A Trio of Anomalies - The Quest for Paradise

CHAPTER 14 - AROUND THE LAND IN 80 MINUTES

"Well!" Goose Blahblah crossed her wings, "Billina, want to join me for tea with His Majesty?"

Billina chuckled, "Are you kidding me? Of course! His Majesty's going to be so ecstatic when he sees you again!"

"Let's not keep the old monarch waiting then!" Goose Blahblah nodded at one of the tin soldiers, "But first, I would have to collect two rascals from the Spinning Tops Lake, if you don't mind."

"No, not at all!" they answered, their tone softening a bit.

Lightning and the other rocking horses thanked the nurse and bade everyone goodbye.

***

After spending quite a while in the icy cold waters the two boys lazed under the bright shining sun, only moving into the shade of a large top after the hot tingling sensation was too much to bear. Boils, cured from the poison but more subdued, had woken up and was entertaining himself with climbing around the tops and stones, sometimes switching from Steve's and Nicholas' shoulders as he watched the two completely immersed in what they loved.

Nicholas, his maroon sketchbook on his lap, had finished a black and white sketch of Stuffed Animal City from afar, covering the top half of the blank page with skillfully placed pencil strokes. He then focused on filling the bottom half with sketchings of the plastic flowers, taking a picture of them and creating an almost exact replica using nothing but his mechanical pencil and eraser. Looking at the now finished renderings of the flowers, he turned the page and began filling the top half with humanoid figures, using how the stalks of the plants bent as inspiration to create various dynamic poses. Through this he felt a little more irritated as he had to interpret the gestures of the flowers into humanoid figures, something that he had just started getting into, instead of just creating a perfect copy of them, something that he had honed over time. Despite this, he was certainly grateful that he had time to relax and draw, considering the chaos which happened yesterday.

He kept most of his artwork to himself, only hand picking something that he was truly proud of to show to his friends after a while of non-stop pestering. To Steve he was a bit more open however, although there were a few pieces he vowed never to show, not even to his best friend. He decided to add another one to the collection, as he saw the bright rays of the sun perfectly lighting Steve's bright blue hair and his novel. Suppressing his nervousness and guilt he took out his phone and secretly captured what he thought was a "magical moment" , wishing that he had his pencils and watercolours at home just so he could spend his time creating another illustration of the fire sorcerer, this time reading idly while surrounded by a sparkling lake. The set of artworks were small enough each to fit in a textbook, yet all of them he had poured countless hours upon, tweaking each detail to perfection. Even so, Steve had never seen a single one of them, for even after putting in his best effort he never felt they were good enough to share with his best friend.

 The fire sorcerer himself was completely lost in his favourite novel, as he spectated silently the scenes and interactions between the characters, who were unaware that perhaps millions of ghosts were watching them play out the same story for the umpteenth time. All he heard was the harsh pattering of rain, drowning the cheers of a spectating crowd, as the main character soared through the downpour, eyes straining for a fluttering golden ball small enough to fit in his hand, only to be distracted by flashes of green light and a voice pleading for mercy. The icy wind was suddenly made colder, and the next thing he knew he was falling from the silver sky, before-