Quest for the Crystals chapter 35

And Welcome back to the Emerald forest!

Enjoy Iggyfeathers!😁

Chapter  35 The Rumors of War

It was about noon in the Emerald Forest when Rose was given the task of cleaning the Great Pixie Tree. She was cleaning all morning, although; she wished that she could do something more interesting like drawing or sculpting or painting or even organizing books (which she had to do anyways). She was dusting underneath one of the tables when she heard a sound, a sound so startling that it made her hit her head on the table. It was a ringing noise, church bells to be exact. If the church bell was ringing in the Emerald Forest that meant that something big was going to happen or something big was already happening. 

“Oh no, something must have happened!” Rose said to herself, as she completely left the duster on the floor and raced out of the Great Pixie Tree not even bothering to lock the door. 

She ran outside the Great Pixie Tree to see all of the Emerald Forest villagers gathered in front of the church building. She was searching the crowd for her parents and sisters. Then she saw her mother's bright wavy purple hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and her little sister's bright blue and aqua hair pulled into two braids. 

She carefully shoved through the crowd trying to get to them. When she finally did, she asked her parents, “What is going on?” 

“Mr. Stars has called an emergency meeting.” replied her father, whose name was James, and who had navy color hair and was wearing a simple blue shirt and dark brown pants. 

“Where's Sophia?” Rose asked as she noticed that her older sister

wasn't there. 

“She is up with Zoe.” said Rose's little sister Emily, who had two adorable aqua braids and was wearing a frilly light blue dress with dark blue dots all over it.  

“Why did no one tell me that there was an emergency meeting?” Rose asked. 

“It was a very quick thing, I was right in the middle of writing the next adventure for “Riley, The Royal Dragon Tamer” when we all heard the church bells start ringing. And Mr. Stars called us here.” Rose's mother said calmly. 

Rose was just about to reply when Mr. Stars called from the front of the church, standing on a wooden pedestal type object. He was trying to quiet the crowd so that he could share the announcement. 

“I bet you're all wondering why I called you here," Mr Stars said as he saw the worried looks on all the elves' faces.  

“I have received rumors from outside of the Emerald Kingdom that Queen Opal has declared war with the Wingfeathers. She is no doubt  going to try to steal our crystal. But we won't let her! We elves need to stick together and stand up against Queen Opal! For if we do not stand up for our kingdom then what are we worth?!” Mr. Stars said inspiringly. At this time, a roar of cheers came up from the crowd as they all agreed in harmony to Mr. Stars’ statement.

 “Opal’s declared war against the Wingfeathers?” Rose asked in almost a whisper, for she couldn't believe that her new friend was going to be in grave danger. 

“Mr. Stars, what are we going to do to take down Opal?” asked an elf in the front row who had two bright yellow afro puffs, was wearing round spectacles and a cute little simple pale yellow cottage dress.

 “We’ll team up with my magical knowledge and with your own special gifts, together we can surely defeat Queen Opal!” Mr. Stars answered with a grin. 

Rose's little sister, Emily, noticed that Rose had a look of worry painted over her face. 

“Rose, are you okay?” Emily asked Rose.

Rose was looking startled as she turned her head to Emily and said, “Yeah….. no not at all actually…..” 

Emily was about to respond to this when Sophia came bustling through the  crowd to try to get to them.  

Sophia, immediately saw the  worry on Rose's face and asked, “Hey, aren't you friends with the Wingfeathers?  Kalmar, maybe it's Tink, I never know?”  

Rose looked up at her and said “Yes, and one, it's Kalmar and two yes, I am friends with them and now I learned that they're suddenly going to war with one of the worst queens I've ever heard of in my entire Elven life!” Rose burst out, as a cloud of worry came into her mind. 

Her parents picked up on this, knowing that she was friends with Kalmar, and said to her comfortingly. “Hey it's going to be all right. I'm sure they know what they're doing, but until then let's pray to The Maker that they're okay.” Rose looked up at them and nodded sadly. They all stood in a circle, held hands and prayed to The Maker that the Wingfeather family would be safe. 

Then they heard another wave of cheers from the crowd as Mr. Stars concluded the meeting. He had assigned tasks for each one of the elves and categorized them into groups based on what jobs the elves had in the village. All of the kids got rations duty while the adults handled the more difficult jobs, like Weaponry, Battle Tactics, and Armory. 

Rose, Emily, and Sophia were all stuffing bags full of: toetatoes, bloom umes, sugar smacks, bubble bluffs, folly flakes, star seeds, and torch tasters. Sophia looked over to see Rose's face. Rose had a look that Sophia knew meant that she was planning something extremely elaborate that probably wasn't going to work but maybe, had a good chance of working. She put on her best older sister look and  asked,

“Rose, you're coming up with a plan to save the Wingfeathers aren't you?” 

“What noooo….” Rose said unconvincingly. 

“You are, aren't you?”

   “Fine.. yes, I am but how can you blame me? I can't just let them go out there and possibly die. I have to do something!” Rose said as she put a flaming hot torch-taster into one of the sacks.  

“You should just let the adults handle it.” Sophia said as she put a juicy bloom ume into one of the sacks. 

“Soph, you know me, do you really think that I'm not going to do anything?” Rose asked, taking a mouth-watering sniff at the delicious smelling sugar smacks. 

“You know my life was a lot simpler before you were born.” Sophia said. 

“You were only five when I was born.”  Rose said, raising her eyebrow. 

“Still, no elaborate plans”.

 “Oh come on, you like it.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Sophia said, rustling Rose's hair. She swished her hands away and moved her hair back and put the last torch-taster into the sack, grabbed Emily and the three sisters headed for their little cottage in the Emerald Forest.