A Quick Breather

     “That’s it, the end of the recording,” Dr. Landelbrot said. “Transmitting now…”

     The Faerie Queen sighed as she stepped out of the room and back into the council chamber.

     “How dare you accuse me of cursing your land?! You shut your mouth right now!” shouted an angry King Skarl.

     Queen Fyora glared at King Skarl and Lord Darigan. “Stop! The world is in crisis and all you can think about is a settled matter from years ago!”

     She shook her head in severe disappointment, calmly made her way to the balcony door, and floated outside, gently shutting the door behind her.

     “Now you’ve done it,” King Hagan said, folding his arms.

     “My Lord, we should probably go play a little game instead,” King Roo whispered into Lord Darigan’s ear.

     “Games? I don’t have time for games! Skarl won’t shut up about the past!” Lord Darigan shouted.

     --

     Outside, two stone chairs sat next to each other, overlooking the beautiful city of Altador and the majestic peaks behind it. Queen Fyora stood and looked over the edge, noting how the residents of Altador continued to carry on with their lives, mostly unaware of the war against the shades on the other side of the world. She desperately wished she could protect them, yet she still had no idea how. Glancing above her at the tear in the sky, tears nearly flowed from her eyes, but she gritted her teeth to suppress them.

     “Must, stay, strong,” she said to herself as she stepped backwards and slid into one of the chairs. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.

     “Ugh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?!” she screamed out loud. She then looked around… nobody seemed to hear her.

     A few moments later, the door behind her opened.

     “Care if I join you?” King Altador said, poking his head out.

     “Oh, hello, um sure.”

     The majestic Lupe sat down next to her, and the two stared off into the distance. A few minutes later, the muffled sound of shouting resumed behind them. Both of them groaned loudly.

     King Altador turned to witness Lord Darigan and King Skarl back at it with King Roo and King Hagan both attempting to play mediator again.

     “Even with the sky falling around us…” King Altador began.

     Suddenly, Queen Fyora buried her face in her hands as she wept loudly.

     “Queen Fyora! Are you alright?”

     “It’s been so many weeks; I’ve been pretending I have a plan. But I just don’t…” she wailed.

     “But Queen Fyora… we’ve,” King Altador said, attempting to lay a paw on her shoulder. The Faerie Queen pulled away instead, standing back up from her seat. King Altador followed suit.

     “Not right now, King Altador please. I just… did I send Baelia, Luxinia, and the rest of the group out to their own demises? Did I? They’ve never dealt with any of this and somehow, I expected them to just go fix it. I’ve made this all worse!”

     “Stop right there!” King Altador said. “You’ve done plenty. You brought us altogether. You assembled a team of experts in Dr. Landelbrot and Jerdana to help research the void, protecting Nyx and healing Juni. You got leaders on opposite sides to at least hear each other out… sometimes anyway. You enlisted Seshatia to help find out about other ancient magic and got Orion to help her with that.”

     Queen Fyora sniffed a few times as she tried to pull out her handkerchief which was seemingly stuck in her pocket.

     “Here,” King Altador said, offering a clean handkerchief.

     “I’m sorry, I’m unworthy of such kindness... such friendship...” She took the handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

     “Nonsense!”

     “Even if... even if my failures may cost us all of Neopia? Everything I've tried to do lately has been a failure! I failed to help Xandra before she spiraled out of control. I failed to stop the Darkest Faerie from causing the wraith resurgence. I failed to protect Neopia from-”

     “Queen Fyora! You aren't alone when it comes to those failures. Or those thoughts. Let us sit with them, together.”

     She sighed. “I guess you are right, it was selfish of me to only look at my own failures and problems and assume nobody else dealt with those before.”

     “I failed to protect my kingdom from betrayal, trust me, I know how much that hurts. But you’ve also done so much for keeping Neopia at relative peace, ensuring that wraiths don’t invade.”

     Queen Fyora reached out and placed her arm around Altador.

     “I didn’t do any of that, that was everyone else. Same with this situation, everyone else is doing all they can, and I’m just here. I feel useless.”

     “You’re a leader, you don’t have to do everything yourself. You know that.”

     “Still, I still messed up sending this crew out and all I could was give them a lousy holographic recording.”

     “Well, it seems like they are doing their best and also trying to get to the bottom of the motives of our suspects.”

     “I still probably could have… I should have gone with them!”

     “Queen Fyora, no, we need you here to help. King Skarl and Lord Darigan would tear each other apart.”

     Queen Fyora sighed and moved back toward King Altador before throwing her arms around him. “I guess I feel a bit better now.” He patted her on the back. “There, there.”

     “That said, you should be taking care of yourself better. Every time we leave back to our nighttime quarters, I still see you sitting at your desk. You’re even here after Dr. Landelbrot and Jerdana have left. It’s ok to take a break and get some sleep you know.”

     The two let go of each other and sat back down.

     “Oh, that’s just a bad habit of mine I picked up in Faerieland…”

     King Altador put his right paw up.

     “You’re going to burn yourself out at this rate.”

     “I-I guess I might. But what choice do I have?! All I hear about lately is how I’m not doing enough and that I’m not running the council effectively.”

     “For thousands of years, you’ve been able to ignore the unreasonable critics. Why not keep ignoring them?”

     The Queen shook her head. “I guess I shouldn’t mind them, but I do, because I keep hearing the same thing every day.”

     “Well, maybe this will help.” King Altador reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded copy of the Neopian Times, except this one was printed on pink paper with patterns that looked like Fyora’s wings. “I take it you haven’t read the Fyora Day Edition of the Times since you’ve been busy here.”

     Queen Fyora reached out to grasp the paper and unfolded it. Out of the blue, a Faerie Weewoo seemed to notice and came to rest on the railing in front of them. Queen Fyora reached into her pocket, pulled out a cookie and handed it to the Weewoo, who began earnestly nibbling at it.

     “No, I have not read this.”

     “Well, hopefully it lets you know that people across Neopia still appreciate you.”

     Queen Fyora thumbed through to the comics section and glanced at it.

     “What? Those folks were responsible for the influx of faeries?! Well, they are wrong anyways, all those faeries are already citizens on the books!” Fyora exclaimed as she looked at a comic titled “The Floating Islanders – Faerie Fiasco”.

     She looked at another. “Team Faerieland’s No. 1 Fan.”

     “Is my voice that loud when I cheer?”

     Altador shifted around uncomfortably. “Well, you can… get a little excited sometimes.”

     “Does Jonathon know I’m reading the NT?” she said, looking at the latest “Blossoms” comic then flipping the page.

     “Wait! I don’t have a deficit of 300 million NPs! And why are some of these stories all sad and about the grey, I-“

     Her outburst startled the Faerie Weewoo who promptly flew away.

     “No wait, sorry Weewoo, I-” The Faerie Queen began, reaching out her hand to try and beckon the Weewoo to return, but it flew off.

     “Ok, Fyora, maybe we should put that newspaper down.” Altador said, clearly regretting bringing her a copy.

     Fyora buried her face in her hands again and sighed.

     “No, there are a lot of good things in here that show appreciation, and I love them, but I can’t help but notice that some of these remind me of my failures.”

     “But you did try to comfort those affected by the grey curse, like in the comic ‘Fyoras Perspective’ and the story ‘Fyora’s Grey Discovery’ and I’m sure they appreciate that.”

     “Hmm… I guess so,” Fyora said, sniffing a bit again.

     “And well, this is still a journey. The story ‘The Queen’s Gratitude’ shows your courage in seeking help when you were in despair. So please, take care of yourself. But perhaps, it’s a good idea to take a break from it all. Here’s what we are going to do. We’re going to go back in when you’re ready and then we’re going to have a board game night. I am certain King Roo brought plenty of games for us for moments like these. We don’t always have to be heads down all the time.”

     Getting up from her seat, Queen Fyora nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready to go back in there.”

     --

     “Stop it!” Hagan shouted. The door then burst open and Queen Fyora stepped in between King Skarl and Lord Darigan.

     “Enough, you two. You’ve had many years between the previous war. You now have a strong truce. We’ve got more important things to worry about,” Queen Fyora said firmly. The two of them glared at each other, prompting King Altador to scowl at them. That appeared to be enough to do the job.

     Queen Fyora took her spot at the round table.

     “Good evening, everyone. Instead of our usual meeting in the evening, I would like to propose a change of pace. I think all of us have worked tirelessly over the past few weeks and deserve a break. I believe King Roo has brought along plenty of board games and other tabletop activities for us to enjoy.”

     King Roo stood up and took a bow left and right before jumping up and down a few times.

     “Yes! I’ve been waiting forever for you to say this!”

     “Oh, I also have one game I brought with me,” Lord Darigan noted.

     “Nobody wants to play Cellblock,” King Skarl retorted.

     “Hey, I want to play Cellblock,” Dr. Landelbrot replied.

     The group moved the middle table aside and then King Altador brought out smaller tables with chairs. King Roo began setting up multiple games of Dice-A-Roo, Cellblock, Cheat! and NeoQuest. With Cellblock right in front of her and Lord Darigan close by, the Faerie Queen invited him to play.

     “Hey Lord Darigan,” Fyora said. “Sorry about earlier, I should have stepped in sooner and- “

     Lord Darigan raised his hand up. “It’s fine, I don’t think anything is avoidable when the two of us are in the same room. I’m not going to be bothered by it. Now your move, Queen Fyora.”

     The pieces in front of them transformed magically and the ones used by the Queen turned pink with the Faerieland Crest.

     “Ok, I’ll go here.”

     After a few silent rounds, Fyora shook her head.

     “I can’t do this; I still can’t stop thinking about all that’s going on.”

     Lord Darigan picked up one of his pieces and began rolling it around in his right hand. He took his time and then finally began to speak.

     “You didn’t gather us all out here just to shoulder all the burden, did you? Because that would be quite silly.”

     The Queen sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

     “Then why are you acting like this is just your fight?”

     “I’m not acting that way…”

     “As a friend, I really believe you are right now. You’re worried that you’re going to fail. But this isn’t just your fight. All Neopia might be cursed soon, and every one of us also has those worries. You can share them with us. We’re all working together.”

     Queen Fyora quietly stared at the Cellblock board before her.

     “I-I guess, I feel like much of this is my fault…”

     “How is it all your fault?” Darigan asked. His face wrinkled with bewilderment.

     “Because…. I just… reacted too slowly…”

     “Queen Fyora, are you hiding something from us?” Lord Darigan inquired.

     Fyora looked taken aback.

     “No, why would you think that?”

     Lord Darigan folded his arms and stared at the ground. “That was rude of me. I trust you; I promise. Just please trust us to assist you.”

     “My apologies, I shouldn’t have acted like this was my fight.”

     “It’s ok, just please don’t feel like you’ve failed. We’ve made some progress into understanding why things are happening. We know there’s a Grey Painter and we know Vira is somehow involved. And Dr. Landelbrot and Jerdana are still doing research. And our friends out there are still at it.”

          Fyora sat in silence as Lord Darigan placed his next piece on the board.

     “Hey wait! That’s not very nice!” Fyora quipped as she noticed Lord Darigan blocked her from making a row.

     “Hey, you allowed me to think about it for a while. Fine, I’ll go here.”

     “Oh no you don’t!”

     Before they knew it, others had got up from their seats to watch the intense Cellblock match that would make Master Vex jealous. After a few more rounds, the group gasped.

     Fyora and Darigan looked at each other and laughed.

     “King Dari,” King Roo said. “It appears you and Queen Fyora have gotten yourselves into a draw. Perhaps we should use a round of Dice-A-Roo to determine the winner?”

     Before either of them could protest, King Roo thrusted a pair of dice into their hands. After a few rolls of dice, Lord Darigan grinned.

     “Looks like I won this round!”

     “Ugh, fiiine, I accept the loss. But more importantly, thank you Lord Darigan. I see my main purpose here now and… I will remember daily that we are a team and that together we will succeed.”

     Lord Darigan shrugged. “It’s the least I could do around here.”

     He stared a bit smugly at King Skarl, who rolled his eyes. He was not about to get into another shouting match in front of Queen Fyora. The council continued to play games until all of them got tired.

     “We should do this more often,” Queen Fyora said to King Altador.

     “I’m glad you feel better,” Altador replied.

     “Thanks for putting up with me.”

     The two smiled at each other as they gazed out the window at the rift in the sky that would soon become their problem again, but for another day.

     The End.