Skylara's Strange Dream Part 7!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't been on in a while or posted anything - I ran into a few snags so to speak.
So my dad took my laptop to the shop and had the whoolleeee system rebooted; therefore getting rid of EVERYTHING on my computer. Then, I plugged in the pendrive I had saved everything too...it didn't work. It was just the empty shortcuts. Everything was gone: pictures, music, schoolwork allll my stories. The lot.

As you can imagine I went...slightly insane...ok, completely insane and inconsolable. But then I realised I had another pendrive with some stuff on. So, I looked on it and I had most of my stuff - just not my music, photos, the next part of my Sherlock fan-fic I spent 4 hours typing up and, of course, Skylara's Strange Dream Part 7.

And then my laptop still wasn't completely fixed. Oh, and my keyboard is now messed up so it takes me a little longer to type.
SO, once I had done most of my homework for this week I got cracking on this. It's not as good as the first version I wrote but still ok :)
Oh, and next time I'm going to add the final few characters to Skylara's Strange Dream including the wizard! Who will it be...?
So here it is :D hope you guys like it! And if I get a spare moment, I'll probably be on tomorrow - unless I am swomped with homework again *grumbles*

“Right…no, no wait left. YES. Definitely left.” Israel decided, pointing in that direction and striding confidently ahead.

“I’m sure we passed that same suit of armour ten minutes ago.” Pinicolette moaned, dragging her tired little wooden feet along the cold stony floors of the castle.

“Israel, maybe someone else should take the lead for a while…” Kallista suggested gently.

“Excuse me; there is nothing wrong with my directions!” Israel protested, opening a door in front of him to reveal a stone wall. “Oh…” he muttered. “Well that was a stupid place for a door.”

“I wish Dragona didn’t have to stay,” Sabien sighed. “I can’t believe Cheryl put a spell on him that binds him to the castle.”

“Maybe we can ask the wizard to free him.” Pinicolette said hopefully.

Skulduggery let out a grunt as he tripped - Skylara and Lunar only just catching him before he hit the floor. “Skylara,” he asked as they propped him back up. “Not that you and Lunar aren’t doing a fabulous job filling in for my missing leg, but would you be kind enough to use some of your ‘dreamy mumbo jumbo’, to provide me a wooden walking stick?”

“OHHHH,” Lunar gave him a look of mock hurt. “I see how it is. You’d have a stick made of wood to aid you in your time of need, rather than your kind and loving friends – who just aren’t good enough for the great Skulduggery Pleasant!”

“Well…” Skulduggery pondered for a moment. “It doesn’t have to be made of wood.”

“Fine.” Skylara grumbled, handing Skulduggery’s left side to Sabien. “Give me some space to concentrate.” She moved to one side, closed her eyes and scrunched up her face.

“Umm…Sky?” Octa inquired. “What are you doing?”

Skylara opened her eyes and turned to him. “Concentrating – why?”

“Well, do you really have to do that face when you’re concentrating? It’s kind of disturbing.”

Silence fell.

“…Do you find my face disturbing Octa?” Skylara asked after a moment, her voice dangerously quiet.

“Oh God…” Lunar breathed.

“Uh…” Octa looked around him for help but the others were pretending to be interested in something else. “Not usually…you have a lovely face normally…it’s just when you…” Skylara hadn’t stopped piercing him with her stony gaze and Kallista slowly began to move the basket containing Octa out of her reach. Octa had one last try. “Skylara once met an alpaca; I presume that she was at the zoo, Or else in the alpaca’s homeland, The country of Darkest Peru-”

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the poetry squid boy,” Skylara mumbled, turning away and closing her eyes again. “Walking stick.” She boomed commandingly, holding out her hand as she had done when she had received the lightsabre. Nothing happened.

“Uhh…walking stick please?” she tried opening her eyes and staring at her empty hands.

“Well…that worked!” Sabien said cheerfully.

“My dream obviously has a sense of humour.” She growled. “Perhaps I need to be more dramatic…Ehem,” She looked up at the sky and threw her hands in the air. “Please may we have something to help Skulduggery to walk unaided by his fellow companions while we are on our mighty quest!?”

Thunder and lightning clapped outside and the candles around them flickered violently.

“Perhaps a little too dramatic…” Skulduggery muttered.

A loud barking echoed down the corridors, growing closer and closer.

“Wait a second…I know that bark!” Pinicolette exclaimed.

A small highland terrier bounded up, Skulduggery’s left leg gripped tightly between its jaws.

“You.” Skulduggery’s eye sockets locked onto the small white dog.

“Aww! He’s so cute!” Kallista crooned. “He can’t be that vicious Skulduggery!”

“Don’t be fooled. He’s evil.” Skulduggery whispered, not once taking his eyes off the dog.

“You were overpowered by that?” Israel raised an eyebrow as he looked the dog up and down.

“Do you want us to…?” Lunar reached for the dog.

“No! This is between me and him.” Skulduggery hopped over to the dog. “We meet again…” As he addressed it the dog growled and pulled back its ears.

Mar-Chu (who crawled back into Skulduggery’s pocket without him noticing and had been peacefully dozing there for quite some time) popped her head out to see what all the kafuffle was about. She then spotted a small white creature with a leg in its mouth; the same leg that she had healed with her magic kitten powers earlier that day. Mar-Chu tilted her head in confusion. That leg did not belong to the small white creature. It belonged to the man with a nest in his hat who had nice comfy pockets.

She hopped out and padded over to the small white creature to kindly ask it to return the leg; as she had put a lot of hard work into mending it and the man’s pockets were not half as comfy when he did not have his other leg. Sadly, the small white creature didn’t seem to understand and when she sneezed it dropped the leg, and then ran off yelping and whimpering in fear.

“…Oh.” Skulduggery said simply. Sabien moved forward and handed him his leg.

“It’s ok.” He said, patting Skulduggery’s shoulder sympathetically. “The big bad dog is gone now. The sweet little kitten scared it away.”

Skulduggery re-attached his limb with a grunt and picked up Mar-Chu, holding her at eye level. “Umm…” he coughed awkwardly. “I believe a thanks is in order…again.”

Mar-Chu mewled happily and scrambled back into his pocket, which began to quiver slightly as she purred vigerously.

“…Well, what now?” Pinicolette asked.

“It’s ok.” Skylara rolled her shoulders back and clicked her neck. “I’ve got this…DOOOOOOORRRRR!” She thundered, throwing her hands out at the wall, where a door soon appeared.

“Wow Sky! That was pretty impressive!” Kallista laughed.

“Why, thank-you.” Skylara replied proudly, opening the door to reveal another stone wall. “Oh…sorry, I should have been more specific.” She hastily closed it again and boomed “DOOOOORRRR TOOOO OOUUTSSIDEEE THHHIISSS CAASSSTLLLEE ANNDDD BBACKKKK TOOO THHEE OOORRRANNGGEE TAARRR PPATHHH WHEEEREEE WE LEEFFTT OOFFFFFFFFF! OOOOOO!” She opened the door again and there was exactly where they had left the orange tar path.

“…Was the ‘OOO’ at the end really necessary?” Israel asked.

“Oh, it worked didn’t it?” Skylara snapped as they wandered out, to once again set out on their path.

 Lunar and Kallista began happily humming the third round of ‘We’re off to see the Wizard’ and skipping merrily arm in arm.

“Make it stop! Please, make it stop!” Israel pleaded.

“My ears are burning!” Pinicolette groaned, trying to block out the noise with her hands.

Skylara couldn’t take it anymore either. “Guys,” she called to them. “My dream, my rules; which means no singing or dancing - What. So. Ever.”

“Oh, spoilsports.” Kallista grumbled, but she stopped skipping and slowed down all the same. Octa let out a small sigh of relief; her merry bouncing had caused him to cling to his basket for dear life and he had very almost fallen out.

“WELCOME TO THE GATES OF WONDER!” a great voice boomed out making them all jump and take up fighting positions.

“What the hell was that?” Lunar exclaimed, scanning the trees and bushes around her.

“Up here.” Someone cleared their throat from above them. Perched on a low hanging tree branch, was a tawny owl with big shiny eyes.

“Leo?” Skylara asked.

The owl seemed to frown. “How’d you know?”

“There are sparks of lightning coming off your ears.”

“Oh…” he glanced sheepishly at the ground. “That sometimes happens when I get a bit carried away with my ‘Gates of wonder’ line…”

“Sorry to be rude,” Skulduggery interjected. “But where are the gates of wonder?”

“Oh…” Leo sagged, looking rather crestfallen. “Um…the munchkins tore it down a few years back so the wizard had to put some…slightly less impressive invisible magical gates there instead.”

“Ah, good old Lizzy…teaching munchkins to tear down gates; it makes my heart swell.” Skylara chuckled.

“How do we enter through ‘the gates of wonder’ to get to the Wizard?” Sabien questioned.

“Oh! Oh!” Pinicolette jumped up and down with excitement. “Is it a riddle? I love riddles!”

“Or do we have to battle some mighty beast?” Israel held up his fists.

“Um…neither. You have to make a song and dance about it. Quite literally in fact.” Leo said, looking rather smug. “I’m so going to enjoy this!” he giggled.

Pinicolette gawped at him. “You can’t be serious!” she cried.

“I’m an owl – I’m always serious.”

Lunar and Kallista looked at each other with glee. “Yay!” they cheered, laughing at everyone else’s looks of horror.

Skulduggery gripped Skylara’s arm tightly. “How much do you want to see the wizard?” he whispered.

“It’s the only way this nightmare can end…god help us.” She breathed back. He nodded in agreement and turned to pat Israel on the arm encouragingly. “Be strong my friend.” He urged, Israel could only moan in response.

“A one,” Octa began. “A two, a one, two, three!”

Oh will you open the gate for us,

It really would help us out,

We need to get to the Wizard,

Or else we’ll scream and shout!

Skulduggery needs a new suit,

Sabien wants rid of his tail,

Skylara wants the hell out of here,

And she’ll probably kill us if we fail,

(Even though we are part of her subconcioussss)

Ohhhhhh,

Here in the land of dreams,

We’ve seen many peculiar things,

An ice-cream kitten, an Oreo field-

“Stop, just STOP,” Everyone froze in mid-dance. “I’ll let you through just…no more.” Leo begged.

“It wasn’t that bad!” Kallista said, looking rather hurt.

“Oh it was.” Skylara sighed. “I hate this dream; flowery dresses, cheesy songs, I think it’s personally designed to torture me! What the hell did that dentist give me?” She frowned as she pondered something. “And why did we all know what words to sing when we didn’t even rehearse?”

“It’s a dream, just go with it.” Sabien shrugged.

“The Gates of Wonder are now open!” Leo declared.

“Wait a second…” Kallista narrowed her eyes. “How do we even know if there IS a ‘Gate of Wonder’? You could have just done all that to make us look silly…”

“Uhh…no time to explain! The Wizard is this way, follow me!” Leo flew off rather hastily and the others were forced to follow him.

“Hey Skul,” Israel caught up to the skeleton. “Those were some pretty cool moves,” he chuckled. “Especially when you did the worm and-”

“Never speak of it.” Skulduggery growled, just loud enough for Israel to hear. “EVER.” Israel only laughed harder.