The 13th Realm

"Come on! Hurry! You have to go through! It's the only way out!" yelled Cara. "You have to jump through the portal! It's the only way into the 13th Realm!"

"I-I-I can't do it! It's closing up! I can't see you anymore! Cara...!?" Holly cried.

All of this was flashing through Cara's mind now, as she remembered that terrible day. Where is Holly now? she wondered. The image of her best friend Holly jumping though the portal as it closed, and suddenly dissapearing before making it into the 13th Realm, ,made her quiver and shake. Could she have been...killed? Surely she either made it into this realm, or got stuck in the real world...? Cara had never been very sure what had happened to her friend. She shrugged her shoulders in defeat and walked back to her house.

Now, let's go back to when she first arrived in the 13th Realm......

Ever since she had escaped the Real World and come to The 13th Realm (also known as FolkLand), she had had 3 friends. Gurgle, the friendly Ogre, Eclipse, the talking dragon, and Dancer, the glorious talking unicorn. Dancer had found her, lying there on the soft forest grass, and had called on Gurgle to come and lift her onto his back. Once unconciously aboard Dancer's back, she was taken to an abandoned cottage (Now her home) and cared for until concious again.She awoke to Eclipse blowing fire out of his nostrils dangerously close to her feet.

"Now you stop that! Look, you done scared her you feisty little dragon, you!" Gurgle had said, scorning the little Eclipse. "Dancer, you better get in'ere right now! The girl's awake and Eclipse is tryin' to scortch her paws off!" Gurgle called.

Suddenly, before Cara's weak eyes, there was a great, powerful presence. She could only see a blinding white blur, and at first it had scared her, but then she had felt the warming, comforting presence of the figure and relaxed slightly. Suddenly the form spoke. She could just make out the words "...taken a nasty fall from the bridge..." Bridge? she thought weakly. I didn't fall off of a bridge! I came through a portal!

"Ah, yes, but when you come through the portal, you land on The Bridge. You're just lucky that I happened to be passing by as you fell off of it, or else the Bridge Trolls would have gotten you" the white form said.

" How did you...."

"Ah, yes, sorry little one, I did not mean to frighten you, where are my manners?" the form said. "I am Dancer, one of the Outriders of the Unicorns. I patrol to make sure that the portals are guarded from evil creatures lurking through them from other Realms. This here" he motioned to the Ogre, "is Gurgle the Ogre, a friend of mine for many years, and this hear is the all-feisty little dragon-friend Eclipse" he said, motioning towards the little dragon, who was sitting on the wood floor concentrating on blackening it with his fire, and doing a succeedingly good job of it,too, for there was a black circle the size of a baseball burned into the ground.

"Where am I?" Cara asked. She was begining to feel drowsy again.

"Why, you are in FolkLand! 13th Realm, home to all of the LightSide creatures!" Dancer replied grandly.

"LightSide?" Cara asked.

"Well, it's rather complicated, but I'll try my best to explain...the 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,and 7th Realms are all home of the Dark Sided creatures...they promote evil and death. The 8th,9th,10th,11th,12th,and 13th Realms are all Lightsided, we promote happiness and life."

"But how come there are more DarkSided creatures...?" Cara asked. Her eyes were drooping shut once more.

"It is rather bothering, but DarkSided creatures are threatened, so they are afraid to be rebellious and come to the LightSides. They're told that their families will be killed if they don't take them and move to the DarkSide. Plus, they are also falsely bribed. They are promised great power and such, but instead, when they arrive, are seperated and torn from their families, never to see them again. I had a friend, a fellow unicorn, FleetFoot, and his families' lives were threatened, so he was forced to move to the dark side. He was split from his family and sent off with the other males, to be sent to the DarkSide military forces to be trained to fight the LightSides. His mate, Aleeva, was ill at the time and she could not make the long, rough, guarded trek to the KeepingGrounds, the place where all female creatures that come through go to live their lives in solice, without ever seeing another male, or bearing another young one, and they are sworn to silence, never to speak again. Anyhow, she was ill and could not make the trek, so she was murdered. Her two young, twins, one colt and one filly. The two young were seperated,also, into gender categories, and so they were raised to believe in evil and death. They never even had a chance to see what a great Outrider their father was..."

"Wow, that's horrible!" Cara gasped.

"Yes, now you need to get some sleep" Dancer said.

And with that, she had dozed off. In the following days, Cara came to find out that she was one of the few humans that had ever been able to cross through the portal. It depended on how strong you were, and with that she realized that Holly must not have made it because of that. She also found out that Dancer was telepathic. That was why he could read her mind that night when she arrived. Cara learned much in her new world, and met many other creatures, too. Minotaurs and Coldfangs, Gryphons and Dragons, lots of different mythical creatures. Several years passed, and Cara was 17. She had a fully blossomed life here and so she was happy.

Now, back to present times.......

As Cara walked back to her house, she gasped in horror. Around 40 DarkSided Minotaurs were crashing into her house. They were bashing the windows and setting the roof thatches on fire, ripping out the wood and breaking it to peices. Luckily, no one else was inside, but it shook Cara to the bones. This was her home, where she had lived ever since she came there...and here they were demolishing it. She suddenly snapped out of it when a Minotaur saw her and came hurtling towards her. She gasped and ran as fast as she could thorugh the woods. The soft forest grass was squishy under her feet. She came to a creek and slipped on a rock, and down she went, falling unconcious in the stream, the cold water running over her limp body.

When she awoke, she found herself still lying in the creek, but the Minotaur was gone. She still lay therea minute, gathering up what had happened: Her house had been destroyed by Darks, and one came after her. She slipped in the creek and was knocked unconcious, and now the Minotaur is gone. She lay there, extremely numb, when she heard a rustle from some trees. When she looked over, she saw a boy about her age, maybe 18, fighting the same Minotaur that had chased her! Suddnely, she realized that she had not been unconcious, she had sort of fainted when she slipped. It had only been a few minutes since she fell. The boy suddenly thrust a sword into the Minotaur and it seized motion and fell limply to the ground. The boy came jogging over and offered her his hand, yet she refused it.

"What, a young knight can't help a damsel in distress?" he smiled.

"No, not when I don't know him or whose battle he sides with" she said.

"I am a knight of the Lightside, if that is what you mean"

" Very well then" she smiled grimly as he pulled her to her feet.

"It seems like you're soaked to the bone, that gown must weigh a ton" the knight smiled.

"Yes, it's quite heavy, and cold at that" she laughed.

"Well, if you come with me, then I can get you some warm, dry clothes" he offered.

"Could you help me find someone first?"

"Of course!"

"I am looking for a unciorn named Dancer..."

"Ah! Yes! He is my old friend! Of course, but we may have to ride awhile and I've only one horse."

''Well, I don't know then...maybe I could find him on my own..."

By now it was quite obvious that the young knight had fallen for the beautiful,bedraggled girl. "Oh, but you can ride with me!"

" I see no horse" Cara replied.

The boy let out a high whistle and suddenly a jet black came gracefully out of the underbrush. "This is Starbright" the young knight announced.

"Hello" the mare said.

"I didn't know that regular horses could talk here" Cara said, amused.

"Ah, but I am no regular horse.I am one of the last of my kind. I am realted to unicorns, only I have a a smaller horn. It was then that Cara noticed a matching jet blavk horn about half the size of a regular horn protruding from her forelock.

"Now, let us ride" the knight said. "Oh, and by the way, I am Corin"

"Okay, I will remember that" Cara laughed as she climbed up in front of him.

For most of the afternoon and into the night they traveled, searchinf for Dancer. Finally they found him in a small meadow with about 200 stallions assembled around him. Their horns were sharpened and glistening in the moonlight.

"There you are!" He cried to Cara. "Ah, I see Corin has found you"

"Yes, but Dancer, there is trouble in FolkLand....a lot of Minotaurs came and demolished my house...and then they came after me!"

"Yes, I know. The Great Battle has begun. And you won't belive who is leading the lot of Dark Creatures into battle."

"Who?"

"FleetFoot and Aleeva's colt...ThickVine"

"No!"

" I am afraid so."

Now...since this story is so long, we will skip the battle scene and go to the post-war (after the war)

Cara ran into the midst of the aftermath of the Great Battle. Lifeless creatures lay all around her, unicorns included. She desperatley searched for Dancer,Corin (whom she had finally fallen for), and Gurgle. Eclipse had stayed with a group of mares during the battle, so he was safe. Finally, she ran across a powerful-looking unicorn. She prayed that it wasn't Dancer. As she knelt down to see, she gasped with relief. But a moment later the relief was gone. She realized who it was. It was Fleetfoot, Dancer's old friend. Now that the war was over, Fleetfoot could be free. But Cara knew that the powerful stallion would never see his beautiful filly, or the rolling hills, or the pink sunset, or the tall forest trees again, for he was dead. He had died in the line of battle. There was a horn mark going right through his chest, he had been killed by his own kind. How horrible! She knelt there for a minute, but suddenly she heard a scream. She looked up to see two stallions rearing on the top of a hill. They were the last two to battle. All of the others had escaped back through the portal to safety. Then she recognized them as Dancer and Fleetfoot's colt, the one raised to evil and that lead the battle of unicorns. They were lashing out, and after a long while of ear wrenching screams, finally Fleetfoot's son fell limp to the ground and rolled down the hill. He was dead.

Dancer did not move though. He bowed his head to the wind, and suddenly his knees buckled.

Cara ran to the top of the hill, and as she did, she was shouting into the wind "Noooo!! NO!!!!!" when she got to the top, Dancer was lying there, taking deep,shallow breaths. "Dancer, no! How could you!? You can't just leave me here! You can't go!"

"My time has come, and you must move on. I was put on Earth for a purpose, and that purpose has been filled" he said, looking down at the broken body of Fleetfoot's son. "Now, go and find Corin, and be happy. Do me one last favor"

"What? Anything!"

"Find Aleeva and Fleetfoot's filly, and tell her all of this. Tell her the whole story. And then find m y mate and young one and tell them that I am...." he heaved one last deep breath, but never got to finish, because the wind took that last breath away.

"....Gone." whispered Cara.

Epologue:

Cara fulfilled Dancer's dying request, and Folkland's struggle for survival was finally over. Everybody was happy and free. Cara and Corin got married and rebuilt Cara's old cottage, and had a beautiful daughter. A memorial for Dancer was held the day after his death and he became a legend throughout history, that will flow through the unicorn's blood forever. And of Fleetfoot's son, his tale will be told ever after also.