Queen of Amethyst

     The Light Faerie rubs the girl's bone-shoulders affectionately, murmuring, "You'll find your magic. You're just a late bloomer, Fyora."

     Fyora, at twelve years old, has dull, hope-ridden eyes. "You're born with your element. I have nothing."

     "You're a princess, darling. You don't have nothing."

     Fyora sighs again, looking away. "I'm a faerie without magic, Liyana." Quickly, she swipes at the corners of her eyes. "What do you call that?"

     ~*~*~*~

     When Fyora is thirteen, her hair loses its flaxen hue, the cornsilk fading into nuances of lavender and violet. It falls below her shoulders, a plume of purple skimming the hollows of her elbows.

     Angrily, she ties it back with a bone-white ribbon. She is not a faerie of Air, Water, Earth, Darkness, or Fire. She is a princess locked in a castle of her mother's shame; a girl-child with wings and hair and eyes that have bloomed like orchids, with palms that are creased with sorrow and work, lined with memories, but devoid of a faerie's poetry, a faerie's power.

     ~*~*~*~

     "Your hair is... short."

     "I cut it."

     "It looks like you tore it off with a knife or something... oh, Fyora, why are you giving me that look?"

     "...One of the guards let me borrow his sword."

     "Why... why would you-"

     "Maybe it will grow back... normal. Pretty. Golden."

     "Fyora, you are normal."

     "...You're right. I am. So wonderfully normal, with wings that do not fly and hands that do not make magic. I am as normal as can be."

     "Fyora..."

     "What?"

     "Hair grows back from the roots. It will still be the way it is, no matter what."

     "If my roots were like this, when did I ever have a chance?

     ~*~*~

     She learns to fight with weapons.

     At first her legs were too close together when she kicked and her arms were thin and harplike and too weak to wield a sword, but she grows, grows, grows. At sixteen, she is not a student at the Faerie Academy but an apprentice of the palace-guards.

     Princess Fyora does not have magic, but she is not defenseless.

     She is tough as nails, rough as faith. Her hair now flutters like purple-monarchs at her collarbones, and she lets it. It will grow one day, to be long as the spell-scrolls she used to spend days hunched over. It will roll like plum-rivers down the arch of her back and perhaps, one day, she will find it beautiful.

     ~*~*~*~

     When she is twenty-one, Fyora is harsh around the edges and a little unrefined; her hair is still choppy and her lips are chapped and her hands are calloused and she has scars from her sword-play, but she still becomes Queen of Faerieland.

     Her mother is one with the air around them, her Air-Faerie beauty now a gossamer twinkle in the glimmering atmosphere. And now Fyora is Queen: Fyora without magic, Fyora with armor, Fyora with hair like ambrosial-mountains. Queen.

     ~*~*~*~

     There is talk.

     "She will lead us into despair."

     "Without magic, what is a faerie?"

     "It's the end.... the end of Faerieland!"

     "Have you ever looked at her? Thing of china-bones. Pretty to look at, but she is without power."

     "They say she wields swords."

     "Brittle, lilac-girl. Faerieland has gone weak."

     "She has no magic."

     "The Darkness Faeries are stirring—"

     ~*~*~*~

     There is a rebellion a week after her coronation.

     The faeries of Darkness are leading it, but that does not stop faeries of other elements from following them. Queen Fyora is considered powerless without magic; the Dark Faeries are full of rage, seething at their own mistreatment, while Fyora sits on the iridescent, pearl-dotted throne, not knowing so much as a spell.

     ~*~*~*~

     "My people hate me."

     "They do not."

     "Liyana, do you not see Faerieland unraveling? Right before your eyes. And you're blind to it."

     "I'm not blind. You are, Fyora."

     "How dare-"

     "Your people love you. You do not love yourself."

     "I do not hate myself!"

     "That is not what I said."

     "I..."

     "All faeries have magic, Fyora. But not all of them have hearts as strong and pure as yours."

     "...Thank you, Liyana."

     "What will you do about the rebellion, my Queen?"

     "I have an idea."

     ~*~*~*~

     Fyora doesn't want a war.

     She wants many, many things. But there are only so many things she can control, and she hopes one of them is peace.

     "People of Faerieland!" Her voice is a resonating, humming alto. She is standing on the glittering balcony adjacent to porcelain towers, and continues, "I have heard your grievances, and have called you all here today with my answers."

     She sounds like a Queen. Not a girl with empty hands, but a Queen.

     "Magic has become a defining factor in this world. Those who master Air, Fire, Water, and Light, are considered benevolent, and yet those of you born with the power of Darkness at your fingertips are not treated nearly so kindly. You feel mistreated, as if you were inferior. I have come here to say that acts against those of Dark powers, and those without any Magic at all, is illegal-"

     "Queen Fyora is weak!" comes a hoarse yell. "Without magic, she can do nothing for Darkness Faeries!"

     "Find a new Queen, for this one is useless-"

     The pit below her collapses into distress and Fyora feels herself rattle from the inside. She is about to say something else, be it poignant or profound or pointless, when she sees it; a strip of purple-lightning, dark as bruises, coming her way-

     She is dressed in lavender-silks; she is without a sword or shield. Her guards are scrambling towards her, she sees them move in the corners of her eyes, but they are not quick enough. She only has herself, and she is planted in place, legs unmoving-

     Her arms encircle the dark magic; a radiant, violet streak sparkles from the tips of her fingers as the attack is dissipated.

     The faeries are silent. Fyora stares, wide-eyed and brimming with shock. Somewhere from behind, she can hear Liyana, her best, best friend, whisper, "You have done it, Fyora."

     She sees her attacker being dragged away by palace-guards, but Fyora holds up a hand.

     Fyora finds her voice, moments after she has finally found her magic. "From this day forward, I declare Faerieland a place of peace, and harmony!"

     Silence.

     Silence.

     Earth-shattering quiet-

     And then, a clap. Liyana. Another. And another; Faerie City is quaking with applause, and Fyora smiles.

     ~*~*~

     There is talk.

     "All hail Queen Fyora!"

     "She is a master of weapons, the most capable of leaders!"

     "She is signing peace treaties with each and every world, from Meridell to Darigan Citadel!"

     "Long live the Queen!"

     "She has found her magic, after all this time. How wonderful for her!"

     "I should have never doubted her. She defended herself against an attacker, and still had heart for forgiveness!"

     "She has quieted the rebellion in a matter of days!"

     "She is a born leader."

     "All hail the Queen!"

     "All hail the Queen!"

     "All hail-"

     ~*~*~

     Fyora rarely uses her magic.

     She has lived her life without it surging through her veins; she has spent decades practicing with the barest of means, and she is fine with that. There are no longer any rebellions stirring in her peaceful sanctuary of Faerieland. Her people have come to respect her fighting abilities, her talents outside of magic.

     And now, when she stares into the mirror, she beams at her reflection; she combs her fingers through the waterfall of lilac that is her hair and relishes it as it now reaches the bones of her wrists.

     And she is, for the first time in a long time, content.

The End