~ Chapter Three ~
“You’re… you’re the Warrior Queen,” Fallyn sputtered nervously. All thoughts of not showing weakness was all gone now. The floorboards creaked as Fallyn shifted her wait to her other foot in order to get comfortable.
“Good, you caught on then,” she said sarcastically.
Remaining silent, Fallyn wanted to hear what she had to say. She stared at the colorful walls she had painted in her free afternoons. They put her at ease looking at something so familiar. The colors had been reflections of her emotions.
“Because I have had my shot at defending the Forests of Raiyne, I have to pass the opportunity to someone else now.”
“Who is it,” Fallyn asked dumbly, the words had escaped her mouth before she had time to think.
Raiyne stared at her disappointed, “And you’re the one that’s supposed to be the next Warrior Queen? This forest isn’t going to stand a chance. I would have thought that you had taken after my side rather than your father’s. Well, the intelligence at least,” she tacked on as an afterthought.
This is my mother, Fallyn thought. This can’t be happening to me. I am, just a foundling, an outcast, taken in by a generous couple. Her next response was that to the challenge of becoming a Warrior Queen. She knew she wasn’t ready.
“Why did you abandon me then,” Fallyn said, desperate to hear the answer. After all, she didn’t know her, not in the slightest bit. She was also trying to stall. The information might overwhelm her she knew.
“Where I am, and have been, you could not follow. I put you in their hands, knowing that they wanted a child. They were unable to have one of their own.”
Her adoptive parents had never told her that couldn’t have children, although she had wondered why they never had children. Fallyn was surprised by the answer, but anger quickly took over. How could she do that to her, she thought.
“Why are you here now then, talking to me? You couldn’t have dropped in to say earlier, Hi, I’m your mother, or happy birthday, or…or…” her sobbing made her words completely incomprehensible. Her mother, her true mother, watched apologetically, and tried to comfort her.
Fallyn dried her tears and embraced her mother. She remembered her adoptive parents down stairs.
“What about my other parents? What am I going to tell them?” Fallyn asked concerned.
“The best thing you can do for now, is to follow me. It’s safer for them not to know where you are.”
The former Warrior Queen started for the mirror. “Come, it’s time to leave,” she said, beckoning towards the mirror. “Follow me.”
Watching her mother disappear brought her out of her stupor. Quickly she scribbled down a note telling her parents that she was okay and slipped it through the hatch. She made sure that it was on top of everything before she made her way to the Looking Glass. Instinctively, as though she had been doing it her entire life, she stepped towards the glass and disappeared
