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Blackberry Bun's Journal: Chapter 7d
#1
Quote:Chapter 7d: Fake Lie

I didn't know how long I had been unconscious because of Mary's spell. The next thing I saw was a horrible vision of Raspberry and Lemon being locked in a prison with their arms chained to the wall. Raspberry seemed very upset while Lemon just stood still with tears leaking from her eyes. How could they do this to them? No, this couldn't be...

"No!" I shouted, and realized that I was on a comfortable bed. It seemed that I had been dreaming, but I felt that it was too real to be just a dream. I looked around and saw that I was in a quite nice and well-furnished room, but thinking that my two friends were getting a completely different treat...

"Finally awake?" A familiar voice said. I looked at the source and saw Mary who was smiling at me. Her size somehow became much bigger than the last time. She had been very small, but this time she was as tall as me.

"Why are you..." I said, intending to ask a question, but stopped by myself because I suddenly realized that my voice became high-pitched. "Huh? My voice..."

"Your voice is the side effect of a magic. In here you have to be at the same size like us to fit into this land," Mary said.

"You mean, I was shrunk?" I said.

"Indeed. Welcome to the Dream Fairy Fields," she said, waving her wand. A set of food appeared on a table. "Have your meal. I know you are hungry," she said.

"No..." I refused. "I don't want to sit, enjoying meal while my friends are suffering,"

"What do you mean?" She asked, seemed confused.

"I heard what you said. Raspberry and Lemon were going to be put in prison, while I get this nice treatment. I can't just simply accept this... unfair thing," I answered.

Mary seemed to be thinking, until she said, "Oh, come on. I said ``probably`` and that didn't mean it was going to happen for sure,"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Wait a moment," she answered, walking out of the room and a few minutes later came back along with Raspberry and Lemon. "See? They are here safe and sound. Her Majesty was in her generous mood so she gave your friends the same treatment as yours,"

"But now I'm wondering..." I said, and I told everyone the horrible vision I had seen.

"Oh, it seems a stray nightmare has gotten over you. Sorry, I must have missed it," She answered.

"Stray nightmare...?" I asked, wondering.

"Oh, the bats I turned into butterflies," Raspberry said.

"Not necessarily bats. Nightmare is an entity without any definite shape. It can transform itself into any kind of creature. For unknown reason, nightmare seems to be fond of bats so it is almost always seen in that shape," Mary explained.

"Bats for nightmares... Poor bats, they seems to be misunderstood by many..." I said with low voice.

"What did you say?" Mary asked.

"Nothing, just a little mumbling," I answered. "In any case, I'm glad that you two are okay,"

"Yeah... Yeah..." Raspberry answered with weird high-pitched voice, seemed still upset.

"I'm glad that you are okay too, Blackberry," Lemon said, also with high-pitched voice.

"I suppose you can have your meal now, Blackberry," Marry said, blinking her eye with a smile.

"Oh, yes... I forgot. Thanks," I answered, and the three of them went away.

After finishing my meal, I went to a closed window in my room and opened it to look outside. The scenery I saw at the next second was so breathtaking. I was in a high place seeing houses below and stars above.

"Beautiful scenery right?" A familiar voice asked. I looked around and saw Mary floating just beside the window. "This is what we call as Dream Fairy Fields, and you are now seeing it from Her Majesty's castle,"

"Yeah, indeed. By the way, was I asleep for a long time? It was night when you put us to sleep, and now it is still night," I said.

"Oh, you don't know yet? Land of Dreams never sees the light of day. Now that I remember it, they still don't know about it either. Anyway, you want to go out and walk around?" She asked.

"Well, why not? Bring Raspberry and Lemon along as well," I said.

"Okay, I'll get them. Meet me at the castle entrance. It should be pretty easy to find, just follow the purple carpet," Mary answered, flying away.

I walked out of my room and followed the purple carpet I saw. I kept walking inside the big castle for quite a while until I finally arrived at the castle's entrance with the large main door just in front of me. Mary and the others were not there yet so I stood around waiting for them. However, suddenly I felt something strange. I looked around and realized that the strange feeling came from a nearby door. I approached the door and examined it. The door was a wooden door which had a small opening with bars.

"Seems like a prison door," I thought. The door was locked and the opening was positioned too high for me to look into. I still stared at the door for the next few minutes until a voice called.

"Hey, what are you doing there?" the voice asked. I looked at the source and saw Mary with Raspberry and Lemon. "Shall we go now?"

"Umm, yeah. By the way what is this door?" I asked.

"Oh, that is the dungeon entrance. There is no need to go inside. There are only prisons there," Mary answered.

"Oh, so this is the place..." I said. "Anyway, yes we can go now,"

All four of us walked around Dream Fairy Fields. A few times I saw Lemon acting strange, seemed like she was concentrating to gather some kind of power.

"What are you doing, Lemon?" I asked.

"I wanted to try that again, but I can't seem to do it now," she answered.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Transforming into a fairy. I did it once in Dream Factory," She answered.

"It was our doing," Mary said "All the magics you and your friends have done were all our doing,"

"Hmm, can you explain it further?" I asked. "There are some things I still don't understand,"

"Okay, we Dream Fairies have the ability to give someone power depending on what their strongest dream is. Lemon's strongest dream was to become a princess of fairies so we could transform her into one. Strawberry's dream was a garden so all we could do was growing a bush to block Pie Man, which ended up pretty useless frankly speaking," She answered. "And Lemon, you cannot use the power here because Her Majesty prohibits the usage of this power in Dream Fairy Fields,"

"I think I have to thank whoever helped me to make my new Falcon," I said.

"It was me who was there, but all I did was just giving you the toolbox. You made your Falcon on your own, so be proud of yourself," she replied, which surprised me. "Speaking of thanking, yeah maybe you should thank me anyway. It was me who protected the three of you when your old Falcon fell down. And before you said it, you're welcome,"

"Umm, yeah... Thank you," I said with a little laugh.

"Wait wait wait. The three of us didn't crash last night. Did I miss something?" Raspberry aksed, still with upset tone. And so I ended up telling her, and Lemon as well, about my secret visit along with Huck and Apple. "So YOU were the cause of Dream Boat crashing. I thought you are better than that, but it seems I was wrong. Screw it, I'm off!" Raspberry said in an even more angry tone and left towards the castle.

"And that's a friendship ruined..." I said with a deep sigh. "Just because I wanted to help..."

"Raspberry..." Lemon said, starting to follow her, but stopped midway. She looked at me with confused looks, seeming to be in a dillemma whether to stay with me or follow Raspberry. In the end, she chose to follow Raspberry. I was left with Mary, and due to the unpleasant atmosphere I decided to go back to my room and sleep again.

The vision came to me again. Raspberry and Lemon chained to prison wall with unpleasant mood on their face, Raspberry was towards anger while Lemon was towards sadness. The vision was too real and horrible for me that it woke me up with my whole body covered by my own sweat.

"The door... There must be something there..." I thought, walking out of my room and then following the purple carpet until I reached the door with bars. "I hope I still carry it with me,"

I searched my pocket and took a key-shaped device I named as Key Master. I inserted it to what looked like a keyhole on the door, even though the hole was too big for the device. A light shined from the keyhole and then the lock opened. I entered the so-called dungeon and saw that it was really a dungeon. There was a long staircase leading down, which I followed. In the end I saw rows of bars which obviously implied that I was in the hallway of the castle's prison. I walked through it, looking left and right and saw that there was nobody inside any of the jail as far as I had been walking through.

However, as I reached the last jail furthest from the entrance, I looked into the jail and saw what exactly appeared in the visions I had had. I saw Raspberry with upset face and Lemon with sad face, standing with their arms chained high to the jail's wall.

"Raspberry! Lemon!" I shouted towards them.

"Blackberry! Glad you have come! Please release us fast and escape from this place!" Raspberry replied.

"Please release us, Blackberry," Lemon said with weak voice.

"How could they do this to you two?" I asked.

"How could I know? They probably have some kind of silly rule? In any case, release us and then we should leave this nasty place as soon as possible!" She answered.

While opening the jail's door with Key Master, I asked, "Then who were the Raspberry and Lemon I saw this morning?"

"What do you mean...? Oh... Probably just fakes made up to confuse you. The next thing we knew after last night was being here chained to the wall," Raspberry answered. "We have been suffering here for what seemed like forever without seeing any light of day. Hmph, like if this land sees any light of day anyway... In any case, please hurry up before we're found out!"

"Okay okay, I'm on it," I answered, entering the jail and going to release Raspberry's arm from the chain, when I realized something strange and stopped.

"What are you waiting for? Hurry up and release us!" Raspberry said.

"You're not Raspberry... You, both of you are fakes..." I said.

"How could you say that? Of course we are real! The ones above are the fakes! They confuse you and ruin your feelings!" Raspberry shouted.

"If you have been here since the time after all of us were knocked unconscious, you should not have known that Land of Dreams never sees the light of day. But you knew..." I said. "Then, you just said that the fakes ruin my feelings. How did you know that I just had a dispute with ``Fake Raspberry`` this day?"

"It was just assumptions. You can't just mistake us from those points!" Raspberry said, seemed upset.

"Lastly, somehow in Dream Fairy Fields, my voice became high-pitched, and so did Raspberry and Lemon I met today. However..." I said.

"What's with that? Our voice are high-pitched as well now!" Raspberry interrupted.

"Now that is the proof. Somehow my voice came back to normal from the time I entered the dungeon, while your voice is still high-pitched," I said, which seemed to struck ``Raspberry`` directly. "You two are not my friends. You are stray nightmares!"

The last sentence I said made the two fakes transformed into two giant bats, which then charged towards me. However, they suddenly transformed into beautiful butterflies and faded away leaving some light glitters before completely disappeared. I looked behind and saw Raspberry, along with Lemon.

"Are you okay, Blackberry?" Raspberry asked, with her voice back to normal like me.

"Yes, I'm fine," I answered.

"Glad that I still can do that," She said. "Changing nightmares into good dreams... I thought we needed a dream fairy for that as well,"

"Let's get out of here," Lemon said, also with her voice back to normal like me.

All three of us walked through the tiring upward staircase with some conversations along the way. Also, we realized that the higher we went, our voice gradually became high-pitched again.

"By the way, how did you find me here?" I asked.

"Well, I wanted to apologize for what happened last time, so I went to your room. However, I couldn't find you there and anywhere around. Then I remember you showing some interest to that door so I went there, also meeting Lemon on the way. When we arrived, we saw the door left open so we entered and... you know what happened next," Raspberry answered. "Yeah, I'm sorry for what I said earlier. You didn't mean to do that, you only wanted to help us,"

"It's okay," I said.

We finally arrived at the door, but what awaited us behind the door was something we did not expect at all. Many dream fairies were waiting in front of the door with unpleasant expressions. Mary was among them and stepped forward.

"You three have trespassed a forbidden area. According to Article 4A paragraph 33, anyone who enters the abandoned dungeon has to be brought to Her Majesty to be given a sanction," Mary said. "I'm sorry, but we have to stick to the rules,"

"Another silly rule..." Raspberry muttered. "Like we have any choice anyway,"

So, the three of us were brought to the throne room where the Dream Fairy Queen would decide the punishment for us. As we all stood in front of her throne, she opened her mouth and began speaking.

"Raise your face and look at my eyes, my dear guests!" The Queen spoke. "I have heard the words that you have trespassed the forbidden area. For that a heavy punishment is inevitable!"

"Please leave my friends alone, Your Majesty. I will take all the blame. It was all my fault that I was foolish enough to be tricked into entering that place. They only helped me," I spoke to the Queen.

"No, Blackberry. You can't do that!" Raspberry said.

"I'm the one who dragged you two into all this trouble, so I'm the one to take all the blame," I said.

"Silence, my dear guests. No matter what happened down there, all three of you have trespassed the forbidden area. For that, all three of you will be given the same punishment which is..." The Queen spoke.

All three of us stood in silence, waiting for any words that would come out next.

"A permanent exile to The Awake Realms," The Queen spoke with a warm smile.

At first, we didn't understand what the smile meant, but we suddenly did. Awake Realms was our home, and that meant we would be home again soon. Expression of happiness came to our faces, and the Queen seemed to notice that.

"Now go to the Dream Fairy Fields' main gate. I will meet you there to exile you all personally," The Queen spoke again, and we obeyed with pleasure.

After we left the throne room, something happened without any of us knowing. The two butterflies which had disappeared from the dungeon appeared on each side of the Queen. Then, each of them transformed into a dream fairy. Both of them were themed around orange color.

"I thank both of you for your service, Daisy Dawn and Diana Dusk," The Queen spoke.

"I'm glad to be of service, Your Majesty," Both of the dream fairies answered at the same time.

"I'm sorry that you had to do such chore, but that was the only way so they all can go home. I blame myself for this, on one side I know that they are not happy here, but on the other hand I have to stick to the rules I have made myself," The Queen spoke.

"It was not a problem, Your Majesty. All we did was just giving two fake visions in the boy's dream, attracting his feeling towards the dungeon, and a disguise play to buy some time for some random fairy to find out that someone has entered the dungeon," Daisy answered.

"Although, we actually planned him to ``release`` us and get found out by others at the entrance. I didn't think that the boy could be that critical. It was my fault though, for giving away that one point," Diana continued.

"Two actually, and also another one since we didn't know the dungeon somehow returned their voice back to normal. In the end we only could improvise and adapt with his words. It became a game of chance, but fortunately it still ended up in our favor," Daisy said.

"Indeed. Not only they are now able to go home, the friendship between the boy and the girl has been restored as well. A happy ending for everyone, what could have been better?" Diana said.

"All right. Now I have to go and exile them personally. Once again I thank you both for your exellent service, and I hope you will continue to do more in the future," The Queen said.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Daisy and Diana answered at the same time as the Queen walked away from the throne room.

Shortly after all three of us arrived at the main gate, the Queen arrived there as well with many other dream fairies. While waving her magic wand, she also spoke some more words, "We will surely miss you all, my dear guests. Have a safe journey in your exile,". And then we disappeared before all of the dream fairies' eyes.

"I will surely miss them. Too bad they never get to know Daisy and Diana because of this scheme Your Majesty have made with them," Mary said.

"Oh, you know it? Glad I did not make you chief for nothing," The Queen said with a smile. "The same with Daisy and Diana as well. All three of you has shown great performance,"

"I am honored to hear that, Your Majesty," Mary answered.

"Although it was your fault that their friendship was ruined at the first place. All right, get back to works, everyone!" The Queen said her words and Dream Fairy Fields went back to its usual activity.

We reappeared inside my Falcon, which was parked right behind my house. It seemed like everything that happened was just a dream, but this time we all knew that it had been real.

"It seems that Mary was right about the magic being not usable twice, huh?" Raspberry said.

"Yes, it seems so," I answered.

We got off Falcon and walked to the front of my house.

"I guess it's time for us to go back home," Raspberry said.

"It is?" Lemon asked.

"Well, you can decide for yourself. I have been thinking about it. Our friendship became overprotection because of one reason or another. I cannot let the overprotection continue, it is not good for the future of us both." Raspberry answered. "And Blackberry, I also want to apologize for even thinking that you distrust me. I don't know what was in my mind back then,"

"I understand, Raspberry. I thank you for being a nice friend, and I hope we will still continue to be friends," Lemon answered.

"It is fine, Raspberry. It was me myself who was too timid that it came to your mind, and I will learn to get rid of that," I answered, and then the three of us had a big group hug.

--End of Chapter 7--
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#2
There is one little detail I don't get here. Why did Mary tell PJ that most likely Her Majesty is going to put the girls into prison? Why did she ever assume that by "judging from Her Majesty's personality", while it is obvious that The Queen is a generous being? Did Mary foresee the plan back then? And what is the rule that would justify to imprison the girls, but not the boy?
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#3
I wrote this mid-2009, and I honestly don't remember what I was thinking back then. I wrote without any plot plan, hoping for sudden miracle in mid-writing. Here's the answer I can gather by re-reading my own writing.

The Queen is generous, but when it comes to obeying rules she is strict. This is probably because she wants to keep her image as the highest authority. That might be why she had to plan a secret scheme with her two trusted officers instead of sending the outsiders back home right away.

As for the rules, in short words this is what the authorities should do to outsiders of Land of Dreams to keep their existence secret:
  • First visit: Erase memory upon their return home
  • Second visit:Imprison because the memory eraser spell won't work anymore

Blackberry is an exception, because despite the memory loss his new airship is a proof that the Land of Dreams exists. The Dream Boat was made from scratch so the fairies could make arrangements to make it seems like it was just a dream, but Blackberry's airship was made from the remains of his previous airship and if they took it away there would be nothing to replace the old airship. They are Dream Fairies, not thieves. This can cause him to be charged for the Second Visit rule, but they couldn't do it because it was his first visit and proper measure has been taken. See the confusion?

Therefore, a permanent 'stamp' is put on Blackberry to exempt him from the Second Visit rule. This is why the fairies wouldn't imprison him on his second visit. The same can't be applied to the two stowaways, though.


Those are my answers.
By the way, my writing got better throughout the chapters, at least in my opinion. This one is still among my 'beginner phase'.
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#4
So after all they don't have a rule on how to threat Blackberry Bun after they couldn't use the memory erasing spell. But The Queen still broke the rule regarding the girls, because as you said they should have been imprisoned, but they were left free like Blackberry. Though at first I believed that the girls in the dungeon are the real ones - you wanted readers to think so, didn't you?

I like your writing. From Monday, I read one part every day before getting to sleep, and it gives my daily Strawberry Shortcake dose. Also it gives pleasant thoughts and it comes good in my current troubled life. I'm glad that I got to know Lemon Meringue and Raspberry Torte a little, because I've never seen official episodes focusing on them. (Though I wouldn't know if your rendition of them are really accurate - I mean, alike the official rendition.) So thank you for writing and publishing this!

Anyway, now that I replied to this thread, it bumped to the top of the forum, so it ruined the order of the list of chapters. In normal forums it's the desired operation, but not in short-story forums like this one. :S Is there any way to fix the order of threads? I'm not sure that phpBB has an option for that.
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#5
If the real Raspberry and Lemon were placed in prison, they wouldn't be charged for trespassing forbidden area because they should have been put in there anyway. The rule-bending was needed for the scheme. Moreover, the two girls ended up in the Land of Dreams because Blackberry brought them there not knowingly (At least the fairies believe so). The fairies take things into consideration.

Hahaha! Now I'm really flattered! :lol:
Prudence (Stella Grapes) once commented that I had a knack for keeping the characters accurate with their official rendition. I sure hope so. Smile

That's the reason I numbered the thread titles instead of giving the chapter title there. Not a really effective counter measure, but at least it can work. I don't know if it's possible to nail the position of the threads.
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#6
Blackberry Bun Wrote:As for the rules, in short words this is what the authorities should do to outsiders of Land of Dreams to keep their existence secret:
  • First visit: Erase memory upon their return home
  • Second visit:Imprison because the memory eraser spell won't work anymore

Pie Man and Grapes are also exceptions, basically because of destiny. PJ can sense the future, though no one really knows how much she can sense and she can't tell anyone else any direct information. In my chronology, Pie Man (faking sleep) and Grapes (actually asleep) were in Dreamland as children. It's complicated. Pie Man has some inborn dark magic that only works when his conscious is at its evilest, which is also complicated, and it canceled out his opportunities for things like having dreams until Angel Cake's lullaby changed the dream cancellation. The further he moves from his evil conscious, the more opportunities he gets for regular things that were denied him.

Years and years after where this story is now, well, I never discussed with Sandy (Blackberry Bun) if the rules are changed because of one of Dreamland's own moving to earth. Our signatures rather give away what happens, so I'll tell you; Sour Grapes marries a younger cousin of Sandman and PJ, and Grapes and her husband have children. This also accounts for a name change from Sour Grapes to Stella Grapes. You probably figured these things out yourself. The children definitely have free pass to and from their father's birthplace, and Grapes earns free pass basically by marriage. Pie Man was permanently banned from the land in a second visit, however.

Anyway, with one of their own on earth, it would be harder to keep their land a secret... albeit not impossible, and he's only half-mortal himself. Begs the question of what happened to his mortal father's memory, because his father didn't stay in The Land of Dreams.
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#7
And I'm still waiting eagerly for your writings, Prudie.

And Kiwi: About the thread bump, if you comment on every single chapter after this one, everything will go back in order once you're done with them. Saying this because I want more comments, especially that Prudie's comments got abolished along with the old forum. :lol:
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#8
And I'm still shy about that. I'll comment here, though, although new comments will obviously not be identical.
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#9
Helloooooooooooo.
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