The Sleepers of Saint Garfir

     The spell Edith had used during her presentation to make a shrub grow twenty times its size was a finicky one. Harmonies did not suit every plant the same, but after having sensed the forest within the sleeping Garfir alongside Miphie, she had a melody in mind which she believed would charm the revived trees into stretching their roots.

     Edith was tuning the highest string on her lyre. “Yes.”

     The Woodland Garfir sat at the edge of the clearing, its frightening tail curled around its haunches. Its scorpion stinger flicked at their approach. It had been waiting for them.

     Miphie allowed herself to be noticed by the beast. Its milky stare found hers, and she raised her hand, almost in reverent greeting.

     She breathed slowly, willing her heart to cease shuddering in her chest. “May I?”

     The Garfir understood perfectly. It lowered its regal head, and Miphie pressed her palm into the carved whorls of its mane. As the Garfir was an echo of the trees, and the trees an extension of its power, then Miphie could tap into that connection too. She recalled the steady beat of its heartwood, the way it resonated with the energy present in every bit of life in the forest.

     Miphie shuddered at the contact. Oh, the power was incomparable. It coursed up her veins, lighting every nerve ending in its path. Miphie had never felt anything like it. The essence of the forest burst in fractelling pieces across her mind, and she smelled petrichor in the air, earthy and vibrant. She willed her mind into the Garfir, and the beast reached back. A path unravelled behind her eyelids, kaleidoscoping outwards in all directions. Every branch and fissure was another emblem of the woods.

     Miphie exhaled and melted her hand into the Garfir. Once, through the roots of ginger, she had sensed a map—one that had led her to the epicentre of the somnolence. She understood now that it had only been a fragment of the whole picture. Now, as she exchanged an empathetic link with the Garfir, she could see the whole forest stretch out before her, an underground chart of root systems that shot across acres and acres of land. Here was the Aurora Lily she had replanted… and here was that cluster of ginger near the edge of the forest, and the delicate mycelia of newly-sprouted Earth Faerie Mushrooms. Each root system shared its presence differently. The revived trees and foliage emitted steady streams of vitality, while those further from the garfir’s healing aura resonated weakly.

     Miphie realized that somewhere along the way, she had stopped needing her anumatum spell to call forth the voices of plants…

     Anumatum bratus… anumatum and listen. Her hand prickled and warmed as thousands of trees reacted to her call. Contact with the Garfir projected her voice with ease.

     “Okay,” she stammered, struggling to split her focus between the trees in her mind and the physical world. “I think they’re listening.”

     Edith lifted her lyre and strummed a minor chord. The sound echoed through the branches. It was followed by a slow progression of pensive harmonies, and Edith constructed the melody with her own voice. Her honeyed tone was soft and melancholic, carving a musical identity that resonated within the trees. Miphie felt something warm and delicate trace a path up her fingers and into her heart. Edith’s voice was a cool stream, carving delicate paths, smoothing down the ragged edges of Miphie’s anxious mind. She swayed slightly to the song.

     The trees danced to the lullaby alongside her. Miphie tensed slightly, sensing a disturbance in her map. Groaning wood merged with the music, and the earth began to shake. She dared to open one eye.

     Creeping roots had begun to encroach onto the clearing, snaking in between and over the flowers. She could feel the changes happening all across the forest. The trees carved paths into the meadows, and the trunks and branches twisted and reshaped themselves to take up space. The forest became denser. And all that was in the way—the mushrooms, the flowers, the small bits of life growing underfoot—was crushed.

     A cry tore through Miphie at the sensation. It felt like thousands of needles, piercing through her chest. Pieces of the forest—pieces of her—were being torn and snapped into nothing.

     Edith’s melody lilted into a hopeful crescendo, her fingers strumming chords that ebbed into a major key, and she brought the melody to a quiet resolution… And it was all over.

     The Garfir was panting under Miphie’s quivering hand. She could feel the exhaustion rising through its quick breaths. She pressed her forehead against its muzzle. Her mind hurried through the forest, feeling for that which had been lost. The forest had reshaped itself, this she could perceive. But as she reached for the blanket of ice, or the peppery warmth of an Aurora Lily, she found only darkness.

     “Miphie, are you alright?” She blinked her eyes open and gazed at Edith’s worried expression. “You’re crying.”

     She hadn’t realized. She looked out into the clearing. What had once been a meadow of iridescent, dangerous and remarkable flowers, had been twisted and reformed into a gnarled grove of old trees and their sapling. The clearing was gone, an old scar faded away. She blinked at the sky. The stars had vanished behind a canopy of fresh leaves, the moon only winking occasionally in between the branches.

     And scattered across the ground was the snowy reminder that once, blossoms had thrived here. Her heart curled at the sight of a crushed penumbra, its iridescence long lost.

     “They’re gone,” she choked. A tear traced a silent path down to the tip of her snout. Distantly, she wondered if she looked rather silly, standing in the middle of some roots and crying. But the loss felt insurmountable, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the guilt for having destroyed innocent plants, or if her empathetic link with the forest had heightened her emotions. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m being like this.”

     A regretful look crossed Edith’s face. “No, don’t apologize. It's alright to mourn. Please take whatever time you need.”

     “The Aurora Lilies saved us and now they’re… they’ll never grow here again.” Without the space of a clearing, direct sunlight could not hit the forest floor. The Siyana Lily, which relied so much on the brightness of day, would not thrive under the trees. Miphie had never experienced a heartbreak, but she wondered if this was what one felt like. Edith hesitated a moment, and then stiffly, delicately as though Miphie were a fragile Baby Altachuck, she pulled her into her arms. Miphie melted into her angular shoulders.

     Something warm knocked against her knuckles. Miphie pulled away, and found the garfir nuzzling her hand. Then, it lowered its head to the ground and nosed the dirt. It repeated the motion twice before Miphie realized it was directing her to feel the ground.

     “You want me to… feel the dirt?” She did as she was told, sinking one hand into the soft soil that the Garfir had been pawing at. Her fingers ached dully. The pain could be likened to playing in the snow without gloves. After her first foray into the forest, the numbing cold hadn’t quite dissipated, and she was struck with the certainty that her hands would forever feel like this: an icy reminder of her power’s fragility. Miphie wondered if her animation magic had encouraged recklessness. She would have to relearn how to respect the florae.

     Nevertheless, these drifting thoughts eventually returned her to the task at hand. What was she looking for, anyway? She couldn’t feel any roots. She was squinting at the dirt now. Miphie sighed and relaxed her face, closing her eyes. And she listened.

     She reached into the earth, inviting whatever rested below to find her. An echo of warmth, distant and sleepy, whispered back.

     ⁂ ⁂ ⁂

     At dawn’s approach, the garfir and the ghost brought the girls back to Saint Garfir. They had been so exhausted that the great guardian of the forest had allowed them to clamber onto its back. Miphie was dozing to the rhythm of its strides when the beast halted and lowered to the ground. They had arrived right where they had started, in the northeastern quadrant of the forest. Edith slid off its back and turned to help Miphie down. In the misty air, the town stretched out silently before them.

     They turned around only once, to see that the guardian and its ghost had vanished. Something like relief brushed down Miphie’s back. Relief, and sadness, too. Then, they stepped out into the open air, glad to have the forest at their backs.

     The final hour before dawn held a delicate balance between darkness and light. The silence was palpable, punctured by the occasional chirping of moffits. Edith and Miphie padded silently along the streets, their footsteps echoing lightly on the cobblestones. Somewhere, a lonesome wibreth crowed. Saint Garfir slept.

     Or, rather, it should have slept. Miphie could make out the smell of freshly baked bread in the lavender breeze, and as the sky shifted from deep indigo to pastels and the surrounding countryside began to emerge from the shadows, they approached the inn and saw that it was buzzing with activity. Lights were on behind nearly every window on every floor, and energetic conversation bled through the walls.

     They pushed their way through the doors, and all talking ceased.

     The entire village looked to have been squeezed inside the inn. The air was thick with the scent of coffee. Tables had been pushed together, and Neopets sat or stood in tight clusters around the room. The force of everyone’s stares made her throat clam up from relief. They were all awake. Saint Garfir thrummed with community and life, just as it should be.

     She immediately spotted Lucenza, her glowing wings a beacon in the centre of the inn. Her warm skin gleamed golden in the firelight. Then she found Augusto standing behind the counter, and Miphie’s tight features sighed into a soft smile.

     “Miphina? ” His voice wavered, the sound skating across the hushed silence. He took in his daughter, his eyes widening in a mixture of sharp relief and bewilderment. And who could blame him? She examined her features in the mirror behind the bar. Caked in dirt, leaves and petals clinging to frizzy hair, discoloured fingers and dark stains beneath dewy eyes—Miphie looked as though she had awoken from a nightmare. Edith, having trudged in after her, looked no better. Her lovely summer dress was totally ruined, but the Kyrii didn’t seem to care.

     “Hi,” Miphie whispered. The Kougra leapt over the counter and pulled her into a desperate hug.

     “I… you did not return, I was so worried I… I was going to look for you at dawn. Acacia said she would try and replicate your spell. The one you used to make a path in the forest and… Everyone came.” Crushed against his shoulders, Miphie locked eyes with Vaso. The Spotted gelert stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a steaming mocha kettle in his hands. Next to him, Acacia and Flute balanced trays of unmatching cups. Augusto shifted slightly. “You too, Edita—come here.”

     Before Edith could have a chance to process the unexpected nickname, she too was pulled into the embrace. Miphie could have laughed, the Kyrii looked quite out of sorts at this deluge of kindness.

     “Everyone came to look for us?” she asked, finally pulling away.

     The room filled with sound. Of course, the entire village had gathered to find her! After everything she’d done for Saint Garfir, it was the very least they could do. Miphie and Edith were pushed through the crowd, cheeks pinched and arms squeezed, various bakery items pressed into their hands, until Vaso pulled them out of everyone’s reaching hands.

     “Is everyone usually this adoring and… clingy?” Edith gasped, pressing herself against the wall.

     Vaso laughed. “Yeah, what do you expect? It’s a small town, after all.” His expression quickly sobered. “What happened?”

     ⁂ ⁂ ⁂

     All of the villagers had gone home by the time Miphie and Edith finished reciting all the events in the forest, leading up to their discovery of the forest’s ancient secret. They were seated in the kitchen, Augusto, Lucenza, Vaso, Acacia, and Flute each listening with rapt interest despite how tired they all felt.

     “To think, your forest had a mythical Petpet sleeping inside… I never imagined something like that could exist.” Acacia idly twirled a bit of hair in her fingers. “I wonder if other forests have something similar? Maybe in Geraptiku or the Haunted Woods? Where are the other famous forests in Neopia…”

     Vaso leaned back in his chair. “And so all of the penumbra is gone now?”

     Miphie eyed a cutting board on the counter. A handful of sprouts still clung to it, though most of the seedlings seemed to have withered. “I think so,” she nodded. “Now that the Garfir is awake, the forest should hopefully regain its strength.” She felt a twinge in her heart. “The Aurora Lilies also didn’t… survive.”

     “Oh dear,” Flute sighed. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “That’s… well that’s very sad. Wild lilies are so rare, I hope they can come back.”

     “I think they might,” said Edith. She wrapped an arm across Miphie’s chair. “Isn’t that right?”

     The Draik smiled, but her grin quickly shifted into a yawn. “I felt—no, I could hear them. I think…” Where the Garfir had indicated, Miphie had sunk her fingers into the ground, and the earth had responded in kind. Traces of warmth, seeds and parent roots lying dormant. They would wait for the right opportunity to bloom again.

     And if Miphie could hone her craft, she would do everything in her power to help the Siyana Lilies thrive in the Saint Garfir Woods once more.

     Acacia and Flute had strange looks on their faces.

     “What?” Miphie hurriedly said.

     Acacia raised an eyebrow. “You two… did you finally work things out?”

     Edith straightened in her chair and pulled her arm away. “What?”

     “You’re not at each other’s throats anymore.” Flute’s eyes flicked nervously between Miphie and Edith.

     “Ah,” the Kyrii nodded in a manner that felt oddly formal. “Yes. We decided we’re friends now.”

     “You decided…? I mean, that’s great!”

     Miphie did not see the colour rise to Edith’s cheeks, the way she demurely lifted her mug to her lips in some unconvincing show of indifference, or the way Augusto and Vaso and Acacia and Flute barely repressed their laughter. She had simply, and quite willingly, dozed off.

     ⁂ ⁂ ⁂

     Noon in Saint Garfir. The heat was insufferable, the vaeolus chirped and flitted beyond the windows, and the Sleepy Aroota Inn vibrated with the energetic presence of mealtime guests.

     “Are you all packed, Miphina?” Augusto was hovering in the door frame to Miphie’s room. While his beard still carried a shock of white, it had regained much of its silver colour. He was uncharacteristically chatty this morning. “I made you kids some dolmades for the road. And I also packed you some panelle and loukoumades. There is also a lemon cake, but it’s cooling by the window. I'll wrap it up for you when you leave.” He turned to go and then changed his mind, tugging on his apron strings. “When is the bus coming again? Lucenza will be travelling with you, but are you sure that I can’t—”

     “Augusto—”

     “Sì!”

     “Papà! You’re hovering again.” Miphie pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and looked up at her father. Vaso, Flute, Acacia, and Edith sat on the floor beside her, a small pile of dried penumbra bulbs in the middle of the circle. Two days had passed since her strange sojourn into the woods, and she had spent that time sleeping and experimenting with the flowers.

     “Ah, you’re right Miphina.” He leaned down to tussle her hair. Miphie shook his hand off, but she was grinning.

     “Don’t you have hungry guests to feed?”

     “Oh, but Lucenza is attending to them—Ah!” The Kougra snapped his fingers, “I’ll prepare a bag of oranges and figs as well, for the road!” And with that, Augusto hurried back to the kitchen. Miphie predicted he would return in twenty minutes.

     Acacia giggled. “Your dad’s amazing.” She was artfully operating a mortar and pestle, grinding the dried petals down into a fine powder. Beside her, Flute weighed and poured the penumbra dust into small sachets.

     “Don’t let him hear you say that,” Miphie said. She sighed and sat back on her heels, stretching her arms above her head. She could see the Saint Garfir Forest from her window. The trees had regained their leaves, creating a medley of verdant and autumnal hues that kaleidoscoped across the landscape.

     If they kept working at this rate, then the penumbra tea would be ready to disperse to the villagers by the time the bus arrived. Vaso would see to it. Their supply of penumbra blooms had been limited to whatever Miphie had gathered from the clearing, but she hoped it would be enough to raise the town’s immunity against any lingering somnolent pollen in the air. She took a bulb in her hands and silently thanked it for its aid.

     “I can’t believe you’re all already leaving,” said Vaso. He had moved to her bed, and was tossing her doglefox plushie in the air. “What are you going to do for the rest of summer break?”

     “Well, the Altador Cup is starting in a few days,” said Edith without looking up. She was busy writing instruction cards to be paired with every tea sachet. As she had the most meticulous handwriting out of their group, it had been unanimously decided that she should carry out this task. Edith had accepted without complaint. “I imagine my family might summer in Faerieland to escape the tedium of all those sports fans in the city.”

     “And I’m headed back to my family as well,” Acacia added. “I don’t think they were super pleased when I ran off to Saint Garfir without warning.”

     “What about you, Flute?” Miphie glanced at the Gnorbu hopefully. At every declaration, her heart had sunk a little bit. She would be going directly back to Academia Magika to take her finals and complete her allocated six weeks of summer school. Miphie found that she didn’t want to spend all that time in Altador without her friends.

     “Oh, I’ll probably stay in the city. Studying for next year—did you see that summer packet we got for Advanced Potions II?” Miphie groaned, but Flute brightened: “Hey, maybe we could catch one or two Altador Cup games. You know, support the home team and all. It could be fun!”

     Edith glanced up. “That does sound like a fine idea,” she mused. “I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be joining my family. Perhaps I’ll stay in the city too.”

     “You guys,” Acacia chimed in, “now I have to come back to Altador too!”

     “What about you, Vaso,” said Flute. The whistling while he spoke was more pronounced than ever. “Would you like to come up to Altador in a few weeks, and watch a game?”

     The Spotted Gelert shrugged in a manner which Miphie knew was falsely nonchalant. “Why not,” he said, “once my grandma is totally recovered, I could come up. It’s not a bad idea.”

     Miphie liked the idea too. Her heart thrummed with elation. “Please don’t distract me with a good time,” she grinned wryly, “I won’t want to study for my history final at this rate. But then again, who needs a passing grade in History of Magic anyway…”

     Edith slammed her pen down. “Miphie,” she said sharply, voice dripping with indignation, “that is absolutely not the attitude you should have if you hope to actually continue as a fourth year at Academia. But don’t worry,” she nodded gravely, “I’ll make sure you’ve reviewed all the most crucial units on the bus ride.”

     “No…” Miphie said weakly. Dramatically, she collapsed backwards onto the floor and kicked her feet like a petulant toddler. “Please, anything but that…”

     “No, no, it’s for your own good,” Edith insisted, unphased. “It’s a five-hour bus ride. There are fourteen units to review. We will make efficient use of the time.”

     Turning away from Edith so she wouldn’t see, the Draik grimaced. Vaso, who did see, chucked the Doglefox at her face.

     Grinning despite herself, Miphie squeezed her plushie and turned her gaze up to the ceiling. A few cobwebs clung to the rafters. She should remember to clean up there before she left. But now, in this moment, the Draik relaxed into the hardwood floor and welcomed the sunny warmth radiating from her chest.

     “Going back to Academia…” she murmured, mostly to herself. Supposing she passed all of her finals—and Edith would make certain of it—and completed summer school with decent marks, Miphie would begin her fourth and final year at the school. She raised one arm towards the sky, letting it hover weightlessly above her head. Her fingers had taken on an iridescent, pearly hue that shimmered slightly in the light. They were still cold and tingled numbly, some of the feeling having been lost in the finger pads. Lucenza had offered to privately tutor Miphie in basic light faerie spells, in the hopes that she might restore her hands with rejuvenating magic.

     “Do you think,” she said, her voice suddenly brittle and unguarded. She cleared her throat. “That we’ll all still be friends next semester?”

     Edith’s pen stilled. “We’ll all be so busy with our own studies.” Miphie nodded absently. Acacia in the school of Enchantment, Edith in Elemental Magic; this left Flute and Miphie, both in the school of Transmutation, but even so, they wouldn’t necessarily be sharing all the same classes.

     “We can still find time to hang out,” Acacia insisted. She was massaging her palm. “And we still get weekends off.”

     Miphie sat up, struck with a peculiar, hopeful idea. “What if we started a club?” She felt silly as soon as she uttered the suggestion.

     “Oh?” Edith raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

     “About what we’re doing right now,” Miphie replied. “Working with plants. Figuring out… their magical properties, what they do and how they can be used.” She paused, another idea bubbling up. “I could teach you how to use the animation spell on plants. We could have meetings in the conservatory.”

     “A magical botany club…” Flute’s ears had perked up so much, he resembled a Cybunny. He ran a thoughtful hand through his hair. “We could meet and study plant biology and learn about how different kinds of magic—like your plant-whispering or Edith’s musical enchantments—can interact with them.”

     “Registering a club at school will mean a lot of paperwork,” Edith said. Her voice was measured, but there was a spark in her eyes. “And we’d need to find a willing advisor…”

     They spoke with increasingly unrestrained excitement as they worked, spinning their own ideas for the club, talking through logistics and possible topics and field trips. And for the first time, Miphie looked on towards the coming school term not with stoic dread, but eagerly. Impatiently.

     The bus arrived with the first storm clouds, and rain and thunder broke the heat which had pressed down across Saint Garfir and her forest for the last few weeks.

     ⁂ ⁂ ⁂

     Miphie awoke precisely ten minutes before her alarm clock rang. Customarily, this would have vexed the Draik, but as she was curling into her blanket and forgetting why she had set an alarm in the first place, she blinked her eyes open.

     There was a commotion happening beyond the gossamer curtain separating her bed from the rest of the fourth-year sleeping quarters.

     Fourth year?

     Miphie rocketed out of bed. Beyond the curtains, students—some fresh-faced, most still groggy—were hurrying into their Academia uniforms and shoving notebooks and pens into overloaded school bags. That’s right: today was the first day of the school year. Miphie rubbed her eyes, trying to mentally organize her new course schedule. She had her first Arcane Ethics class this morning, followed by Advanced Potions II, and then Altadorian Literature and her Transmutation IV seminar and then, and then, and then…

     And then the Magical Botany Club’s very first meeting of the year. A soft smile melted across her face. She would see Acacia again, and Flute. And Edith.

     Miphie pulled on her uniform, wrangled her canary-yellow tie into obedience, and pinned the Academia sun emblem to her lapel. She caught her reflection in the window.

     It suited her just right.

     The End.