Young Jhudora and Queen Fyora: Part Four

      The massive marble pillars made Jhudora feel as if she were a tiny speck of dust floating through the grand hall of The Academy. While she wanted to stand in place and marvel at how giant the hall was, she was being pulled by the arm through it. She smiled softly as she realized that there was a chance she’d get to stand in the hall and stare at the greatness of it someday soon. She did her best to match the fire faerie’s brisk pace, even though it hurt her atrophied legs.

      The fire faerie pulled her into a sparkling white room. The only parts that weren’t white was the grey streaks in the pristine marble.

      The fire faerie ushered her into a private room with a showerhead attached to the wall. Jhudora stared in awe at the silver fixture, unsure of what it could be. The fire faerie reached for the shower’s handle to turn it on. The fire faerie expected Jhudora to understand that she expected her to take a shower, but her expectations were dashed when Jhudora stared in awe of the running water. Jhudora reached out and touched the warm water and gasped.

      “You . . . don’t know what a shower is,” the fire faerie rubbed her temples, “You’ve lived next to Faerieland your entire life, and you’ve never seen a shower.”

      The fire faerie shut off the flow of water and pulled Jhudora over to a sink with a deep basin. The fire faerie turned on the water and roughly shoved Jhudora’s head under the facet. Jhudora let out a soft, frightened chirp as the fire faerie grabbed shampoo and began massaging it into Jhudora’s hair. Jhudora’s body relaxed as she felt the warm water run over her head. As soon as the shampoo was rinsed out, The fire faerie pulled Jhudora out of the water and began to run her hands through her hair. The fire faerie’s hands were warm enough to quickly dry her hair. Once her hair was dry, Jhudora turned to look into a mirror. She gasped when she saw her hair. The long, flat, deep purple hair she was had was now bouncing with every movement. She smiled brightly as she admired the new, lighter color. And then the smell hit her.

      Her hair had went from smelling like years of struggle to a bouquet of exotic flowers. She touched it and gasped even louder. Her hair was softer than the grass outside!

      As she began to run her hands through her hair, the fire faerie grabbed her arm and began to lead her to another room.

      This room was less pristine, but it was equally amazing to Jhudora. She gasped as she stared at the bolts of fabric around the room. She looked down at the doll wedged between her chest and her arm and realized that the doll was made of the fabric from those bolts. She remembered Mali explaining that sometimes, the wasteful faeries in Faerieland would throw away the finest cloth. Mali would scavenge for it and bring it to the Dark Elder. There was never enough for clothes, but there was enough to make the doll.

      The fire faerie called out, “Seamstress, we need a uniform.”

      An air faerie popped out from behind a rack of bolts. She stared at Jhudora’s wings and sighed, “How will we get a uniform on that thing?”

      The fire faerie shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest, “Do you think they’re not like normal wings?”

      The Seamstress made her way to Jhudora and pinched her wings. Jhudora flinched. “Yup. They’re made of flesh and bone. Normal faerie wings are ethereal,” The Seamstress sighed as she pulled off her coat. Her wings effortlessly phased through the fabric. She put her coat back on and put one hand on Jhudora’s shoulder, pushing her to turn around.

      The Seamstress examined Jhudora’s back. She poked her fingers through the slits in the back of her dress that had been added to let her wings poke through. She studied the button placement and sighed.

      “I don’t think this will last very long,” The Seamstress rolled her eyes, “I’m not going to waste buttons on this.” The Seamstress took a green earth faerie uniform and ripped holes in the back of the blazer and the blouse. She made her way to Jhudora and threw the uniform at her. Jhudora looked at the clothes and then back at the Seamstress. The Seamstress rolled her eyes and yelled, “Put it on!”

      Jhudora blushed and pulled the blouse on. Her wings barely fit through, tearing the fabric even more. She then pulled on the blazer. The holes weren’t properly placed for her wings, so she stood there wrestling to get her wings to cooperate. The Seamstress rolled her eyes even harder and made her way to Jhudora. She began slashing at the blazer with a seam ripper until Jhudora’s wings could shimmy through. The Seamstress laughed as she admired her handiwork.

      The back of Jhudora’s blazer was a tattered mess. Pieces of fabric were hanging by threads in some spots, and some spots were bunched in an uncomfortable way around Jhudora’s wings.

      The seamstress grabbed a skirt, leggings, and a pair of black leather shoes. The Seamstress handed them to Jhudora and pointed at a divider in the corner of the room. She yelled out again, “Put it on!”

      Jhudora, despite knowing no New Fae, could perfectly understand The Seamstress, simply through the language of anger. Jhudora ran behind the divider and quickly changed into the uniform. She wrapped the Fyora doll in her old clothes as if her old clothes were a blanket to swaddle the doll with.

      Once Jhudora had changed, the fire faerie grabbed Jhudora by the arm and pulled her back into the grand hall. “I wish I could apologize for her,” the fire faerie sighed, “But you wouldn’t understand either way.”

      The fire faerie took a deep breath and stood with her back against the wall. She slowly slid down so that she was sitting on the floor. She stared up at the ceiling and tried to wrack her brain.

      Generally, all faeries of a certain type took their classes together. That meant there was no place for Jhudora. She glanced at Jhudora, who was flitting around the hall, staring at each piece of work.

      “Oh!” The fire faerie jumped to her feet, “Classes!”

      She grabbed Jhudora’s arm and pulled her into a classroom filled with earth faeries. Each auburn head turned towards the door to stare at the purple girl being thrown into the room.

      The fire faerie gently guided Jhudora to an empty desk and ran out of the room, hoping her duty was over.

      Every eye was on Jhudora as she slid down as far as she could in her seat, holding her swaddled doll tightly in her arms.

      In the front of the classroom, the Earth Elder was fuming. It was her Earth Magic class, and one of the creatures she had worked so hard with the former Queen to eradicate was sitting in her classroom. The Earth Elder cleared her throat and called out in New Fae, “Purple thing, what do you intend to learn in an Earth Magic class?”

      Jhudora took a deep breath and asked in Dark Fae, “Can you speak my language? I cannot speak yours.”

      “Is that indignation, spitting gibberish at me?!” The Earth Elder made her way back to the back of the classroom.

      Illusen stood up and barked out in Earth Fae, “Elder, are you mad?! The purple ‘queen’ will have your head if you show hostility to her pet!”

      The Earth Elder turned towards Illusen and smiled softly, “Illusen, my dear, you’re correct.”

      Illusen smirked, “I’m sorry to yell, but your job is too important to be risked on scum.”

      The Elder stared at Jhudora and smirked. She switched back to New Fae and began to instruct her students, “Students, ignore the purple thing in the back of the room. Just pretend she is where she’s supposed to be - anywhere else.”

      Once everyone’s eyes diverted away from Jhudora, she gave a sigh of relief and held her doll even closer to her chest.

      The faeries around her began to pull scrolls out of their rucksacks. They laid them out on their desks and began to read from them. Jhudora’s eyes widened as plants began to grow from the ether on their desks. Dark faeries were terrified of retaliation, so they rarely practiced their magic. Jhudora could barely remember ever casting any kind of spell, but these girls were all dutifully using magic as if it were as mundane as eating or breathing.

      A naive, overweight earth faerie slowly raised her hand. The Elder glanced at her and sighed. The naive faerie asked softly, “Should we give her a scroll?”

      The Earth Elder let out a cackling laugh. “Erdia, are you mad? Illusen, explain for me.”

      Illusen smirked and stood. She cleared her throat and announced, “Each faerie is bound to their element. An earth faerie can control the things connected to the earth. A fire faerie can control things related to fire. It goes on like that. Spells for earth faeries would be useless for dark faeries, just as air faerie spells would be useless for us.”

      Right as Erdia began to stammer out an apology, Illusen cut her off. “But that’s not the only reason. Dark faeries are extremely powerful and extremely evil. If you were to teach a dark faerie how to use magic, they would quickly use every spell they learn against everyone near them. Dark magic is evil magic, and we should burn all dark faerie spells so that no dark faerie may learn them and hurt the people around them.”

      The Elder laughed and clapped for her protege, “Yes, just as I taught you, Illusen. It’s a good thing she’s in this class, just so we can make sure she never gets to see any dark spells.”

      Illusen sat back down, still smirking. She shot a knowing glance at Jhudora before turning back around and looking up at the Earth Elder with the utmost respect.

      Jhudora simply sat still, holding her doll close as she waited for the class to end. As soon as it did, she dashed out of the door with all of the other earth faeries. She didn’t know what to do, so she just stood still. She pressed her back against the wall and studied her surroundings.

      She had never seen so many faeries in one place. There were never many dark faeries in Faerieland during her lifetime due to years of discrimination. She stared in awe at all of the different kinds of faeries walking by.

      She remained standing there even as the halls cleared. She knew that there was nowhere for her to go, so she just sat down on the floor, her back against the wall.

      She closed her eyes and began to doze off.

      To be continued…