Forgetful Unicorns and Sad Dragons. pt. 1
Title: Forgetful Unicorns and Sad Dragons.
Pairing: Kris/Lay
Genre: Fluff
Rating: G
Summary: It's all Imagination.
In a world far, far away from here, called Imagination, live all kinds of wonderful creatures. Imagination is divided in different lands, for every bedtime story or fairytale one land. The ruler of this world, is the Creator, who lives in the center in giant palace. Every time a new story is made, the Creator draws on a new land, plus new creatures. Imagination is the most peaceful place you could ever come to think of, only a few parts of this world are dangerous, but for the high class creatures. Everyone in his land lives in peace, the silence of waving leaves and happy citizens the only noises. When one of the lands breaks this needed silence, the Creator will erase the storylines in which the creatures from said land occur.
Around the palace of the Creator, which reaches until the clouds, are several other palaces. The one with the highest tower is inhabited by Rapunzel, who waits with her long golden hair waving in the wind for her prince. In the palace next to her, lives Cinderella, who always forgets to put on shoes when she goes out to buy her sisters Gucci. And in yet another palace, lives Belle, who waits for a prince, whom she doesn’t know of lives in the woods of the Beasts. The Creator may have made some mistakes in creating the new creatures sometimes, that’s why Cinderella isn’t actually a princess, but a housemaid. But everyone makes mistakes and you can’t blame the Creator.
Around the land of princes and princesses are the woods. In the woods live several kinds of creatures. Such as the Beasts, who live deep down the woods. The Centaurs, who prevent the Beasts from attacking innocent travelers, by pointing their arrows on them. The Centaurs, are the keepers of the woods, because the woods may be one of the most dangerous places in Imagination. There are also Wolves, dressed as other creatures to take you to their place. Be prepared when one of those Wolves is about to come near you, every traveler shall carry a pepper spray with him. On the right side of the woods are the caves of the Dragons, a place no one should ever come to. Most Dragons spend their day haunting for lost travelers to devour. If you’re lucky, one of the better Dragons will see you and point you to the right direction. On the left side of the woods live all types of folks together. The Warriors, Dragon Tamers, normal citizens and on the edge, connected with the woods; Snow White and the seven Dwarves. South of the woods live the Wizards and Witches. They live separately, because they can’t stand each other. The Witches want to steal the princesses beauty, taking all the weird herbs they can find. The Wizards want to make Imagination a better place, they sometimes help the Creator to help the lands on stuff they need. North of the woods is the ocean, inhabited by Mermaids, Pirates and islands with kids, called the Lost Boys, dressed up as animals. They call it Neverland, the place where no one grows up. Which is absolute nonsense, because in Imagination everyone lives forever, as long as you don’t get erased by the Creator.
And finally, the pink shaded clouds, floating over the country. Sunlight goes straight through these magic, glittery clouds, Imagination is forever bathed in sunlight. On the clouds live the Unicorns, the perfect creatures, nothing about them is wrong, except for one of them. One of the Unicorns was made while the Creator was on vacation, so he didn’t get wings to fly. He lives on the clouds while all of his friends and family travel to places he can never reach without wings, so one day, he decides he has enough of almost falling through the clouds, because he doesn’t have the wings that make him lighter. He goes to Pegasus, who sets him on the land of Imagination, to ask the Creator for a favor, his most wanted wish to get wings. The place Pegasus had put him down, unfortunately for him is near the caves. And because he doesn’t have something like a map, he just unknowingly walks into the territory of the Dragons.
It’s dark here. The lost Unicorn thinks as he cheerfully steps his hooves onto closed territory. He doesn’t see any things that finds suspicious, but that’s maybe because he’s a Unicorn and Unicorns only see the best in things. “What are you doing here?” A low rumbling says. It sounds like it comes from the ceiling, so the Unicorn turns his head to the ceiling. “Well hello nice voice, could you please tell me how to get to the middle of Imagination?” The torches near him flicker on, making the cave a little less dark. “Do you know where you are?” The voice continues, ignoring his question. The Unicorn hops forward. The clicking sound of his hooves sounds like a cute lullaby, rebounding against the cave walls. A giant claw stops all his movements. The nails of the claw dig into his hair slightly, his manes waving between the claw, because Unicorn hair waves even if there isn’t any wind. A head comes down to his eye level, the neck it’s on bend too far to be healthy. “What is your name, little magical creature?” The Unicorn looks up into the huge, green eyes of a Dragon. Puffs of smoke blow into his face, making his eyes water. “I’m…” But he trails off, what was his name again? The Dragon keeps his claw on the creatures head, waiting for the answer patiently. “Lay.” He finally says after what seems like an eternity. “Well, Lay. What do you think you’re doing in the Dragons’ caves?” There the Unicorn goes again, looking at the ground, pouting his lips slightly, why was he here again? There was something he needed to do… The puffs of smoke become hotter as the Dragon loses his patience. “I’m going to the Creator.” Lay says, smiling up at the Dragon. “Really?” The Dragon retracts his claw. The fire in the torches becomes softer, together with the drop of the Dragon’s temper. “A Unicorn like you wants to travel to the Creator, alone? Through the dangerous woods?” Lay nods, still smiling cheerfully, totally not understanding what the word ‘dangerous’ means. “You should have someone to escort you.” The Dragon sits down, causing the cave to shake under his weight. “You can do it!” The Unicorn hops up and down. “Well, I have to go to the Creator too, so… I guess that’s okay. I’m Kris.” The Dragon holds up his claw as greeting. Lay puts his little hoof on it, being shaken heavily as Kris shakes his claw. “We have to go fast, before all the other Dragons wake up.” Kris pushes Lay to the exit.
“So, what’s your name?” Lay asks when they went out of the caves. The sunlight Lay missed in those few minutes he was inside the cave, warm up his manes. The path they’re taking is small and Kris has trouble moving around without sweeping anything away with his large tail. “I just told you.” “Really?” The Unicorn looks like he has no idea, smiling innocently up at the dangerous creature behind him. He doesn’t even have any idea that Dragons are supposed to eat others like himself. “I’m Kris.” Kris repeats, accidently kicking a rock a mile away. “That’s a nice name, I’m Lay.” “I know.” “How?” “You told me.” Kris decides that Lay had just forget everything, because he was slightly in shock of his travel mate’s intimidating looks. “Oh.” The Unicorn hops in front of him, which gives him the opportunity to observe his ways of doing things. “You don’t have wings.” He suddenly says, pointing a nail at Lay’s back. “So do you.” Kris takes his hand back, offended. From their side, a sparkling light glows and a beautiful fairy in blue dress appears. “Are you going to the Creator?” She asks Lay sweetly, ignoring Kris’s presence completely. “Yes, miss.” The fairy smiles and waves her wand to her right. “You should follow the yellow path.” The yellow path she points at, doesn’t go to the Creator’s palace, instead it leads them to the ocean. The path is made out of different shades of yellow bricks, a sign reads ‘Yellow Brick Road’. “Don’t go off the path, or you’ll get lost.” The fairy disappears with a high-pitched poof. Lay immediately turns the way the fairy told them to. Fairies are the creatures of honesty, they appear to you when you need them, giving you advice. The direction fairies in the blue dresses, were the ones no one knew if you could trust them. Kris wonders if the Yellow Brick Road really leads to the Creator, seeming it goes to the ocean, which is north of the palace. He puts his claw on Lay’s head and pulls him back. “I don’t think we should follow that path.” Lay looks confused. “But the nice fairy told us to, why not.” Just like that, Lay frees himself from the Dragon’s claw and stubbornly begins to walk the path once again. Kris sighs, but follows the Unicorn anyway. “Why are you going to Creator, also for your wings?” Kris nods, trying to avoid the trees planted too near to the path. “How were you described when the Creator made you?” “I was made up by a twelve-year old, but he got lazy when he described the last dragon. It was a dragon without wings, who guarded the entrance of the caves, he was too nice to be a dragon, so the others didn’t look around to him.” Lay stops to look at the Dragon behind him. “The Creator made the creatures of a twelve-year old’s story?” “Yes, it was apparently a pretty famous book. ‘The Lonely Dragon’.” A pout appeared on the Unicorn’s face. “I was in the story of Pegasus, but when the Creator was making me, he went on vacation and didn’t have time to finish me. I’m not perfect like the other Unicorns. I have dimples in my cheeks, I forget things easily, I don’t have wings and I always talk the truth about anything.” Kris pats his back slowly, not to crush him into the bricks. “It’s okay, you can ask him to finish you.”
“So how are we going to cross the ocean? And how do we know if we’re following the Yellow Brick Road? You can’t even see it when you’re on a boat.” They had arrived at the beach, seeing endlessly the ocean in front of them. “You have to wait for the ferry of course.” Kris said. He pointed at a sign next to a little harbor. After waiting for a little while, the ferry came. It was controlled by a man in a black robe, the hood over his eyes, so it was too dark to see his face. Lay greets the man happily as he takes place in the ferry. For Kris, the ferry grows bigger so he can also fit. Water flows against the ferry softly, but it doesn’t make any sounds and the ferry lies motionless. Fog surrounds the ferry slowly, making it harder for them to see anything. Another passengers comes onto the ferry, standing next to Kris, but they can’t see him. The man in the robe pushes of the beach with a long stick. Even though they really are on the water, it seems like the ferry just flies over the ocean. Like it isn’t even touching the calm waves underneath it. The fog goes away slightly as they go more off the coast. The other passenger traveling with the ferry is a young boy in green clothes. He looks at the two creatures in the ferry, raises his eyebrows to them, sits down and keeps still. “Aren’t you… Uh…” Lay begins, trying to remember what he was about to say. “Peter Pan!” Kris looks at the boy beside him, whom is not sparing him any glances. Instead, the boy looks at the Unicorn and smiles. “Why yes I am!” “Then why don’t you fly to Neverland?” Lay asks, examining Peter’s looks. There isn’t any fairy dust around him. “Tinkerbell is gone.” Lay gasps, putting his hoof in front of his mouth to muffle the sound. “Where is she?” The Dragon rolls his eyes, Lay probably forgot the story of Peter Pan. “Captain Hook has her.” The man controlling the ferry looks in the distant all the while, not even being able to see anything. The waves become higher, but they never come over the edge of the ferry. The fog also becomes thicker and damper. “I’ll have to save her, but I was in the woods when he caught her, so I have to get to his ship by the ferry.” A loud thud and the ferry lies still. They have crashed into a huge ship, with a mermaid on the front, helplessly bonded to the wood. “Good luck with whatever you are going to do.” He pays the man, jumping onto the wooden ship. Lay and Kris continue to stare at the boy as he climbs up the walls of the ship. The man pushes of with the long stick once again. Apparently, the man doesn’t even need to know your destination, Peter had never told him where he wanted to go. “Oh look… What was your name? Kris!” Lay points into the ocean with his head. Under the water, on the bottom of the ocean, between some seaweed, is the Yellow Brick Road. It’s still visible, even though it lies really deep. The path glows mysteriously, that fact is reinforced by the way the seaweed floats around it on the rhythm of the flowing water. The ferry is sailing exactly above it. Just as they had found out about this miracle thing, a thing swims under the ferry, only a shadow, the shadow of a half-fish half-woman. The mermaid pokes out her head, turning around to face the two creatures on the boat. “Hello.” She sing-songs in a melodic voice, sounding like flowing honey. Her hair is blond, so she isn’t from the Ariel-tale, maybe if she is the sister. She swims closer, her fish-tail sweeping through the waves. As she reaches the boat, she starts to sing a song, hanging on the edge of the ferry. “What a show off, appearing at someone’s boat and just starting to sing.” Kris huffs, looking at the beautiful mermaid. She looks offended. “No, she sings really good.” The Unicorn smiles encouragingly at her. After she has finished her song, she looks at the controller of their boat, shoots Kris a dirty look and returns to the water. “That was pleasingly unexpected.”
They finally reach the other beach, after sailing for a long time, never leaving the line of the Yellow Brick Road. They have to pay the ferryman by dancing, because they don’t own any money. The ferryman just nearly excepts it, seeming he is never amused and especially not by cutesy dances. “So where are we going to, if we keep following the path?” Lay asks the tour guide, whom blows fire into a tree as he sneezes. “The villages.” So there they continue their way, ever following the Yellow Brick Road. “Should we stop to eat, once we’re there?” “We’re creatures coming from fairytales, has anyone in a fairytale ever eaten except for princes and princesses? No.”
The first thing they see, when they arrive at the first village, are the rows of loam houses and other buildings. Most of them look exactly the same, the only difference being the things they see behind the windows. All the windows are opened, behind each is at least one flower. At the end of one of the tortuous streets, is a ‘Mall Street’. The buildings there are a little bigger and all have a banner showing what they sell. Passing a tavern, Kris starts to wonder some things. “I don’t think we should continue to follow the Yellow Brick Road.” The Dragon says, walking behind a jumping Lay, as always. He is a hundred percent sure that the path is trying to lead them around whole Imagination, just to end in front of the caves, where they started the journey. “It’s a tourist path, meant for sightseeing. Only a few ever go to the Creator.” Lay simply says, his mind is seemingly not wound by the idea of walking longer than they need to. “Oh look, souvenirs!” the Unicorn goes into another direction, almost bumping into a red haired girl with a bow on her back. He stops in front of a tiny store with garbage stuff, which most call ‘fun little memories’. Kris finds it stupid, a waste of money, that he barely has. He follows Lay anyways, there is no such thing as changing the Unicorn’s mind. On the right side of the store, stands a woman bowed over her desk, dressed in a black robe. When she looks up to see the new costumers, Kris notices that the woman has a wart on the tip of her nose and almost no teeth. ‘Navigation Systems’ a board above a high table reads. “Can I have one of these?” He points at one of the navigation systems, the woman nods. She smiles a crooked smile. “Those don’t cost anything, no one ever buys one, because of… reasons. But you get a free apple with them!” The Dragon doesn’t dare to ask what those reasons are, he would find out later anyways. The woman picks up the one Kris had pointed at, wraps it in ugly, ash colored paper and hands it to him, giving him a very red apple too. “Here you go, please take a bite.” The crooked smile is back, showing her two, yellow teeth. “Oh, I actually wanted to give it to my friend.” Kris tries to smile back, but fails miserably. “Lay, we’re going. We already wasted enough time.” Lay and he exit the shop quickly. “You bought something?” “Navigation System.” Kris unwraps the package in his hand. The mirror is a little bit dirty, it probably lay on that table for ages. There are even a few scratches on it. “Can I have that apple?” Lay asks, eyeing the red apple hungrily. “No, don’t you know the tale about the witch and the apple? It’s poisoned. There isn’t even someone to kiss you awake.” Kris throws the apple into a trashcan. “Okay then… How does it work?” Kris flips the mirror in his claws. On the back are a few words engraved. ‘Speak to me in poetic style, wait a while, let me tell you were to, I’ll be the best guide for you.’ Poetic style? Not one of Kris’s strengths. “Mirror mirror in my hand, please show me the way around the land.” Lay laughs at his awkward way of saying it. But nonetheless, a masker-like face appears in the mirror, smiling like on those theater symbols. “Hello Dragon, may I ask if you travel by foot of a wagon?” Oh, this will be so tiring. “We travel by foot, at the Creator is where the end destination is put.” Lay is practically rolling on the ground, laughing so hard that it sounds more like shrieking. Passersby look at him with amusement. “Okay cut it, this rhyme style isn’t going to work for you, let’s just do it normally.” Even the face in the mirror is giggling. “I can always throw you on the floor, so you will break in pieces.” The face abruptly stops. “Of course, the Creator huh? Go straight ahead for a few miles and I’ll warn you when you have to go left or right.” “Thank you.”
The mirror is so small, that it fits in Kris’s claw easily. Of course, it would be impossible to carry for normal seized creatures. “May I know your names? Mine is Koos. (O in Rope, people say Dutch is a throat disorder… yeah.)” “Koos, interesting. I’m Kris.” “I’m… Wait… What is it again?... LAY! I’m Lay.” He smiles like an idiot after finally remembering his name. The mirror side-eyes him for a second. “Nice to meet you. Why don’t you fly to the Creator? Wouldn’t that be easier?” The silence that follows and Kris’s angry stare is enough for Koos to understand. “Oh.” They finally leave the never ending row of houses and buildings, arriving on a unpaved, small road. It feels much nicer to walk on sand again. The asphalt wasn’t very pleasant for his feet. “Turn left.” They turn onto an even smaller road. The worst thing about their journey is, that everything between the different lands looks exactly the same. There is no one who take care of those land and there are just a few who walk the paths there. The only thing done is the long path and all the vegetation around it is cut away. After the endless sand path, they walk into a forest.
“What was that?” Lay asks, turning his head into the direction he heard a sound coming from. “Something that lives in the forest, of course.” The sound comes back, this time a little louder. “Uhm… Uh… KRIS, I’m scared.” “I’m a Dragon, I can spit fire. You don’t have to be scared.” The mirror huffs. Just to be sure, Lay walks a little closer to Kris. The sound continues again, but it doesn’t stop, it gets louder with every step they take. The sound is made of breaking sticks and rustling leaves. “STOP RIGHT THERE!”