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She told us her name was Truth. Truth didn't fit the
Dark Faerie stereotype. Dark Faeries are usually described as dark and cunning
imps, whose only goal is to cause chaos and destruction. Truth was not anything
like that. She was frank, not wasting time on the eloquent language usually
associated with Faeries, and she was old, contradicting the Faerie image of
young and beautiful.
"So," Truth began after telling us her name,
"Names?" Shimmer did not say anything, so I went first.
"My name is Sakura_MoonRose." The Faerie scrutinized
me.
"Exactly what color are you painted? A new one?"
I felt myself slightly flush under my fur, my
purple and blue fur to be exact. Shimmer had asked for a green Eyrie, but she
got me instead. She claims that she likes me the way I am, and I like the way
I look too. It is just a bit difficult to answer the questions of nosy people
and Faeries.
"I was born like this," I told Truth. To my surprise,
instead of asking me more questions about the same, she turned to Shimmer.
"Your name?"
"Shimmering_aurora." By the way she was looking
the Faerie straight in the eyes and speaking in an unnaturally calm voice, I
knew Shimmer was scared silly but trying not to show it.
I was busy wondering how we were going to escape,
when I noticed Truth was staring at me. Actually, she was staring past me and
at the entrance to the room. I was considering looking to see what she was staring
at, when she spoke again.
"What about you? What is your name?"
I turned around just in time to see Jewel slink
out of the shadows near the entrance. I guess she had followed us after all.
"My name is Jewel, Jewel_delaNoche." Proving that she had not just arrived,
she added, "And yes, I was born like this." Jewel was a dark blue Kougra without
stripes.
There was a moment of complete silence. "So,"
I casually began, and in a cross between a question and a statement I said,
"you're a Dark Faerie."
Truth glared at me. "I detest being called that.
The proper name for me and my kind…"
Without realizing what she was doing, Jewel cut
in. "My kind and me." Truth waved Jewel's correction away.
"The proper name for me and my kind is 'Night
Faerie'. 'Dark Faerie' is nothing but malicious propaganda."
Needless to say, we were a bit confused. Truth
sighed, "I kind of figured you wouldn't know. I've been reading the Neopian
Times, and it is full of lies. 'Evil Dark Faeries'. 'Fyora the good Faerie Queen'.
Ha! Lies, all a bunch of lies."
"Umm, could you explain what exactly you are
talking about?" Jewel asked.
Truth looked at her. "I suppose I could," she
said. "Now let me start from the beginning."
"The trouble began when humans started coming
to Neopia, really. Back then, things were fairly peaceful. Most faeries were
classified by color. There were orange, yellow, green, and blue faeries. The
two exceptions were the Night Faeries and the Water Faeries.
The Water Faeries were called such, because
they are the only Faeries who could move about freely under water. We Night
Faeries were known as such, because we the only nocturnal faeries."
"We Night Faeries would hold such grand gatherings!
We had a glade in the jungle of Mystery Island, where we gathered almost every
night to dance in the moonlight. It was a lovely glade, really. We had paved
it completely with shiny purple stones. We would have held our gatherings at
Faerieland, but the other Faeries had complained about the noise the first and
only time we tried. But other than that, the other Faeries had no problems with
our gatherings."
"When humans first came to Neopia, they were
equally smitten with all of us Faeries. It was at a Night Faerie gathering that
this all changed. It had started like any other gathering, with a speech from
the head Night Faerie. The trouble, however, began about halfway into the dancing."
"All I remember was that we were in the middle
of a dance when we all heard a loud crash. I don't even remember which dance
it was. At first we thought it was another Night Faerie or even a native. You
can imagine our surprise when we saw a human lying in the brush at the edge
of the glade! He had climbed a tree to get a better view of us, and the branch
had broken under his weight. His blue Aisha climbed down from the tree too,
when she realized they had been found."
"We were not quite sure what to do at first.
It had never even occurred to us that such a thing could happen. We finally
decided that we would let them go on two conditions: they tell no one what they
saw and they never come back."
"They both promised that they would do no such
thing, but you know how humans are. The Aisha kept her word. The human told
a friend, who promised not to tell anyone, who told a friend who promised not
to tell anyone, who told a couple of friends who promised not to tell anyone,
and so on."
"You can imagine our surprise when we arrived
at our next gathering to find a huge crowd of humans waiting for us (I guess
their pets were a bit smarter than that, because there was not one to be seen).
We weren't sure what to do at first. We didn't really have another place to
go."
"Finally, the Night Faerie leader decided to
go on with the gathering. The humans were amazed and intrigued. They watched
us dance, mouths open, the whole night. At the end, we asked them not to tell
anyone else and not to come again. They all gave us their word. They all went
back on it."
"When we gathered again the next night, there
was an even larger crowd. After a few more nights of the same, we pretty much
gave up on private gatherings for just Night Faeries. We couldn't get rid of
the humans, and we didn't have another place to go. We figured that the humans
were not too much of a nuisance as long as they stayed at the edge of the glade.
The other faeries, however, thought otherwise."
"At first they didn't care. They didn't see how
it would affect them. The problems started when the other faeries realized that
they were not getting as much attention from the humans as they had been receiving
before. After several inquiries, they found out why the humans had grown less
fascinated with them. Every thing was 'Night Faerie this' or 'Night Faerie that'.
Of all the faeries, we Night Faeries had become the humans' favorite."
"Faeries are known for vanity. The other faeries
were filled with jealousy at our popularity. They held a meeting to decide what
to do in order to regain theirs. At the meeting, they elected a new leader,
a Faerie who was particularly jealous. Her name was Fyora, the same Faerie whom
you now know as the Faerie Queen."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a startled
look cross Jewel's face at those words.
"The first thing Fyora had them do was rename
themselves. The orange faeries became 'Fire Faeries', the green faeries became
'Earth Faeries', the blue faeries became 'Air Faeries', and the yellow faeries
became 'Light Faeries'. Fyora also declared that Night Faeries should from then
on be known as 'Dark Faeries' to complement the name of the Light Faeries."
Truth sighed and gazed through us, back into
the past. "That's why she claimed she had done it anyway. It was very clever
of her, really. 'Night' and 'Dark' seem similar enough, but 'Dark' has an undercurrent
of evil. It was all too easy for her to turn the meaning around, to tell the
humans that we were evil."
"I'm confused," Jewel interjected. "Did you skip
something?"
The Faerie snapped back to the present. "Oh,
yes. At first the other faeries tried to divert the attention from us Night
Faeries. The newly dubbed Air Faeries danced upon the wind, catching the eyes
of the humans. Fyora and her group thought they had won, but the humans still
came to watch us at night. They still liked us better."
"Then the Water Faeries (the only faeries that
had not officially undergone a name change) were enlisted to sing at night.
This might have worked had the Water Faeries not been so shy. Whenever humans
came upon them, they would scatter. This prevented their singing from becoming
very popular, although some humans did dedicate time to trying to sneak up on
them."
"After their diversion tactics failed, Fyora's
group tried more…aggressive ones. First, they demanded that we move our gatherings
to a secret location. We weren't too thrilled about the idea of abandoning our
beautiful meeting place, but Myorla, the Night Faerie leader, decided that we
should do so to try to keep peace. It did take us a week to find a new jungle
glade."
"Had the humans been more cooperative, this might
of worked, but the humans had to go looking for us. We had changed locations
several times, but the humans were always quick to find us. In our minds, the
humans were the problem. In the minds of Fyora and the other faeries, we were…"
To be continued…
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