Aquamarine: Faerieland’s Hottest New Band

     Grace, the slightly less evil younger Drenched sister was the first faerie transferred to Faerieland. It is important to note that the dungeons in Faerieland are considered state of the art, with well-furnished rooms and opportunities to learn new skills which could be useful after inmates have served their sentences. Thus, while in the Faerieland dungeons, Grace learned how to play the guitar from some of the music lessons offered by the Faerieland Academy. She heard the sound of the instrument and instantly felt the desire to play it.

     “After a few lessons, I was already playing some Neopian folk classics such as Good Kreludor Arisen and The Faeries are Flying In. It felt so natural for me,” Grace said.

     Soon, her other former associates in crime, Stevie and Joni, the other Drenched sisters joined her in Faerieland as Queen Fyora finalized their transfers from Maraqua. The two of them were initially sceptical of finding something interesting to pass the time. Grace had a little bit of trouble convincing the other two sisters to take up music with her. Instead, they spent much of their time sampling all the faerie foods that were offered down in the dungeons. Eventually, Grace was able to convince Joni, formerly known as the Moderately Evil Middle Drenched Sister, to join along as a vocalist.

     “I guess although I was known as moderately evil to most Neopians, someone once said that I had a good singing voice. After all, I sometimes used it to lure some poor souls into our underwater lair. But that was my past life. I guess Grace did some prodding for me to use my voice for good instead,” Joni said.

     Joni did indeed have a wide vocal range and her voice was pretty. She could be loud when she wanted to be, but also very soft should that be desired instead. Other inmates in the dungeons seemed to enjoy it when she sang, and her voice reverberated through the cell block.

     It took much more time for Stevie, the Evil Elder Drenched Sister, to come around to the idea of forming a band with Grace and Joni. She spent much of her time writing in her journal about how the Drenched would return to their past life of dominating the seas. She still seemed convinced that once they got out, they would return to life as usual for them. However, the other sisters weren’t so keen on returning to their past life.

     “All we did was the same thing repeatedly. That’s hardly taking over the seas. Pretty soon, ships and their crew were avoiding us completely anyway and there were plenty of Jetsams in King Kelpbeard’s army that provided armed escorts for those that requested it. All in all, it was boring,” Grace said when the Neopian Times asked about her thoughts on her past life.

     Finally, after a few more weeks, Stevie came around to the idea and Grace introduced her to the drums. Stevie was also an avid writer, so she also agreed to become a songwriter. With that, they needed a band name.

     Stevie suggested the band would just be called The Drenched. However, the others weren’t so keen on that.

     “The other two were worried that The Drenched would not be well-received because of what we’ve done in the past. So then Grace suggested a silly name ‘The Three Water Faeries’. Where is the creativity in that?” Stevie said.

     “How is keeping The Drenched creative?” Grace retorted.

     “And then I thought… how about Aquamarine? It made sense because well, we are water faeries.” Joni said.

     “It was slightly more creative so we went with it,” Stevie responded.

     With a band name and members, the trio now known as Aquamarine needed to write songs and find a place to perform them. They began writing songs, but weren’t so sure what to write about. Grace thought about writing a song about Fyora, but her fellow band-members felt like there were already too many songs about Fyora. However, none of them were really rock songs so they decided to write their first hit, Her Pinkness.

     “We all figured that Fyora had a more active side to her. You know she’s not always wearing that boring dress. The song is about her when she’s not doing all that queen stuff. It opens with a guitar riff that starts out calm, but suddenly introduces some excitement,” Grace said.

     With lyrics like,“A cloud racer’s nightmare is a flash of pink!” and,“They call her the pink demon!” the song highlights that Fyora’s not just a Queen that sits in the castle all day.

     Queen Fyora never would attest to all the things in the song, but she was notably evasive when we asked if the lyrics were accurate.

     “Now now, I would love to keep you company, but I’m unfortunately very busy today. Good day to you, Geo,” was all we could get out of her.

     Aquamarine’s second hit that swept Neopia like a storm was Faerietown. The song wasn’t a typical rock song, instead featuring a synthesizer and drums, more like a dance tune.

     We asked if it was hard for Aquamarine to adjust to a different genre.

     “No, I think being flexible as a band is always a cool idea. We needed a song that would get crowds excited and we also want to pay tribute to Faerie City, despite not seeing much of it,” Grace said.

     And excited indeed are the crowds. Aquamarine, still atoning for past crimes, are not allowed to freely roam Faerie City. Thus, they have to get supervised release in order to play in public. Queen Fyora wanted to hear them play before authorizing this. They had the perfect song for her. The three of them slithered into the castle under Brynn and Aethia’s watchful eye. They then went into Fyora’s garden. Queen Fyora herself greeted them from her balcony and soon they were jamming to Her Pinkness. The song appeared to make Queen Fyora smile. She certainly looked pleased that the Drenched clearly found something to do other than criminal acts. That night, she authorized Aquamarine to play at version venues in Faerieland while under supervision of the Royal guard.

     So, on the eve of the Faerie Festival, where faeries often put on a concert, Aquamarine was invited to play. At the time, there were rumours of an emerging band, but most of Faerieland had not heard them play live. They knew about the two singles, Faerietown and Her Pinkness though and many were intrigued to hear other songs from the band. So naturally, the house… well more like a meadow in a Faerieland forest, was packed.

     After a few acts by the Blue Kacheek Group and Chomby and the Fungus Balls, Aquamarine prepared to take the stage.

     As the former members of The Drenched took the stage, there were some audible gasps. Some weren’t so sure it was a good idea to allow the Drenched out in public, while others were just genuinely shocked to see them again. Queen Fyora stood up to quiet the crowd down and nodded at Aquamarine. Grace had crafted a custom guitar in the shape of a water faerie tail. There was also a synthesizer on stage. And then the drum set was borrowed from the Faerieland Academy.

     The band opened with a song nobody had heard yet, called Krawkadile Rock.

     “I remember when we were young. Life in the seas was still fun. While basking in the golden sun. And not any worrying to be done. But the most fun we had was doing a thing called the Krawkadile Rock. While the others were busy ‘round the clock. We were whirlin’ and twirlin’ to the Krawkadile Rock!” Joni sang loudly but still on key. Meanwhile, Grace strummed her guitar with confidence and Stevie was going crazy on the drums.

     The crowd shed any remnant of apprehension and began to dance. Meanwhile, the light faerie in charge of lighting began to adjust the lights to follow the music.

     After that song, the band played Her Pinkness which caused everyone to sing along, including Queen Fyora who could be observed mouthing the words about herself.

     Following that, they played a song titled Endless Staircase to Faeland which was a really long ballad with a guitar and vocals only first part, then the drums coming in calmly for the second part, but the final part of the song is heavy wind guitar and drums. The song itself? Well, even Aquamarine members don’t really know what it means.

     “It was just fun to write and play!” Grace said.

     They then played Faerietown, which once again, had their audience fully engaged in dancing and enjoying themselves while the lights also danced. Pink, blue, yellow flashes dominated the stage in an extravagant display. For a moment, it felt like Faerieland was floating in the sky once again, illuminated by lights above and below.

     Of course, as Faerieland now borders the Haunted Woods, of course, the band also wrote a song titled Welcome to the Haunted Woods which seemed to please some of the earth faeries from the Haunted Woods. The song itself had a haunting overtone and Joni was able to provide rather spooky vocals. One could have sworn that the trees in the area might have heard the song and were swaying to the music.

     Finally, it was nearly the end of band’s set but they had one more song to play called Faerie Dust in the Wind.

     “Faerie dust in the wind. Very pink dust in the wind. The fae will last forever in the earth and the sky, watch them as they soar and fly!”

     The tune was much quieter and slow, but it was calming, relaxing, a good way to end their set. However, as they began to wrap things up, shouting their gratitude, the crowd wanted one more song. Fortunately, they had one. It was called We Will Krawk You. The song was perfect for clapping and stamping your feet and Stevie led the crowd in doing so. After the song was over, it was pretty much impossible to hear anything as the audience went wild.

     “Thank you, Faerieland! Enjoy the Faerie Festival!”

     The three of them headed backstage were the Royal guard waited for them. They then escorted them back to their dungeon rooms, but while doing so, complimented them for an amazing show. While the members of Aquamarine are still detained, they continue to write and play music at various venues across Faerieland. We hope to continue to hear amazing things from Aquamarine, regardless of their situation.