Sad Victory
In camp, FlameKeeta, the fire Lupe, had a
great surprise in store for her. Her father, a bedraggled-looking red Lupe was
there to meet her. The two would not be separated for days until the first battle
began. The Lovians had the upper hand in their castle on top of a hill, but
the Kastillians did not fear their attacks, they only waited patiently for it.
Then, on one cloudy day, the Lovians struck.
The battle was not costly for either side, for the enemy was few in number,
and they only came to collect a struggling, fighting Keeta. She was rushed to
the castle. Feliren sent his fastest Dragons to the sky after her and the strongest
fighters, fastest runners and Chargoun and Keeta's Father rode after her. But
they were too late. Keeta was a captive.
***
Keeta had plenty of time to think in her cell down in the dungeon of Chercion's
castle. He came down, of course, grinning and making cruel jokes.
It was LoveChargoun who saved her. The blue
Lupe broke the door into splinters as he ran down the stone steps. He snatched
the keys to Keeta's prison cell off of the wall and hurried to open the door.
Keeta had never thought she could be so glad to see Chargoun.
There was a strange swelling in her chest as
Chargoun charged down those steps. The same feeling she'd felt when she saw
her father in the camp, and when she first heard Bombay speak to her, talking
to her intelligently and joking with her. Something few of the equines could
do at the royal stables. She rubbed the fur on her chest questionably until
a little voice whispered in the back of her head: Love. Keeta simply snorted
as she followed Chargoun up the stairs.
But as she looked at him, she didn't see some
immature overgrown pup anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad being married to
him - better than his brother, at least!
***
Keeta quickly sent a letter to her sister, Querin. She didn't feel as if she
was meant to really 'love' anyone and the word made her gag. Querin mailed back
telling her that she had laughed when she read it saying, "Well, it's kind of
the way it is. Usually when you're stuck with a person who's not a complete
jerk you feel that way. With Father, well... He's just a likeable man! And you
must really love your talking Uni to feel such a way about him." Keeta sighed
and burned the letter afterwards. No one was reading anything like that about
her. Especially not in a war camp.
It made her uncomfortable to be around Chargoun.
He was... Well... He was Chargoun. She shouldn't even be married to him, anyway.
But she loved to spend time with her father and RacerBombay. They would ride
around camp together, joking and laughing and exchanging stories. No talk of
the current war passed between them. They were happy as could be. Until the
next battle, that is.
The Lovians attacked without warning. The Kastillians
fought their hardest and Keeta was even allowed to help, though she was to take
no risks in getting herself captured or harm. That, of course, Keeta shrugged
aside. It was a war for the Great Goddess's sake!
But it was when she got near fighting with Egsfa
that things began to spin and make her sick. A figure fell out of the sky, an
arrow through it's chest. It's mount, a shadowed Shoyru, roared in sadness as
its rider fell. And he landed at Keeta and Egsfa's feet. Egsfa nearly dropped
her sword as she kneeled at Feliren's side. Walfoulm instantly came to the rescue,
battling hard to give Egsfa and Keeta space.
Egsfa didn't hold back her tears as she leaned
down next to her best friend Feliren. She held his hand in her hooves, crying
over his dark brown mane and fallen cowboy hat. "Feliren..." She sobbed his
name over and over. His eyes strained to open. "I love you, Egsfa. And you Keeta,
and Walfoulm, and Chargoun. I love the Dragons, as well. Tell them I love them,
please, tell them I love them..." He trailed off and was still. Egsfa screamed
in anguish and pain.
Soon, she got up, balanced on her shadowy tail
once again. Wiping the tears out her eyes with a hoof, she picked up her sword
between them once again. "If I find the one who fired that arrow, they're going
to pay." She hissed and dove into the fray, leaving Keeta alone, fighting her
tears as she slowly entered the battlefield once again.
***
Keeta was sweaty, hot, tired and saddened. She fought on, however, and now
with a mount. RacerBombay was a skilled war-horse and could dodge arrows and
sword blades with graceful ease. He leapt over the piling dead bodies that made
Keeta sick and saddened all over again.
When she saw her father, wounded and barely
fighting off his opponent, Keeta managed to lift him into the saddle. Bombay
muscled and dodged his way out of the crush of bodies. The three began to gallop
down to the campsite to get aide to Keeta's father.
"Thank you, Keeta," he told her softly as they
continued running.
"You're my father and I love you. You understand
me more than mother and Trea. Leana has hardly any way to speak to me and Ales
is always too sick. Querin understands but she's so far away. You will come
back after the war, won't you?" Keeta asked hopefully, like a young pup again.
"Of course I will, darling," her father said
with a smile. "Now how slow can this Uni go?" He bellowed. Bombay snorted and
threw his head, speeding up. Keeta's father was obviously in pain, but he struggled
not to show it. At that moment, there was no one else within miles of them besides
Bombay, Keeta and her father.
It was when Keeta heard a gasp and a groan when
she became alert and halted Bombay as her father thumped softly to the ground.
Keeta screamed and half-fell half-kneeled at her father's dying side. An arrow
had struck him down and as Keeta quickly scanned the battlefield, she saw Chezonan
Mautfeld, the fire Kyrii, looking satisfied and lowering his bow.
"Father..." She choked, tears streaming down
her cheeks. Why did she lose so much today? Why did war exist? War was a terrible
thing! It should be abolished! Keeta thought before frantically going to her
father's aide. A crowd was gathering around them, a friendly one that fought
off the enemy Lovians and helped to calm Keeta and help her father. But they
all knew he would die, even Keeta.
"Keeta..." he whispered, his voice faltering.
He took a shuddering breath, struggling to get his last words out. "You... You
are so beautiful. You are... You are destined to be great. You are the heiress
of the mermaidens, the Goddess of the Dark Underworld and the Sword of Starrius,
also known as the Heavens Sword. You must... Stop Chezo. Stop his..." He didn't
finish. He shuddered his last breath before he could. Keeta's tears fell in
pools on her father's wounds.
After a moment, she placed him in a lying position
on his side, matching his paws identically, lifting his head proudly. Keeta
got up, wiped her tears like Egsfa had, and got onto her haunches. She lifted
her fiery paws in the air. "Starrius, come to me!" She cried. In a blast of
light through the dreary clouds, and beautifully crafted sword fell into her
paws. The hilt was made of intricately carved gold, the blade of silver. Strangely,
it was not heavy and gave Keeta a sense of power that she'd never known before.
But that power was not evil, it was good. But there was also an evil swirling
about her, inside of her.
She held her sword into the revealing sun and
it glinted brilliantly. In history, it was said that it blinded all those corrupt
(eep... deja vu). In reality, it was a signal. A small, pitch black Eyrie whose
name was Griffiane Cauhin Nevero, swooped down out of the dark skies in which
he blended, and plucked the fire Lupe off of the ground. Keeta screeched a secret
code for all of her Kastillian people. They fled back to camp, leaving the Lovians
confused.
Then, the large Night Lupe Pack, the Black Brigade
(of which Griffiane is a part), the Rebellion Unicorns (of which Moonstruk,
Bombay and Sparklene are parts of), mermaids (by a river flowing next to the
castle and others charged in, the fiercest of warriors. The Lovians suffered
a devastating defeat, but had only went into temporary submission. They were
only waiting for a later time to strike. Sparklene, who had been imprisoned
in that same castle, escaped, but was unable to get to the Kastillian camp.
Keeta knew, in her heart, that Sparklene would come back one day soon, and she
patiently waited, like all her people, for the day when that would be so.
Epilogue
Chercion obviously did not give up. That was
for certain. By the next year, he attacked with a larger army, laying siege
on all Kastillia. The people had come to love Keeta and Chargoun. They had already
become King and Queen of the parts of Lovia Kastillia had managed to steal away.
The new land dubbed Kovuimme by Egsfa. This decided because of Feliren's favourite
old-time word meaning 'wise hatchling' in old Kastillian. This fit perfectly
because of the new country (hatchling) and the wise people of Lovia (who had
no intention of rebelling) and their semi-wise rulers.
However, there was something terrible that would
happen. Queen Tiatha's main castle was destroyed as the enemy advanced. Many
Kovuimme castles were eliminated, as well, and the Kovuimme and Kastillian people
did not want their beloved NeoRenegades to be killed. They managed to get the
old laboratory that was connected to the Cave of the Aqua Tonu and sent them
to Neopia.
They figured that the Lovians would follow them
to Neopia and the NeoRenegades would escape back to Tibejb under their noses.
Although this worked, they had their flaws. They miscalculated the power of
Neopia's atmosphere. They crash landed on various parts of Neopia. Keeta, Walfoulm
and Egsfa were safe. But Chargoun was not.
Chezo Mautfeld, the fire Kyrii, found him before
Chargoun could find a body to host himself in (they were only half-souls and
needed a place to hold their physical forms). Chargoun had landed in a dark
alley. He had reached his blue paw out with a moan to get himself up when the
Kyrii dug his heel into his paw and pointed a Grand Lightning Beam at Chargoun's
head. Chargoun looked up in surprise, pain and sadness. The last word he ever
said was a name.
When FlameKeeta awoke in a little fiery Lupe
pup's body, she looked up to a flash of light, her name ringing in her ears.
The 'a' resonating eerily. Her memory was faint and as the little body got up
without her asking it to, she began to forget it all with each step. Years of
memory were erased in less than one day. The NeoRenegades were no more. It would
be years before FlameKeeta began to remember. Then it would be too late. But
life is not always pretty, and Fate takes us all in different directions. Remember
that one.
The End... Sort of
As a little history on this, I've written this before to support a long dream
I had that eventually expanded in my mind. I haven't written it all down in the
real version and I've rewritten this Neopets version four times. This last draft
is my fifth. Also, many of these characters will have life stories written and
**hopefully** published in The Neopian Times. Also... FEEDBACK,
FEEDBACK,
FEEDBACK!
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