The Magic Paw

     Then something caught her eye, and she stepped over to see it was a bottle, and something blue was inside. She picked it up to see that it was a water faerie trapped in a bottle. She couldn’t hear what she was trying to tell her through the bottle, but she could tell she looked scared. The light blue eyes of the Faerie looked into her own, silently pleading to be released from her glass prison.

     Frika considered taking it home and having her owner sell it. Bottled faeries sold at fairly good prices, and she already was blessed with enough water faeries to have all the skills that they gave. However, she couldn’t leave her in the bottle. It might be sold off to someone else that might just put her in a gallery. So she wrapped a paw around the cork and gave it a hard tug.

     It came off with a loud pop, and blue light came from the bottle, as the water faerie floated out and grew to full size in front of her. Her face was a mixture of happiness and thankfulness. She gave a smile, as she came down and kneeled in front of her.

     “Frika, I thank you for your kindness,” the faerie said, making Frika wonder how she knew her name. “Most pets would not release me when they already have all the abilities. So I will give you a gift that I have never given any other pet. I hope you will use it wisely.”

     Her hands gripped one of Frika’s paws, and her paw felt cold, as if her paw was encased in ice. The water faerie concentrated a moment, still holding the paw, and then released it. Frika noticed that the paw had a light blue glow for a few seconds before it faded. She looked at the paw, then back up to the faerie.

     “What ability did you give me?” she asked.

     “You will know when the time is right,” the faerie answered. “Farewell, and maybe we‘ll meet again.”

     As the faerie floated up towards Faerieland, Frika walked towards home, still trying to figure out what the faerie had given her. The paw didn’t feel any different, or seemed to do anything special. She shrugged and figured it wasn’t time yet.

     ---

     As Frika walked into the door, she was instantly slammed by a green blur that tackled her to the ground. As she recovered from being slammed into the floor, she noticed that it was a Bori that tackled her. The Bori was green and a few years younger than Frika.

     “Let me up, Borio,” she said, pushing her younger brother off her.

     As her brother ran off laughing, she stood up and noticed her owner, Nokomoro, cooking something in the kitchen. Because of the smell of something being burnt, and her owner’s previous attempts at cooking, they were going to have takeout that night.

     ---

     As they had a dinner of pizza delivered from Pizzaroo, Frika described her encounter with the Water Faerie. After she finished, she asked Nokomoro if he heard anything about this happening. He stroked his chin, thinking a minute, before he spoke.

     “What I usually hear is that the faerie just flies off when the pet that releases them is not strong enough to handle the blessing that would be given,” he answered. “My guess that she was trapped in the bottle for so long that she wanted to give you a reward for finally freeing her.”

     ---

     As Frika lay in bed that evening, she turned over and saw that it was after midnight. She knew that she needed to sleep, but couldn’t get her mind off what happened with the faerie that afternoon. As her mind mulled over it, she heard someone quietly walking out of another room on the same floor and down the stairs. Then suddenly, there were a few bangs and someone hit the bottom of the stairs.

     She ran out of the room and down the stairs. When she got near the bottom, she saw Borio picking himself off the ground. She guessed that he was walking down for a glass of water and missed a step in the darkness, causing him to fall down the stairs. Though he looked mostly unharmed, there was a good sized bruise on his front paw.

     Almost as if by instinct, she walked towards him. Borio looked at her, wondering what she was doing, but she ignored him. She placed her paw on her brother’s wound. It started to tingle, and in seconds, there was nothing left but a scratch. Borio looked at his paw in amazement, then over at her.

     “How did you do that?” he asked

     “I... I don’t know,” she answered, looking at her own paw.

     “I’m getting Nokomoro,” Borio said.

     Before Frika could say anything, the Bori was already up the stairs towards their owner’s bedroom. Knowing stopping him would probably be futile, she flopped down on the couch and waited.

     “Come on, come on, come on!” she heard Borio tell their owner, pulling on his arm.

     Nokomoro walked slowly down the stairs, as Frika got on her paws and stood beside her brother. Their owner’s body language told them that he very much wanted to just head back to bed. His droopy eyes looked over his two pets.

     “You better have a good reason for getting me up this early,” he grumbled at the two of them.

     They both launched into an explanation on what happened from their perspective. As usual when two people talk at the same time, their stories mixed together into a garble of words that was hard to understand. Their owner held up his hands to quiet them both.

     “Please, it’s late,” he said. “Only one of you at a time.”

     Frika let Borio explain what happened. As he talked, Nokomoro looked surprised and amazed at what he said. Frika launched into her own version of the story, which explained what she was feeling and thinking during the process. If anything, their owner looked even more amazed than before.

     “I guess we found out the gift the water faerie gave you,” he said. “But it’s really late. You two have school tomorrow, so we’ll talk about this tomorrow afternoon.”

     They all agreed, and headed to their respective rooms.

     ---

     The next day had Frika running top speed down the path towards the school, her Faerie Backpack bouncing against her back. Since she didn’t get much sleep the previous night, she overslept and was in danger of being late for school. And when you’re late for a class, you have to go to the principal’s office. And since the principal was a mean old Grarrl that usually yelled at whoever had to go in, it was a place that everybody wanted to avoid.

     But as she approached the school, she saw a crowd of about a dozen neopets, of various species, listening to someone talking outside the school. Curious, she walked over to see who it was, and he was surprised to see it was her own brother. As she approached, she heard what he was saying.

     “I’m serious. Frika now can heal wounds with just a touch. She did it to me last night,” he told them.

     Frika took a look at their faces, and could clearly see that none of the pets in the crowd were buying it. Knowing that they needed proof, she stepped forward in front of them and opened a cut on her arm with her claws. As they watched, her paw then touched the cut, and they saw it heal, leaving nothing but a scratch

     The other pets looked amazed, as they looked at her in astonishment. Before anybody could say anything, the warning bell rang, and everyone rushed inside to get to class.

     ---

     “I talked with the officials, and they said that since it’s not logged in as an official faerie ability, you are forbidden to use it in the Battledome,” Nokomoro told them that afternoon. “We also don’t know the extent of your healing powers. Does it just cure wounds, or can it handle diseases? Can it save someone with a severe wound that would not survive without treatment? Until we know, it’s probably best...”

     Then there was a knock on the door. Nokomoro looked over at the door, and then walked over to open it. When he did, they could see that the one standing there was their neighbor, an old blue Usul named Mrs. Ferno.

     “Hello,” she said politely, though there was a bit of urgency in her voice. “Is Frika home? I have to speak with her.”

     “I’m right here, Mrs. Ferno,” Frika called out, stepping over to the door. “What’s up?”

     “My grandson, Furfront, is visiting me, but he just broke his arm. I already got a doctor on the way, but my grandson told me that you could heal him. He asked me to get you to do it,” she answered.

     Nokomoro looked at her, and then looked at each of his pets individually. Frika could tell that he was not happy about what she had just told them, though she couldn’t imagine why. She got an answer when he asked them, “How many did you tell?”

     Borio launched into the story of what happened at the school, starting with him telling a few classmates, and ending with Frika proving it to everyone. Frika added in that it must have spread through gossip over the course of the day, and that’s how Mrs. Ferno’s grandson knew.

     “Okay, go and do what you can to help her grandson, and we’ll talk later,” he told her.

     Frika nodded and followed her down the sidewalk towards the house next door. Along the way, Mrs. Ferno asked how she acquired her power, and Frika told her the same story that she told everyone. By the time she was done, they were already inside. Mrs. Ferno led her up to the living room. Sitting on the couch, playing some Neoquest, was a young Christmas Usul, his arm wrapped up in a piece of cloth to make a temporary sling.

     “Furfront?” Frika asked.

     Furfront turned away from his Neoquest game to look over at her, and his face broke out into a smile. It was followed by a look of pain, as his movements made a fresh shot of pain shoot up his arm.

     “You must be that famous Acara we’ve heard about,” he replied. “You’re all the first graders have been able to talk about, including me.”

     Since Frika was in fifth grade, and her brother was in third, Frika had no idea if that was true. But she decided to take his word for it. She laid a paw on his arm, ignoring the groan of pain he gave out when she touched it. The familiar tingle was felt in her paw, but it was slightly different, more like it needed to draw more energy for it to work.

     Soon, the tingle was gone, and Furfront experimentally moved his now fully restored arm. He gave a smile when he found that it didn’t hurt anymore. After the doctor showed up and confirmed that it wasn’t broken, he ran outside to play. The doctor stayed a few moments to talk to the both of them and find out what happened before leaving.

     ---

     The story of Frika’s healing ability made the next issue of the Neopian Times, making Frika more famous than ever. People crowded outside her home, some bringing pets that had wounds that they wanted her to heal. Soon, she built a small booth in the front yard where she performed her services, never charging anyone neopoints for the healing.

     During each day, though, she found that doing a lot of healing at once made the magic take longer to work, and made her more tired. In the middle of one particularly busy day, she took a break and walked back inside, feeling totally spent. She flopped down on the couch, and her owner handed her a bottle of water. She took it, pulled off the cork, and downed half of the contents in seconds.

     “The way they come, you’d think the Healing Springs shut down and production stopped on Healing Potions,” Frika remarked, not caring if anyone heard. “There’s other ways to heal your neopets, so they don’t need to keep coming to me...”

     “They come because they want to,” a familiar voice said.

     Frika whirled around, and saw that it was the Water Faerie that gave her the power in the first place. She was the same size she was after being released from the bottle.

     “Owners, as a whole, are pretty greedy. They always want the lowest price, or the cheapest item. At the same time, they raise the price of their own items as high as they can while keeping their customers,” she continued. “Healing potions are reliable, but not free, while my sister’s Healing Springs are free, but not reliable. You offer the best parts of both, so they come to you. That way, they get a healed neopet and save neopoints at the same time.”

     Frika turned away, as she thought about what she said. She had a point about owners, and her reasons for why they were flocking to her seemed to make sense. She knew she needed to do something to keep it from getting so busy that she fainted on the job, yet still be able to help the people that needed it without charging them. After a few minutes, Frika had her answer.

     ---

     “People, before I help you, I have an announcement to make,” Frika told the people outside a few minutes later. “I want to give the same help I did for free, but if it’s a minor injury, I won’t help you. There are many other places you can get help for that. If it’s something more serious, like a broken bone or a severely injured pet, I will help with that.”

     A lot of the owners left, with their pets walking perfectly fine beside them (though a few had a limp from their injury). A couple did have more severe injuries, and she did heal them.

     A few days later, as Frika healed the few that still needed to come to her, she felt something land on her shoulder. She looked to see that it was the same water faerie, now as small as she was when she first found her trapped in a bottle.

     “I’m proud of you. I told you to use it wisely, and you showed true wisdom with the power I gave you,” she said. “Though it’s always good to help others, you also have to take care of yourself, or you will be no help to anyone. It’s a lesson that I hoped you would learn when I first gave you your powers.”

     “I did learn. Thank you,” Frika answered, as she disappeared.

The End

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