," he replied and I tilted my head slightly, trying to discern whether he was being sarcastic or not.
But
