Noble Beginnings

     "Excuse me, Queen Fyora? I must speak to you," said the Xweetok.

     The Queen looked down, and for a second her eyes shone with shock, which disappeared when she realized this wasn't the same Xweetok that had caused Faerieland to be sitting in the giant crater in which it now lay.

     "Yes, how may I help you?" the faerie asked after she had led the Xweetok into the room of the Hidden Tower, the only place that they could speak to each other without the interruption of the working faeries.

     "It's about Xandra," the Xweetok said quickly. "My sister," she added reluctantly, seeing the shocked look on Fyora's face.

     "Y-yes? What about Xandra?" the Queen managed to utter. The thought of starting a conversation with someone about the Xweetok she had trained, been betrayed by, and who had nearly brought the end to her people wasn't very comforting to her. Is she going to ask me to unpetrify her? the Queen thought.

     "I want to know what she has done, where she is, everything! I'll try to fix the damage she has caused, but she was the gifted one, not me. I-"

     "Xandra has caused damage that is being fixed by my people and all of Neopia, child, but why are you blaming yourself? it is not your fault for Xandra's misdoings," Fyora said, interrupting the speckled Xweetok. "Now, dear, tell me. What is your name, and since you're Xandra's sister, why don't you tell me more about her. She was always unwilling to talk about herself when I trained her."

     "M-my name is Tessa."

     "Ok, Tessa, you may begin," Fyora said.

     "Alright, Queen Fyora."

     . . .

     Xandra and I were born in the Haunted Woods, where we lived in a broken down shack. Our parents were almost never home – usually off at their job – so we were each other's only company. We often played around when we were little...

     Come on, Tessa!

     I'm going to tag you!

     ... But when we got older, we learned of Xandra's powers. Xandra stopped playing around and almost always was reading a book. She kept telling me over and over how she was going to open a library in Altador, but that didn't seem like a good excuse for ignoring me. I felt rather lonely during this time, especially because every time our parents came home, they came less and less... until they stopped coming at all.

     So I seemed all alone in the world. But that all changed one day...

     "Hey Xandra, are you going to go outside today?" I asked with a hopeful tone.

     "Maybe." That was her usual reply, which almost always means no. It hurt to be rejected all the time.

     "Come on, we could have some fun for once," I urged her. She looked up from her book with a frown on her face.

     "But, sister, if I am going to become a librarian and learn how to use this gift I have, what better way could I learn than reading?" she asked in a quiet voice. "Besides, you're the same age as me, so why do you want to play outside when I would rather be grown-up?" Xandra added arrogantly.

     "But we're only ten. We don't have to be adults yet!" I reasoned with my quiet voice. "Come on, Xandra, if we go outside, we might find something new out there. Maybe something that would change our lives forever, maybe for the better." I hoped that worked, and it did. Xandra looked completely curious. She agreed to go outside, so we walked outside the crooked door of the shack.

     After we walked outside, we started walking around past the Brain Tree and the eager Neopians who were hoping for an easy question, past Spooky Petpets and the Stone Dome. We kept walking until we walked through the gypsy camp, completely ignoring the curious gypsy children that looked at us, and we followed the creepy path that led us right into the heart of Neovia.

     As we walked, Xandra led the way right to... The Neovian Printing Press? Really? I didn't know what to do when we saw a little Bori being bullied by a Hissi and a Grarrl. Xandra turned around and walked right between the bullies and their victim.

     "Leave him alone," Xandra told the bullies, "or else you will regret it."

     "Why should we listen to you? You're just one Xweetok. You can't do anything to us," the Grarrl said to her, him and his partner closing in on her and the Bori.

     "I warned you," Xandra said, and green light shot out of her fingertips and engulfed the two troublemakers. She then pulled her hand up, and the two started to float up in the air. "You shouldn't bully others, or you will learn the hard way." She then tossed them into the mucky river that ran right through the town.

     "Nice magic," said a voice into my ear. I turned around and there was a faerie hovering next to me. She then floated over to Xandra. "Your magic is quite impressive, young Xweetok. Tell me, have you ever trained to use your magic?"

     "No," Xandra responded, "Why?"

     "Would you like to learn how to use it? I can show you how," the faerie offered.

     "Ok, but first I have a question for you."

     The faerie had a shocked look on her face, but she nodded, giving her permission to ask.

     "If you were right here, why didn't you help the Bori?" Xandra asked matter-of-factly.

     "Well, we faeries, we don't interfere with what happens to Neopians," she answered.

     I could tell that Xandra didn't like that answer, but Xandra didn't say it. Instead she agreed to go.

     "By the way, what is your name?" the faerie asked.

     "My name is Xandra, who are you?" she replied.

     "My name is Queen Fyora, and I am the leader of the faeries," was her response. They then flew off, leaving me, lost and confused, behind. I never got to say goodbye to her.

     . . .

     "I never saw my sister again," Tessa said, finishing her story. There were tears starting to well up from her eyes. "I don't know what happened to her to make her do what she did, but I knew there was good still in her, just buried very deep."

     Queen Fyora was speechless. She had remembered that was how she had met Xandra, and the other speckled Xweetok that was there, but she was so intrigued with Xandra's powers at the time that she had missed the kind-heart Xweetok who sat before her now, crying her eyes out.

     "Would you like to see her now?" the Queen asked her softly. She didn't want want to make her even more upset than she already was, but seeing her sister was partly why she had come in the first place. Tessa nodded. So Fyora led the Xweetok into the corridor, down the stairs, and onward to the field where Xandra still stood.

     After taking Tessa to see Xandra, Fyora took Tessa in to live in the castle. You can find her living there even to this day.

The End