Act the Fifth: Plantastic!

TheCuriousSeed

Yes, they're still in the Wilderness.

Truffles!

~Now that all the Wilderness animals were good to go, it was time to help the flora. Moss, leaves, truffles and seeds awaited. Truffles were being crushed under rocks, putting them in danger. Leaves were strewn about, weeds were overtaking, it grew too cold, the truffles were muddy and scared, plus some weeds and vines were wrapping around the truffles.

~"Tinkers, you're up," said Holly.

~Magnolia had no trouble moving the rocks, but Jessie was too weak to lift even one by herself, so Heidi helped. Heidi managed to punch the rocks into smaller bits, some into rock dust, then had Hickory, Magnolia and Ginkgo whip up a tornado to blow away the rock bits. Unfortunately this proved not only very messy, but very dangerous too, so everyone hid inside some knotholes.

~"Oh, for the love of…" said Phoebe, face-palming.

~"In retrospect, maybe only one of us should've blown away the rock debris," said Heidi.

~"Ya think?"

~"Then again, it would've been safer to just move them manually to a clearing."

~"Again, ya think?"

~But Lavender managed to help the truffles outgrow the weeds and vines by tiptoeing on each one. Sort of like taking a Tiptoe Through the Tulips, except truffles instead of tulips.

~"Groooooooooow," drawled Lavender.

~Xenops tried to Tiptoe on the Truffles too, but unlike Lavender, who was quite tall enough to do so without having to fly any, Xenops would've fallen had she not flapped her wings from truffle to truffle.

~"Gee, I've never seen truffles that big before," said Magnolia.

~Once the truffles were much bigger than the weeds, they were untangled automatically because the weeds and vines snapped and the truffles had new dirt surrounding them before being watered. The truffles were still cold and frightened, so Saffron sang to the truffles while Gloriosa and Foxglove warmed them with their bright glows. Xenops and Lavender gathered moss and leaves that they grew, Xenops with her dust, Lavender with her bare feet. Truffles were technically fungi, so they didn't really need seeds to grow. Once the truffles were shielded with the leaves and moss, a few dozen seeds appeared from above and needed to grow in an empty patch of the Wilderness.

~"Let's see where to plant these seeds," said Xenops. "We'll need to work together for them to grow."

~But how well would these seeds grow?

Bad Seeds, Bad News

~The seeds crawled all over Xenops and Lavender, who wound up wearing said seeds until everyone was at the special spot in the clearing. First up was the digging, but if either Heidi, Elva, Tansy, Hickory, Magnolia or Daylily tried to dig, it would be too messy and if anyone else, even the Magicshimmers tried, it would take too long. Fortunately a dray of female squirrels came by ready to dig.

~"Why, thank you, sisters," said Daylily after the few dozen squirrels dug up places for the seeds.

~The seeds were urged inside the holes and promptly buried once Ginkgo, Magnolia and Hickory flew past, the last also watering the seeds. Gloriosa and Foxglove shone light on the seeds and they grew nicely, but they grew into a flower Tansy was especially allergic to…

~"Oh no!" exclaimed Phoebe. "Is that quarrelweed?!"

~"Okay, you know how quarrelweed makes you argumentative?" asked Daylily. "Well, it looks like quarrelweed except it smells more like a fairygold mixed with a Creeping Treacle Vine crossed with a hint of poppy if grown in the wrong climate, but smells like the sweetest cream imaginable if grown where pleasant. I learnt that a while ago when I first started exploring the Wilderness."

~Tansy began to swell, her throat felt super parched, her nose extra sniffly, her skin super itchy, her eyes watery and she had a lot of trouble breathing!

~"I know that reaction," said Hickory. "Those are yinglock flowers!"

~"Yinglock flowers?!" exclaimed everyone else but Tansy because, allergies.

~"Yinglock flowers cause severe allergic reactions in a select few no matter the form, even their safest form!"

~Tansy was now in a state of panic and needed help fast before she wound up gone for real. Just then a jolt was felt throughout Neverland!

~"Oh no," said Daylily, feeling her heart. "Neverland is changing size right now."

~"Bigger or smaller?" asked Lenora.

~"It was already big when we entered this Wilderness and now Neverland is getting even bigger."

~"Bigger?!"

~"Neverland wants to be really big tonight."

~"Maybe we can coax it smaller?" asked Magnolia.

~"Magnolia, Neverland is no typical land that it should conform to the normalcies humans oft assume, ergo, if it wants to be large, let it be large," explained Phoebe. "However, sometimes Neverland will help us during a quest per the whim."

~Only when Neverland stopped growing was it confirmed that…

~"Hey," said Tansy. "I can breathe again."

~But though it would take longer to leave the Wilderness now, at least Neverland saved Tansy's life by moving the yinglocks far, far away. So far away, in fact, did these plants move that they were well out of the Wilderness gauntlet and now there was no turning back or relenting.

Growing in the Rain

~The super large Neverland wasn't the only inconvenience; now it began to rain too, and as we all know, a winged Neverfairy in the rain is a grounded Neverfairy.

~"Bad enough we weren't allowed to fly throughout most of the Wilderness, but now we have to finish on foot because, rain!" complained Foxglove. "I really want out of here so we can fly again."

~"Patience, grasshopper," said Gloriosa just as a grasshopper hopped out of hiding, only to retreat somewhere drier, then chirping.

~"He wants us to follow," said Daylily.

~Everyone followed the grasshopper on foot since it was too rainy. The grasshopper knew a way out of the Wilderness that was shorter, another that was safer and the third was the route the Neverfairies were taking already, which was a little shorter than the safe route, but way more dangerous.

~"Short route! Definitely short route!" exclaimed Foxglove.

~"No, we should keep our current route," said Heather.

~Daylily thought it over. She'd been through this Wilderness countless times, but she knew the safest route would also require the most footwork and the shortest would be almost insurmountable flightless. Their current route started balanced, but she had a feeling it would turn really dangerous at the end. She had her fellow Scouts scope the three routes and...

~"Are we agreed that our current route as it stands will be too dangerous beyond the covering?" asked Heidi.

~The other Scouts agreed.

~"Long and safe it is then."

~The grasshopper nodded and the group continued on their way until the fork in the road. They took the safest route and indeed it was a very long walk, but at least no further dangers awaited save the rain.

~On and on the Neverfairies walked until they found a clearing. They all had very achy feet and it took two days to finish that route, but once they reached the very last leg of the Wilderness, the rain stopped, but their wings were very soggy. Also, the last leg was a no-go with soggy wings, so they waited.

~Soon, Daylily thought. Soon.

I can't wait to see the result! Can you?!