Walls of Glass

     For the occasion, Seshatia had found a formal dress with the same purple of her glasses and silver flats matching its chain. The hairstick keeping her updo in place was a handmade gift from a dear friend, Glorini herself. It was a piece of her artisan metalcraft, ornamented with a flower in the shape of the pink blooms that grew near the castle. A gift box with a fireproof sketchbook and a signed copy of Moltara Metallurgy was secured in her bookbag.

     Seshatia appeared in a puff of smoke at a little bakery she frequented. The owner, a faerie Scorchio, specialized in macarons that came with flavors uncommon in Faerie pastry and intricate renderings of Petpets. She rolled out into the summer night with a dozen Harris-topped ones for Glorini and joyous anticipation for the gala.

     The trip to the castle would be longer, as she only had the strength to travel instantly while in her library. A translucent violet path appeared before her thanks to the Bridges of Brightvale enchantment she had placed on her chair. The sky was clear and bright despite the hour. The stars shone unobscured and the moon was waxing and nearly full.

     As she rolled onwards, Seshatia thought of days spent reading together on a blanket in the shade of a tree, lively conversations held over a pot of hot coffee, and riddles exchanged by postal Weewoo. She thought of Glorini grinning ear to ear over finding a rare flower, hovering in excitement just a bit too far above with her fiery wings. There were countless fond memories to get lost in, but it was important to be punctual, so she’d focus on the path forward and save the reminiscing for the party.

     Seshatia scoffed as she felt someone grab the back of her wheelchair and heard the expected thud of the offender hitting the ground. Due to many instances of Neopians deciding she needed help propelling herself and not taking “no” for an answer, she had enchanted her wheelchair with the effects of Battle Ready! as well.

     Before she could even turn around and speak to who had grabbed her, she felt a cold prickling of magical energy strike her back.

     It felt like falling as everything around her rapidly grew in size. She could not outpace whoever shrunk her at this scale. She had far fewer books than usual to cast from, but Moltara Metallurgy /i-no tags here- could protect her if she bought enough time to grab it. She needed to charge her attacker.

     She spun. The path she had laid before her was now like a violet courtyard framed by towering plants. With her wheels shrinking in size, it was a struggle to get the force needed to turn and she nearly toppled out. She found herself rolling toward a giant pair of boots capped in metal. Ramming would be disastrous. She desperately adjusted course between the boots.

     She then caught sight of a bandolier full of bottles, a jagged maw stretched in a hateful grin, and the searing red eyes of a relentless hunter. In spite of herself, her blood ran cold. An armored boot kicked the side of her wheelchair and sent her spilling out into the cobblestone boulder field with the breath in her lungs.

     On impact, she viscerally wished that Faerieland had not fallen. The clouds were like carpet to roll over, but she would have preferred them to the mass of rock that had just slammed into her right side. Her head spun while Balthazar loomed like a mountain over her. As he lowered a net over her with an exaggerated slowness, laughing, she felt the fear morph into calm, then disgust.

     Seshatia gathered what she could of his story and held her gaze.

     Balthazar's laugh grew louder as his paw descended on her. He dragged her from the net by the top of her wings and kept her suspended in the air. Instead of letting fear swallow her, she channelled it to swing her fists back at his paw. Her strike landed just out of reach. She couldn’t fight her way free, but he had given her a different opening with his taunting.

     She ignored the sharpness of his teeth and ground far below her, and projected her voice so he would have to hear. “Your story is one of abandonment and scorn, but above all a dedication to following the darkest impulses in your heart. Your evil is the choices you make. You can choose differently tonight.”

     “Oh, cry about it. Please, cry about it. I’m waiting.”

     She rolled her eyes. A crackle of silver energy surged from his belt pouch, emanating from some warped metal thing.

     “You’ll stay waiting,” Seshatia said, exasperation seeping into her voice as she realized that on top of everything, he had taken away the chance to be by Glorini’s side during her big celebration.

          “There will always be a market for bottled faeries,” Balthazar snarled. “I’ll always be waiting in the shadows to put you vermin where you belong.” He opened his paw and sent Seshatia plummeting into the glass bottle.

     The moment she struck the bottom, she forced her legs to push off and her wings to flutter as rapidly as she could bear. Though her body screamed in protest, it still wasn’t enough. Balthazar could cork a faerie bottle with his eyes closed. She was trapped. Her magic was sealed with the bottle.

     He dropped the bottle into his satchel. “If you get bored in there, you can think about how pathetic you are. I certainly will be,” he jeered, as he closed the bag over her .

      She thought instead about something else he said. The view of Faerieland had been replaced with a dim prismatic glow. Each light came from someone trapped in the dark and doubly imprisoned. Each bottle held someone once shining and free, now stripped of all agency to line a Lupe’s pockets.

     Bottling was less permanent than taking a faerie’s wings. Yet cruelty lay in his hatred and insatiable greed, depriving ever more faeries of their freedom, and leaving them jumping at shadows in their own homes. It lay in the apathy of those who wilfully overlooked his actions so they could reap the reward of coerced blessings.

     Seshatia noticed muffled crying coming from the bottle against hers. Though they could not reach each other, she could hold out a hand to the glass across the flicker of green light. As the earth faerie returned the gesture, the crying became just a little softer.

     The bag shifted with each of Balthazar’s strides, shaking the bottles and faeries inside them. Yet for all the jostling turning her stomach, she knew the trip in darkness would not be forever. Eventually, she heard a mechanical click, a door creak open and shut, followed by an identical click. Light washed over the satchel as he opened it. He emptied the bottles onto a workbench to admire his successful hunt.

     The first thing she saw was a lantern, which ruined her night vision. It was burning on the workbench, blinding the other faeries too. Balthazar’s cackling mixed with cries of distress from the faeries being methodically pulled into the darkness. It sickened her. Without a typical element, there was no designated place for her. He left her alone on the table, staring down at her.

     He wanted to see her struggle, but she would rather let him think he had won so he could let his guard down. The emotions that slipped through were too subtle for his notice. He swatted at the glass bottle with his paw. The bottle shook, and sent her sliding around. She shrugged and gazed off into the flame, like it had entranced her.

     “If that lantern flame is so interesting to you,” Balthazar growled, pressing a crimson eye to the glass, “How about I throw you in there for a better look?” The force of his voice rattled the bottle.

     “You had plenty of chances to kill me. We both know I’m more valuable to you alive than dead.”

     “Valuable? You can’t even fly! You’re even more worthless than a normal faerie-- a curiosity, and nothing more.”

     She kept her voice gentle, like she was talking to a library patron who was upset she could not identify a book solely by the color of the cover. “Understood. I can’t fly, but if it's useful to you… I can read you a bedtime story. You can give me any book that you want to hear.”

     To her surprise, he blinked, and the red faded from his eyes. He dragged down a copy of My First Faerie and set it open to the first page.

     She could not actually see the book through the bottle.

     “Go on.”

     “I will, but I can’t make out the letters from here.”

     “Take your glasses off.”

     She complied, letting the silver chain catch them, and tilted her head performatively.

     “It’s worse now.” She put her glasses back on and looked sadly at him. “Please. I can’t fly. Set me on the table and I’ll read to you.”

     His brow was furrowed. For a moment, he was lost in thought--so much so that he already had the bottle in his paws. His eyes went wide, and he abruptly set it back down on the table. The red light from his eyes burned brighter than the lantern.

     “What do you think you’re doing!? Wretched creature-- you were plotting something!”

     “I wanted to read to you,” she insisted, her hands over her heart. Both his accusation and her alibi were true. While she wanted a book to cast from, if it calmed him to be read to, he might lower his guard. Either way, she needed him to be asleep for any escape attempts to work.

      “You have an awful lot of nerve for someone so small and breakable ,” he snarled, slashing the glass in front of her with his claws. With a deafening scrape, the strike cut parallel channels into the side of the bottle.

     Seshatia recoiled before she could stop herself, a scream escaping.

     “Music to my ears,” Balthazar said with a chuckle. “It’ll be a real good time when my special buyer comes tomorrow. For me. Not so much for you.”

          She regathered her composure, but not before he walked away from the table humming tunelessly.

     He opened a chest of drawers and began to put away his hunting gear. Still armoured, he set down something on the sofa table with unexpected care. She could see a circle of glass in a warped metal frame, the lens surging with silver energy from all but a dark crescent of it. The pattern seemed familiar, but she was jolted from the thought when she heard a thunk. He had moved to the sofa to take off his boots and leather cuirass. Balthazar was dangerous with or without armor, but this redirected his watchful gaze so she could inventory her surroundings.

     She could tell from the steady glow encircling the hideout that it held more than just tonight’s victims. The sprawl of display cases was a mockery of organization. The captive faeries were sorted by element and lined up like interchangeable trophies. She caught herself holding her breath as she looked around. The empty shelves outnumbered the full, but both seemed virtually endless. At least a thousand bottles pulsed with light. A faerie suffered in each one.

     Before, it could not be assumed that the majority of faeries gone from their usual places were taken. For most faeries, their magic allowed them a wondrous freedom, and they’d leave if another place called to them. The shelves were the bitter proof that most of the recent absences were by Balthazar’s paws.

     Balthazar rose and Seshatia made sure to be slumped before could turn to reach the shelves by the workbench. He pulled down a few overflowing crates of coin, a cloth, and a jar of polish. He polished the lens first and without theatrics, but the second it was back on the table and it was time to polish his mountain of Neopoints, he started boasting about how rich the faeries had made him.

     The pointlessly large sums in his bragging brought a certain legend about a chessboard to mind. A single grain of rice doubling with each square had the power to blanket Neopia. She could not free a thousand faeries by herself, but she wouldn’t have to. If she could just uncork a single bottle without making enough noise to alert Balthazar, it would be a cascade. More than ever, quiet was a virtue.

     Balthazar had not gotten the memo on that. He had devoted a long stretch of time to declaring how satisfying it was to be surrounded by walls of captive faeries and piles upon piles of money. Despite his occasional yawn, it was taking an awfully long time for him to actually settle. Eventually, the yawns became more frequent, and then stopped entirely.

     She glanced back at the sofa to find Balthazar asleep with the polishing cloth still in paw. She took a deep breath. It was time to put her plan in action.

     Seshatia pulled the hairstick from her bun and examined its point. She pushed back the hair from her face and righted her posture. It would work. His claws had weakened the integrity of the bottle, and just moving about the world gave her strength that was rare to find in a faerie. He would not have accounted for it.

     She tried a few practice jabs in the air and found the trumpet skirt limiting her movement. It was intended for a night of seated revelry, not for breaking out of a glass prison. She suppressed a groan and chose a spot where her capture had already damaged the dress to tear the skirt a vent.

     She pulled her shoulder back, gathering all her strength. She lunged forward on her knee and thrust the hairstick into the wall of glass. The point struck like a lance, leaving a small but notable puncture in the glass and a sizable section of spiderwebbed cracks.

     Her heart was pounding, but she struck the cracks again and again. Finally, she had broken a way out. The shattered pieces blocked the new exit and some had scattered inside the bottle.

     Seshatia caught her breath and redid her bun. She was grateful for her shoes when faced with the jagged exit before her. There were no safe surfaces to lean on and no way out but through. She ripped the dress’s torn hem until she had two scraps of silk long enough to improvise hand wraps. As protected as she could be, she crawled her way forward. She could not make it through all the broken glass without some of it catching her, but she assured herself that her wounds would be temporary.

     Free from the bottle, she still had to get down from the workbench without losing balance and alerting Balthazar. Seshatia unwound the hand wraps and tied the ends together with a sheet bend. She looped the cloth around the leg of the table and held the ends for support. She took a deep breath and lowered herself down at a measured pace, mostly succeeding in not looking back at the sleeping Lupe.

     From the floor, the wall of bottles seemed even more immense. There was no way to tell from below who would be the calmest under pressure. She’d have to choose a different way.

     She needed space to knock over bottles and to stay far away from where the Lupe hunter slept. The door was no use. He had locked it from the inside, and he had both the key and her wheelchair, preventing sneaking away for help. She had to free the others without being noticed.

     She could hover a little, but her wings would give out with any extended attempts at flight. This meant crawling to a set of shelves where dark faeries were being held, and then ascending one shelf at a time until she reached the first row of bottles. Getting across would certainly be faster at her full size, but she could move much quieter and below his sight line while shrunk.

     As she crawled, Seshatia’s formal attire did her no favors for secrecy. She was gleaming from head to toe and the way the halter dress framed her wings-- a trait that made the cut quite fashionable for faerie formalwear-- made it feel like she had painted a target on her back.

     When she arrived at her target shelf, she raised a finger to her lips and imitated pushing at the side of the bottle. She fluttered to its neck and pushed the other way. With both of them pushing, the bottle fell to its side with a clink. The dark faerie rushed at the cork, and with Seshatia pulling from the outside, the cork was free and so was she.

     Seshatia gestured for her to sit beside her, and then whispered, “Please, lend me your strength. Let your shade shelter us.”

     “I’m sorry,” the dark faerie said with a wince, “I can’t use magic without a wand.”

     Seshatia undid her bun once more and offered her hairstick as a focus. The faerie eagerly took the hairstick and stood with a big stretch of her wings. She outstretched her arm, and a spark of purple energy raced across the metal. The spark vanished and the shelves were covered with a blanket of shadow.

     The advancing dark reminded her of the dull crescent on the strange lens and the sliver of darkness over the moon. The only window in the hideout had the blinds drawn, so there was no way to confirm it, but she realized the two dark crescents were the same. The lens shone with the moon phase, and by its light it could greatly shrink a faerie.

     The two worked together to uncork the next bottle. Soon there were faeries maneuvering the shelves far faster than Seshatia could keep up with. They worked in teams to carry off bottles, open them in midair, and set them back down carefully. The hideout became a gentle whirlwind of faeries freeing faeries.

     She told them about the strange lens and the inside lock needing a key. She only passed the message to a few before she had trembling faeries with distant eyes fly down to sit beside her. A second later, the shelf was very crowded. With locked arms they all descended to the floor. Their support was enough for her to move on her feet and lead them behind Balthazar’s discarded boots for cover.

     She glanced around the corner to find the faeries were nearly upon the lens, but there was no indication the key had been found yet. They were halfway to freedom. Then, the whirlwind became frenzied. The air filled with screams as a bottle crashed to the floor.

     The bottle had been empty when it shattered, but any relief at that was short-lived. Balthazar was awake and on the hunt. He howled in rage. Faeries stopped what they were doing and flew for their lives. His eyes blazed red at the sight of the broken glass on the workbench. All he needed to find Seshatia was to look down and see the gathering formed around her.

     He grabbed Seshatia in one paw and held her out for the others to see. “Stop at once or I’ll squash this feeble insect.”

     Seshatia interjected, “They have no reason to believe you won’t do it anyway. If they believed you, you might have your wish. Give them a reason they might trust you to let me live.”

     “Know your place!” he bellowed, tightening his hold until she let out a gasp of pain.

     “I already do,” she choked, “My place is in the library. It’s among my friends. It’s--”

          She was cut off by an angry shake of his fist. “Shut up! Your place is wherever I tell you it is. That bottle, my stomach--- I’ll take either.”

     Balthazar set a free claw on her head. She found herself holding her breath as the claw followed her hairline then traced its way down her cheek. He set the point of his claw against her throat.

     She had no hope to escape on her own, but she wasn’t on her own. She forced a calm smile to discourage the faeries below from panicking and averting their gaze. If too many eyes were looking elsewhere, the Lupe might turn around. If he found out the trick she was playing again, she’d be dead or worse. The enormity of what was at stake sent a rare stream of tears down her face. All eyes were on her.

     “Stop destroying my property this instant or I’ll cut her into ribbons!”

     While his rage was turned on her, he could not keep track of every last faerie loose in the hideout.

     The window blind was open. The lens began to surge with energy once more. The faeries turned the lens against him.

     He was forced to drop her as he shrunk. She fluttered her wings to slow her descent, but a cloud of faeries caught her and brought her to an empty shelf. She looked up to find that Balthazar was being carried into one of his own bottles by half a dozen faeries.

     Meanwhile, a small gathering had queued up in the air to offer her help. Knowing that she was visibly injured and separated from her mobility aid, their concern made sense, but the attention felt uncomfortable while there were still faeries trapped in bottles. She realized she was hurt worse than she had initially thought.

     The healer’s hands pulsed with gold light that washed over Seshatia, lifting her cuts and bruises. Her torn dress was the only mark left. She felt a flood of relief, amplified by seeing a still-furious Balthazar scratching fruitlessly at the inside of a corked bottle. Faeries cheered raucously as more were freed.

     When the healer was done and the search for her wheelchair was underway, the dark faerie who borrowed her hairstick returned it and handed her the shrinking lens for safekeeping. She was talking quickly now that the danger had passed and flitted away after inviting Seshatia to the next Chess Club meeting.

     Around when the last faerie was freed, she was reunited with her wheelchair. It was damaged but still functional, and her enchantments were unbroken. Aethia could repair it at the castle.

     The key remained elusive, but they had enough magic to tear the door apart. As spellcasters grouped up to lift the shrinking curse, the deep woods became crowded with faeries at their full size even as most went home immediately.

     She quickly found other friends of Glorini’s who had been captive in that hideout. There were still a few hours remaining of the party and enough magic among those gathered for mass transport to Faerie Castle. For many, it would be the perfect counterpoint to a lengthy isolation. Fyora was on the guest list, so Seshatia volunteered to carry Balthazar in her bookbag for his overdue audience with the queen.

     Once the guards had let her in, Seshatia saw her dear friend sprint from the ballroom entrance to greet her with a hug and a concerned expression.

     “Happy 300th, Glorini,” she said warmly, “Do pardon my state of dress. I brought some old friends you might want to see and an old enemy you definitely want to see.”

      The End.