Dreadlilocks took a moment to think about what Lucid Fright had told her.

On the one hand, she enjoyed the company of the princess, and she couldn’t very well stop her from following her to the moon.

But on the other hand, she didn’t feel ready to be responsible for her, and she had a feeling the Captain of the Guard would not approve…

In the end, all she could think to ask was, “…Are you sure?”

But Lucy insisted that she was, and that they would leave that very night.

~~

Quickly and quietly, the girls crept around the castle, gathering supplies for camping and traveling. Neither of them had ever gone on a long trip alone before, so they weren’t quite sure what they would need…they simply grabbed everything that looked handy and stuffed it into backpacks.

Lucid Fright decided to leave a note for the Captain of the Guard. “He’d n-never let me go to the moon if we told him outright,” she said. “But I at least want him to know what happened. He worries.”

When the note-writing was finished (Lucy tacked her farewells to her bedroom door), the pair set out into the night, heading northeast into the mountains.

As the days went by, the hiking became tiresome…but the air was fresh and crisp, and the scenery was breathtaking. Neither of the girls had ever seen such things before, and at the end of each day, seated by a campfire, they remarked on it all and decided they were glad they’d gone on the adventure, regardless of how things might turn out in the end.

One day, Lucy expressed a particularly salient concern to Dreadlilocks. “Hey,” she said. “What do you think we should d-do if we run into any phantasms??”

“Well,” replied Dreadli, “I guess we should fight.”

“I’m n-not very strong…unless I use our frying pan.”

“You should! And I have a weapon already…” she pulled a small, dingy, golden-gilded pistol out from the folds of her dress.

Lucy’s bushy brows shot upward. “Wow! Where did you g-get that…?” she asked.

“From my family. Papa Bear said it belonged to my birth parents before they died. They say it works by magic…but I’ve never actually used it before. I guess if it doesn’t work, I can use the trowel…”

Lucy frowned. “A f-frying pan and a trowel…is it just me, or do we sound like sitting ducks?”

“It’s not just you…”

“Well, I know someone who’s strong. She can r-really fight. Once she killed an assassin and ran away from home. And that was when she was y-younger than I am now.”

“Who is she? Does she live nearby?”

“I think so. She sent me a letter once, by messenger hawk, s-saying she was living in the mountains. Somewhere ‘where the moss grows in spiral shapes’…she u-used to be a princess, once upon a time. That’s how we met. Now she lives alone, and people call her ‘Pitch Black’.”