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"Wait! Where's the fire?" Jack called after her.
"Where are you going?" Goldilocks asked.  But Sleeping Beauty continued running toward the smoking village.
Everyone started piling out of the carriages.  The royals ran after Sleeping Beauty, but not very far.  She stopped at the edge of the village.
The village had been viciously attacked.  It was all burned to the ground, and the parts that weren't were still ablaze.  Smoke filled the air above the village like a cloud.  There was no doubt, only the Grande Armee could have done this.
Sleeping Beauty just stood there looking out on her demolished kingdom, or at least part of it.  She said something, but I was too far away to hear.  Snow White placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.  There were more words exchanged between the two.  In an instant, Sleeping Beauty was running toward a blazing section of the village. 
"Beauty, come back!" Chase called after her.
"It's too dangerous!" Cinderella cried.
Jack and Goldilocks, who were standing next to the royals, ran out after them.  I held my breath, that part of the village looked the worst.  ^The Grande Armee really wasn't sparing anyone in this war.  They didn't care if someone would help, they just demolished and move on. ^ if I hadn't understood it before, I understood it now.  The Grande Armee was here to kill and conquer, no surrenders.
I walked up to stand with the royals as they watched the village in anticipation.  We all watched with batted breath as we didn't see them emerge after a minute.
"I'm going to get them!" Chase said and started to go after them, but Chandler caught his arm.
"If something happens to them and you're in there too, that will be another loss." Chandler said calmly.  "She will come out."
The way he said it gave me hope, but I was still unsure.  ^Why did she even run in there in the first place? What if the Grande Armee had laid a trap or something? ^
The next thing we saw, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks, and Jack came running out the village.  Sleeping Beauty had something cradled in her arms, and as she got closer, I saw it was a child.
"Whose baby is that?" I asked.
"As far as we know, she's and orphan," Sleeping beauty replied.
"Well, I know a great castle you can send her to if you need an orphanage," Red said snidely, and gave Little Bo a dirty look.
Sleeping looked down at the child and smiled.  There was a warmth in her eyes I knew probably seldom surfaced.  "I do, too," she said.  "She's coming to live with us."
Chase stepped toward his wife, probably to talk sense into her, but when he glanced at the baby, his whole countenance shifted.
"What about the royal bloodline?"  Chandler asked, which is what I just been thinking.
"If any of you are concerned with blood, I invite you to look around the village and see all the blood of my people ahs been split," Sleeping Beauty said.  "This child is a survivor and a child of this kingdom and therefore a worthy heir to the throne."
No one objected.  The baby seemed to be a beacon to the rest of us that even in hard times, good things can occur.
"What will you name her?"  Cinderella asked.
Sleeping Beauty looked around at her peers and tears came to her eyes.  "Since she was found in the ashes of her village, I think I'll name her Ash," she said.
"Princess Ash of the Eastern Kingdom it has a nice ring to it," Froggy said.
"She's beautiful," Rapunzel said.
A few moments of silence followed the adoption of the child.  Red suddenly marched right up to Goldilocks.  I expected her to start an argument, but she surprised me.
"Teach us to fight," she said.
"Excuse me?" Goldilocks asked in bewilderment.
"I want to learn how to fight this army myself," Red explained to all of us.  "This could have happened to any village in any of our kingdoms- this wasn't an attack on the Eastern Kingdom, it was an attack on us all.  I refuse to sit back and watch this Grande Armee destroy everything we love so much.  If I die, I don't want to die in a cozy carriage or throne room, I want to die fighting alongside our people."
Everyone looked impressed and moved by what she had said.  She had inspired them all, and they took a step toward Goldilocks, united in their step and request.
"I do have pretty decent upper-body strength from cleaning my stepmother's house every day," Cinderella bragged.
"And we could use a break from being cooped up inside those carriages."  Snow White shrugged.
Goldilocks looked impressed by their interests and withdrew her sword from its scabbard.  "All right, then" she said.  "Your Majesties, each of you please find a large stick.  The first thing I'm going to teach you is how to use a sword."
While the royals found sticks suitable for training, Emmerich and I walked over to a patch of grass and sat down, planning on watching the training.
Cinderella came over and asked Emmerich and myself to watch over Hope as she learned how to fight.  Hope started getting fussy, and I picked her up and cradled her gently.  Emmerich looked at me and Hope with longing.
"Do you want to hold her?" I asked him.
"Yes, please!" he said excitedly.  I laid Hope in his arms, and he looked down at the infant in wonder.
"Bree," someone asked from beside me, and I looked up to see Sleeping Beauty holding Ash.  "Would you mind holding her while I learn?  I saw you with Hope, and I think you're really good."
"Sure," I said, honored that she'd asked me.  "I'd love to."
She knelt beside me and passed Ash into my arms.  The infant was much lighter then hope, and a lot skinnier, too.  She fit right into my open arms like a missing puzzle piece.
"Thank you, Bree," Sleeping Beauty said and walked over to where the other royals were.
I had held other kids before, but none as young as Ash.  She was a tiny form of life, but yet she had experience in her eyes.  Even at such a young age, she had been through so much.  It was hard for me to think about it like that.  All her life, Ash would have a scarred past that she wouldn't know about until later on.
Emmerich and I entertained the children and watched their parents learn sword skills from afar.  Ash fell asleep halfway through the session.  I didn't notice until she moved one her arms to suck on her thumb.  I looked down and saw her little eyelids flutter into drowsiness.  She was so precious and fragile.

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I glanced at Red, and then over at Bo.  We were back in the carriages, and the tension that used to be between red and Bo seemed to have dissipated from the carriage.  ^Well, if training to fight an army caused tension to ease, then I was all for it.^

"Oh no!" Red exclaimed, making us all sit up straight. "If I keep training then I'll have muscular arms, and my dresses won't fit!"

"Seriously?!?  She had an outburst over that? Really?! Well, it was Red after all.^

"Dear," Froggy started.  "I think you will be just fine."

"Oh, I don't," Bo said with a smirk playing her lips.  "I think during the time we're on this trip, you'll get muscles so large none of your dresses will fit!" ^The smirk was definitely there now.^

"WHAT?!?" Red yelled, scaring everyone half to death. 

"Is everything okay?" We heard Jack yell from his position as the driver. 

"Everything's fine!" Froggy yelled out the window. 

"Dear, don't listen to her," Froggy said, getting pale.  "She...she..she wouldn't know how your arms react to exertion."

"What's exertion?" Red said, stressing every syllable with confusion.

"It's when you get huge muscles." Bo inputted, with her smirk growing by the minute. 

"No, that's not the correct definition, Bo." Froggy, said patiently, obviously missing that Bo didn't have the wrong definition of the word, she just wanted to get under Red's skin.  "It's when you use your muscles more than you used to, and your arms have to adapt.  And everyone's genes are how made up is how much change the body will go through as it reacts to exertion."

"Huh?" Red asked.  "Could you speak English for those of us who don't speak medical bumbo-jumbo stuff?"

"Um..." Froggy began, floundering to find the answer. 

"Basically it's when you use you muscles to do something you wouldn't normally do." I said, trying to help Froggy get his words together. 

"Uh, yes, that's it." Froggy said, his skin getting back to it's normal color. 

"So.." Red said, inspecting her arms to make sure they were okay.  "I'll be okay, then?"

"Yes," Froggy said, side-eyeing Bo. "I think you'll be fine."

Red glared at Bo. ^Uh,oh. This was not going to go well.^

"But you wanted me to think otherwise." Red seethed, directing it at Bo, leaving no room for discussion.

Bo just smiled and leaned back in her seat on the other side of the carriage.

There was silence in the carriage for a moment, and the steady speed of the carriage was like a ticking clock, continuously ticking on and on, no matter what.  Suddenly, the ticking slowed.  I looked out the window and saw the horses in the front slowing down as if there was a barricade stopping them from passing.   As I looked closer I saw a boy in his mid-teens standing in the middle of the path, blocking our passage.  At first I thought that this would be normal, until I realized that no one was supposed to know about the Secret Path.

As the horses slowed to a stop, Red leaned her head out the window to see what was going on.  "I know I've never met that boy before, but I could almost swear I know who he is." she wondered aloud. 

^I was actually thinking the same thing, but he looked more like someone from Earth than here, so it was hard to tell.  Most people from Earth looked the same, they were all stereotypes, maybe it was that way here? ^

I saw the boy say something in a pained way, and then we were surrounded by hundreds of soldiers carrying guns and swords.  I muffled a scream as one erupted from Red and Bo.  I heard the other royals do the same.

We were pushed roughly out of our carriages, and I saw a look of panic on Emmerich's face that I knew all to well.  He was thinking about that if he was a superhero, he could fix all of this.  I remember when he told me and Conner about it after we had come through the portal.  His look was of sorrow and pain. 

Then my look changed to pain as well, as I was pushed out of the way with the muzzle of rifle. *Fun fact! I actually looked up the different parts of a rifle to know what the end of a rifle was called. Hahaha!*

I looked around at the other royals getting shoved out of their carriages, and my eyes caught on the boy who had stopped us.  He was looking around at everyone, and his eye caught mine.

I saw the same pained look in his eyes as mine, but his was different.  He had a look of betrayal, but like he was the one who had betrayed someone else.  Then it clicked where I had seen him.  I remembered seeing him sneaking around the Fairy Palace grounds the day that I left on the Secret Path.  I was surprised when the General walked over to him, patted him on the back, and said something.  After the general walked away, he looked back at me and his eyes told me that the only reason he told the General was because it was an only-way-out situation. 

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