Trapped in the Featherlands

Entering the Badlands

A dense humidity began to settle as Lilly and Erica ventured far beyond the border of the Badlands. The air was thick and clung onto them, condensating against their armor, as did beads of sweat against their skin underneath. Their boots crunch dried leaves against a hard clay road. The new world in which the human around the fairy girl found themselves was a drab, dismal place, seeming almost dead in comparison to the Featherlands. The grass became paler, void of color and life. The tree branches were barren and no longer squirmed gracefully from tickling each other in the canopies. Crickets, or creatures that sounded much like crickets to Lilly, chirped in the tall grass of to the sides of the road. The girls had walked in cautious silence since they crossed the border so as to hear approaching danger, but the silence was quickly causing much more anxiety than it was security.

"Not to jinx us or anything, but the Badlands don't seem so bad," said Lilly.

"It's a ruse," said Erica. "It's like that at the borders to trick and trap wayward souls. Be on your guard."

"Have you been here before?" asked Lilly. The small fairy shook her head.

"We don't come here," said Erica. "No one comes here willingly. Those that do are taken here against their will, usually never to be seen again." Lilly looked down, watching the road pass beneath her. Erica reached over and grabbed the girl's hand. "Don't worry. We'll be back with your sister safely with us." Lilly smiled.

"I know," said Lilly. "I just hate that a place of such evil could even exist at all, especially next to somewhere so pure and wonderful." Erica looked up the sky. Lilly fell silent for a moment, pondering what might have been going on in her friend's head. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Erica passively. "I don't know, that potion is making me feel funny somehow."

"That means it's working," said Lilly, a cheerful gleam in her voice. Erica was still not convinced.

"Maybe, I just thought I tasted something different in it," said Erica. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I hope it works; we'll need it too if worst comes to worse."

"I'm sure it will," said Lilly, inching closer to Erica. "Want to tickle me? Try it out?" Erica looked back at her friend. The invitation seemed almost too enticing to reject, but Erica withheld her desires.

"We shouldn't," said Erica. "Not here anyway. If it didn't work, we wouldn't want to attract anything here with laughter." Lilly sighed, sort of wanting Erica to tickle her once more.

"I suppose," said Lilly. The girl's confident demeanor began fading. She remembered how much she was actually starting to enjoy being tickled. Lilly wondered the extent of the potion's effects and hoped that they would not be permanent. She enjoyed the act being so sacredly adopted with love and friendship; laughing in the Featherlands had become her primary reassurance that her and her sister would embark back home together. The strange new world that she found herself in was far less welcoming, but the immediate company that chaperoned her was more than enough for her to remain cheerful.

"What's your world like?" asked Erica. Lilly looked over to her friend.

"My world?" asked Lilly, still coping with the idea that she was in an entirely different world from her own.

"I've always wondered what it's like," said Erica. "I've never crossed over before. Queen Deidra said it would have been too dangerous with my broken wing. I've heard stories of the kind of place it is from fairies who had crossed over. They say it's a strange place, but that the laughter of the children makes it beautiful."

"Crossed over?" asked Lilly.

"We're taught to go over and make children laugh with tickling," said Erica. "Those of the Featherlands, that is. We master the art and, when we're allowed to, are able to cross over into your world to interact with them and only them."