Alice & Alyssa: Part Ten

Next part, coming your way! :) Next post, Into the Future: Part Two. If you missed any of the other parts, click on the following links. If not, read on and enjoy! :D
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Chapter Ten:

The two sisters were alone. Raynold had stopped them for the night just a couple hours before and they had eaten dinner and created a camp during that time. Just now, stars began to shine as the sun disappeared behind the distant hills and Raynold was softly snoring on the other side of the fire. Diana too appeared to be asleep and her sides rose and fell evenly as she slept.

However, Alice and Alyssa found that they couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard they tried. So after about half an hour, they decided to work on their story more. They had moved farther from the camp, just inside the glow given by the campfire.

“You know,” Alyssa began in a whisper, “we really ought to have a fight sometime after we get past the swamp queen’s land…”

Alice gave a resigned sigh of agreement. “I suppose so…let’s have it be the next thing so that we can get it over with.”

“But who, or what, should we fight?” Alyssa asked.

Alice’s brow furrowed in thought, and she began absentmindedly chewing on her fingernails. Alyssa took some of her hair and began twirling it around her finger while she too thought. After a few minutes of silence, the twins suddenly both had an inspiration at the same time.

They looked up at each other. “Gliefs!” they both exclaimed at the same time.

Diana muttered something from her bed and rolled over sleepily. Immediately, Alice and Alyssa dropped their voices back to a whisper. Thankfully, Diana hadn’t woken up completely and was soon fast asleep again.

Quietly and quickly, the girls went to work. A few hours passed while the steady drone of Alyssa whispering the story and the scratching of the pencil on their notebook were the only sounds in the still night.

But soon, Alyssa’s mind grew slower and her creative juices refused to continue bubbling. Alice had caught herself nodding off over the notebook a few times and managed to jerk herself back into wakefulness barely.

“We’d better get some sleep,” Alyssa said finally, with a yawn. “Otherwise we’ll be falling asleep in our saddles tomorrow, and that would never do. I’ve got to keep alert while I’m on Rebel or he’ll manage to get the best of me sometime and then I’ll never live it down!”

Alice agreed, rubbing her eyes and shutting the notebook. She put it back inside her backpack along with the pencil. “I am getting tired,” she answered, also yawning.

They walked back over to the dying fire and snuggled into their blankets and were soon fast asleep under the twinkling stars.

*************************************************************************************

“Everybody up!” Came Raynold’s cheerful call, breaking into the girls’ dreams. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us, and I want to get started as soon as breakfast is over, so wake up!”

Alice rolled onto her side and squinted through cracked eyes at him. “It’s too bright,” She complained, shutting them again and diving underneath her blankets.

Raynold went over and patted her playfully on the shoulder. “Maybe it seems that way, but yesterday morning you said that it was too dark!”

Alyssa popped out of her blankets with a laugh. “He’s right, Alice,” She said, already busy rolling her blanket back up again.

Alice said something from beneath her blankets, but it was too muffled for the others to hear.

“What?” Raynold asked, bending closer to Alice’s blanket. She came out suddenly, and with such vigor that she and Raynold bonked their heads.

“I said ‘alright, you win, I’m coming out’,” Alice said, rubbing her sore head. She grimaced when she accidently pressed the bump that was already forming where she and Raynold had hit their heads together.

Diana came over from where she had finished rolling her bed and offered to help Alice with hers. “How’s the story coming?” She asked. “I heard you working on it a little last night, but fell asleep before hearing much. I was pretty tired.”

“Oh, pretty well…” Alice answered vaguely. “We’re to chapter ten now, and working strong. We might get through chapter twelve by tonight if we can manage to work on it during our breaks.”

Diana smiled. “I still want to read it when you’re done,” She said.

“Oh, absolutely!” Alice replied. “We’ll still need someone to proof read it, and who else but someone who’s been through the same adventure! You could help us a ton by adding things we might have forgotten!”

“That’s true!” Diana’s eyes lit up. “I can’t wait to get back home again!”

Alyssa walked over, leading Rebel. “Well, we’ve still got to complete this mission,” She said after overhearing the last bit of the two girls’ conversation.

Diana jumped up to go saddle her own horse, Star, and Alice followed suit. Soon all four adventurers were back in the saddle and heading towards the distant horizon.

*************************************************************************************

Raynold led them across a wide valley and up into some rolling hills, much like the ones the village had been built in. Alice and Alyssa tried their hand at writing while on horseback and managed to complete an entire chapter that way.

A few hours later the group had made their way through the hills and were now directly in front of a large forest. The girls exchanged fearful glances and their horses stamped nervously. Raynold peered into the dark recesses as if he could discover what the forest harbored that way.

He beckoned to the girls. “We’ve got to be careful through here,” He cautioned in a whisper. “Try to keep your horses as quiet as possible. We’re entering the outskirts of the Swamp Queen, and she can have a nasty temper sometimes with outsiders. One can never be too careful.”

Diana’s eyes grew large, and she looked frightened.

“Should I tell her we’ll be alright?” Alice asked Alyssa in a whisper.

Alyssa shook her head. “She can’t know. She doesn’t know in the story, so she can’t know now. Just try to be as encouraging as possible without giving away the plot line.”

Alice gave her sister a quick nod and then sidled Troy next to Star and reached out a comforting arm to Diana, giving her a quick hug. “We’ll be fine. Raynold will look after us.”

Diana gave Alice a weak smile, but seemed a little more confident. “Thanks,” She replied.

Raynold came back from where he had been scanning the woods worriedly and motioned the girls to follow him in single file. He went first, since he knew the way, then Diana came followed closely by Alice and Alyssa.

And so they entered the foreboding wood.