"Walking through an empty underworld of demons dancing"
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Chapter 5: The small tunnel that led to deception
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Landing rather neatly on the patch of grass surrounding this floating island from among the clouds, Infinity couldn't help but raise her little head to try and spot what goes beyond these castle walls.
Well, it looked like a castle but in actuality, it was a meditation temple. All six kingdoms excluding the dangerous realms of the Eye of Eden have one at the very end of their lands.

The one in the Isle of Dawn happens to be a small structured castle with soft concrete as its main building material.
With clouds acting as gates all around the sacred structure and an almost invisible rainbow towering over them, calling it a temple would be rather difficult.

"I see I see! Look at it, it's exactly like how the prophecy described it would be!" The beauty of the castle did manage to take up a toll on young Infinity Sky, however.
Ever since she recovered from a scary first flight in hours, the first thing she noticed was how different the Isle of Dawn's temple looked compared to the one in Daylight Prairies.

Of course, the Sky sisters had never visited the Prairies' temple before but heard it was an absolute sacred sight from their parents.

Fixed on her surroundings for awhile, Unity rubbed the back of her head. She turned her head a bit to take a look at the amount of wing wedges she currently has.
At the moment, being in such close approximation with another sky kid, she currently is on her way to refilling her sixth wedge. Satisfied with the amount of flight power she currently has, she approached her sister.

"Why wouldn't the prophecy be honest with how the temple looked?" The short haired sky kid wondered. It was a genuine question but not one that should be asked by a fourteen year old. The world may seem like the perfect Utopia but it sure was blended with lies and ugly streams of negativity sometimes. Unity learned that much even if she lived her once peaceful life in the Daylight Prairies.

What changed her view on the world was the fact that they were chosen as the children who would hopefully fulfill the prophecy. She joined her younger sister by the wall of the temple and peered over to her side where she spotted an ominous orange light coming from the lower walls.
"I don't know, it's good that they are though." the teal caped child was too caught up in her own curiosity to listen to Infinity's mutters.

It eventually caught the younger sibling's attention, why hadn't she earned a response yet? Infinity glanced to look at her side, she had seen her sister approach her from there anyways. Taking a deep breath, "Say big sister Unity-" her eyes widened to realize that the teal caped girl wasn't there anymore. Instead, she was approaching a small tunnel made by the temple's lower walls.

"Hey, what did you find? Wait for me, I wanna see." Close to catch up, Infinity rushes behind her. What a marvellous sight this was, was it a secret tunnel?
Now behind her sister, both children exchanged glances of uncertainty but definite urge to adventure. "What do you think goes down that tunnel?" Infinity wondered.

Taking another step forward, Unity examined the strange orange light. Hesitantly, she stretched a hand out in the direction of the light. "There might be something important through here." She whispered, focusing on bringing her hand closer, she was aware though that this light could be dangerous, like it could zap her or burn her. But surprisingly, none of her initial thoughts came through. No harm was done to her nor her hand.

"Oh? It's pushing me back." Unity observed. Her hand remained atop the orange light, it prevented her from sticking her hand further into the tunnel. "This must be a barrier." She came up with that sole and reasonable conclusion.
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Infinity gave a discouraged sigh and crouched towards the now identified barrier. "Awww, if there's a barrier there, we can't exactly go through. That's disappointing." She complained. On the other hand, Unity Sky wasn't at all upset that they couldn't pass through. She had an idea in mind.

"Remember, there was a barrier by that gate earlier. I was a bit surprised to find out that this barrier doesn't hurt you, but it explains why this one has orange light instead of plain white." Unity began to explain, she did multitask though. As she continued to talk and put her words in a way that Infinity, the Eden enthusiast that won't shut up about it, would underhand,
one of Unity's hands trailed down to her shirt's pockets and pulled out one of the red candles she packed along.

"It really does mean that for opening barriers, candles are our keys. Not just spirits." The teal caped girl brought the unlit red candle into view and pointed it at the orange light. It raised an eyebrow from Infinity in the first few seconds but eventually, she helped her sister light the candle. Watching Unity 'burn' the barrier like she did earlier, Infinity pouted In patience. "It's not fair that you know so much..."

Hearing such words made the older sibling laugh for certain. But she did have a point, Unity seemed to know so much already and they haven't been trapped in the Sky kingdom for a full day. Not like any of the prophecy bearers would want to get trapped here but for the peacefully living sky children who dream about being selected by the elders to go on this dangerous trip, they'd think otherwise.

"It's not that I know so much, I didn't know candles opened up barriers until now, mother and father said that they only provided light to us. But really, it's if you try things for yourself is when you really learn things." The candle she held burned out the second she finished her sentence. The two didn't understand at first to why that is. Though, with the barrier opening up to them, Unity will be sure to remember that when a force field is opened for them, the candle's flame will always die out.

"Ah it worked." The younger sister pointed out the obvious. There was a brief silence before the teal caped child chuckled and stepped right through. "Well, what are you waiting for? Adventure awaits right through here."
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Like a tunnel should be, it was hollow and dimly lit up but there was evidence of someone living under the temple centuries ago. Unity and Infinity explored together, casually looking around and found no sight of a living being down here.

There were many rocks, large ones that would be enough for seats or even beds to young explorers. But the two sisters didn't feel exhaustion building up inside of them nor felt the need to stop adventuring. The reason for their lack of fatigue was their refilled wing wedges. Light was a Sky child's only source of flight and energy as well aside from their other reasons at living—such as emotions, jobs, passions and loved ones.

Walking deeper into the cave, that was when they had encountered another one.
Another spirit it seems, the two sisters' spotted its filthy statue of a corpse sitting by one of the rooms with the largest rocks.
Unity tilted her head in almost surprise as she beckoned Infinity to take out one of her candles to melt the dirt away from the statue. "Please, if I keep doing all the work, I'll run out of candles." That was what made the red caped child pull out one of her candles.

Then, the statue turned into a faint blue light. A spirit appeared to the two amazed Sky sisters. However, before entering what seemed to be a flashback with this new spirit, Unity giggled to herself, earning the attention of both the spirit and Infinity.
"Is something the matter, young one?" The spirit questioned worriedly. The teal caped child shook her head and found the courage to stop laughing.

"This guy's got a toupie!" She exclaimed with almost a new wave of laughter seeping out.

Both Infinity and the spirit didn't seem too impressed with such an immature comment made by the oldest of the Sky sisters. "Oh, you are kidding.." the red caped growled to herself.

On the other hand, the spirit simply huffed in slight offense before sighing. "I won't get too mad because you're the ones that freed me." He said carefully.
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On a rather nice day, a spirit wearing a toupie and custom-made mask preferred to stay by his little workshop. His mask was the lid of a concrete pot. In all reality, Drew the spirit was a massive fan of crafting pots, he loved pottery in general and would refuse to leave her workshop by the temple to return back home and get some rest.

On that exact day however as Drew worked on his recent project: a two feet tall pot, he received a visit from the Isle of Dawn's Elder. He was shocked at first with such a visit but the reason of it was what crushed him to pieces. He loved his time here in the Isle of Dawn and his family.
He couldn't possibly leave this place—

"Drew, you're great at making pots. But the Isle of Dawn aren't quite the collectors of it. I do know a place that would enjoy your work though, Daylight Prairies." The Elder came over and chatted about the possibilities of Drew moving away to sell his pieces of art to pot enthusiasts in the Daylight Prairies.

Of course, he was completely against the suggestion and the Elder understood his decision to refuse quite well. But then came the next set of rough few weeks.
He received a visit from his family and their visit too broke him down quite a bit.
The pressure was building up and he had learned that his family needed hearts desperately, they were losing a lot of currency.

So, in order to help his family out, he set forth to the Daylight Prairies but never returned with the requested sum coming from his family.

Since he was a spirit, Unity and Infinity didn't need explanations to what had happened to him along his compelled and unpleasant journey.
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The flashback ended and the two sisters received a new emote coming from Drew, the 'no' emote. A frown now present on Unity's face, she glanced over to Drew who shook his head over at her.

"You don't need to feel sorry, I had a great life making all those pots and seeing...all of my friends so happy whenever I gifted them one."

The spirit gave her a warm smile before that blue aura of his began to fade. He was disappearing like what had happened to North earlier. Guess it was an intendancy for spirits to disappear after a Sky child has learned about their past.

With Drew now gone, a single question was left in the two girls' mind. But only the youngest had the courage to voice out what that question was. "So, we've reached the temple, where do we go now?"

But it wasn't courage at all that made her ask, Infinity had figured that by the way Unity looked at Drew before he disappeared, she already knew where they'd be going next. Taking a brief step towards the other direction—towards the exit,

"We enter the temple and continue our journey over to the Daylight Prairies."
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A/N: Oh my goodness, I am so sorry that this took ages to write! Truth be told, I had a bit of writer's block because I realized I forgot about the spirit to collect behind the gates, it was the "come here" spirit, ahhhh Eden, I wish I didn't miss it! Oh well, our two protagonists are finally leaving the Isle of Dawn, the next part of the adventure begins next chapter!