Sitting upright suddenly, Cherry was astonished to see that it was already after dawn. Down below on the ground stood Tracker, his arms crossed and a determined smile on his face. "Come on," he called, voice mostly cheerful. "Like I just said, we've still got quite a ways to go."

Nodding, Cherry flew down out of the tree and began to hover just off of the ground right next to him. "Okay. Ready when you are, sir."

Chuckling, he shook his head. "There's no need to be so formal, really. Just 'cause I'm a soldier doesn't mean I'm not also a normal person."

With a thoughtful frown, she murmured, "But battle and all that other... 'soldier-y' stuff... doesn't it change you?"

He frowned and turned away from her, then nodded once. "Well, sure, I'm not the same person I was when I joined up. I'm a lot less optimistic, a lot more realistic, and a better warrior than I was before. But at the same time, it's not like I've changed completely and become a bloodthirsty monster or anything. I joined because I wanted to protect what I love, not because I wanted to destroy what I hate. It's an important distinction to make, and I'm not sure if everyone makes it."

Frowning deeper, she carefully picked up the little sakuranoki from where it had rested next to the oak tree, grabbed her notebook from where she had cast it aside and tucked it back into her cape, and then took flight again and started to follow Tracker through the forest while he stayed quiet.

Finally, she wondered aloud, "Where did you live before the war? And what made you decide to join the army? Like, what did you want to protect?" Suddenly, she caught herself with an embarrassed blush. "I'm sorry, you probably don't want to tell me all of that stuff."

Shaking his head, he disagreed with a sigh, "No, it's fine. Something to keep the conversation going, right?" He paused a second, then started, "I come from a place called Reverence Province on the planet Star World. I'm from Reverence Clan, the clan that spends the most time studying the code of honor, committing it to memory, and teaching it to others. It's also our job to help debunk any and all frauds who claim to be the Warrior of the Stars, or who claim to have new rules we're required to follow or that we suddenly don't have to follow some of the old rules anymore. It's not the funnest task in the world, but hey, at least we don't have to go through life making ourselves face our worst fears like Courage Clan folks do."

Laughing a bit, Cherry wondered, "How many clans are there, anyway?"

Frowning, he closed his eyes and began to think. "Well, off the top of my head, I can think of Reverence, Courage, Chivalry, Knowledge, Heritage, Truth, Honor, Fervence, Trustworthy, and Compassion. There's probably more, those are just the ones I can think of. So there's at least ten of them."

She giggled a bit harder. "Well, then us Fairies have you beat. We've got more classifications than you could count, probably... Let's see, there's Royal, Noble, Decorating, Repair, Innovating, Nurturing, Farming, Scholar, Writing, Bookkeeping, Preserving, Cooking and Baking, Creative, Artist, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Guardian, Oracle, Sakuranoki..." her voice faded out at the end. "Well, there's still one Oracle Fairy. But the Sakuranoki Fairies are all gone."

After giving her a sympathetic look, he sighed, "I don't think we've ever lost a whole clan before. Just the idea sounds weird... how could you have a society of true warriors if you're missing, for example, Chivalry? They're the ones that remind everyone else that it's not glory or revenge we fight for, but instead, the protection of the innocent. Or if we had no Heritage clan... we'd forget our past in a snap, and those who forget the past are always doomed to repeat it, you know? Or no Fervence... they remind us to put our heart into everything we do, to always give our one-hundred percent. And without Reverence, who would help us to remember that we're never the most powerful or the ones in control, that there's someone bigger in charge of everything?"

"Yeah," Cherry half-agreed, then landed and started to walk alongside him rather than flying. "So... we kinda got off-track there. What made you decide to join the army?"

A warm smile spread over his face as he explained, "My family, my friends, my town, all of it. They're all beautiful and wonderful, and I couldn't bear the thought of them ever being lost. So I joined the Scouts to try and help protect them, with the intention of working my way up through the ranks and eventually becoming, I dunno, a sergeant or something." His expression changed to one of shame as he added in a mutter, "But I'm not that great with... you know, soldier stuff. And so, I've basically been stuck as a Scout ever since I joined almost a decade ago."

"Oh," she murmured sympathetically. "So I guess we're both sort of the underdog type, huh?"

Nodding, he agreed, "Yeah, guess so. But hey, the underdogs are the ones who seem to shine the brightest once they finally become heroes, right?"

"Hm," she agreed with a smile, then grew serious again. "How long will it take to get to Rippling City?"

After thinking for a second and trying to do some math on his fingers (very difficult, when you only have two fingers on each hand thanks to your mitten-like gloves) he sighed and shook his head in irritation. "Never been that good with numbers, either. But, if we hurry, we might be able to get there before nightfall. You're going to have to fly pretty fast to keep up, though." He suddenly gave a determined smirk and carefully unpinned the star badge from his beret. "Most folks'll tell you that once you've earned your name and your Warp Star's shrunk, you can't fly it anymore. That's not true, you just gottta know how to make it grow again."

He double-tapped the center of the badge with his thumb, then threw it out ahead of him like a frisbee. It took flight and cheerfully zoomed off into the woods at a speed of over a hundred miles an hour, making a chipper sparkling noise the whole time.

"Is... it gonna come back?" Cherry wondered a few seconds later when it had flown so far she couldn't hear its sparkles anymore. "Is there, like, a boomerang effect to it or something? I've never seen a Warp Star before, so I don't know..."

Looking lost, Tracker muttered, "Uuuuuhhh..." For a long moment, there was silence, but then, they started to hear a sorta sparkly noise coming from just behind them. They gave each other a look, then Tracker squawked as something scooped him up from behind and zoomed off into the sky.

Squeaking in surprise, Cherry took flight and flew off after him as fast as she could. Up ahead, the light-blue Star Warrior managed to stand up on the golden star and start piloting it a bit better.

He turned it around and flew past her again, calling out as he did so, "Sorry! I kinda forgot how fast this thing goes!" He turned it around again, this time catching her out the air and setting her on top of his head. "Hold on tight! We'll be to Rippling City by lunchtime now!"

At first, the Fairy shivered a bit and held onto one of the plain-metal-with-brown-leather-trimmings shoulder guards of the Star Warrior with one hand, the other busy frantically clutching the little sakuranoki. But after a minute of not falling off she realized that even if she did fall off, she had wings now and would be able to fly before she hit the ground. And so, she quit shivering and gave a squeal of delight.

Tracker laughed at her reaction and pulled a quick loop-de-loop, unable to resist the chance to show off for a pretty girl. "On Star World, if you gotta get somewhere quick, a Warp Star is the only way to fly! Of course, most adults don't use 'em. Silly if you ask me, especially when they're so fun."

Giving another squeal, Cherry shakily stood up on top of his head, reaching one arm out for balance while still keeping a tight hold on the little tree, which was giggling with excitement in its own breezy way. "This is amazing! Wow!" she managed to get out, then whooped in pure joy, all of her troubles momentarily forgotten.

With another kind laugh, Tracker agreed, "Amazing is definitely a good word to describe it. I've loved riding my Warp Star ever since I was very young."

Cherry laughed herself, closing her eyes and tilting her face into the breeze as it rushed past her face, making her hair fly around her face crazily. She didn't mind too badly. "Is this what an adventure feels like?" she asked out loud, half to Tracker, half to herself.

With a grin to himself, the Star Warrior agreed, "I'd say 'probably.'" Growing serious, he continued, "Once we get to Rippling City, we won't have time to look around or anything, okay? We're going to have to get right back to the Fairy Forces base and find a ship going to Popstar. This little sakuranoki needs to get there post-haste."

Nodding, she opened her eyes and looked ahead determinedly. "So we get to Popstar, we plant the tree. But if the Lord of Nightmares can get past its spell, how will it help anything?"

He gave a quiet 'hmm' of thought, then sighed. "I don't know yet. Hopefully the Fairy Forces will be able to think of something. If not... Let's not think about the 'if not' yet, all right?"

Making a face, she agreed, "Yeah."

After a moment of the two of them being quiet, he suggested mischievously, "Wanna see another trick?"

"Yes! Of course I do!"

"All right, then hang on, Cherry!" he chuckled, then turned the Warp Star into a sharp nosedive, grinning happily at her excited squeals that quickly resulted.

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

In Rippling City, a few hours later:

A little New Fairy giggled as she hid behind the fountain in the center of town, then grew quiet as a couple of Fairy Guards flew past, looking for somebody. As soon as they had zipped past and were gone, she giggled again and flew out from behind the fountain, then starting hovering around town looking for fun.

She had shoulder-length black hair that was pulled back into two braided pigtails that stuck out to either side of her head at a comical diagonal angle. Her eyes were violet in color and full of the shining wonder of childhood, her cheeks were rosy, and she wore a pair of silver-rimmed, circular lensed eyeglasses. Her wings were dragonfly-style and crystal-clear, a little bit small for her age, but as long as she flapped them quickly enough, she could fly.

For her clothes, she wore a pink and white kimono that was far too big for her, leaving her feet unseeable and her hands practically unusable. She didn't really mind, she loved wearing this kimono because it made her feel graceful and pretty- just like a princess should be.

Yes, she was the Crown Princess of Ripple Star, descended from the first Queen Fairy, who had lay down to sleep for the last time less than a year before. Usually, she was known as just the Crown Princess, but her full name was Kosai Tonbo Kimono, or Little Dragonfly Kimono. Her Mother Fairy had been rather young to be so tired and ready to rest, but she had also been somewhat sickly, so no one seemed too awfully surprised when she left, only sad. Now they were all very happy and relieved that an heir had been born several months later, a perfectly healthy heir who showed no signs of her Mother Fairy's sickliness, aside from the fact that her mostly-healthy wings' growth seemed a bit stunted at the moment. Maybe they were just clear dragonfly wings, definitely not the prettiest kind, but at least she had them.

Right now, she was supposed to be in princess lessons with the Nurturing Fairy assigned to caring for her until she became a Middle Fairy and was old enough to rule the planet herself. But lessons were boring, just a bunch of history and etiquette and law memorization and courtesy and tons of other boring stuff. She loved flying around and visiting with her future subjects so much more, and they were always glad to see her too.

Her Mother Fairy had been a kind and gracious ruler, and everyone expected her to be the same way. Certainly, she was going to try her best, but learning all the rules and everything was no fun. So, whenever she could, she snuck away and came out here into the city, to fly around and enjoy herself, and just act like a kid for an afternoon.

Of course, the funnest (and yet also most difficult) part was avoiding the Guards that were sent to bring her back to the palace. Like right now, when she again found herself having to duck and hide underneath a crystal bench with another giggle and wait for some Guards to fly past again.

Once they were gone, she crawled out and took off again, then heard a strange sound that made her look to the edge of town with wide eyes. With a giggle, she saw some sort of shooting star. Shooting stars were for wishes, everybody knew that. "Pwetty!" she gasped as she tried to clasp her hands together through her sleeves and make a wish. But then the star seemed to land outside of town, not far from the Fairy Forces base.

After pondering this a moment, she realized that a shooting star that you could actually hold was probably much more lucky than one that just flew past, and probably also much more likely to grant your wishes. And she knew exactly what she'd wish for, too:

"Tonbo wish for fwiend to pway with! Tonbo not be wonewy anymore!"

And with that and another happy giggle, the little New Fairy zipped off toward the edge of town, eagerly looking forward to finding her magical shooting star.