The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

The Underwater Kingdom

[Sophia]

I could only see Teri's tail and the walls of the tunnel around me, nothing more. It did seem like the bubble charm helped my vision adjust, but I could tell everything was still getting darker.

"Teri, how long is this tunnel?"

"Yeah, is it much longer? I'm starting to get a little tired back here." the twins spoke in turn. Teri looked back at them.

"Don't worry, it's not much farther. We can take a break once we're through." Teri replied.

I only glanced back once to see how everyone was doing. I could hardly see their faces. Even though Teri was going slow so all of us could catch up with her, I still had a hard time staying close. My arms were getting tired already. Apollo had no issue keeping up and eventually getting ahead of me. But I could see a look of anxiousness on his face. Knowing that he isn't exactly a fan of small spaces, I could tell he wanted to get out of the tunnel as quickly as possible. And despite my own growing fatigue, I pushed onwards.

Eventually, the tunnel suddenly widened all around us and we all swam out into a dark blue void. For a moment, it didn't even feel like we were swimming underwater anymore. For just a moment, I thought we were navigating through a different plane of existence. It was... really weird... for a moment, at least...

I couldn't see anything around me other than glimpses of Teri and Apollo in front of me. I glanced behind me once or twice to make sure the twins were still there. Teri pointed the way forward and we all followed her and began to notice something coming into view.

A strange fuzzy light in the distance.

No... two... four... multiple lights ahead of us.

"This is it. We're here everyone! This is my home!" said Teri excitedly as everything finally came into view. We all paused for just a moment to take it all in.

I saw the outline of a tower and all the details suddenly fell into place. The tower was connected to more large shapes that I finally identified as a small castle. It almost looked like something out of a movie. The rest of the kingdom was a little harder to distinguish from where we were, but I could see shapes weaving in and out. I recognized that those must've been Teri's people. It didn't look like they could see us. Teri quickly hurried us to the side, closer to the castle so no one spotted us. She led us over to one of the smaller towers which had an open balcony. We all floated down to the floor and took a moment to rest. We all looked around the spacious room.

"Hey Teri... is this...?" Apollo pointed. Teri swam towards us.

"Yes, this is my room. You guys can rest here for a moment before we move on."

I looked at everything there was to look at, taking in all the details. I never would've believed that all of this was sitting right underneath us the entire time. I looked all around the room, noticing it was circular in shape. There was a large bed in the center, up against the wall where a canopy was hung from the ceiling and draped around the bed. And... if I wasn't mistaken, it almost looked like the bed was made and molded out of sea sponge. There was a large wardrobe on the other side of the room and a large chest next to it. I... wondered how they were able to get furniture down here. Did they make it themselves, or...

Teri grabbed our attention, snapping me out of my concentration and we all gathered around on the floor.

"Okay, I know this isn't the most formal introduction and I'd love to give you all a proper tour, but I really need you all to focus. I've closed the gates for the day so we don't have to worry about anyone seeing you. And the bubble charms won't last forever so we need to be quick. My plan is that that we're all going to split up to cover more ground. If any of you find anything might be important, come find me." she explained.

"But how will we know what it is that we're looking for?" the twins asked. Teri looked puzzled.

"Uh... I don't know. I've looked around more times than I can count and I never really spotted anything out of the ordinary, but... well, I'm hoping maybe a fresh pair of eyes might help something stand out. I know my mother, she wouldn't just take off without leaving some sort of notice. She has to have left some sort of clue behind..." Teri sighed before looking back up with a determined look on her face.

"Apollo, you'll come with me and we're going to look in my mom's room. It seems like the most obvious place to start. You two." she pointed to the twins. "I'll show you where the library is and I want you to look around there."

"What's a... library?" they asked.

"Don't worry, I'll show you. If there's something that might give us any information, I think the library is worth checking out. Sophie?"

I looked up at Teri.

"I want you to go look in all the other rooms. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if there's anywhere we might miss, I want you to see if there aren't any clue hidden anywhere else."

"Okay."

So, I just get to wander around by myself? Alright then,

Gathering our strength once more, we swam out of Teri's room and made our way down the tower. There were no stairs here, just a long spiral ramp that led to a long corridor. Apollo and the twins went with Teri and I split up with them in the other direction. As much as I tried to ignore my overwhelming excitement in my heart and focus on the task at hand, once again, my curiosity took the reigns and I slowly floated through the open corridor.

I couldn't help admiring all the details. All my surroundings had this weird sea-foam green tint as a strange unidentifiable light sources lit up all the rooms and walls. I couldn't really tell what they were, but they were definitely bright. I couldn't even tell what material this entire castle was made out of. Dragging my bare feet across the floor, it was hard but smooth. There were details carved on the walls touching the ceiling and the floor. I couldn't contain my excitement as a wide grin grew on my face and a burst of bubbles escaped my lips.

I'm wandering around an underwater castle by myself! An entire kingdom, underwater! This is even better than I imagined! Oh, I wonder what it's like to live here! This place is so cool!

After a moment of silent excitement, I finally collected myself and continued to swim down the hall. I tried using my wings to help push me further, but they were only really good at pushing me upwards. Still, I did my best to navigate at an even pace, reminding myself that I wouldn't have time to admire every single detail. We're here on a mission, and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's finding hidden things.