Chapter Text
September 15th, 1974
Denver, Colorado (Kingdom of the Burning Sun)
“‘Now there came a glimmer of red light before them. The goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.’” Jackie’s dad read before singing the song that the goblins sang, He sang it as out of tune as he possibly could. During the two chapters he read, poor little Jackie was hiding under the bedsheets, only peeking her eyes out to keep eyes on the reassuring presence of her dad.
Jackie was a little girl, with brown hair and her mother’s hazel eyes.
Jackie’s dad, David Smith, was a man in his mid-to-late twenties with brown hair and average height. He had a knack for making people laugh and raised Jackie on all the fantasy must reads, whether it be Conan the Barbarian, A Wrinkle in Time, The Wizard of Oz, The Last Unicorn, and of course, The Hobbit with the Lord of the Rings being next.
When he wrapped up Riddles in the Dark with “‘Bilbo had escaped,’” Jackie cheered.
Jackie looked up at David and asked, “Does Gandalf and the Dwarves escape?”
“Why of course they do. They have to complete their quest, after all!” He sees Jackie’s worried face and says, “They’ll be fine. Now then! I believe it’s time for bed.” He said. As he says that, a Golden Retriever jumps onto Jackie’s bed.
“Can’t we read another chapter?” Jackie asks (begs).
“Sorry, but it’s getting late. We’ll read more tomorrow.” He said.
“Okay.” She pouts.
David chuckles and walks to the door. He turns off her room’s light.
“Hey dad, can you keep the door open?” Jackie asked while curling up in her blanket.
“Yeah, I can do that. Good night Jackie.”
“Good night, Jackie.”
As David leaves the room, Jackie begins drifting off to sleep. As she does, she begins remembering weird things she’s been seeing for a couple of weeks now: A tall walking and talking white and black furred cat with a tall red and white hat, a dragon on the road, an eight foot tall woman with blue skin, a bear handing out balloons to a group of kids that all had the traits of various animals, people wearing robes made of moonlight, rainbows that acted as walls to both her and the strange looking people she saw. All very strange things to see, even for an imaginative six-year-old like Jackie. Then, when she blinked, it’d all be gone.
Then nothing for the last three days. Even her imaginary friend, Bubbles the bear, hasn’t been around.
She falls asleep thinking about these things. These strange sights. Long after she drifts off to sleep, she wakes up in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling. When she tries going back to sleep, she hears it: “The precious. Where is the precious? There’s the Baggins!”
Jackie’s eyes open and she shoots up looking around the room and she saw it. A small pale humanoid… thing with two large eyes, bigger than anything she’d seen on a person.
Then the dizziness hit her. Color became sharper and it was almost as if all the smells of the world had invaded her nose. Her vision, it was almost as if it were sharper in the dark then it first was.
Her dog, Toto, began growling at the monster. It climbed up the foot of the bed. Toto tried snapping at hit but it backhanded the dog and sent the dog sprawling off the bed.
As it approached, it said, in a low voice, “Where is the precious, Baggins?” However, to Jackie, it was as if all the sound in the world was turned up to eleven so it sounded like it yelled in her ear.
Then Toto began growling at the closet. A red light appeared in it and little green men began walking out of it. Far more than should’ve fit in the closet.
Reasonably, Jackie screamed and rolled off the bed to escape the monster. The monster jumped off the bed and the little green men began surrounded her and Toto, their backs to the open window. She heard loud footsteps in the hall and fearing it to be another monster, she jumped out the window of her single story house and ran. Ran as fast as she could, the monsters chasing after.
Her dad would storm into the room, shotgun in hand, only to see an empty room. He looked out the window but Jackie had run fast enough that he could no longer see her in the darkness of a new moon.
~
Jackie kept running, and running, and running. She ran until she ran out of breath. Breathing quickly and still quite scared, she looked around and saw that she was in a forest, despite it being a New Moon. Looking around, she began to breath heavily. This forest looked scary, twisted, and dark. She backed into a tree and sat down. She was scared, scared that she would be eaten by a monster and never see her parents again. She hugged her tail (when did she get a tail?) as she began to cry. Toto sat next to her, standing guard against what might be lurking. Then began growling as giant spiders that had sickly colored seashells on them and a man dressed in a messy suit with rotting skin and clamshells for hands and a fish/mushroom head appeared.
“wHY HelLo cHiLD.” It said, parts of each word sounding like something strung together from dozens of voices.
Already in the depths of a panic attack, Jackie pressed herself against the tree as Toto put himself between the monsters and her.
Before they could do anything, an arrow hit a spider, causing it to melt, while fire sprouted up from the ground and engulfed the thing that had spoken, causing it to scream in an otherworldly pitch.
“Fomori!” Someone yells. In an instant, six people in armor charge the spiders while a man with bronze skin and wearing robes while holding a stick, and a giant twelve foot tall blue man in armor holding a sword and shield stand in front of Toto and Jackie. The monster in front of the two charges them faster than Jackie can track and attacks the giant but is stopped by the growth of oak wood around him. Then the giant cleaves the monster’s head off. The monstrous features fade, leaving the corpse of a man, causing Jackie to scream for obvious reasons.
The man and giant turn around, startled. Toto growling at the newcomers. The two back away slowly. “So that’s the childling. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect a Pooka childling to create an army of Chimera.” The giant said.
“Imagination is strong with this one, Donald. Just be glad we got here before the Fomori could hurt her.” The man says before tapping his staff on the ground a few times and kneeling on the ground. “Child, you are safe. Everything is okay.” He said. Something about him feels calming. And Safe. Even Toto notices and stops growling.
Her breathing evens out as she looks at the strangers. “W-who are you?”
“I’m Joshua.” The man says. “My blue friend here is Donald. What’s your name?”
“I’m Jackie. Where’s daddy?” Jackie asked.
“I don’t know child. But we can figure that out. Let us take you to safety first.”
Jackie nods and takes his hand. Joshua picks her up and looks at Donald.
“We need to get out of here before more Fomori arrive.” Joshua said.
“We will.” Donald said. He looks at the men in armor, who’ve defeated the spiders, and tells them to get moving back to a ‘freehold.’
~
As the group takes Jackie to their ‘freehold,’ she sees many things. They pass through a much nicer looking part of the forest that looks much more whimsical and fantastical. She even sees a unicorn and gasps in delight, much to everyone else’s amusement.
When they get to the freehold, she sees a magnificent castle that practically glows. Joshua puts her down right before they enter. Inside it looks like a fairytale castle come to life. She looks at everything with awe and wonder. Then after a few moments of walking, they enter a throne room. A man right out of a fairytale with pointed ears looks at them with a raised eyebrow.
The blue giant and the men in armor kneel on the ground while Joshua slightly bows and Jackie copies him.
“Who is this childling?” The man asks. When he speaks, Jackie suddenly feels the urge to act by a set of rules that she hasn’t ever heard before. It’s almost as if magic is telling her how to act here.
“While returning, we came across Jackie here who was going through Chrysalis and likely will be for the next few hours.” Joshua says.
“That’s great news! I’ll have the servants prepare a room for her!” The man says.
“Your Grace, I was actually thinking we return her to her to her kin and have someone stay nearby to guide her while there.” Joshua says.
“No.” The man says. “I will not allow a fledge to be raised in mortal hands.” Jackie’s eyes widened in shock at the man’s refusal to let her go home.
“But Your Grace! She wants to return to her Kin! Why should we take her from the home in which she already knows?” Joshua asks.
“House Gwydion will be her new home. I cannot risk allowing her to fall into commoner hands. Not with this war so close to conclusion! The house needs more members to rule the new land this land. What better way to get another member then to raise her to be a part of the house?” The man states. He looks at Jackie and says, “I am Duke Edric McGuinness of House Gwydion, and from this day forth, your new father. Sir Donald, you will be her Knight and Joshua, you will-”
“I want to go home! To my Mom and Dad!” Jackie yelled out, interrupting the Duke mid-sentence. Everyone stiffens and Jackie immediately knows that she just spoke out of line. She doesn’t know how she does, she just does.
“You will learn that House Gwydion is your home. Sir Donald, please escort the new princess to her room. The servants will show you where. Dismissed!” The Duke declared without room for argument. Donald escorted Jackie to her room. Jackie silent the whole time.
The room was large with a king sized bed out of her dreams. In the corner is a mirror with a wardrobe next to it. In front of the bed is a love seat and a coffee table. She walked up to the mirror and for the first time tonight, saw what she looked like. She had a pair of cat ears on her head with a cat tail poking out from her lower back. The clothes she’s wearing aren’t the pj’s she went to sleep in. Instead it’s and outfit you’d see on a circus ringmaster. Her eyes changed to that of a cat.
She saw this, and broke down. She fell to her knees and hugged herself as she cried. She cried because this wasn’t her, she cried since she is trapped in a castle with no way out, she cried because she will never see her mom or dad again.
Toto curled around her in comfort while Joshua looked at her with a guilty expression, wishing he had never taken her here.
“I’m sorry, Jackie.”