The Thousand Year Time-Out

      Long ago, Isca had looked near-identical to Caylis, with only the turquoise hue of her scales to tell them apart. Now, she was taller, better-fed, her fins brighter, her hair thicker and her scales lustrous.

      "You were hiding out here! Are you all right? I haven't seen you in so long!"

      Caylis shrugged. "Same old."

      Isca bit her lip. "Some of the King's councillors have been kind. I think I could talk to them more... Maybe persuade them, if I knew more about your dreams. I think they could actually be helpful."

      Caylis was silent. It was odd, seeing a living person's face outside of a nightmare, when nothing terrible was about to happen to her.

      Isca handed her a large bundle. Caylis held it limply.

      "Care package," her sister specified.

      Caylis opened her mouth, looked into Isca's anxious eyes. She tried to think of words for her. She tried to find a single thought fit for someone who did not spend their nights watching the world burn.

      "Thank you," Caylis whispered instead with a hollow smile. She took Isca's face in her hands. "You're a good kid."

      Isca seemed about to cry just from seeing her. She floated about, looked around the ruins, wringing her hands in a pointless search for some way to help.

      "I've found a safe place, Isca. Don't draw attention to it."

      Before leaving, Isca turned back to tell her: "Remember, if a disaster is inevitable, you dream of it. That's how it works, right? So, as long as you don't dream it, it can still be averted!" She held on to Goregas's fin, and the Gulper swam away, taking her easily back to safety and civilisation.

      Caylis drew back the cover from the statue.

      "How do you cope with it so well?" she asked the faerie boldly that night.

      The faerie tore her eyes from Altador, abruptly remembering Caylis behind her.

      "Cope with what? The destruction? Dear child, it is only the way of the world. What is there to be sad about?"

      The faerie leaned in, crimson eyes flashing. "I should ask how you are not angrier at having to bear the burdens of creatures who remain blissfully ignorant."

      "I didn't choose to, remember? There's no point in protesting."

      The faerie smiled knowingly. "If you receive an inadequate gift, it is always fair to redistribute. You are intimately connected with misfortune, with the thread of fate where things go wrong. Why not help it along?"

      Caylis could only stare at her. Of course, it was obvious to her, a spellcaster.

      But the faerie stood behind her, helped her place her hands. "This is the most basic way of casting. You already have the magic. It's always been turned inwards... but you can change that. Stop accepting your lot. Reject the grief. Reject the blame."

      Caylis was very confused when she woke up. She hesitated to try the faerie's advice. In the end, she decided that it would make a good topic for conversation the next night, so she took the pose, focused, and summoned some kind of blue glow around her hands. Magic. It was shiny, at least.

      While she scavenged for brunch, a shadow swam over her, not a friendly one. Caylis was about to find a crevice to hide, when she threw up her hands reflexively. She did not want to flee. She was not having this.

      A blue blast hit the sea monster. It recoiled, hit a brittle section of the reef and was struck by heavy debris. It fled before anything else could happen.

      Caylis stared after it. It was like her dreams, yet so different.

      She began to test her blasts on rocks and wrecks. She played with the intensity, created sparks and little warning zaps. Once, she spotted a ship overhead. Caylis wondered if she'd be able to affect it at all. Not even glancing around her, she swam up and gave it a blast.

      The blue glow faded from the hull. Nothing happened, for a while. The ship was almost out of sight when it began to sink.

      Caylis thought she could make out the lifeboats, but was too far to see the crew. She had not watched a disaster alone for weeks - not since she'd found the faerie. She had not wept for them in weeks, either. This was not even a dream. She had only wanted to test her power. She had no idea it could have been this strong. Choking back sobs, she fled to the ruins.

      That night, she could not bring herself to summon visions. "What's the point," she sighed, slumped by the faerie's feet. "You've seen it all. While we're stuck dwelling on all this evil, the rest of the world is just living on."

      "Poor Caylis. Do I need to remind you what the nice and kind people do to those like us?" She raised her voice into a commanding tone. "Show me Altador again."

      It was too quick for Caylis to think of disobeying. In this dreamlike state, her mind automatically found its way back to the faerie's favourite scene, the city painted itself around them, and the squabbles of the council unfolded yet again.

      While the faerie explained exactly why each Neopian there had deserved their fate, Caylis was suddenly reminded of the weeks following her banishment from New Maraqua. How she had raged against the king, against the idiotic townspeople and their absurd superstitions, against her precious helpless sister. The faerie was bitter, even petty, Caylis realised.

      The vision vanished. Faced once more with darkness, the faerie turned to Caylis. "Losing control? You were doing so well."

      The Aisha shrugged. "You keep saying doom is inevitable. So you could just leave them all alone, and wait for them to meet their fate."

      The faerie spread her wings and hovered over her. "Here is a wretched little girl who prefers to weep and wallow while the other fools live on in blissful ignorance. Have I taught you nothing, child? You were given knowledge of the final darkness that comes for all, and you were given a special power, the power to make it happen faster. You have the power of retribution. Why keep it all to yourself? Let them all see it! Bring out all your nightmares, and let them share your burden."

      Caylis shook her head. "But I've seen it firsthand. All these terrible things from my visions are real, not dreams. They happened. But people are still living on out there, and they will keep going, no matter how angry you get, no matter what you throw at them."

      "You are still so young. You have no idea what you are dealing with." A pattern of twinkling stars appeared above the faerie. Fire blazed in her hands. "They called me the Sleeper, the Betrayer, the Darkest. I existed aeons before you were dreamed of. I will be the last one to close my eyes when the universe fades into its final night. Your powers are a part of this fate. Use them for their intended purpose. Or would you rather fall like the helpless victims in your dreams?"

      "I think," Caylis said slowly, holding her gaze, "that if I did as you told, they would have to put me in time-out, like they did with you."

      She saw the faerie's nostrils flare, her lips purse. Her eyes, already wide, seemed to bulge out a little.

      "It was nice to have someone to talk to, but I will stop sharing my visions."

      Caylis woke up. She had the feeling that someone had been calling her while she was asleep, but the ruins were as empty as always.

      Swimming around a corner, she found her sister, slumped in a turquoise heap on the sea floor. Caylis hurried to her side and flipped her over.

      "Isca?" she called helplessly into the Aisha's empty face.

      "You never let me know that you had a sister."

      The faerie's voice came from behind Caylis. It sent shivers down her spine.

      She was strolling freely on the sea floor, aglow with red flames and very much unpetrified.

      "You hid her well. Another magical one, too. I should have taken this one from the start."

      Isca's body jerked into motion, rose out of Caylis's outstretched arms and floated as limp as a puppet. Her eyes opened, empty and filled with a purple glow.

      The water felt icy and stung with every ragged breath Caylis took. She raised shaking hands at the faerie, but no magic came.

      "How ungrateful. Your sister does not approve. She does not want you around, does she?"

      Now Isca raised her hands mechanically.

      Caylis only had time to cry out before she was blasted back. She shook her head and flailed her tail to stay afloat, but had to pause. She was surrounded by Maraquans.

      "Witch!" she heard from all sides.

      Again, she fled.

      But Caylis knew this. She had already got over it, many times.

      So she woke up, and was in darkness once more.

      "You didn't like my dream?" The faerie hovered, her face shrouded in dark hair, not bothering to pose for Caylis anymore.

      Caylis paid her no mind, circling furiously in the dark, searching for any switch or lever that she might use to wake up. She fought to return her consciousness to her body, the most simple thing that she did every morning without even noticing. With every attempt, her mind seemed to stall.

      "Did you think you could just sever my mental link whenever you wanted to wake up?" The faerie's hands drew a frame in midair, which opened a picture of Caylis's body as she rested beneath the statue. Isca, indeed, was there, anxiously holding her sister, trying to shake her awake.

      The faerie whispered, "Of course, you may return to your body... but when you use this door, I will be coming through with you. The world has been without me for too long. Your powers will be valuable to me. You can just sit back and watch from here, as I put them to better use."

      Staying in the darkness and letting someone else take over her life, her problems. How many times had Caylis longed for this blessed relief.

      Caylis sighed. "It is inevitable, in the end..."

      She feinted to the side and darted for the portal. With a hiss and a few wingbeats, the faerie floated it out of her reach.

      "Still clinging to your sister? She will never understand you. She knows nothing of this world and she never will."

      "Just because you failed your friends doesn't mean I should fail my sister!" Caylis snapped.

      The faerie traced magical sigils and Caylis felt a burst of pain in her head as her dream changed into a battleground. Unable to even swim, she slipped and stumbled over mud, seeking out the exit portal.

      "Look at you crawl..." came the faerie's voice. "Wasting your pitiful little existence."

      Caylis struggled to push herself off the ground. "In my dull, brief life I have managed to learn more than you have with a thousand years to reflect on your mistakes."

      The faerie faded into wisps of shadow, with only her crimson eyes lingering. "Learned, not learned... the darkness will consume you all alike."

      Pausing to focus, Caylis took hold of her dreamscape again, felt out the shape of her own mind, and filled it with the vision of her choosing. The Ruins of Old Maraqua, just after the Whirlpool.

      Caylis swam straight to the remains of her family home, and to that sheltered spot beyond the wreckage. Tucked there, she found a small Aisha. The look in the child's haggard eyes was well past fear.

      "Is help on the way?" asked the girl.

      Caylis hugged her tight. "Help is right this way."

      Holding the little Aisha, she swam in the direction she remembered, where she had met up with the survivors. The portal opened there. Caylis heard the faerie curse and saw the portal begin to move away, but she gathered magic in her hand and threw it like a lasso. It latched onto the portal. Through it she felt the mental link - her side of it. She tugged with every ounce of her willpower. The faerie's resistance came as a blazing headache, then a wall of shadows.

      "You would go back to your pathetic life of wallowing and weeping?" murmured a cold voice from the depths of the tempting, peaceful darkness.

      "I'll take that over becoming a statue."

      The voice turned steely. "Give up. You will only suffer more when I return to exact my revenge on the world."

      Caylis smiled. None of these words affected her anymore. "Lady, my dreams foretell unavoidable disasters. And, funnily enough, I have never dreamed of you."

      Like an elastic band snapping, the portal opened wide before her, and she tumbled awake into her real sister's arms.

      "Caylis!" Isca set her down, felt her forehead, held her hand. "I was so... how are you feeling?"

      Caylis patted her head. "I'll get over it," she said weakly.

      She allowed her sister to give her breakfast. Isca was relieved to see her eat.

      Once the sisters had parted with a hug, Caylis packed up the things she'd left near the statue.

      She swam up to the faerie and took in her furious expression once more. She raised a hand, gathering her magic.

      "Don't forget your share of the curse."

      Caylis's blue magic crackled around the statue and faded.

      "With my best wishes for your future endeavours," the Aisha said with a smirk before swimming away.

     The End.