The Faerie Dilemma: Part Eight

      By the time this was over, Booville was just a stone statue, her mouth dropped open and staring blankly at the scene in front of her. Tears poured profusely from Naellie’s eyes, and she began to sob pitifully as the two came towards her.

      “Please turn them back,” she said desperately. “Please!”

      “I’m sorry sweetie, I can’t,” said Rajani, pouting ‘innocently’. Naellie shrieked as her arms were grabbed and she was yanked forward. “It just wouldn’t be right, seeing as how I’ve worked so hard already, to only let you go in the end.”

      Naellie was picked up, and screamed as she was thrown into the air. She closed her eyes, waiting for the splash that would so surely come soon, and curled up into a tight ball. She was in the air for what seemed like a long time, expecting to be made into a monster at any moment.

      Everything was wrong. Nothing should be like this. She should be at home, safe with her family, waiting for the holidays that happened frequently and enjoying each one when it happened, especially Kyrii Day. She should be playing house with a reluctant Nolion with her toys, and laughing at his expression when she made him be the baby.

      They should all be happy, right now.

      “What in Neopia?” gasped a voice.

      It took a few moments for Naellie to realize that she should’ve been floundering around in the water by now, and she opened her eyes to see that she was just floating in place in the air. Her body was covered in a light lavender glow, and it smelled as if there were flowers surrounding her, like they would in the neogarden back home.

      She jumped a little—or as much as she could while floating—as she started to move, back to the edge of the pool. Moments later she was settled down on the stone ground, shivering with the shock of what almost happened and wondering what in the world had happened. Now the glow was gone, but the scent of flowers still filled the room.

      Amaida stood still for a moment, watching the proceedings calmly, before her fur started to lighten, and wings began to sprout from her back. The Kougra gasped as her fur returned to the normal purple colour the average faerie Kougra had, and began to smile as she became in control of her body once again.

      “What’s going on?” raged Rajani, a wild, green and black cloud thundering up around her.

      “Your reign is over with,” stated a calm voice, and one of the doors in the room was flung open, to reveal a tall, purple dressed faerie with her hand clasped to a scepter taller than she was. Queen Fyora strode in majestically, exuding an aura of more control than the earth faerie, which happened to be wincing and shrinking against her throne.

      The same glow that had saved Naellie now suffused the earth faerie, casting a very odd shade to her skin. Rajani shrieked, and tried to pull it away in panic, but her hands just went through the glow, not even causing a disturbance in it. Her hair flew out behind her as if a strong wind were blowing at her, and her eyes widened as the Queen came closer and closer to her.

      “I believe that you have something that belongs to me,” Queen Fyora said confidently.

      The change that came across Rajani’s face was instant. One moment it was blatant fear, but now it was intense hatred, and her entire being seemed to be infused with it. She spat at Fyora, and if it were possible, she would’ve attacked the Queen.

      “No!” said Rajani. “No! It’s mine! It’s rightfully mine! Not yours!”

      The Queen, smiled a little and shook her head, as if she pitied the faerie in front of her. Naellie glanced at Rajani, and for the first time noticed something that was around her wrist. It was a thin, silver chain with a small green orb attached to it that flared with a black color every few minutes, as if it knew it what was about to happen, and didn’t agree with it at all.

      “Give it to me, Rajani,” whispered the faerie queen seriously.

      She grasped the earth faerie’s hand and took hold of the chain, and before everybody knew anything else, there was a huge flare of light. Naellie gasped, startled, and rubbed her aching eyes for a few minutes as the spots in her vision went away. When she opened them, things were much different.

      Booville, who as a statue was already starting to get some cracks, began to have color flow through her being once more. At first it was just a little, but then it was as if somebody had broken a dam, and the color flooded through the statue, bringing with it some signs of life. The statue leaned forward, and gasped as it became a girl once more. Naellie squealed with happiness and ran forward to hug her owner, gleeful to once more have a partner.

      Shirin began to lose the shadows covering her body, and now, instead of having glowing purple eyes and a wicked, grinning expression, she was looking at her glistening white scales, which were shimmering in the light.

      “I’m back to normal!” she gasped, and this time, a true smile flitted across her face.

      The pool didn’t disappear, but instead of that a group of bubbles began to burst across the surface of a small area. Nolion came out of the water, but instead of being colored shadow, like everything else that had come out of the pool, he was his normal color, the blue and yellow glistening as if he’d just had a normal bath.

      Booville tore herself away from Naellie and ran over to the big Eyrie as he was slowly lowered to the ground. She wrapped her thin arms around his body, and looked at him worriedly.

      “Nolion?” she asked, fear choking her voice.

      His eyes fluttered open, and he smiled.

      “What?”

      ~*~

      “Is everybody ready for some lemonade?” asked Booville, peeking her head out the door to receive a cheer loud enough to rival the most noisy concerts. “Alright then! Shirin, can you help me bring it out?”

      The white Shoyru leapt up from where she sat next to her owner, racing over to the girl to receive a huge pitcher of yellow liquid. They were all sitting in the back yard, playing games and eating food that was mostly purchased from the market. None of the owners or pets had enough skill to cook their own food at home without burning anything to the point of inedibility.

      Nolion was holding a large beach ball and trying to show a small plushie Wocky how to throw it up into the air. After the incident on Terror Mountain, they’d all been allowed to go home, and now they were celebrating the fact that nobody had gotten hurt.

      It turned out that Amaida had gone to Terror Mountain, not to defeat Rajani by herself, but because the queen had put a spell on her that allowed her to track where she went, so that she’d be able to go to there herself because she alone was the only person powerful enough to overcome the faerie in such an evil form.

      Rajani had no memories of what had happened while she’d been a faerie. After the Sylkonum had been removed, she’d turned back into a human, and claimed that the last thing she remembered before finding the faerie queen standing before her was opening the door to the safe that’d been protecting the thing in the first place.

      It turned out that she’d never actually been the person behind all those terrible things. The Sylkonum did turn her into a faerie, and when it did, turned the person into the one that her personality most resembled. Only the side effect of the Sylkonum turned the person evil, and made them do things that they normally would not ever do in their entire life.

      Rajani refused to hear about what she’d done, because she said she feared that if she did, there’d be many sleepless nights ahead for her. To keep her mind from creating horrible scenarios, she adopted a pet, who Nolion was busy teaching.

      Shirin’s owner had no idea that her pet had been brainwashed. She told them that she had found it odd one day when her pet had stayed late at neoschool without neomailing her to tell her she would, but when she’d come home, everything appeared to be fine. Shirin was just happy to be back to her normal self, though she was a bit more outgoing after the ordeal they’d all gone through.

      She and Naellie had become friends, and were well on their way to becoming best friends when the pink Kyrii had discovered that the Shoyru loved usukis about as much as they did. At the moment, a huge pile of them were set beside the yellow eesa tree, and Naellie was waiting for her playmate to finish setting the pitchers on the table that’d been set up for food.

      Nolion ran his paw through the feathers on his head as the Wocky threw the ball up into the air happily, and walked over to where his ex-owner sat, watching him curiously. He swallowed a little awkwardly and sat down.

      “Are you alright, Nolion?” she asked, shoving a pair of sunglasses up her nose.

      “I don’t think I’ll look at snow the same ever again,” he said, and for the longest while, both of them were silent, trying futilely to hide the hurt between them.

      “You know,” Rajani said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to stay with these people. I know I did the wrong thing when I abandoned you, but you found a good family. This is a great home.”

The End