Phunfernikle

“Are we there yet? We’ve been walking for hours!” Emaline whined and stumbled across the gray forest floor.

“We get there when we get there, lassie.”

The tried to keep up with the leprechaun’s agile pace, he swerving and dodging every obstacle like it was nothing while the girls clung to each other as they jumped fallen logs and were torn to shreds by the thicket.

“Hey! Slow- uh- down- uh!” The girls rang out together, panting. The little creature turned around sheepishly and apologized in tiny whispers so small, the girls weren’t sure if he were saying other things instead. He turned again to run just as before, ignoring the groans and shouts from his company behind him.

A bird made such a racket getting himself out of a tree, the sudden noise took Emaline’s attention and she adverted her eyes to investigate- not watching where she was going.

Her foot caught on a menacing root sticking out of the ground and she went down, taking the leprechaun with her.

“ ‘AI! WHATCH’ YE SELVES NOW!” He thrashed about as Emaline crawled hastily off of him and to Raeshel’s knees. The creature got himself to his feet and turned to stare down at the huddled girls. “Are ye try’n to get us all killed? Stupid clumsy-!”

They just gawked, mouths open wide, at the rapid change in the Leprechaun’s mood. The little fellow snapped out of it and forced a huge smile their way, brushing himself off and putting a hand out for Emaline’s use. She took it, not depending on his strength but her own, and quickly hid behind Raeshel.

“I’m so dreadfully sorry lassies, it’s an Irish temper ye see. Now, then, we go about our way!” He turned and dropped his brilliant smile a little to early, letting show a grimace instead. Both girls turn to face each other with the same thought running across their minds: ’Great, all we need is a schizophrenic leprechaun.’

A little time more passed in silence as they went about as before, stumbling and catching one another before they face-planted into the gray dirt.

The gray sky was showing afternoon (for one quality all Garyans learned was how to tell the distinctions in gray.), the gray sunlight was still smoggy and crepuscular while the gray land it fell upon was slightly dimming.

“Where on Gary are we going?!” Raeshel demanded, stopping and grabbing the man by his collar. He looked up with devilish eyes and a chilling smile that took Raeshel aback so greatly she let go and walked back as quickly as she had went.

“Exactly- nowhere, my dreary! No where on Gary shall we go!” And he skipped back into motion about on his merry way like he held a secret that pertained to the universe but only he knew the answer. “All we need to do is find ourselves me rainbow!”

Everything froze, even the leprechaun stopped due to the change in the feeling of the air. He faced the girls again, Raeshel glared at him with pure disbelief. Emaline just glanced back and forth, with sheer surprise, hope, and fear, between the leprechaun with a gleeful smile then to Raeshel with hesitation and a position that was waiting for her outlook on the subject- whether to accept and believe him or to turn and abandon the whole possibility.

“No one has every seen a rainbow in the whole world.” Raeshel stared him down and hissed through her teeth. Not only mad at the leprechaun for trying to trick her, but that he was putting artificial thoughts into Emaline’s head when he knew that she would believe him. The girl was too trusting, and Raeshel kept with her criticizing. “And to add on to the reasons- there is no sunlight!”

Just then the leprechaun peered into the sky then came back down with a weary grin. “But there is sunlight, lassie!”

Raeshel looked at his evidence for protest, seeing the abnormal light which escaped between the clouds- and- was it, yellow? Raeshel kept her disbelief hidden and went on still. “HA! Barely! And besides, I’ve read up on rainbows and they can only be seen while the sun is shining after a brief thundershower in fog layers or in the late afternoon. Last time I checked-” And she said this with the most spectacular calmness mixed with a frightening contained violence. “There hasn’tbeen a thundershower in over five days, there is no fog and it’s not late afternoon!”

The leprechaun at this point was just as fuming but held it back more properly. “There, lassie, is the matter. Just because they can’t be seen doesn’t mean t’ey aren’t there, now, if ye be so kind into let’n me take ye to where we were originally go’n-”

He stopped short and looked up confusingly, but then smiled much like before. “Ac’tually, lassies, we be there already. Would ye mind to turn ye back to the sun for me?”

Raeshel and Emaline skeptically did what they had been instructed and faced a patch of gray forest like the rest of the woods they had walked through.

“Me dear lassies, may I present ye-” Suddenly, with a clash of thunder and a twinkling of bells sounding far off into the distance, came something rarely seen in the world of Gary. Seven different rays came slinking down before them as shock absorbed them both. Seven different rays, so very, very far from the dull and lifeless gray, connected themselves together and sparkled and glowed with a strange foreign sense of happiness. And with gasps coming from both girls, the leprechaun turned with that same devious smile and finished his sentence fluently. “-the Rainbow.”