Previously on LW:
Because of Aric, soldiers from the Outlands are heading towards the forest to conquer it and capture the princess. Chase has stepped up to organize a defensive and has obtained to get everything the fairies had confiscated back, like their weapons and Autumn's maps.

Chapter 22

    Chase picked up all the maps Aiden had dropped on the grass and stacked them neatly. He held out his free hand to me. I took it, and we walked over to Autumn.

    "Hey." He crouched to her level. She gave us a weak smile. "I understand this is not what you want to be doing right now, but I need your help. A branch of the outland army is coming towards us. I need to know where we are, where we can expect them to come from, and where the outpost is."

    "Of course." She straightened up, and the peryton lifted their heads. "Pass me the big rolled up map, please."

    She laid it out and started organizing smaller maps, which she explained where more detailed, larger scale renderings of places we could see on the bigger map. As she and Chase discussed different elements of the maps, fairies around us struggled to regroup swarms of mischievous children.

    "I think you've got this under control," I told Autumn and Chase. "I'll go see where I can help."

    "Be careful," Chase warned. "Stay inside the village, make sure you're never alone, and that you can always hear me if I call you."

    I raised an eyebrow. Hadn't we been over this already? "I'm not a child, Chase. I can handle it."

    "I know you can, but I'm not sure I could, if anything happened to you." His warm brown eyes met mine. "Please."

    I felt a surge of affection towards him. I wanted to kiss him, but he and Autumn had other things to do.

    "Fine," I said. "But you must promise me not to get in any danger either."

    "Anything you want."

    I smiled at him, then turned around and flew to the nearest group of unruly children, who had managed to escape their parents' watch. Among them, I had recognized Elwys, the young girl who had played with Aiden and Mikoy earlier.

    "Elwys, right?" I asked.

    "Yeees?" She gave me a cheeky grin, as if she expected to be reprimanded for a prank.

    Unfortunately for her and luckily for me, when I had started reading stories to kids every Thursday in the castle library, Autumn had shared with me some of her extensive knowledge of how to deal with children like her - knowledge which she had mainly earned from being around her siblings.

    "How old are you?" I asked.

    "Twenty seasons." She puffed out her chest.

    Despite her small stature, she looked older than five years old -more like eight or nine-, but I had no idea how age worked for fairies. I pretended to be thoughtful.

    "Twenty seasons... Um, I'm not sure that will be enough." I shook my head.

    "For what?" She asked.

    "No never mind. I'll find someone else."

    "For what? For what?" She repeated, grabbing my arm.

    "I was looking for someone to help me lead all the children to the center of the village, but I'm not sure-"

    "I can do it!"

    I hid a smile. "Are you sure? It's a big job."

    "What do I get in return?"

    "After that, everyone will think you're at least twenty-three seasons. Plus, you get to be my second in command. I'm a princess, so it's kind of a big deal." She didn't need to know I had no executive power whatsoever. "I'll even help you prank Aiden."

    "Okay!" She ran off, calling out to other fairies in her native language. There were ripples through the swarm of children as they seem to debate whether it would be funner to go to the center of the village or to run around in the forest.   

    The parents didn't waste the opportunity, and used their lapse in attention to round up the last of them. Soon, the children had calmed down enough to follow their instructions.

    I set out to find the Elder One. Aiden hailed me over first. He had been talking with a group of fairies who had to hover a few feet off the ground to stay eye-level with him.

    "When the Outlanders arrive," he explained to me, "these guys and I will be waiting for them on the tree tops with my bow and their darts, but if there are as much as Aric said, it won't be enough. Do you know what kind of defense mechanism the Elder One was talking about? So far I've only seen children going to the center of the village. If our only defense are tree branches, we won't last very long."

    I looked around us. The trees were too spaced out to give us any protection.

    "I don't know. I'm trying to find the Elder One to ask him how things are going."

    "Tell me what you hear. Has Chase given any orders yet? What's his plan?"

    "I don't know. He's looking at maps with Autumn."

    Aiden sighed. "In that case, I'm going to need more dart-guys. I'll ask my group if they have any more ideas. So far the only one that was suggested was to lead them to the quicksands they for some reason have in this forest."

    "Any chance they could wander there themselves?"

    "Nope. It's way too east of here. We'd have to convince them to follow us nicely for half a day, which I don't think will work."

    "I'll tell Chase once I've talked to the Elder One," I said, looking around.

    "Go to the Great Tree in the center," Aiden suggested. "If you fly up a bit, you'll be able to see the whole village."

    "Good idea." I thanked him and headed to the Great Tree.

    As it turned out, I didn't even have to fly to find the Elder One, as he was kneeling between the gnarly roots of the Great Tree, looking up at it with his arms apart and palms open, mumbling under his breath.

    I didn't want to disturb him, but he must have heard me coming as he turned to look at me.

    "Sorry for bothering you." I apologized.

    "Not at all." He shook his head. "What can I do for you, child?"

    "I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help. Also, my friends were wondering about your security measures, because so far we've only been sending people to the center of the village..." I trailed off, looking at the groups of fairies gathered not too far from the tree. "I mean, it's a good start, but I don't think it will be enough."

    "It won't be. The defensive measures have yet to be activated."

    "And when can we activate them?"

    "I am attempting to do so, now."

    "Attempting?"

    "The forest does not feel our urgency. It was there before us and will be there after. What matters an hour to a tree who has lived centuries?"

    "To be honest, this question isn't the most pressing one right now." I tried to stay polite. "Is there anything we can do to activate the defense faster? And what is it actually?"

    "Until the Great Tree responds, it is no use hurrying."

    My polite smile became a bit forced. I hoped it didn't show too much. "You mean the defensive measures you're talking about depend on the whim of a magic tree?"

    He didn't answer. I took it as a yes.

    "Awesome. Well, my mom talked to me just an hour ago. I'm sure we can call her again."

    His eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes widened is a comical expression. "What do you mean?"

    "I thought you'd know. The woman who saved your forest is my mom."

    "No -I mean, yes, I knew that- but that is not what I asked. She talked to you? The tree did?"

    "Er, yeah. I mean, it was more like a whisper in my head, but it was her. I wasn't hearing voices," I added seeing his weird look. Technically, I had been hearing voices, but I wasn't crazy.

    "I haven't been able to contact the Great Tree for years now, decades."

    "Well, it might have been because I'm her daughter?"

    "How did you get her to talk to you?" He grabbed my arm.

    I pulled back. "I didn't do anything. My friend heard something, told me to listen, and then she talked to me."

    "Your friend?" His voice became thoughtful. "The one with the fire wings?"

    "Uh, you mean Aiden?"

    "Yes. The boy with the fire wings. Interesting. Where is he? I want him to try to contact the Tree again."

    "You think Aiden was the one she wanted to talk to? Not me?"

    "Well, of course she wanted to talked to you. I think your friend woke her, though."

    "I'll go get him," I said, happy to get a break from talking to the fairy chief, as he was weirding me out.

    I flew up to Aiden. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

    "Yup. I'll be right back, guys," he told the group fairies around him. "Finish organizing the shifts and start the watches right now. We're about done anyway." He stepped away from the group with me. "What's up? Did you talk to Chase? Because I haven't seen him for a while."

    "He must still be with Autumn, trying to figure out how the outlanders will attack. No, I just saw the Elder One. He was trying to talk to my mom and was kind of freaked out we were able to earlier."

    "Has he considered that maybe she just doesn't like him?"

    My lips twitched up. "No, I don't think he has."

    "Well, he hasn't reached the Aiden-and-Hailey awesomeness level, yet."

    "Actually, he doesn't think I had much to do with it. He thinks you 'woke her'. Also, I should warn you he's a bit obsessed with you and your wings."

    "Yeah, I know, they all were at first. Kinda freaky. I figured it was just 'cause the feathers."

    "They didn't seem bothered by mine." I flicked my right wing open, showing off the green-tinged white feathers.

    "That's 'cause they like green. It's a forest; there's green everywhere. They're probably just afraid of fire and stuff of fire-related colors."

    "If you say so. Can you go talk to the Elder One? If he doesn't talk to the tree, we can't have the defensive measures he was talking about."

    "Lovely. It's not like we need those or anything." He made a face. "Fine, I'll go, but he's not allowed to pet my wings."

    "If he freaks you out, pretend to faint, and I'll come rescue you," I teased.

    "I'm counting on you." He winked at me, opened his wings, and took off.

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Sorry about skipping last Friday's update... As an apology, I made this chapter a bit longer.

Are you guys happy about the current cover? Was there one you liked better?
Maybe you'd just like me to change it every once in a while, or maybe you'd rather I stick with one?

Cover at the top by @TamurilCarnesir :)