Quadrille for the Grey

     “What is it, little one?” Aubadie’s mother laid the spoon she was using to stir their stew back in the pot and turned to nuzzle her daughter. “What has you so upset?”

     “I was with Bornar in the Bazaar earlier,” she said, “and I was singing and he was dancing and playing the trumpet. And it was so much fun! But then we took a break and he told something just, just, just awful.”

     “Tell me, sweetling,” said Aubadie’s mother, picking up her spoon again to give the stew another stir as she listened.

     Aubadie summoned a deep breath and then let it all out in a rush. “He said that there was a beautiful faerie who was kind and helpful and, and, and nice, and then something happened and a really, really bad faerie captured her and took away her wings and now she doesn’t have magic and she’s sad all the time!” Aubadie’s long ears drooped.

     Aubadie’s mother paused, and then she put the spoon down again and turned the fire to low under the stew pot.

     “But,” Aubadie said, ears perking again. “That can’t be right. Right? Bornar was making things up. Like—like scary stories! Because Queen Fyora would never let that happen! She’d fix it! Because it’s not fair and it’s not right!”

     Aubadie’s mother dropped her head briefly, and then she squared her shoulders. “Come sit with me, sweetling, and let’s talk a little,” she said.

     ***

     Aubadie would come to remember that day as the day that she learned that things were sometimes neither fair nor right. That sometimes, bad things happened and there was no easy way to fix them. When she was older, as she became a grown Gelert, she would remember sobbing into her mother’s fur over the plight of a faerie she had never met—a faerie she probably would never meet. She would remember her feeling of helplessness. How could a little Oil Paint Gelert ever find a grey faerie’s wings?

     ***

     The first time Aubadie ever met a Grey Neopet in the flesh—or, as it were, in the fur—it was a shock.

     She was grown and living in Brightvale, working as a musician, singing and dancing for a musical troupe. On that day, she was trotting through the market with a basket in her mouth and shopping for fruits, when she bumped into a Kyrii who she hadn’t seen. A Kyrii she hadn’t seen because the Kyrii was a washed-out charcoal smudge, easily missed.

     “Oh!” she exclaimed, dropping the basket. “I’m so sorry.”

     “It’s no trouble,” said the Kyrii in a soft, washed-out voice.

     Aubadie was suddenly brought back to that day in her childhood, the day when her mother had explained that sometimes bad things happened and people couldn’t fix it right away, or maybe at all. She was grown now, old enough to know that bad things did sometimes happen, but still, seeing this sad-eyed, Grey-hued pet weighed down her heart.

     “I’m Aubadie,” she said. “What’s your name?”

     The Kyrii looked as if he didn’t think it mattered very much, but he whispered, “Mautan.”

     “Well, Mautan,” she said. “I’ve just gathered all these berries in Meridell and I don’t have anyone to share them with. Would you like to have tea with me today?”

     Mautan’s eyes widened, but then he gave a short, shaky nod.

     Aubadie’s home was brightly-lit and decorated in a dozen different brilliant shades—colours chosen to complement her Oil Paint coat. The Grey Kyrii seemed to shrink in the presence of such bright colours. Aubadie hastily invited him to sit in her most comfortable worn armchair, and arranged a plate of loveberries, jumbleberries, and chiaberries from her basket. “Do you want borovan, or would you prefer tea?” she asked as she headed into her small kitchen.

     “Whatever you want is fine,” Mautan said.

     Aubadie hesitated, but then decided to make some ginger green tea. It always perked her up, at least. When she was done, she served Mautan and herself, and settled in. “So,” she said, “do you live in Brightvale?”

     “I do,” he said. “And you?”

     “I do now.” Aubadie smiled. “I grew up in Neopia Central, but I knew I wanted to be a singer when I was very small, so I joined a musician’s troupe in Brightvale and—well, here I am!”

     “You’re a singer?” Mautan sat up a little at that, his droopy grey ears perking.

     “Well, I’m only an okay singer,” Aubadie said, modestly. “I could never perform with Jazzmosis or M*YNCI.”

     “Would you...” Mautan leaned forward. “Could you, maybe, would you sing something for me?”

     “I... I guess,” Aubadie said, surprised. “Sure. If you want. What kind of thing?”

     “Something bright,” the Grey Kyrii said. “Something as bright as you are.”

     ***

     Over the years, Aubadie learned many things about the Grey Neopets.

     For one, there were more of them than many thought, but people often looked past them or through them, because they kept to the edges... or because they made other Neopets feel uncomfortable.

     For another, they were often just as intelligent, just as talented as other Neopets. Her first Grey friend, Mautan, was a talented artist. Another Grey Neopet who she met, Nyrroa, was a Bori talented in the culinary arts. Another grew beautiful flowers, another designed elegant dresses....

     They all seemed to like her—they appreciated her brightly-coloured coat, optimistic personality, and vivacious song just as she appreciated the focused artist’s detail they gave to their own work. Almost without fail, her Grey friends asked for her to sing to them her cheery pop songs and rousing ballads. But when she suggested that they could have anything to do with such things, they all demurred.

     “Oh, no,” Mautan said. “No, it’s not... that kind of thing, the singing, the dancing? It’s not... I’m not really meant for it.” He gave her a sad smile. “I just like to hear you sing it.”

     That night in her bed, Aubadie curled up on herself, nose to tail, her long ears draped over her legs, and considered.

     ***

     When the dawn broke, and Aubadie woke, she knew what to do.

     ***

     Aubadie and Borant had only seen each other when she came home for the holidays for the past few years. Still, the chipper Green Blumaroo with a talent for the trumpet was almost like she’d last remembered him, bouncing on his tail and playing for Neopoints on Roo Island outside the Art Gallery. Aubadie grinned at him and waved him down. “Can I offer you a warm drink?” she asked.

     “Surely,” Borant said. He swept his cap up off the pavement, assessing the Neopoints he’d earned before sweeping them into his pocket, and then the two made their way into the coffee shop.

     Once they were settled—her carefully licking the foam off a Zeenana Cappuccino, him swirling berries in a Fundus Fruit Tea before taking a sip—she said, “So. I want you to help me write my quadrille.”

     Borant squinched up his snout at her. “First, what’s a quadrille?”

     “It’s a kind of dance. Well, a song. Well, a song for a kind of dance,” Aubadie said.

     “Okay. And second, why me, why now, and why singing?”

     “That’s second, third, and fourth,” Aubadie said with a grin.

     Borant waved a hand, almost flinging a stray fundus fruit at another patron. “Whatever.”

     “Because you’re one of the best musicians I know,” she said, counting off on her paw fingers. “Because I finally figured out what I think I am meant to do with my life. I want them to all... join the dance. The dance of, of life, of being happy, of sharing and being together. And because—because music is the language that I have found will speak to everyone the best.”

     “The language that what now?”

     “Come on,” Aubadie said, pulling him out of the café and into the street.

     ***

     Once out of the café, Aubadie pushed Borant’s trumpet back into his hands, gave him quick instructions for time and tempo, and began to drum out the rhythm with her paws as she danced. She lifted her voice in improvised song:

     “’Will you walk a little faster,’ said the Jetsam to the Kau

     ‘There’s a Crabby right behind me and his claws make me go ow!’”

     Borant lowered his trumpet and stared at her. “That is the silliest song I’ve ever heard.”

     Aubadie grinned and continued:

     “See how eagerly the Arkmites and the Surzards all advance!

     They are waiting on the shingle, won’t you come and join the dance?’”

     She planted herself, four-footed, in front of Borant and started bouncing back and forth as she sang:

     “Will you, won’t you, will you won’t you, will you join the dance?

     Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”

     Borant laughed, rubbed his hand across his face, and riffed a jazz riff to match her singing.

     ***

     They sang it sometimes in the artists’ centre of Roo Island, and sometimes in small towns in Meridell; sometimes they sang it in distant Shenkuu or on the Tyrannian Plateau. Always, Aubadie sang her quadrille of invitation, that everyone should be invited to join the dance with her. Everyone: even those who felt sad, lost, or forgotten.

     What difference she was making to the Grey pets, she didn’t know. Mautan and Nyrroa always wrote to her, happy for her music, but whether she was reaching anyone with her invitation to join the dance remained a mystery.

     ***

     It was dawn. Dawn had always been Aubadie’s favourite time of day, when the colours that streaked the newborn sky matched the colours that streaked her Oil Paint coat. She was staying at a small Happy Valley village, preparing to sing at their local festival, and hoping to draw out any hiding, sorrowful Grey.

     She stepped out to get a few lungfuls of good mountain air before her breakfast, and stopped dead when she saw a figure perched on a boulder at the edge of the clearing, skinny arms wrapped around her skinny knees.

     The figure unfolded herself and turned, and Aubadie knew beyond all doubt who it was. The thin, pale, frail form; the colourlessness of skin and hair and eyes; the tattered clothing. The broken feather vanes where there ought to be whole, shimmering, shining faerie wings.

     “Baelia,” she breathed.

     The faerie nodded. Her expression was one less of sorrow than of weariness and resignation.

     “I’m sorry,” Aubadie said.

     At that, the colourless faerie looked surprised. “Whatever for?”

     Aubadie’s mouth worked. Her ears drooped. Her paws dug at the ground. “I learned about your... your... your plight when I was just a little Gelert,” she said. “And I promised myself I would help you. Somehow. But I couldn’t, and I still don’t know how. I don’t have any idea how to restore your wings.”

     Baelia’s brows furrowed, but she said nothing.

     Aubadie continued, “And I tried to help your—your Neopets, the grey ones, but I don’t know if I’m helping at all, I’m just singing for them and inviting them to dance and that’s almost nothing, it’s so little.”

     Baelia stepped forward. She knelt, and touched the underside of Aubadie’s muzzle. She hummed a little, and then began to sing the same melody that she and Borant had developed for their quadrille, but in the soft, sweet, resonant quality that even a grey faerie could master:

     “What matters it if sorrows seem as if they must be long?

     There is new hope forever, as long as there is dawn

     To those others ignore, you give a second glance,

     So do not fret, beloved ‘pet, but come and join the dance.”

     Then she leaned forward and pressed cool, maternal lips to Aubadie’s forehead, between her long ears.

     ***

     “Aubadie? Aubadie? AUBADIE!?!?!?!”

     Aubadie jerked awake, disoriented, feet churning at nothing. She wrenched her blankets up. “WHAT? What?”

     “We’re supposed to be singing after breakfast!” Borant said. He thrust a baguette into one of her paws and some tea into the other and bounced off. “Come on!”

     Had it been a dream? Had all of it been a dream?

     But... Aubadie put down her baguette to touch her forehead, to feel the spot that had felt the kiss of the Grey Faerie. No. It wasn’t a dream. She shook back her hair, squared her shoulders, and marched down to the square to the invitation to all, the shy and the fearless, the strong and the weak, the dark and the light, the bright and the grey.

     “Will you, won’t you, will you won’t you, will you join the dance?

     Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”

     The End.