| Every time a bell rings, an Aisha gets their wings... (Faerie wings, that is!
^_-)
Yanagi-San looked at her four pets sternly. She would
give the same talk every time, but something always happened; some incident,
or travesty that usually had her backpedalling and handing out bags of Neopoints
to pay for damages. Today was one of those days, but, she couldn't leave them
home alone.
"Alright you guys- I need to go to Faerieland
today," she said, as her pets got joyful looks in their eyes. "You will be coming
with me. HOWEVER," she added, before one of them could make a peep. "I want
all of you, especially you, Tana, " she added pointing at her blue mischievous
Aisha, "to be on your VERY best behavior." Tana Chael tilted her head to one
side so her second pair of ears swayed to the left, and assumed her "innocence"
pose.
"I'm not gonna get into any trouble!" she exclaimed,
"I promise to be good in the Hidden Tower!"
"We're not going to the Hidden Tower, but nice
try," Yanagi smirked, knowing that something Tana desperately wanted was located
there. "I can't afford a baby paint brush right now. You know that."
Tana tilted her head and ears the other way
and stuck out her tongue at Yanagi while she fished in her belt pouch for a
list.
"You're a troubled antagonist," Oki Derikuu,
a blue Shoyru, muttered to Tana under his breath. Her delicate ears heard him,
however.
"Yeah, well, I'm not the one that knocked Adee
the Chia into the wishing well," Tana whispered back at him snidely.
"Yeah, but HE'S not the one who was throwing
baby tomatoes at the Pant Devil," Basias, Yanagi's shadow Gelert, interjected.
Kimicha Achine, Yanagi's little yellow Shoyru,
and Derikuu's mate, stepped in.
"Please don't fight!" she said in a hushed voice.
"Or we won't get to go, and I really like Faerieland!"
"OK, are we ready to go?" Yanagi asked, turning
around holding a rolled up list. All four pets were startled, and stopped suddenly.
"I just have to pick up a couple of spell components
for something I'm mixing up," Yanagi said, walking out the door. "I need Faerie
mallow blocks, a Fire Faerie, and most likely a Floud...." she said to herself
as she headed out the door. All the pets looked at Tana, and then followed Yanagi
out the door.
They arrived in Faerieland with little incident
(Except for a few squabbles about someone's petpet biting someone's tail) and
Yanagi-San once again checked her list.
"Alright," Yanagi said, stopping in front of
a shop. "This is where I need to pick up a few ingredients. You guys sit tight--
I'll be right out, and if you're good, I'll buy you lunch from the Faerie Foods
shop, OK?" she smiled at her pets, which were like children to her. Very adventurous
children, but, children nonetheless.
As soon as Yanagi left, that's when trouble
started. It always seemed to happen behind their mom's back, so she never got
to see the real story.
"What's that?" Tana asked, pointing with a paw
toward a huge castle with many turrets in the near distance. "Something doesn't
look right about that."
"Dunno. Don't really care," Derikuu said, and
perched himself on a nearby bench. Tana turned to Achine.
"Hey, you can fly, right? Take me up on your
back. Not over there, but just up high, so I can see it better?" Tana asked,
pleadingly, "Pleeese?"
"Don't do it. Yanagi will probably get mad,
and we'll all be in trouble," Basias told the yellow Shoyru. "And as for you,"
he began, turning toward the troublesome Aisha he had for a sister. But where
she had been a near second ago, there sat her Snowbunny, Usako, looking confused.
"TANA!" Basias roared, "Where are you now, you
troublemaker!"
"She's gone again?" Derikuu asked, sitting up
from his slouching position on the bench where he had been trying to sleep.
"Oh dear- Tana!" Achine gasped, and looked about
frantically. "Where did she go?" Derikuu flew up into the air and took a look
around.
"There she is!" he pointed toward the castle.
"I should have known!"
"Here we go again..."Basias muttered, and began
to run toward the castle.
"Wait, what about Yanagi-San?! Shouldn't we
tell her?" Achine called to them, frantically.
"No time!" Basias yelled back as he loped easily
over a rise in the path ahead and disappeared from her view. Achine put one
paw to her head worriedly, and took to the skies after them.
"Oooh, creepy..." the blue Aisha said to herself,
looking about the castle. It had been so easy to get in. She had expected flaming
fire Faerie guards or something. That was no fun. Why go through all the trouble
of exploring and running of and getting in trouble if it was no fun? But the
inside wasn't disappointing, it was... weird... and empty.
Tana followed a staircase upward toward the
top floor. There was a maid dusting around a wall in the hallway ahead, so she
hid behind in the stairwell, and waited until she had left. Then she peeped
her head around, and stepped into the plushly carpeted hallway.
 There
were portraits of many faeries lining the hall- fire faeries, wind faeries-
even lesser faeries, and an occasional dark Faerie. Some were scary looking,
some were kind, but one portrait stood out in particular. A picture of a yellow
Faerie Aisha hung on the wall at the end of the hallway, severely out of place
with the other paintings. It was plainly colored, but the picture seemed alive
with movement, even though Tana could see the texture of the canvas beneath
the thickly layered paint. And that was another thing that bothered her as she
studied it- there were no brush strokes in the paint! All the other portraits
had brush strokes in the paint, just like in the pictures Yanagi-San had painted.
The paint on the picture looked poured into the form it was filling, untouched
by any kind of bristles.
Maybe it was a magic painting! That would be
really cool- but what could it do, to be magic? Would it zap her if she touched
it- or maybe it would paint her yellow! How weird would that be? Yanagi would
never know it was her if she was yellow! She could do all kinds of things...
Tana's thoughts were interrupted by voices coming
up the stairwell. She looked back and forth frantically, looking for a hiding
spot. It was really shadowy back where the picture was, and the stairs were
just far enough away, so that if she pressed herself against the wall- maybe
they wouldn't see her in the shadows! She turned her back to the painting, and
pressed back against it, expecting her body to flatten against the wall. But
instead, she heard a noise, like a drop of water in a puddle, and faint voices
calling her name. Then she realized she was falling backwards!
Tana spun her body frantically in mid-air so
that her feet were aimed downward. Everything was pitch back, and she couldn't
see a thing. Her stomach began to rise into her throat, like on a steep rollercoaster
drop- she hoped quickly that she wouldn't be sick.
Just as she thought that, the fall stopped suddenly.
However, she hadn't hit any surface that she could feel, she was just suspended
in mid-air. Tana thought quickly and used her "magic torch" ability to drive
back the darkness. As the spark flared to life, instead of illuminating the
room, the light made the darkness scream in pain! Tana turned towards the scream,
and saw two glowing eyes in the darkness, slit with pain and anger.
"You... ssssstupid Aisssssha!" it hissed at
her. "Fyora sssssssent you, did sssshe? Doesssss sssshe think you are able to
break me, a ssspell of Ssssejila?"
Tana screamed, and ran the other way, but stumbled
and went rolling head over feet.
 "Sssssillly
Aissssha.... you cannot run away! Thisssss whole place isssss filled with me,
my misssstressssssesssss ssspell!" it screeched, and the blackness went toward
Tana at full speed! She did a small hand gesture, and her golden Aisha wand
appeared in her hand. She threw a spell off of it at the Curse. It seemed unaffected
by the attack.
"Tana! Where are you?!" a worried voice called
from above. Tana recognised the feminine voice, but couldn't place it in her
panic.
"Help me!" Tana cried out, firing another spell
at the inky thing. "Help me, whoever's there!"
"Tana, you are in so much trouble with--" another
familiar voice started in, but was cut off by another male, and recognisable
voice.
"You are so heavy! You need to lay off the Cheesy
Neos!" Derikuu complained, carrying Basias on his back as he flew down.
"EEEEK!" Achine cried when she saw the Curse.
"What did you DO, Tana?!"
"Nothing! It's attacking me, please help! It
doesn't like lig-AHHHHHH!" the blue Aisha screamed as the Curse threw her back
into the darkness of itself.
"Tana!" Basias yelled, as he got off Derikuu's
back, "We'll get it!"
"Not ssssso fassssst, puppy!" the Curse of Sejila
cried in it's raspy voice as it flung Basias away. Derikuu flew up to avoid
the attack.
"Dive at him!" Achine called out. "I'll get
Basias and Tana!"
Derikuu flew in a circle to build up speed, then
unleashed a Shoyru Dive at the creature. He hit it's surface with a small cry,
and bounced off of it like was rubber.
"Use light attacks!" Tana informed them, running
up and lighting Magic Torch again. The creature recoiled from the illumination.
"Sssssstop fooling around!" it boomed, "My missstresssss
hassss no time for- EURGURGH!" It was cut off by Derikuu firing a beam of improved
lightning at it. Achine aimed and shot her Rainbow gun with one hand, while
throwing sparks with her Sparkshooter in the other. Tana kept her torch lit,
and threw a vat of Illusen's Potion at it while Basias dealt it the final blow
with his Gelert Wand.
"Thisssss cannot be!" it squealed, the darkness
receding from the chamber, "You have broken the Curssssse, but you will never
break my missssstresssssesssss true ssspellll!" the voice hissed, fading off
into the distance as the darkness vaporised.
The four pets looked about as the room cleared
before their eyes. It wasn't a room, but it seemed to be outside, with blue
sky and rolling fields of the greenest grass they had ever seen. Wildflowers
dotted the landscape, and a slight breeze was stirring their fragrant petals.
In front of them was a giant marble fountain, dried up, and wind worn.
"Where... is this...?" Basias asked quietly,
looking around.
"I- I don't know." Tana replied, "All I remember
was falling through the wall behind that yellow Faerie Aisha picture..."
"There's no such thing as a yellow Faerie Aisha,"
Derikuu said. "They're all blue with frilly, froopy wings."
Basias sniffed the air, and then the ground.
"Something doesn't smell right here." He cautioned, "Be careful."
Achine flew up into the air to get a better
view of the surrounding hillside, but there was nothing but grass and flowers
as far as the eye could see, except for a fountain...
 She
looked into the fountain, and noticed something. There was a carving in the
bottom tier, and the edges appeared to be glowing faintly.
"Hey guys, go look in the fountain! There's
something in there that's glowing," she informed them. They all went over and
peered inside. Indeed, on the bottom of the last basin, was an etching of a
neopet.
"It's a..." Derriku began, but Tana cut him
off.
 "It's
a little dusty. I'm gonna clean the dirt away so I can see it better," she said,
leaning into the dried up fountain. As soon as Tana's paw touched the etching,
they all heard a small, but very definite noise- the sound of an Aisha's bell.
The sound echoed louder and louder the farther out it got from the source, which
was the little bell "A" charm on Tana's collar.
"I never knew that was a bell!" Achine exclaimed
above the noise.
"It's no--" Tana began, but then, the fountain
seemed to explode from under her, and she was knocked backward to the grass.
The two Shoyrus flew out of the way, and Basias jumped to the side to avoid
the thick, rainbow, gossamer liquid that burst from the etching and was overflowing
the fountain, pouring out into the grass surrounding it, and also washing over
Tana.
"Tana!" Achine yelled, worried for the Aisha's
safety. She flew down to help her, but Derriku held her back and pointed toward
the fountain.
"Look!" he told her.
 From
the liquid surrounding the once again empty fountain, a pinkish glowing bubble
was forming, growing bigger and bigger, right in front of Tana, who was covered
in the sticky substance. For some reason, where the stuff touched her, she had
changed a different paint brush color. Some parts were Split, others were Flame
licked and she had blotches of striped, pink, and plushie color all over her!
The others figured out what the stuff from the fountain was- it was paint! But
Tana hadn't noticed- she was staring at the bubble, which expanded suddenly
and disappeared with a loud "pop!". Suddenly, in place of the bubble, was a
handsome, yellow Faerie Aisha! He blinked, and looked around.
"Who are all of you?" he asked, his Faerie wings
flapping gently to keep him alight. "What happened? Did you save me?"
"Save you?" Achine asked as she and Derriku landed,
taking great pains to avoid the paint.
"Yes, it was you, wasn't it?" the Aisha asked,
looking down at the now multicolored Tana Chael.
"Wha, what's going on?" Tana asked, staring openly
at the Aisha that she knew was in that painting she had seen earlier.
"A Dark Faerie named Sejila tried to find my
Mistresses' Hidden Tower, in order to steal all the valuable weapons and secrets
for herself." He explained, "Fyora was out on one of her 'Questing Runs', where
she requests the people of Neopia to find her things. And I was the only one
here, so I tried to stop her. We were battling still when Fyora returned, so
instead of facing her, she imprisoned me inside the Rainbow Fountain, and cursed
it to dry up forever!" He took a breath, as if to continue, when suddenly, there
were voices calling out, and all the pets looked over in the direction of the
voices. Running up one of the hills was Yanagi-San, followed demurely by the
Faerie Queen, Fyora.
"I am so sorry Queen Fyora!" Yanagi was yelling
as she ran. "Whatever they broke, I'll pay for it! I'm so sorry! It will never
happen--" But suddenly, Fyora ran past her, causing the surprised Yanagi to
stop mid-yell.
"Astaban!" Fyora cried out happily, running up
and embracing the yellow Faerie Aisha, "Asta, I thought you were gone forever!
Where have you been!?" she sobbed. "You've been gone for years!"
"Mistress Fyora! I've never been so happy as
to be reunited with you once again!" Astaban said cheerfully, hugging his beloved
owner, the Queen of all the Faeries. "You'll never believe what happened to
me- a dark Faerie imprisoned me in the Rainbow Fountain- that's what caused
it to dry up. But these pets defeated the curse, and this Aisha, she broke the
spell, and she saved me!" he exclaimed, but looked back at the fountain. "However,"
he continued, "I'm afraid the Fountain is dry forever, my Queen."
 "It's
a trivial thing, if I can have you back with me, Astaban," she said, and touched
his head lovingly. When her fingers pulled back, they had some of that gossamer
film on them from his coat. She studied them carefully. "I think, though, we
have another problem..." she murmured, looking at her shimmering fingers, and
then at Tana.
"It appears that I absorbed all of the Rainbow
Fountain's magic." Astaban said quietly.
"It's something that will just have to be, I
guess," Fyora smiled at him, then smiled back at Yanagi, who was furiously scrubbing
Tana with a handkerchief. Yanagi looked at the Faerie queen weakly.
"As for you my dear, you should be rewarded.
I noticed you have a list of spell reagents- I would be happy to provide those
free of charge," she said smiling serenely.
"Are you sure?!" Yanagi dropped the cloth and
stood up quickly. "You don't have to do this!"
"It's a token of my gratitude, young Neopian.
If you'll walk this way, I will check the Hidden Tower for what you seek," she
said,turning and walking away from the pets. Yanagi scrambled after her.
"You know, if you had a spare Faellie, I would
gladly accept that..." The pets heard Yanagi-San say as the two walked off into
the distance.
"We should go too," Achine said, beginning to
fly after the humans. Derriku followed suit, but Basias turned to Tana and Astaban.
"Come on. Maybe The Faerie Queen can tell us
how to clean you up," he said, and turned to follow the rest. Tana stood up,
and shook herself off, but Astaban flew in front of her, and halted her.
 ""W-wha?" she stopped and stuttered, startled
to have a male Aisha's nose so close to hers.
To
thank you for helping me, " he smiled serenely, as he took one of the tips of
his extended ears, and rang the bell charm on her purple collar ever so gently.
" I invite you to fly with us whenever you please." As the bell jingled softly,
Tana felt like she was having warm bath water poured over her from head to tail.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and there were two bursts of warmth in her back,
right between her shoulders. When she opened her eyes, Astaban has gone, but
she noticed that her shadow had suddenly gotten huge, and she had the urge to
fly!
Her huge wings began to flap on their own in
the gentle breeze, and as soon as Tana felt them, she spun to look at them,
nearly having a heart attack!
"I'm Faerie..." she breathed, taking in the
situation. To thank her, he had used his power to turn her Faerie! So that she
could fly with the Faeries!
"Thank you Astaban!" she squealed with delight
as she ran toward the door, lifting off the ground and flying for the first
time in her life. She giggled to herself as she went to join the others, thinking
what she always did after an adventure.
What would Yanagi-San think?
Epilogue
Yanagi-San told everyone she knew about what had happened at the Rainbow
Fountain. Few believed her, and just assumed she was making up a ridiculous
story just to paint her pet Faerie. However, young Aishas in Neopia were soon
ringing the bells of their collars every night, in hopes that Astaban would
hear it and fly down from the Hidden Tower in Faerieland to paint them magnificent
colors, perhaps, even Faerie like himself!
The End
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