Chapter Text
Finally, the time had come to return to Alfea. The past six months had been worse than expected. Given that my parents never really paid attention to me anyways, I had thought that their divorce would not impact me in any grand manner, but as their possessions were split up, so were mine. What did I want to keep in Solaria and what in Selena? Would I leave my snowboard equipment here or ship it away, signalling I would spend my winters either home or at my mothers’?
Worse than that was the almost constant agitation in the palace. What used to be a busy centre of socialites and royalty, was now crowded with outsiders, some who helped navigate the intricacies of a royal divorce, others who were drawn in by the drama and hoped to sell whatever story they could get their hands on.
So, unsurprisingly, I spent most of these months outside the castle, either staying with friends or escaping to the castle grounds with my three dogs. We had gone for long walks together in the area where a large woodland was situated.
I left as soon as the school would be opened, which was two days in advance. As my parents were busy arguing and tried to force me into attending a formal dinner, I arranged my luggage to be send straight to Alfea by magical portal. Just before the ceremony, I found the unguarded exit where my royal protector had a manual spacecraft waiting for me. Despite Dev’s best efforts to convince me it was too dangerous, I departed. I had done this a hundred times before, when I wanted to be away from home, away from my lovely parents and all the hubbub of the castle.
As I was quietly flying through space, drifting in and out of thought, I suddenly felt a bump. I turned around, frowning. It could not have been some lost meteorite or other. The radar would have shown the slightest possible danger. Then, what was it? Before I could contemplate any further, I completely lost control of the spacecraft. As though hit, it flew to the left, spinning very fast.
‘Oh no! O fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!’
Instinctively, I protected my head with my arms. I could not see where I was going and could do nothing about it. Usually, the ship would repair itself, but for some reason or other, it did not this time. ‘I am sorry Dev’, I muttered, sobbing. ‘I am sorry.’
The next moment, I was pulled backwards as if in fast acceleration and saw white dust in front of me. Within a minute of extreme anxiousness, I hit my head against the cushioning pillow that luckily apparently had been installed as a last resort to some kind of safety.
What the fúck had just happened?
Dazedly, I turned to look around. My head was spinning and I felt sick all over. Where was I? As it darkened around me, I suddenly realized what I saw through the glass. I was going under water! Quick! I moved to grab a helmet beside me and non-magical flying gear to put on, and slid the ring from my gloved finger. ‘Solaria!’, I yelled, constraining it in my fist to keep it from transforming into a sceptre, but using its power to teleport out of the vehicle and into the air above. The Spirits only knew what I would find out there.
The bright light stunned me for a second, but luckily the equipment worked itself. I slid my ring back on as I hovered above the relatively calm ocean, looking about for some solid place to land. I needed to contact Solaria.
All of a sudden, a fast moving object above me caught my attention. Another ship! Oh, no! Surely that was the cause of all my troubles. What did they want? It would be far too exaggerated to get a story from me this way. Kidnappers, then? People who wished to overthrow the dynasty now that it was weak?
Quickly, I flew away over the water, but the vehicle kept approaching. This technology was not working as I had hoped. I knew I could fly faster with my own wings. ‘How is the air, temperature, and pressure?’, I asked the system.
‘It is safe.’
‘Can I transform and be safe without this entire suit?’ My heart was beating rapidly as the ship was getting way too close, but I had to make sure.
‘Yes’, came the relieving response.
‘Solaria!’, I yelled, the one word that had known to centre all my powers to the core of my being, to help me concentrate on where it all came from.
Transformed into my crop top, shorts, and over knee boots, I already felt better. My wings that now protruded from my back were the happiest agreement with my body. I transformed my ring into a sceptre by throwing it into the air away from me and catching it in its new form. ‘Go!’, I motivated myself and flew away at double the speed. Some land came into sight, and I teleported straight to a couple of trees I saw, at the best of luck.
It was only a mere centimetre or a piece of my left wing would have been cut off by a sharp rock close to the fir. ‘That was lucky’, I whispered out of breath to myself. Silently, I landed on my feet to find a place to hide. A space between the tree and the rock lend itself perfectly for that purpose. I quickly slid in the small opening and concentrated my magic to contact Dev. But no more than ten seconds of silence passed, before I heard a heavy grunt right at the other side of the tree.
Fuck.
The grunt came closer.
Not wishing to hide a moment longer, I flew up and out of my hiding place. No sooner was I in the air, than I heard a deafening scraping sound as the tree was being crushed against the rock.
I landed behind the yellow monster who had decided to ruin my day. Quite stupidly, it observed the damage it had done, looking for me. I gathered my energy in my sceptre. ‘Rising Sun!’, I yelled, pointing the staff to direct the hot energy toward the ogre. I could just hear a small noise of surprise, before he hit the rock. Hard.
Swiftly, I closed my eyes to intuitively scan the environment for other enemies, as I had been trained to do might I be in danger. Only some small monsters, no bigger than a beagle, were approaching from behind. I waited patiently until they were close enough to take out all at once.
Unfortunately, I was not permitted the chance, as the ogre got up and turned around, furious. He growled, showing big pointed teeth, with spit flying everywhere. Stupefied for a second, I quickly gathered my wits and launched a shining ball of energy at it… which only served to slow the beast down. I jumped away from his grasp and into a clearing. Immediately, the devilish red monsters were upon me. I managed to kick the first two away like a football, which gave me some slight satisfaction, before the next one jumped toward my face.
‘Burning Sun!’, I yelled, stretching my palm out to project my energy at the creature. Luckily, this one disintegrated immediately, but the little devils were the least of my problems; right behind the remains of the monster, the ogre still lurked in the woods, its yellow eyes shining. In an organized attack, the creatures came at me at once. My sceptre held aloft, I struck the base point down at the ground in a quick movement, releasing its power: ‘Solar Wind!’
They all blew away and landed at the edge of the clearing, some five metres further. One of them was, however, caught by the ogre who, to even my horror, crushed it in its fist to make it completely disappear in white hot sparkles.
I took a deep breath to calm my breathing. Even though my governors had prepared me to fight in such a circumstance, I did not feel the connection to the Sun in this foreign solar system as I had had on Solaria. This was not how this day was supposed to go. Suddenly, I felt anger building up inside me. How dare he attack me? The heiress of Solaria was not supposed to be fighting a filthy, stinking, ugly monster on a foreign planet. Heart beating rather too quickly, I steadied my voice, trembling with anger. He would get what he deserved.
‘Go away, you villain, or you will feel the magic of the Sun and Moon fairy!’ I closed my eyes briefly to establish a better connection with the Sun, but miscalculated how fast this burly beast was. In a mere second, it was upon me and brutely hit me in my chest with its huge fist, flying me back a couple of metres.
Painfully, I hit the ground.
‘Your time is up, fairy!’, it roared.
As I tried hard to breathe again, a distant part of my brain felt surprised the ogre could actually speak.
‘Ghoulies, take the sceptre!’
Even though I was feeling dizzy from lack of oxygen, I tried my best to locate the sceptre next to me, but the creatures apparently called ghouls, were immediately upon me and pinned me down painfully. Scared to death, I tried to get them off me as I saw with horror how one took my sceptre over to the ogre. No! I was now definitely beyond aid. Without the sceptre, I was powerless. I had always directed most of my power through it. My only hope was to finally contact Dev, but for that, I needed to concentrate – something that became increasingly hard with the ghouls scratching at my limbs. I feared they might bite down any moment to start to devour me, let alone what the powerful ogre in front of me was capable of.
‘Give me that sceptre!’, it roared and took it from the ghoul.
No one could help me now. With sinking heart, I realised it was over. I would never become an accomplished fairy. Never would I rule my planet, make my parents proud. Everything was lost.
Well, I thought bitterly, it was actually quite relieving to have the pressure off me now.
‘Not so strong now, are you?’, the ogre grinned maliciously as I opened my eyes again.
‘Let her go!’, suddenly a female voice yelled behind me. ‘Or else I…’ The rest I heard her mutter, seemingly quite unsure about herself all of a sudden. ‘Wait… what am I going to do?’
Oh no! What absolute idiot would interfere with something like this when she was unprepared for it?
I closed my eyes, sighing. To die myself was one thing. It would probably be over quite fast. But to have someone ripped apart in front of me just before would make it so much worse.
‘Get her!’, the ogre bellowed.
‘Get back!’, the girl screamed, and suddenly I felt a powerful energy surge emanating from her. Astonished, I opened my eyes again to see the monsters fly away and disappear in a snap. ‘Huh… Did I just do that..?’, I heard her mutter under her breath.
Frowning, I sat a bit upright, still feeling weak, but I had to see who she was. A redheaded girl of about my age hit the last ghoul hard with a stick, away from a bunny it was about to attack. ‘Stay away from Kiko!’, she yelled. Her bunny, then.
But that interaction left her completely unprepared for the ogre, that was upon her again to pluck her from the ground like a mere figurine, and held her up in the air.
I held my breath in terror.
‘Come to me! I’ll smash you like a porcelain doll!’
‘Oh! No!’, the girl screamed and a red hot light emerged from her core to completely surround her. For a millisecond, I thought I saw the outline of a dragon snake around her body before it pushed the ogre away forcefully against a tree at the opposite side of the clearing, leaving it unconscious.
I appreciated the damage she had done with awe. Even the ground was completely scarred around the fairy. ‘Wow. How powerful!’, I admired her as I got up shakily, and walked towards where my sceptre had fallen from the ogre’s grasp. The girl herself was perched in a half-upright position on the blackened ground, panting heavily. It must have taken quite a toll on her. ‘Are you okay?’
She looked up quietly. ‘Well, yeah…’
I quickly turned around when I heard a small grunt escape the ogre. My sceptre pointing at him, I said loud and clear: ‘I have my sceptre back. You do not scare me any longer!’ I collected all the energy I got left to knock him out for good and fired at him from the centre point of my rounded sceptre. The ogre fell back another few metres with a scream. I smiled. ‘Only returning the compliments, you beast.’
‘Watch out!’, the fairy yelled, pointing at some left-over ghouls who were approaching.
To increase the absolute last drop of my energy, I spun the sceptre above my head fast, to suddenly point it at the monsters. They were violently blasted away and out of existence.
Satisfied, I circled my sceptre in my hand to put it on the ground again.
‘Ah!’, I heard the girl scream and just saw one of the last ghouls alive run away from her with a ripped-off piece of her jeans between its jaws. It joined the two other ghouls by the side of the ogre, who just got up weakly, but only mumbled darkly: ‘We will meet again, blondie!’, clapped his hands, and disappeared in a ray of light.
‘Thank goodness’, I sighed, relieved. ‘They are gone at last.’ With the threat removed, I suddenly felt my energy completely drain from my body. My head started to spin and a nauseous feeling washed over me before everything went black.