Divided Attention

Chapter 13: A Forest of Shadows

"Mizu? Are you alright?"

When I looked over, I could now clearly see Kitty's head in her bubble. Her face was lined with worry, and her eyes full of concern. I guess that I thought I was looking pretty normal with my thoughts running through my head, but, from Kitty reaction, I probably wasn't. To be honest, with all of these different thoughts in my head, it was hard to not show expressions in my face.

What I was mostly thinking about was what might happen when I got to the Fairy Kingdom. A bunch of different scenarios kept popping up in my head about the whole situation. Some of them were me getting beat up by some guards. Another one was Kitty lying to me and it was really a hoax to capture me all along. But then I would think about Delorsa and her word "escape" that she used. That meant I had to get away somehow, so then my thoughts would go to other places about me being captured in some form or fashion, but I honestly had no clue why that would ever happen. As far as I knew, I had never done anything wrong before, except for be a little mean to people in higher positions because they were being mean to me.

It always made me angry when I met someone who was really mean and in a higher position of power. On top of it, they would think that they're the top race, and that someone like a farmer boy wouldn't be able to say anything back. Another thing that always got me made was the racism between races. I always thought about how Kitty and I are supposed to hate each other, but we've gone on this giant quest and gone through so many things together. And then the pirates who helped us just because we wished for equality. Those people gave me hope, but the other people of the world despised other races with a passion just because their king or queen desired them to. One thing I hated about kingdoms was the fact that whatever the leader did, the people would gladly follow, even to war.

"Yeah. I'm fine." I put on a brave smile for her, though I wasn't feeling brave in the slightest. Instead, I was feeling nervous, scared even. Being so close to enemy territory and having the princess of the Fairy Kingdom by my side next to me was nerve racking. It made my brain cells die just thinking about when she kissed me cheek and I kissed her forehead. If the fairy race figured out that we were being affectionate to each other in some form or fashion, how would they react? I didn't want to find out.

Kitty gave a smile to me, some of her worry going away. "You just seemed like you were really distressed for a second. Anyways, I've been told that we're coming up to land. Leio needs some time to rest, but she'll let us be on our way after we get dropped off."

"Leio?"

"Yep. That's her name."

I nodded, then took in the information. At least we were reaching land. I was personally getting really tired of the fact that this water reminded me so much of home, even though were were obviously coming upon enemy territory. It was kind of uncanny how much it was similar. I didn't like it in the slightest bit.

In what seemed like no time, though I thought it might really be a while for Leio, we were surfacing onto land. Kitty's bubble popped, and she took a breath of fresh air. Maki and I transformed out of our underwater forms, my fins and scales turning back into hands and my clothes. Maki regained his feathery wings and all of his land features, but he looked at Leio sadly. Leio looked back with mournful eyes, and whatever they were saying only made them sadder. At some point in time, they nuzzled each other, and Leio curled up on the beach and started to sleep as we started to walk up the beach. Then, Kitty gasped and stopped.

We stopped with her, looking confused. "What is it?" I asked her.

"This is Flower Forest," she told us, looking around at where we were.

"And what exactly does that mean?"

She turned to me and gave me a smile. "That means we're really close to the Fairy Kingdom. C'mon, lets go."