The Mind Behind The Beanie || ✔

More Preparations for War

___

~~~~~ (*****^-^*****) ~~~~~

___

Emmerich and I were having the most interesting conversation ever with Red and Froggy.
"So, there are six kingdoms, two territories, and one empire?" Emmerich asked, trying to clarify what Red and Froggy had just told us. They had given us the rundown of the history of The Land of Stories, and it was a lot of information. It took a lot of brain power to wrap my head around all of it, even with the information Conner had already given me.
"Precisely!" Froggy said. "And the leaders of the six kingdoms, including the Fairy Council, make up the Happily Ever After Assembly."
Red cleared her throat. "There used to be six kingdoms, but now there are five kingdoms and one republic."
"So Red used to be queen of her own kingdom, which used to be part of the Northern Kingdom until the C. R. A. B. Revolution, was it? I asked.
"The C. R. A. W. L. Revolution," Red corrected her. "It stood for Citizen Riots Against Wolf Liberty. The Evil Queen was in power in the Northern Kingdom at the time and she did nothing to stop the wolves terrorizing the farmers' villages. So, we revolted and I got my own kingdom."
"Which you lost in the election for queen," I pieced together. "But now the kingdom is a republic because the new queen changed the government. Can she do that?"
"Evidently," Red said, and pursed her lips in defiance.
"In our country we have a Congress and a House of Representatives to keep the president from doing things like that, I guess," I said, not understanding why politics were so messed in this world.
"Yes, well, I thought I did, too," red said with flared nostrils. "I hand selected representatives so I couldn't be blamed for my biased decision making and the whole kingdom still turned on me. I don't know where I went wrong."
"But who is queen of your country now?" Emmerich asked.
"Little Bo Bimbo," Red said without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I knew perfectly well that she was talking Little Bo Peep, but decided not to mention it, it obviously made her mad. "She's the ugliest, most horrendous creature to ever live in the Red Riding Hood Kingdom and she scared all the villagers into voting for her."
"Now that sounds like politics in our world," I said. It was pretty believable that someone would do that in this world, but I was still skeptical of what Red said because of what Conner told me about her.
"I've never heard of Little Bo Bimbo," Emmerich said, and shivered. ^ Great, now red was influencing Emmerich. ^
"Then you're a very lucky man," Red said. A small smile appeared on her face, she looked happy about her bad influence on a little boy. ^Well, at least everything Conner told me is living up to what I'm seeing. ^
"They're back!" Mother Goose said, pointing to the sky. I looked up as a shadow enveloped the balcony as Alex and Conner descended on Lester. Everyone crowded around them as they climbed off the gigantic creature.
"Well, what did you find?" Mother Goose asked impatiently.
"The army recruited the prisoners!" Conner exclaimed. "The soldiers were training them for combat as we flew above their camp-there are thousands of them!"
Mother Goose placed a hand over her heart. "Oh dear," she said. "What should we do next?"
"I'm thinking," Alex said. "In the meantime, Mother Goose, please see that all the Fairy Council members gather in the hall as quickly as possible. Conner, go with her and tell the other fairies about what we've seen. The first thing I need to do is get the kings and queens to the Fairy Palace as quickly as possible so they can join the conversation. This isn't a Fairy Council matter; it's an issue the entire Happily Ever After Assembly needs to discuss."
Mother Goose and Conner headed inside the palace. ^What is really so bad about these people from the prison getting recruited? They can't be that bad right? ^ But the sound of Alex's wand cracking through the air brought me back to reality.
She cracked her whip five more times and a series of shimmering lights followed, bringing six enormous swans the size of Lester in front of her. She then spun the tip of her wand above the palm of her hand and a stack of papers appeared. She rolled the papers up and put one in each swan's mouth.
Despite having seen magic before, it never ceased to amaze me. It was like in the original cartoon, when the fairy godmother pulls her wand out of thin air. Except, not as animated, more real. It was so difficult to explain, yet done so easily and carelessly.
"What are those?" Froggy asked, practically taking the words from my mouth.
"Invitations," Alex responded, and handed Froggy one which he read aloud.