The Legend of Kauvara by westiesrule972 | |
Untitled Document
Kauvara was once a small, midnight blue Kau living happily
in Neopia. Little did anyone know that this young neopet would grow up to be the
most honored of all magic items sellers. Her legend explains how she rose to fame.
As a young Kau, Kauvara always hung around her
uncle Klum, watching him brew his fiery potions. She mixed her own when he wasn't
looking, creating the Fire Jug and Nanka Bottle that are still in use in Neopia
today. She dreamed of becoming a magician just like him, but her parents disapproved
of it. Giving up, Kauvara's father, Kauvalan, sent her to the Tower of the Light
Faerie to study magical brewing and become one of the light Faerie's privileged
students.
Kauvara excelled at her work, and during this
happy period she created the different kinds of motes, including hail, salt,
ash, dust, frost, snow, and lava. Then her mother died, and her father, the
keeper of the magic shop, summoned Kauvara home to help him. With a heavy heart,
she packed her bags.
It was the third day in the Month of Sleeping
when Kauvara was destined to leave the Tower of the Light Faerie. Suddenly,
the glass in the top window broke. A shriek was heard from downstairs, and terror
pulsed through the air. "Balthazar!" cried a young Faerie. Kauvara, bewildered,
ran to one of her friends.
"Who is Balthazar?" she inquired urgently. "Balthazar…
he captures young faeries and puts them in bottles, then… he sells them!" sobbed
the earth Faerie-in-training.
"Well," began a Fire Faerie who was crying flaming
tears, "my aunt - she was a Water Faerie, you know? - he caught her and jammed
her in a bottle with a cork in it. I never saw her again."
Kauvara, immensely fearful of this creature,
leapt into a wooden chest in the room along with the faeries she'd been speaking
to. All too late, they smelled burning wood and realized the Fire Faerie had
caught the chest on fire. Kauvara sprang out of the chest - right in front of
Balthazar.
"Well, well. A young Kau. I think it's best
you came with me." Gazing at the terrible destruction around her, Kauvara nodded
mutely and followed him. The earth Faerie, her wings slightly singed, looked
back at her with sad, mournful eyes. That night, all the prisoners had been
herded into a large cart with iron bars on all sides. They had each been fed
a cup of gruel, but watching their captor eat a Flaming Fire Faerie Pizza made
them ravenous. Kauvara settled down on the hay-covered floor and slept.
The next morning, Kauvara awoke to more screams.
Her stomach clenched as she realized that Balthazar was bottling the Faeries.
Her two friends had already gone through the process, and their bottles were
waiting in an ever-growing pile. However, Balthazar seemed to have no intention
of harming her. After several more hours, he loaded the bottled faeries and
Kauvara into the wagon and pulled it across the plains, then boarded a starship
with the wagon and arrived at Virtupets Space Station.
Balthazar unloaded his goods near the landing
dock and began peddling his wares. The space creatures marveled over the faeries,
and before long, they were all gone. Then a lone, hooded stranger approached
the cart, and asked to buy Kauvara. Balthazar, not wanting to part with the
Kau, struck up a lively bargaining, realizing the stranger was wealthy and quite
determined to buy the Kau. "Thirty-five thousand Neopoints," Balthazar began.
The stranger replied with, "Ten thousand." "Thirty
thousand." "Fifteen thousand." Twenty-six thousand." "Twenty-one thousand."
"Twenty-five thousand, last chance," said Balthazar, narrowing his eyes. The
stranger sighed. "Fine." Thus Kauvara was sold.
Kauvara was muzzled and led to a lair where
robotic creatures bustled around. The stranger, who remained hooded, pressed
a button in the wall and a door opened. A machine stood alone in the next room.
"The lab ray, young Kau. My invention. My creation. Now to see if it works."
Kauvara let herself be positioned under the protruding arm, from which a throbbing
energy radiated. Then it changed, growing stronger, more vibrant. Suddenly there
was a blinding flash of light, and Kauvara looked down, and her midnight blue
body was now dotted with stars. Then the strong, almost tangible energy fizzled,
and the lab ray hung at an unnatural angle. "My sweet!" called the stranger
- a creature that, Kauvara would later find out, was known as Dr. Sloth. "My
lab ray - it's broken!" Furiously, he whirled on the young Kau. "You! You're
a jinx! It's all your fault! Curse you!"
With these words, he took a whip from the wall,
made of leather with gold paint to match the metallic look of the lab, and began
to flog Kauvara. The gold-painted whip struck her back over and over again,
but instead of leaving angry red welts, it left serene, golden stripes. Where
the end of the whip flicked over Kauvara's hooves, smaller versions of the golden
stripes appeared. All the while, Dr. Sloth ranted and raved at the frightened
young Kau. Finally, his fatigue overcame his unspeakable rage, and he collapsed
on the floor, allowing a metal robot to carry him away. Quivering, Kauvara picked
her way quietly across the lair and boarded the next starship back to Neopia.
Two and a half days later, Kauvara arrived at
her family's home in Neopia Central. Her father, while suspicious of her different,
more elaborate skin markings, was overjoyed to see her, having heard of the
destruction of the Tower of the Light Faerie and fearing the worst. He then
led her to the family magic shop, where, she found, she was to assist her uncle
Klum in brewing potions and managing the shop in general. This went on happily
for some time, until, one day, Klum fell ill and had to retire. He passed ownership
of the magic shop to his niece, and she tended the shop wonderfully.
One day, a new shipment of bottled faeries arrived
at the magic shop. Kauvara was sorting through them, sending back the chipped
bottles, when she spotted a familiar face. It was the Earth Faerie from the
Tower of the Light Faerie. Kauvara instantly freed her, and asked her for news
of their friend, the fire Faerie. "Oh, her," said the earth Faerie, growing
sad. "Well, one day her cork came loose. She wriggled out of the bottle, flew
away from her owners, and found Balthazar. She went straight up to him and singed
his ear fur! Only, he snatched her out of the sky, and…" She didn't need to
go on.
Kauvara was silent. When the Earth Faerie finished
her story, she stood up and thanked her. "Now you must be on your way, really.
Come for a visit sometime!" So the Earth Faerie flew away, soaring into the
sky, and Kauvara found that, in a tiny corner of her heart, she was relieved.
She never realized how worried she had been about her friends. Then she retreated
to her brewing chamber, sat down on her bench, and relaxed, thinking about a
new potion to make. It was modeled after the new skin the lab ray gave her,
as the liquid was blue with golden stars, and it became known as Kauvara's Potion,
the greatest one of all. Magic item sellers knew the next three years as "Kauvara's
Age". Her productivity was the greatest during that period, and she produced
many powerful Battledome potions.
However, even as her fame grew and spread through
Neopia, Kauvara always thought back the enjoyable time she spent at the Tower
of the Light Faerie. And she vowed that before she gave up her magic shop, she
and Balthazar would meet again. She would teach the vile beast to fear Kauvara.
The End
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