The Fairy Thief: Cursed

When Ariella opened her eyes again, she found herself surrounded by a world of pink grass and chocolate logs. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, and the clouds looked like cotton-candy.
"Princess, Princess! There you are!"
Ariella looked to the voice and saw Nancy run toward her, before she could say anything; her friend took her hand and pulled her towards the way which she came, "Princess! We can't start the ball without you, surely not!"
"B-but I'm not dressed—"
Ariella started to say, but Nancy waved her off, "Nonsense! That dress is just fine!"
"What dress?" Ariella wondered aloud, and looked at what she expected was her PJs. Sure enough, in the place of her PJs, she wore a beautiful, poofy pink princess dress with a big white ribbon on the back. On her feet were red laced-up boots that seem to glitter in the light. Even her hair was nicely done up, and on her head was a sparkling crown.
"Wow. How glamorous." Ariella thought, but had no time to think much else as her friend took her through what she assumed to be a garden of some sort. There were all sorts of cakes and cookies springing out of the ground like mushrooms, all very tidily kept. In the sky she saw a rainbow coloured dragon-duck, flying low enough to almost touch—but not quite. A little further ahead was a large castle that glowed the colour of marble. It was perfectly symmetrical on either side, and it was very neatly built. It was perfect.
Too perfect.
"Is that MY castle?" Ariella asked her friend as they neared the castle.
"Why of course, Princess Ellie! Everything you see here is yours!" Nancy giggled, running on ahead, "Come on now! We have to get you to the ball!"
Ellie's eyes widened, "A ball?! Like Cinderella?"
"It's in honour of you, Princess Ellie." Her friend smiled, taking Ellie's hand, "Come on! We can't miss it!"

As Ellie walked into the palace, she was amazed by the pristine condition it was in. The floor was made of marble, and the windows were stained glass with images of fairies and other mythical creatures on them. Bright light seemed to illuminate the whole room, and the stained glass created a wonderful rainbow effect upon the marble-grey floor. Ellie's amazement died quickly when she noted a particular person from her class who always found an excuse to bully her: Hardy Trubble. What was HE doing in HER castle?
She was just about to tell him to get out when he approached her and kneeled, "Your majesty! You're just in time. Your parents were getting worried. Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?"
Ariella stared at him blankly. She turned to Nancy, "Why is this guy being so nice?"
Her friend giggled, "Because you're the princess of course! He has to do whatever you say!"
Ariella turned back to Hardy. "Do you really have to do EVERYTHING I say?"
Hardy nodded, "You're the princess and I am at your command."
A wicked smile appeared on her lips, "Hardy, you're a toad-faced loser. Why don't you go eat a toad?"
Hardy merely nodded enthusiastically, "Of course your majesty! It would be my pleasure!"
Ariella looked on with disgust as Hardy produced a toad from under his cloak and chomped it down whole.
"Eew gross!" Ariella cried out, recoiling in horror.
Hardy looked at her sadly, "Does my toad-eating not please you?"
"Well duh! Why did you eat the toad?! That's gross and totally cruel!" Ariella frowned, poking him in the chest angrily.
"Well you told me to—" Hardy started, but Ariella interrupted him, "Why are you questioning the Princess?! Remove yourself from my sight this very instant you toad-faced loser!"
Hardy hurriedly took a bow and then left faster than a bullet. Ariella looked on with surprise. This was really cool!
Ariella turned to her friend and smiled happily, "I stood up to that bully! For the first time ever, I actually stood up to him!"
"You showed him good, Princess." Nancy grinned, "Serving boys should know their place."
Ariella laughed heartily, "He's a serving boy here? Seriously, this place is like so totally awesome!"
In real life, Archie was not only a bully, but a rich bully. The irony was delicious.
"Let's go to this ball now! I really want to see the rest of this place!" Ariella chirped happily, skipping along to the stairs arm in arm with Nancy.
She had completely forgotten about saving Archie.

The ball room was unlike any room Ellie had ever seen. It was MASSIVE, at least ten times the size of the biggest room she had ever been in ever. The walls were painted a creamy white, and there were candle-lights next to each window to give it a romantic look. The windows were very fancy and so long that they touched both the floor and ceiling. The floors were polished so well that Ellie could see herself clearer than she could in any mirror. It was really Ellie's dream room. At the opposite end of the ball room there was a staircase leading up to a special platform, where she saw her mom and dad sitting, watching the guests. Her dad was the first one to see her, and quickly got up. He clapped twice and the entire room fell silent, "Everyone! The guest of honour has arrived! The ball is now in progress!"
Everyone turned to look at Ellie, and applauded her as she descended the stairs. Ellie blushed. She was not used to this kind of attention at ALL. Nancy rushed ahead of her to the food tables, so Ellie followed. The foods all looked and smelled so delicious. Ellie noticed a heart shaped candy laying on a silver plate, and slipped it into her pocket for later. Her father then approached from the podium, "How are you enjoying your ball, Ellie?"
Ellie grinned broadly, "Oh I love it! Everything's so perfect! Thank you Daddy!" She gave her dad a big hug, then was about to walk away when he stopped her.
"Ellie, did you eat today?"
Ellie turned around to face him and smiled, "What are you talking about?"
"Ellie, I haven't seen you eat anything all day. You'll get ill." Her father frowned, a picked up a plate of food from the table.
Ellie suddenly remembered Adelina's warning of not eating anything, and tried to worm her way out of eating, "Oh, I'm really not that hungry."
"You shouldn't let all this good food go to waste, Ellie. You'll make the chefs sad." Her mother announced, appearing from behind her father with another plate of food. It looked so yummy. It smelt so yummy. Ellie's mouth watered.
"The guests have to eat first, right? It's only polite." Ellie giggled nervously. It was getting increasingly difficult to say no to her parents.
Her friend suddenly popped up behind her with her mouth full, "Oh chome ohn Ellie! Ish dewicious!"
What was up with this? Why was everyone suddenly tempting her?
All around her the guests started appearing with yummy foods that smelt divine, eating slowly as they looked at her out of the corner of their eyes.
Ellie looked at the plate of food her father held in front of her. One little bite couldn't hurt...right?
But one bite was all it took.
The second she swallowed, she began to feel the effects of the curse that Adelina promised. The whole ballroom started spinning and seemed to get even bigger with each passing second. Finally the spinning stopped, and Ellie looked around confused. Everyone was HUGE! Her father was looking around, confused, "Ellie? Ellie? Where are you?"
Suddenly an ear-piercing scream from her mother brought everyone's attention to the floor. To Ellie.
But they didn't see Ellie. All they saw was a white mouse.
"Quickly! Get the guards! Squish that vile creature at ONCE!" Her father barked.
The guards appeared on all sides of Ellie. If they weren't so big she might not have stood a chance, but her small mouse-form was frighteningly fast and zipped under their legs before they had a chance of doing anything.
Everyone in the ballroom started scampering about and screaming about a mice-infestation. Even Hardy, who had appeared from somewhere, was armed with a couple of dozen mouse-traps.
Ellie glared at him as she zipped past, and in his surprise he dropped the mouse-traps—getting pinched from all sides in the process as they snapped closed on his skin.
"Ha! Serves you right!" Ellie thought as she turned a corner to face more heavily booted legs coming her way. She quickly scurried through their legs, careful not to let any of them see her as they raced into the ballroom. She dashed behind a stone statue of some sort, and hid there until the last of the guards were gone.
"What just happened?" Ellie breathed, peeking out to check that the coast was clear. She quickly scuttled across the long passageway. Being careful to stay out of sight, she climbed onto a lamp, jumped onto another statue, scrambled up a piece of wood that stuck out of the walls, leaped onto the windows at the very tippy-top of the walls, and hurried out into the outside world.
The wind was terrible from that height, considering she was at least three to four stories up at that point. She clung onto the window and looked onto LaLa Land. At another time it would have probably been a splendid sight, but to Ellie it was terrifying being so high up. To make things worse, a flock of dragon-ducks suddenly whooshed past the window she was holding on, quacking quite loudly. Ellie lost her balance and fell, but an eagle appeared from above and caught her in its claws. Ellie remembered reading somewhere that eagles liked to eat mice and looked up at her captor with fearful eyes.
She turned her eyes downward against her better judgement, and saw that LaLa Land was actually shaped like a giant heart, surrounded by water on the north and west side and huge, snowy mountains on the east and south side. Near the middle of the giant island known as LaLa Land was a quaint heart-shaped cottage, secluded from the rest of everything. Ellie decided falling into that cottage was her only hope. She bit into the eagle's leg, causing it to drop her right over the cottage. She spread her legs out like a flying squirrel, fell right through the thatched roof and into a large bowl of soup. A very round woman suddenly appeared over the bowl of soup holding a large wooden spoon, "Do you have your plate ready Thomas?"
Ellie saw a black-haired boy appear over the bowl of soup, carrying a smaller bowl of his own.
"I d--" Thomas stopped mid-sentence. For then, for some or other reason, he looked down into the bowl of soup and saw Ellie swimming there. His eyes widened.
"I don't! Definitely don't!" He said, shaking his head violently.
His mother looked at him strangely, noticing the bowl in his hands, "What about that?"
He looked down at the bowl, "Oh. I forgot I had this."
His mother shrugged and took the bowl from him. Thomas peered into the bowl and was happy to notice that Ellie was gone as his mother dished out his soup that he wasn't going to eat.
Ellie had scampered out the bowl, off the table, onto the floor and found a small mouse-house to rest in. She was effectively drained of all energy, and she just wanted to go home. She placed her head on her paws and yawned. Maybe she'd be un-cursed when she woke up, she thought as she drifted off into a deep sleep.