Fear the Faerie

      Most of you have probably heard of her. If you haven't, then listen carefully. Jhudora lives on a cloud in Faerieland, high above Neopia. She takes in young Neopets with her bewitching words. Pretending she is as kind as the other faeries, she asks for an item. When the neopet she asked returns, she will reward it if it brought the item she needed, or throw it back to the first quest, with the lowest reward if it fails. She doesn't get into evil things directly, but a while ago, she used to. Now she uses unsuspecting Neopets to do her bidding. All because of a little sibling rivalry.

     * * *

     It was a cold day on Terror Mountain. Taelia, the Snow Faerie, stood adding two new ingredients a little Kacheek had brought for her.

     "Hello, Jhudora," she said. "I was just mixing up a blue Lupe morphing potion. Kauvara's very busy these days, so I decided to help her out." Jhudora just glared.

     "I suppose you forgot I asked you to make me a potion two months ago," Jhudora said.

     "And I suppose you forgot I asked you for the ingredients six weeks ago," said Taelia icily.

      "Well, if you had asked me to get you something, I would have."

      "I DID ask you, six weeks ago."

      "What did you want from me?"

      "Well, uh, it was, uh,-"

      "See, you can't even remember!" said Jhudora.

      "Be quiet!" yelled Taelia, chanting a spell. Before Jhudora knew what was happening, she was up to her neck in ice. Blasting out of it with a ball of dark energy, she leaped up and lashed out with a snaking chain made out of black magic stronger than any metal. Taelia was ready for her. Dodging at lightning speed, she fired a blast of ice shards at Jhudora. She blocked them and attacked Taelia in a flurry of sparks. Taelia flinched, and Jhudora saw her chance.

     In a powerful thunder of spells and enchantments, Taelia became enveloped in an orb of dark magic. It would render her unconscious and keep her in that state until a charm freed her. It would also take away her memory temporarily to prevent a leak of what Jhudora had done.

     "Well, only four to go," she said as she flew home. "And it's not going to be hard to take out the rest."

     * * *

     Illusen was tired. Just tired. Flying all the way to Terror Mountain wasn't the easiest thing the earth faerie had ever tried to do. She walked into the cave where Taelia usually was, but found that it was a mess and that there was a black haze around it. Clearing it with a gentle wind-blowing charm, she gasped at what she saw. There, in the center of the room, a huge, round ball enclosed Taelia. Illusen stared at it for a moment, then shook herself and set about to find a spell that would break it. She suddenly remembered something her mother had once told her.

     "If it does something evil, it's black magic. If it's black magic, it can be restored. If it is restored, the magic turns to a normal spell. And if it's a normal spell, it can be countered." Well, the enchantment definitely did something evil, so Illusen used the most powerful restoring charm she knew. There was a blinding flash, and the orb glowed white before shattering apart and leaving Taelia on the floor.

     "What in the name of Fyora is going on?" she asked.

     "You were trapped in a ball of dark magic. Can't you remember?" said Illusen.

     "The last thing I did was give something to a young Kacheek, and here I am, with you telling me I was unconscious in a sphere of black spellbinding. Really, I wouldn't believe that for the word."

     "Well, it's true, even if you think it's not," replied Illusen. But she was unsure of how or why Taelia had been trapped. And there were few sorcerers, including faeries, that could produce an effective memory-reducing charm. But Taelia wouldn't listen to "such nonsense", as she called Illusen's tale.

     * * *

     Jhudora stood in the middle of the Marketplace. She stopped a passing Kougra on the street. "

     "Excuse me," she said dropping a coin into his paw. "Could you please tell Arina that she has a visitor?"

     "Arina?" repeated the Kougra.

     "The Soup Faerie," Jhudora clarified.

     "Oh," he said, walking quickly away.

     Jhudora smiled. That's right, she thought. Run. You'll be running all your life if you don't deliver my message. Go ahead and practice. You just wait.

     When she arrived at the soup kitchen, Arina was serving a bowl of steaming stew to a frail-looking Eyrie.

     "Careful now, don't spill," she was saying as Jhudora walked in. The Eyrie walked by her with a shudder.

     "Oh, hi, Jhudora. That's Braknam. He's just recovering from the Neopox. He comes in every day for a bowl of Invisible Soup."

     "I don't think you are a real faerie," Jhudora said. "You are certainly kind enough, but you cannot do magic. And not all faeries are kind."

     "Wh-what do you mean," she stammered.

     "Well, if you had magic, you would use a spell to prove it."

     "I-I mean-oh, okay, you're right. I'm just a cook who wants to help out." With that, she burst into tears. This is too easy, thought Jhudora as she wound a holding container to keep Arina in, throwing in a strong memory charm to relieve her of her experiences.

     * * *

     Illusen arrived an hour later, after hearing about a commotion in Neopia Central. Seeing the shifting mass of Neopets pushing to get a look inside the kitchen told her something was up. Something bad. Picking her way through the crowd, she finally got to the door and unlocked with a simple charm. She put the bolt back though to keep out the Neopets, and searched the serving area, but found nothing. When she rummaged through the back room she came upon another black orb. This one held Arina captive inside its walls. Using the same spell to break the magic as before, she helped Arina up.

     "Are you all right?" asked Illusen.

     "Why wouldn't I be?" Arina said.

     "You mean you don't remember?"

     "What don't I remember? The last thing I did was give Braknam the Eyrie a bowl of Invisible Soup. He just got over the Neopox and-hey, Illusen, are you all right?"

     Illusen had turned very pale. "I'm fine," she said. "Completely fine."

     "Are you sure you can get back to Meridell? It's a long trip," Arina asked.

     "Yes, thank you," Illusen said. "I'll be okay."

     * * *

     So it went. Jhudora came to the faeries' homes and told them something she knew would anger them into a fight. First Taelia, then Arina, then the negg and fire faeries, and finally, the space faerie. Illusen always heard about the commotion or was visiting one of her sisters on the days Jhudora was committing her evil deeds, and somehow knew where she was needed most.

     After Jhudora confronted the space faerie and "caged" her, Illusen came to her rescue and found her with her memory fully intact. Telling Illusen everything she had seen, and that Jhudora had also tried to trap the other faeries by keeping them unconscious until she had gained the power to destroy them permanently. Jhudora hadn't counted on Illusen saving the faeries from their shadowed cells. She also hadn't counted on the space faerie being able to resist her memory spell and leaking information to Illusen.

     The fight that followed was more than light faerie-dark faerie rivalry. It was fought with pure hatred as the weapon.

     * * *

     Illusen returned home with renewed anger at Jhudora. She was not surprised to find her newly-declared archenemy waiting for her inside her hollow.

     "Well Illusen, it's one on one," said Jhudora acidly. She had brought a steely sword that glowed faintly purple as she talked.

     "No, actually, you are vastly outnumbered," replied Illusen calmly. Her attitude annoyed Jhudora greatly. Why isn't she getting angered? She thought. She should be exploding now.

     "Why do you pretend you are stronger than me?" Her voice shook slightly as she said these brave words.

     Illusen's lips formed a tight smile. "Because I am,"

     "Are you afraid to fight me?" asked Jhudora tentatively. She wanted to turn away and go home, but she couldn't back down now.

     "I am not alone," replied the earth faerie again.

     "Yes, you are!" yelled Jhudora. "The other faeries let me take them down easily, so why can't you?"

     "Excuse me, but we would like to disagree," said a voice behind her.

     Jhudora turned to the source of the sound and saw five faeries standing near her. Five angry, heavily armed faeries.

     "Still think I'm not a real faerie?" said Arina, whose palms were sparkling dangerously with magic.

     "So, I didn't put up a fight huh? Can I make up for it now?" Taelia shot a thunder of icy spells at Jhudora, making her cringe.

     "What about me? I told Illusen what Jhudora was doing," The space faerie began probing at her with little flaming comets of light that gradually grew in size as Jhudora became weaker. Finally, the negg faerie stopped the fighting.

     "Well, Jhudora," she said smugly. "What have you done?"

     "I…I attacked…you…" She struggled to say the words as she fought the pain of her tattered wings and pounding head.

     "What did we do to you?"

     "You…you…tricked me." As she said those words, realization sunk into Jhudora. The worst part was that it had been Illusen who had come up with the plan to dupe her in the first place. She had never liked Illusen, but she had had no good reason why. Now she loathed the earth faerie with all her might.

     * * *

     With a transporting spell that was not designed to be comfortable, Jhudora was sent back to her cloud to nurse her wounds. She thought about what she had done and how to prevent it from happening again. She realized that if she used Neopets to get things for her, she wouldn't get in trouble. If a Kougra says that a dark faerie told him to smuggle something from a store, no one will believe his story. But if a dark faerie herself does an evil thing, everyone knows rumors about it are true. After all, dark faeries aren't that bad, right?

The End