Forgotten Histories: The First Faerie

      It is said that on a very special day in a year, when all the requirements are met, a faerie would be born.

      Once upon a time, there was no such thing as clocks. There was only time, and it simply was. There was no moon for the inhabitants of this small little planet called Neopia to enjoy, no moon to pull the tides, and certainly no moon to measure time.

      The concept of measuring time was inconceivable. Time simply was, and Neopians had no need to anger the spirits that protected them; if the spirits felt it necessary for time to be seen in numbers, then time would exist as numbers.

      But spirits didn’t exist, only the wraiths spurred on by the Neopians’ doubts and hopes did. They fed on fear, laughed as they chewed on crushed dreams, and held feasts with nightmares. They grew bigger, grew greedier, until happiness was no longer a concept identifiable to these Neopians.

      These wraiths hungered for more; as just about any being in power did. They pulled on the Neopians’ strength, yanked, tugged and they wanted. They wanted more. More, more, more! Stronger, stronger, stronger!

      The Neopians’ were lost, they had given up hope. They stared up at the never-changing bright sky, and as one, they all wished for change.

      Their beliefs were given form; their wishes fuelled its energy. And the being came into being, as a faerie full of magic. She was beautiful, like a majestic sun without its blinding light. The Neopians’ were simply overjoyed.

      She chased the wraiths away, gave the Neopians back their happiness. The Neopians called her a Queen, the Queen Lavina. She was pure, as a being made from wishes could only be.

      The Neopians were awed by her power, they loved her purity, her generosity. And so, they crowned her as queen. None of them felt jealous, none of them were enticed by greed. After all, such thoughts had been eaten away by the wraiths.

      What none of them knew was that without the wraiths, such thoughts would eventually return and pervade their minds once more.

      Slowly, some Neopians were the first to go. They started to feel bitter, at how this being that they created was ruling this world instead of them! They wanted the riches that they had crowned the faerie with, they wanted more, more, more.

      Slowly, these thoughts started to gather, and they once again gave form, this time to a being in dark purple, a being of darkness. Her name was Caligo, and she was the first ever Dark Faerie, the first ever Elemental Faerie.

      The Neopians were glad, happy that there was another contender for the throne, someone that they could use as a distraction to rob the riches, to steal power away.

      None of them realised what exactly they had made.

      Dark Faeries were never automatically evil. They were just made to stand further away from the good, and simply leaned more towards the path of evil.

      The path of good and evil was intertwined, very closely intertwined. One could do a good deed for a bad reason, but another could do a bad thing for a very good reason.

      Caligo, however, had been filled with dark thoughts. They were the only things she had, she was made to destroy, to be greedy, and to corrupt. And corrupt she did. For ages, the two faeries fought, one to desperately defend what was left of the good, the other to seize power and fulfil what she was made for.

      The Neopians were split into two different sides. Some supported Lavina, while others supported Caligo.

      They fought. But as Queen Lavina was using all her attention to fight Caligo, she never realised that the wraiths that she had been keeping at bay had returned. The wraiths, invisible to the Neopians, fed once more on their dark thoughts. Their lack of fear and greed caused Caligo to lose power. Lavina used that chance to seal Caligo away forever. Caligo’s magic was expelled forcefully, and she was turned into stone. Some of her magic escaped, but most of it formed around her, with Caligo as the core, and the magic solidified, eventually turning it into a stone-like structure.

      This huge rock was hit by Lavina’s finishing blow, and was sent out of Neopia. What no one ever found out was that each planet had its own gravitational pull. The rock kept moving, but it was pulled close to Neopia, and thus began the first ever orbit.

      Too weakened by the fight, Lavina had no more strength to spare to eradicate the wraiths. Thus, she used the last of her magic to purify the air from Caligo’s magic, and to create a necklace with a precious stone.

      Lavina collapsed, and dissipated. But she was a being of magic, and such beings could never be destroyed. Sealed for eternity, perhaps, but never destroyed. Lavina’s magic spread all over Neopia, and to the Neopians. For every precious thought a Neopian had, a faerie would be created.

      Slowly, all over Neopia, faeries started to appear. Light faeries, fire faeries, water faeries, air faeries, earth faeries and dark faeries. As more faeries were created, the amount of ambient magic within these Neopians decreased, causing the number of faeries that were created each year to decrease as well.

      But these faeries needed a queen, so a competition was held, to see which faerie was suited to hold Lavina’s precious stone.

      The necklace, for whatever reason, couldn’t be lifted, and a rumour passed that only the rightful queen could hold it.

      All the faeries tried. All the faeries failed. Until one day, a faerie with purple wings too light to be a dark faerie, and colour too different to be any other faerie, was created.

      Her name was Anchora. She stumbled upon the stone and easily lifted the necklace. It felt right, so she wore it, and was promptly declared the Queen.

      With the rise of the second Queen, came the creation of special faeries, like the Snow Faerie, the Space Faerie and so on.

      But Anchora had no desire to rule all of Neopia, and to repeat her predecessor’s mistake. She created a giant cloud, full of little houses just big enough for all the faeries to live in and declared it Faerieland. The rest of Neopia belonged to the Neopians, she told them. The Neopians had laughed in happiness, never noticing as the wraiths that had once been there started to slip away once more.

      With the rise of Queen Anchora, came a very special being of magic that decided to make itself known. This being was not a faerie. It was called ‘Clockwork’.

      Clockwork had seen the rise of Lavina and her fall. It had seen Anchora’s reign and knew how it would eventually end.

      Clockwork sighed and cogs began to turn. A small ‘clink’ was heard.

      On the ground was the first instrument that had ever measured time- a golden little pocket watch.

      Clockwork had seen the creation of Neopia, and knew its end. No planet could hope to stay in existence forever.

      How did Clockwork know this?

      Simple. Clockwork was as old as time.

      Clockwork smiled softly as the mantle of the Queen of Faeries was handed to Fyora, an action that would prove to have many consequences, good and bad.

      The Neopians would eventually discover technology, and they would start to branch out, leaving the history of the first ever Faerie queen behind.

      A spark of magic flickered in the pocket-dimension. Clockwork paid it no mind. It would just be lost in the deep vestiges of time.

      The End.