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Nadriella sat on her bed in the dormitory, staring at
the pink marble ceiling above. She wasn’t thinking of anything in particular,
but was just casting her mind around the recent encounter with the Queen. Her
intentions seemed kind and selfless, but she knew that something must have been
behind it for no one was ever pleasant to her.
She closed her eyes and listened to the wind
quietly whispering through the window, bringing with it the giggles of other
faeries outside as well as the hustle and bustle of the Faerie city below, and
the odd click clack of claws.
…Claws?
Nadriella opened her eyes slowly and slipped
off her bed. Her room appeared to be empty, but she could still heard the sound
or someone (or possibly something) wandering around her bed.
"Hello?” she asked the empty room. The strange
noises quickly stopped at the sound of her voice. The Faerie looked around,
somewhat baffled. She scratched her head and turned back to her bed, but something
was different.
Someone was on it.
“Hello!” a young Gelert happily chirped. Nadriella’s
eyes opened quickly with shock and surprise, but realizing that the Gelert was
not a threat she gave a warm-hearted smiled and scratched behind the pet’s long
ears.
“Hello young pet, it looks like you’ve gotten
lost,” she cooed. The Gelert opened up its eyes and turned towards Nadriella.
“Lost? No, no… I don’t think so, this is the
place, I know it is,” it said distractedly looking around the room as if searching
for something which would confirm its assumptions. Nadriella furrowed her brow
in confusion; why would a Neopet have business within the academy? Pets were
not allowed inside its walls, so why was this one looking for something inside
it? But before she could inquire more about what it was looking for, the Gelert
asked her a question.
“You are Nadriella, right?” the Gelert questioned.
Nadriella nodded and the Gelert let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh that’s good! Cause the lady told me to find
you and I had to stay with you! Phew, I’m glad I got it right, and—“
“Stay? No, I’m afraid you really cannot stay
Gelert,” the Air Faerie said. The Gelert looked distressed, its large brown
eyes growing wider and wider.
“But… but… the Faerie said that I had to stay
with you, and you had to stay with me. She said we were… we were… ummm… what
is the word?... BOUND! Yeah! That’s it!” the Gelert exclaimed happily, turning
around on the bed in a sort of triumphant dance that she remembered the word.
Nadriella was horror struck at the Gelert’s words.
“B-bound? No you’ve made a mistake, only powerful
faeries specially blessed by powerful, high ranking faeries are allowed to be
bound and I wasn’t! I mean, a Faerie needs to be present to be bound to a pet
and I know that I wasn--…”
"Of course you were, silly!” the Gelert
clarified, putting a paw on Nadriella’s hand, its soft blue fur on her pale
skin. “I can’t remember who said it really, but a Faerie said that I was bound
to you and you to me. I’m to be your friend…and I only hope that you’ll be mine,”
It added hopefully, giving a sheepish grin. Nadriella’s heart felt as if it
was to burst with happiness, but something held her back.
“But, I’m a flightless Faerie, doesn’t that disgust
you?” she asked sadly. The Gelert looked over Nadriella’s shoulder at her wings
and then at her face.
“Nope, at least you have wings! If it makes you
feel better I don’t even have any wings, nor can I fly. So it’s kinda like we’re
equal!” the Gelert laughed and, she couldn’t help it, Nadriella joined in. They
two stopped laughing, and at that time the Faerie realized that her friend had
no name.
“What is your name?" she asked. The Gelert
launched into a bout of thinking, its tongue in-between its lips as it thought.
“Hmmm… I dunno. I guess that means I don’t have
a name,” it said, looking over at Nadriella a spark of happiness in its eyes.
“Will you give me a name, wonderful Faerie?”
it asked hopefully. Nadriella smiled and tried to think of a name, finally coming
up with one that sounded perfect.
“Would you like the name, Celalith?” Nadriella
asked, feeling that it would only be proper to ask the Gelert’s permission to
use the name. The Gelert let out a bark of happiness and jumped up and down.
“Ohhh! Celalith! I like it! I really, really
like it!” she howled, full of joy. Nadriella felt within her heart the joy that
Celalith felt at the moment, for now that the Gelert had a name, the two were
bound, one in the same.
“Thank you! Thank you for the name Nadriella!”
The Gelert hugged the Air Faerie and she hugged back. At that time the bell
rang, singling the end of class…and Nadriella’s break. With the excitement of
what had happened, she completely forgot that she had classes the rest of the
day! She looked at the Gelert, a bit of fear in her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Nadriella?” Celalith asked, concerned.
“I have to go to class now, but… if the other
Faeries find out that I was bound…they’re not nice Celalith… and I’m afraid
they might try to curse you out of jealously,” the Faerie explained. Celalith
let out a snort and jumped off the bed, skittering towards the door.
“I’m not afraid of them! And I’ll make sure that
they don’t scare you either, Nadriella!” Celalith vowed with a powerfully surge
in her voice. Nadriella smiled, it was so odd to have a kind conversation with
someone. She had not done that for a long time…
The Faeries began to file into the class, each
small group laughing about their last class. The large room quieted down as
the frail Faerie walked into the room…and…with a pet at her side?
A few Faeries goggled at her; what was she doing
with a PET in the academy?
“Oh, she’s in trouble!”
”Stole a pet!”
”Ohhhhh, you’re out of here for sure now, broken
wings!”
“Whaca got the Gelert for, méclya?” laughed a
Fire Faerie Nadriella turned towards the Faerie…but was it really Nadriella?
There was a noticeable difference in her face. What was once an appearance of
fear and sadness was now different. Stronger and… possibly happier?
“I have a Gelert, because we have been bound,”
Nadriella said, looking down at her new friend with a as a haughty earth Faerie
fainted from shock.
***
The days that Nadriella and Celalith spent together were full of a sort of
resplendent happiness. With a pet Nadriella and Celalith could do all kinds
of amusing activities that were normally permitted for pets with owners. They
took on a few jobs at the employment office every weekend, or when school work
permitted, to earn some extra pocket money. Of course, the Faeries in the academy
rarely had use for Neopoints, but Nadriella felt that to deprive Celalith with
toys and games to entertain herself with was rather unkind.
For Nadriella it was a new experience to have
someone to confide with. When she talked about things that made her weary heart
sad, instead of mulling them over as she did before, she felt as if her spirit
had become liberated from the old problems of the past.
Celalith was even more than a confidant to the
Faerie she also proved to be rather fair in understanding the ballads written
in the old Faerie languages, which was extremely useful when Nadriella’s books
were written in the old languages.
Languages classes were now designated for independent
study. The former teacher had still not returned from her expedition in Meridell
(a rumor was circulating that she had been turned into a Mortog). After the
only one day of teaching the class Fyora never returned. All the students just
assumed that she had far more pressing issues to manage than to teach young
faeries how to properly conjugate the sentence on page 391.
But none of that mattered to Nadriella and Celalith,
for there were more urgent matters upon them, for Nadriella was reaching the
age where she was starting to end her time inside the familiar walls of the
Faerie and was soon to take the assessment which all students took. It was a
test to determine what skills one Faerie excelled at and what skills they lacked,
which were critical in assigning them a trade in the world. Nadriella always
pondered what happened to faeries that could not be placed…and if it would happen
to her. But Celalith scorned her friend when she spoke of such things.
“Don’t talk like that Nadriella!” Celalith would
snap, pounding her furry paw on the table. “Your better than all those fake
little faeries you take classes with! And, if they’re fair judges, you’ll get
to be Faerie Queen!”
The Air Faerie would blush and deny it, but the
words the Gelert spoke were true. She was now fast becoming one of the most
skilled faeries in her grade, and quite possibly one of the top fifteen in the
academy. It was quite a turn around from her ranking in the class before, where
she could barley make a thimble levitate.
The time flew by unnaturally fast for Nadriella,
but it was far too late to turn back now…
It was time for the trials.
To be continued...
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