“Catch it! Catch it!”

The two Faeries flew through the air over the castle gardens chasing the mechanical Carmariller, dipping and whizzing past the cloud topiaries, rushing between the elaborate statues that lined the gardens, and darting over the extravagant fountains reflecting sunlight in their crystalline geysers. One trailed behind the other, just slightly, her wings sparking with the effort of keeping pace with her friend, sending bright orange embers flecking behind her, only for those sparks to rise into the air and fizzle out before they could ignite. Meanwhile, the one ahead—an Air Faerie, swift and clever and decisive as the south-east wind—laughed as she rolled out of the way of an oncoming gush of fountain-water, her pink-and-blue hair swirling about her.

“Look out!” she called back, her pale blue wings glittering. Belatedly, the Fire Faerie leaned to the side and spun into a proper roll, very nearly rocketing through the fountain instead of around it; the end of her dress wasn’t lucky enough to make it out of the roll entirely dry, but she didn’t mind. The strength of her flames would make everything right again.

More importantly, her friend had pulled ahead of her. 

“Wait up, Fifi!”

Drakara sped up in the air, extending her arms to cut through the wind resistance. Fyora laughed, rising up higher, and the two of them continued their pursuit. The tiny mechanical Carmariller was just ahead of them now, and they were gaining fast…

POP! 

Something fizzled. Drakara’s eyes grew wide, and she reached for Fyora’s arm—“Look out!”—to pull her back. The Carmariller’s flight pattern stuttered, and it swerved and zig-zagged in the air, the mechanical parts of it rattling…

Drakara made a dive for it, but was held back by a sudden gust of wind. Fyora’s arms stretched out toward the Carmariller, guiding the savage breeze she had conjured to swirl around and surround it. The mechanical Petpet jittered in the air, its flight completely stopped, and went briefly, eerily still—

Before it fell apart with a tiny burst of fire.

Nuts and bolts and gears broke off from the Carmariller’s central mechanism, bursting through its metal carapace. Most of the shell remained intact, but with the damage that had been done, the poor clockwork creature could no longer function. Its pieces floated around the now-nonfunctional shell, dancing around it in an invisible tailwind, and slowly, Fyora used her magic to lower the whole thing to the ground.

“Quick thinking, Fifi,” Drakara said, alighting upon the cloud-garden’s ground next to her dearest friend. “You’ve really been practising your wind magic, huh?”

“A little,” Fyora confessed, a sheepish smile on her face. “But really, with how much trouble you get us into, I’ve just been practising to keep us safe!”

“Oh, like you’re not the one who suggested I make this little guy to keep an eye on what was going on in the castle.” Drakara laughed, laying a hand on Fyora’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you were hoping to achieve with that, anyway.” 

“Me neither, truth be told,” Fyora said. “But there has to be something going on. It feels like something big is coming—like the queen is hiding something, or like there’s unrest in the court. Can’t you feel it too, Drakara?”

Drakara looked away, down at the broken Carmariller. She forced herself to smile, and walked over to pick it back up. “I don’t know. But if something is coming…” She turned to Fyora, and her smile became real. “We’ll stick together through it all. Won’t we?”

“Congratulations, Fifi.”

The voice came from somewhere behind her, echoing throughout the chamber. Fyora drew her attention away from the mirror, from her own as-yet unfamiliar reflection staring back at her: her wings, no longer the beautiful hue of the morning sky; her hair, fully pink now, without a single strand of blue left. 

“Or should I say ‘Queen Fyora’?” 

Fyora didn’t know how to feel about it, but she did know how to feel when Drakara came into her line of sight, leaning against the grand archway that made up her new bedroom door. Relief washed over her, blooming in the form of a smile.

“Thank you,” Fyora said. Drakara pushed off from the doorframe and made her way over, her beautiful, flame-orange wings fluttering as she moved. The tiniest crackles of fire danced in their iridescence, and Fyora felt her smile grow wider. Drakara’s energy always had been infectious, and she could practically see the excitement dancing beneath her skin. 

She came to a stop before Fyora and reached out, running her long, calloused fingers through the ends of Fyora’s hair. “This’ll take some getting used to,” she said, in that teasing, clever way she sometimes would. “And so will this.”

Her hand danced up to trace the contours of the crown now sitting atop Fyora’s head. For a moment, she just lingered there, staring—but then she drew her hand away and turned toward the bed, making herself at home and sitting on the edge of it. “How does it feel?”

“Strange,” Fyora admitted. She looked at herself in the mirror again. “But not… wrong. I feel like… Like this was meant to be. Like I’ve become more like myself.” 

“We always knew you were destined for greatness,” Drakara said.

“And so are you.” Fyora stood and made her way over to her friend, reaching out to take her hand.

“Maybe.” Drakara looked away in what Fyora could only assume was a play at modesty. “That staff I made you did do a lot to get us where we are now.”

“Exactly. You’re the one who said every queen needs a sceptre,” Fyora teased. “I mean it, Drakara. We’re going to do a lot of good together. I won’t be able to do this without you.”

Drakara smiled. 

“All hail the queen,” she said, and squeezed Fyora’s hand.

How could everything have gone so wrong?

The edge of Faerieland was cold, the wind screaming in Drakara’s ears. Below, she could see the rolling oceans of Neopia, the hills and trees and mountains that made up the world they were supposed to protect. She glanced back behind her to measure the distance, unable to contain her fear. A fall from this height, without wings…

One of the guards stepped forward, a dull box in her hands that may have once been silver. Dark smoke unfurled from the seams of it, drawing all light and colour out of the surrounding air. 

“Please,” Drakara begged, her eyes fixated on the box. “Please, no…”

Behind the guard, Fyora approached. The shimmering pink of her wings seemed duller as she stepped next to her guard—next to the box, that dreadful, colourless box—and her expression was set. Drawn tight. Carefully, carefully blank.

Just as it had been for years now.

Drakara fell to her knees, unable to hold onto her pride any longer. She could feel flames begin to manifest around her in small bursts, desperation breaking through the fissures in her composure. “You can’t do this—Fifi, please! After all we’ve been through, after all I’ve done for you—”

“Drakara,” Fyora began. Her eyes fell on her old friend, cold and flat as the tone of her voice. “You have been brought here today to be sentenced for your crimes.”

“My crimes?” Drakara gasped out, disbelieving. “What crimes? The creation of weapons to ensure peace for—”

A deep breath interrupted her, Fyora closing her eyes to force herself back into the stoicism she had adopted as Queen of the Faeries. “For the creation of unfathomably dangerous weapons, and for the continued pursuit of magicks forbidden to Faerie-kind…”

“No!” Drakara protested. “I did it for—I made those weapons to keep us safe! To keep you safe!” 

Fyora swallowed. Her eyes opened—there was a waver in her stony facade, now, a wobble in her lip. A flaw that needed to be mended. “You disobeyed warnings. Repeated warnings. You endangered all of Faerieland with your research and your subterfuge. You endangered yourself.” Here she took another breath, swallowing thickly. “You knew the risks of your work. The same risks that the warlock, Bertrand Ashby, took and lost his life for. And yet even after you were told to abandon your research—for the good of Neopia—you persisted.”

“I did it for you, Fifi! You know this!”

Fyora looked away, for the first time, as though she were in pain. “It matters not your reasons, Drakara. Your weapons, in the wrong hands, could bring about the end of Faerieland—or the end of Neopia itself.”

“Or they could do a lot of good!” Drakara pleaded breathlessly. “Like—like your staff. Look at your staff, Fifi, I made that for you, and you’re still—”

Fyora snapped her gaze back to Drakara, as composed as she could keep it. Cracks still shone through. “For your crimes, Drakara, you have been sentenced…”

“No!”

Fyora swallowed. “You have been sentenced to be banished from Faerieland. You will be stripped of your wings and magic, and will undergo the Grey Ritual.”

“No…” Drakara’s voice was gone, nothing left of it but a husk—a shell without clockwork, a kiln with no flame. She crawled forward, on hands and knees, and reached out, one last time, to the Queen of the Faeries. To her old friend. Her most beloved companion.

“Fifi… Why?”

Fyora turned away. She gestured with her staff—her precious staff, the exception to the rule she had made up to punish Drakara with—and struck her arm out sharply, as if she meant to slice the air in twain. The guard holding the box approached Drakara, unlatching the dulled silver clasp.

“Fifi! Fifi!!!”

“I’m sorry, Drakara. It is for your own good. Once you have found yourself… Found an identity outside of your… obsession, then you may return.”

Drakara scrambled forward, desperately reaching for Fyora. Another Faerie—the new Battle Faerie, with her violet hair and her brilliant ice-and-fire sword—stepped before the queen, shield raised and blade at the ready. Drakara’s eyes flitted from her to Fyora, and in that moment, she realised she was truly—and forever would be—alone.

The guards approached. Drakara tried to fight. But in the end, the box opened, ripping the colour and magic from her. Her wings shattered and fell away, dissipating into the air like smoke rising from dying flames, and she was torn from all that she had loved.