The morning after, Furbyfun and her pets were up early
for the trip to Faerie City. Well, her pets were, and presumably she was, too.
It was a bit hard to tell, seeing as her bed lay outside the realm of Neopia.
"Since when does Fyora not receive visitors during the day?" grumbled StarSkyFire
groggily as he was roused from a state of slumber.
"We have to get an early start, before everyone
else that wants to see her arrives. Besides, an early start never hurt anyone,"
said Aerolani, who rose with the sun every day herself. Turning on her heels,
she left to get breakfast started and to wake up the snoring speckled Shoyru
sharing her room with JC.
Fifteen minutes later, three sleepy and two bright
and chipper Shoyrus sat around the kitchen table, Shaylily's disco head drooping
so much it almost touched the Coco Neocrunch in her bowl. StarSkyFire was no
better, although unlike Shaylily's Bluna, Crystalia, his Baby Fireball Azamanti
was making a valiant effort to keep him awake. When all five of their bowls
were empty, they waited, Shaylily and JC almost falling asleep and StarSkyFire
actually doing so, by the front door for Furbyfun to log in.
After what seemed to be an eternity, their owner
was heard typing at the lock. Starilya, the active pet, hovered in front of
the windowpane to say "Hi!" so Furbyfun could access the second stage: unlocking
the door and logging in. Her fingers danced over the keys, and with the right
combination the door unlocked and sprung open.
"Well? What are we waiting for? Let's go!" she
exclaimed, and her Shoyrus followed her out the door, making sure it locked
behind them. The sun had just come up and the misty fog of Neopia Central mornings
had not yet lifted, giving the world a magical feeling. Not many Neopians were
on the streets; apart from Dr_Death chasing a frantically running scruffy blue
Zafara, the quiet street was empty.
In a few minutes, since travel time was greatly
improved by the lack of traffic, they got to the carriage station. The green
Kacheek at the front desk had his head on top of a pile of papers, snoozing
away the morning. Furbyfun couldn't blame them; she hardly ever got up before
7:15 AM herself.
Starilya couldn't resist the opportunity. "WAKE
UP!!!" she screamed in the Kacheek's ear, jerking the papers out from under
him. The green Neopet's eyes flew open and he grabbed the papers back. Taking
a few deep breaths to regain his composure, he droned, "Welcome to the Neopia
Central Flying Carriage Station. Can I help you?"
"Well, we need a ride to Faerieland."
"You're five Shoyrus and a winged owner! Couldn't
you just fly there?"
"Do you have any idea how far that is? It would
take us an hour just to get halfway!
"Fine. What can I do for you?"
"You can schedule a ride to Faerieland for five
pets and an owner."
He scribbled in his book, jotting down notes.
"Your name?" he asked the human girl.
"Furbyfun."
"Okay, Furbyfun, I can give you and your pets
the 8:30 AM ride. That's the earliest you can expect the Unis to arrive for
work." He stamped a Neogreeting-sized card and handed it to her. "Enjoy your
trip."
A few minutes later, they were back in the main
shops. "A whole hour?" shrieked Aerolani. "What are we supposed to do for an
hour?"
"How about some Meerca Chase?" suggested Starilya.
"No way. Let's read some back issues of the Neopian
Times."
"Maybe we could have a Battledome match," proposed
Shaylily.
"With who? Punchbag Bob?" asked StarSkyFire sarcastically.
"Forget it. Let's just go back to our Neohome
and play with our petpets while Furbyfun sleeps on the sofa."
"StarSkyFire!"
"What? We know you hate getting up early," protested
the shadow Shoyru as he tried to look innocent. Still, it was close to the truth,
and that's how his owner wound up in Shaylily's zen bed.
Downstairs, Azamanti, StarSkyFire's Baby Fireball,
rooted through the refrigerator for some food while Crystalia, Shaylily's Bluna,
squabbled in Petpet with Halo, Aerolani's Angelpuss. Aquamarine, Starilya's
white Walein, watched in amusement from her fishbowl, with JC's Cirrus floating
in midair beside her.
Forty-five minutes later, Furbyfun descended
from the third floor and gaped at the mess of a living room before her. "Shaylily,
Aerolani, Starilya, StarSkyFire and Jadecrystal, I told you to play with
your petpets, not let them run wild! Look at this mess!"
"We tried to control them! It's not our fault!"
wailed Starilya.
"Oh yes, it is! You let them run wild and make
a huge mess!"
"Look, placing blame won't clean up the front
room. I say we head to the carriage station with our passport instead of standing
around yelling," said Aerolani, keeping a level head in spite of the chaos around
her.
And so, the owner and her pets rushed to the
station. More Neopians than before were on the streets, and there was even a
queue of three people ahead of them. Instead of the sleepy green Kacheek from
before, there was an energetic yellow Meerca at the desk. He was bouncing up
and down and doing almost everything at double speed, smiling cheerfully the
whole time. For one fleeting moment Furbyfun thought it was Sunny, her best
friend's yellow Meerca, but then she realized that Sunny was younger than the
Neopet at the desk.
"Hi! What can I do for you?" asked the Meerca
when it was their turn.
"Um, I'm Furbyfun, and these are my pets," said
the human as she gestured at the Shoyrus clustered around her. "We have a ticket
for the 8:30 AM ride."
"Ah, yes, the 8:30 AM ride. Third carriage on
the left!" exclaimed the yellow Neopet cheerily as he pointed to a door.
"Thanks!" shouted Shaylily as she rushed through
the door with her owner and siblings. They sat down in what could only be called
a winged carriage, beside a skunk Lupe with his nose in a book and a rainbow
Meerca stuffing himself with Chocolate Chias.
A bell rang, and the green Uni pulling their
carriage flew out the opening door at the end of the wide room. She soared higher
and higher, magic smoothing the bumps in her flight path for her eight passengers,
and soon the cloud of Faerieland came into view. It was a tiny white speck in
the cloudless blue sky, growing bigger and more distinct by the second.
"Whoa!" screamed Furbyfun, her own wings stating
to flail in alarm, as the carriage rounded a particularly tight curve. The rainbow
Meerca's tail curled around the safety bar as he let go of his Chocolate Chias
in surprise. Shaylily almost dropped her book of Faerie poetry, and in fact
she did, but due to the tilt of the carriage the Lupe at the other end caught
them before they fell.
"Thanks!" shouted the disco Shoyru over the wind
of their terrifically high speed as the skunk Neopet threw her book back.
"No problem!" yelled the Lupe. Meanwhile, Starilya,
who had never before been to Faerieland- except once with the FallingBlues when
she was too little to remember- sighted the great city in the sky and gasped
in awe.
"You used to live here?" she asked JC
in astonishment. The former Faerie pet nodded. Her dirtied gray wings were somehow
cleaning themselves, and their rumpled feathers were straightening out.
"The return of a Faerie," muttered Shaylily under
her breath, along with several other things in the old Faerie tongue. The white-winged
Shoyru giggled, and the disco Shoyru stated at her.
"What? I was saying a Faerie poem, not a joke,"
said Shaylily.
"Well, your pronunciation's terrible. It came
out as a bunch of nonsense, and I believe the highlight was 'the starry Ummagime
of destiny'," replied JC. Shaylily's face turned beet red and she sat with her
head in her hands as the others laughed at JC's translation.
They reached Faerieland then, and everyone stopped
laughing. Somehow they knew that it was not the time or place for lighthearted
laughter. The Uni paused on the edge of the cloud to let them out, making sure
they took their luggage before soaring away, back to Neopia Central. The five
Shoyrus and their owner went one way, to the Faerie City, and the other two
pets went another, in the direction of the Healing Springs.
"So where's Fyora's tower?" asked Aerolani when
they passed the gates of the City.
"You mean you can't see it?" asked Shaylily
and JC in unison and disbelief.
"You can see the towers?" asked the striped
Shoyru.
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing, being able
to see them?"
"Well, it means you certainly have substantial
magic... the kind of magic level only Faeries have."
"Oh, I knew about that. One of the oddities
of being from Larishi."
"What's Larishi?"
"Didn't I tell you already? Oh, right, you have
that memory problem. Well, I'll tell you again. Larishi is a planet, about the
same size as Neopia, and not that far away either. Shoyrus identical to those
in Neopia, except for a higher magic level, live there. Perhaps several centuries
ago, Neopia was too crowded and some Shoyrus moved out. Anyway, I was born there,
as the heir to the Larishi throne. I was sent here when I was very little."
"Why?"
"Don't know. Maybe my mom, Chaylily Starlight,
wanted me to grow up like a normal Neopian."
"Holy Kau! You're a Starlight?"
"It's no big deal in Neopia. My best friend Morece
is a Luckvisa, Princess Morece of Luckland."
"Wow!"
"Look, you two, I admit that Shaylily's family
is interesting, but we need to find that tower," shouted Furbyfun, "and it'll
be a lot harder if we can't see where we're going."
"Oh, that's easy. Just follow me and Shaylily,"
said the white-winged Shoyru. Suddenly, her silver eyes widened and it seemed
as if a shadow had been lifted from the striped Neopet.
"The curse upon my memory," said JC, mystified,
"is gone."
"Wow," said Aerolani.
So the group somehow made its way through the
Faerie City to the base of Fyora's tower without bumping into any of the towers
that were invisible to all but the Faeries, JC, and Shaylily.
But, when they searched for a door, two large
shadows and a Faerie Meerca soared from the top of the Dark Tower. They landed
on top of the closely clustered group, knocking the five Shoyrus and their winged
owner to the cloud ground.
"You're not telling Fyora on us!" exclaimed the
first shadow, revealing herself to be Mysinell.
"No, you've caused us a lot of problems, Jadecrystal.
I hope you're happy," said the second, who was Damiyé. The Meerca seemed especially
shy, hiding behind Mysinell's leg.
"We're going to push you, and all your friends,
off Faerieland!" cackled the Uber Dark Faerie. A ball of pure dark magic began
to gather and glow, in the strange shadowy way of dark magic, in her hand.
To be continued...
|