We're Out Here!!!

After Goodie2shues hugged her bunny slippers one more time, she slipped them on her dainty feet.  Arnie slowly sunk back down in the chair.  "This place is really weird," she thought as she noticed the bunny nose wiggling on the slippers.  By this time Arnie was so baffled she had totally forgot about her traveling companions who were still outside and wondering what was happening in the cottage...

​​When Arnie had been invited into the cottage, Drat had hoped to follow her in.

He too wanted to hear what the Goodies had to say and maybe learn something else about the Dragon tablet for the Troll King.  The problem was that when Arnie crossed the threshold of the door, what looked like a circular bundle of sticks over the doorway turned into a tangle of snakes!  Since rats and snakes don't get along very well together (unless one knows he is invited to be the dinner which doesn't usually turn out well for the rat), Drat jumped back from the doorway just in time to hear Goodie2shues tell Arnie to close the door.  "Ugh!  I hate snakes," shuddered Drat as he heard the lock on the door click shut.

Knowing he was now locked out of the cottage did not slow Drat down though.  Quickly he started walking around the cottage trying to peek into the windows to see if he could at least see what was going on.  But as he approached every window either they closed their shutters or the curtain hanging over it blew together tightly.  "Oh Drat!" muttered the rat.

As the rat was thinking of what to do next, he heard laughter from the other travelers.  Glaring at the troll and wysp, he growled, "What are you two laughing about!"

​By this time the Wysp was laughing so hard that tears were falling from its eyes and even Dulbbe, who had lost his normal Troll demeanor, was bent over laughing and trying to catch his breath.

Watching the two laughing so hard finally got the rat to start smiling and even he started to snicker.  "All right, fun time is over.  Now what was so funny?" again asked Drat. 

"You are!" answered the Wysp.  When you said 'Drat' we thought you were talking to yourself until we realized you were frustrated... When Drat finally figured out what the Wysp was telling him, he just shook his head from side-to-side and groaned, "I have got to get different traveling companions."

With the three waiting on the doorsteps discussing what they were going to do now (especially with two of them hoping to get another chance at the obtaining the Dragon tablet), and Arnie inside the cottage, the Dowager over at the Shadows King's castle was planning her next steps also.

​
​It was relatively simple for Griselda to  work out how to be invited to spend a few days at the castle.  All she had to do was offer to teach Ffion more about the flutterby that had stayed with the princess.  At first the Dowager wondered why the flutterby had stayed, but now that she knew that Ffion was a Nyte Shade, it all made sense sort of.

"Since an ancient Nyte Shade had given their magic to the dragons it made sense that the flutterby could feel the Dragon magic in the princess," Griselda realized.

​Soon she was in one of the guest rooms and was preparing for her next conversation with Ffion.  "I must see how much the princess knows about her heritage and if she is aware of the connection with the Dragons," thought Griselda.  "But first, I must get a message to Awena."

Realizing that using a flutterby to send a secret message might not be the best option at the moment (especially if they were attracted to Ffion), the Dowager decided to use the next best thing.  Quickly she took out a small package that she had been carrying with her and began her message.   Opening a window in her room, she soon spotted a small Bee-G buzzing around a strange looking flower (it was in fact B-Glad who had been sent by Cornelia for some pollen from one of the plants that only grew in the Shadows King's garden).  She waved the package in the air so the Bee-G could see it.   

Alerted that a post needed to be delivered, B-Glad quickly flew to the Dowager's window.  After buzzing the package for a second to confirm that it was an actual Petal Post, it sped away to get a Sleeping Sisters' delivery bird.  It did not take long for a large magpie to fly up to the window frame, pick up the package, and fly off again.  "Those birds do come in handy for delivering Petal Posts," the Dowager thought as she closed the window and started out of her room to find the princess.