Nuria and the Sands of Time

      round, round, and around

      Best friends forever,

      safe, safe, and sound.”

      - “You’re in the Light”

      Lyrics and Vocals by Ashley Quick

      Product of Kiko Lake Music Group

      “Darling, you’re too close to me

      Everyone else can see

      I’m the villain, I’m the fiend

      It’s me.”

      - “Fiend”

      Lyrics and Vocals by Ashley Quick

      Product of Kiko Lake Music Group

      Year Four

      “Wake up.”

      The temple is quiet and cold. Nuria shifts on her pallet, just on the edge of consciousness, before falling back asleep. Her breath is slow, deep, and loud in the quiet night.

      “Nuria,” Xoe whispers again. “wake up.”

      Nuria huffs loudly but doesn’t wake. She can feel the presence of someone else even in her dreams but the research and magic they’ve been doing lately has exhausted her.

      Xoe huffs in response and suddenly the room is engulfed in a brilliant light. Nuria sits up quickly and blinks twelve times while trying to get her bearings. She finds Xoe amongst the spots in her vision.

      “What’s going on?”

      “Hurry!” Xoe lifts up from the stone ground and begins to fly toward the exit. “We’re going to miss it!”

      Nuria rubbed her eyes and gave a big dramatic stretch before fluttering her wings and taking off after her companion. As she approached the exit she saw Xoe’s glittering light and flew faster. The wind rushed past her face as she flew out and up a short distance into the sky. She came to rest hovering just above and beyond the temple’s roof and found that it was not Xoe’s light she was seeing at all. Hundreds of brilliant meteors filled the night sky. On the ground below, Xoe had lit the cooking fire and had a pot of water over it. Nuria lowered herself to the ground and then trod across the sand to join her.

      “Amazing, aren’t they?” Xoe said as she carefully spooned out tea leaves into their metal cups.

      “Yeah.” Nuria said softly as she sat on the log they had dubbed “sittin’ log”. Xoe laughed and set the cups aside to wait for the water to boil.

      “It’s easy to tell you like something because you get all monosyllabic.” Xoe said as she took a seat beside Nuria.

      “That’s not true.”

      “It is, actually. I’m a researcher.” Xoe regarded her with a lighthearted bravado. “I did my research.”

      “On me?”

      “Obviously.”

      “That’s… that’s great.” Nuria flushed. “What else do I do?”

      “Oh, you laugh at weird things, you burn the beans, drop stuff, you know, Nuria things.”

      “Nuria things?!” They both laughed. “So, you keep a list of annoying things I do?”

      “No, no, I keep a list of great things you do.”

      “Yeah, right. You wish I wasn’t here so you could get on with your research.”

      “Oh, if you weren’t here I would have quit already.”

      “Seriously?”

      “For sure, this has got to be the worst assignment ever and we got it first thing out of graduation. No Mystery Island for us, no, go hang out in the lame desert investigating… Something.”

     A cold quiet crept across them both. They hadn’t yet discovered why they were sent to this temple in the lost desert but the things they had found were unnerving to say the least. Evidence of Neopet and Faerie culture dating back centuries was the least disturbing of these findings and still raised many questions. They both turned their eyes to the sky and allowed their dread and worry about the temple to pass by like clouds. Soon, they were entranced in the meteor shower and smiling softly. Then, the pot began to bubble and Xoe went to pour the tea.

     “How did you know about the meteor shower?” Nuria asked and watched the steaming water pour from pitcher to cup. Xoe picked it up in both hands.

     “I can feel them. Their light.” Xoe said as she brought the cup closer and Nuria slowly took it from her small hands. “Their heat.”

     - - -

      Outside of Time

      Two suns, one in the East and one in the West, sat low and blazing in the sky. No clouds marred the blue and purple tones of the desert sky. The heat was incomparable, indescribable, and eternal. The desert, too. The suns never set and the sands went on forever and ever.

      She had walked for hours, days, even and seen no sign of Ahternity or the hourglass. Just sand and that cursed temple from all those years ago. When she used her magic, she felt so much all around her. It seemed the sand was packed with memory and emotion. She could feel pets and people, their hopes and dreams, their fears. She could feel such love and passion for the world of Neopia and its communities. All of Neopia’s history, great and small, lay buried in these sands and the power of those connections was astounding. Nuria had never felt such a deep emotional resonation in her magic before. She hesitated to fall too deeply into the call of time’s magic as she didn’t yet understand how to manipulate it herself.

      Instead, she stood faced with the only resident of this sweltering place. Nuria had passed it many times, sometimes in the same direction, yet had never let herself linger on it after her initial shock of seeing it here. She had known then but wasn’t ready to face it.

      I’ll have to go back in there. Alone. Nuria regarded the Temple of the Sun with scorn and fear in equal turn. It shouldn’t be here, of course. It lived somewhere deep and deserted in the Lost Desert just as she had these last few years. But, it seemed she had drawn this cursed temple to her across time and space.

      She took a step forward. She didn’t feel the overwhelming, almost physical, dread she had come to associate with this place. Maybe it’s more memory than reality. She shook her head. What was reality inside a magical hourglass? Her wings picked her up and she gracefully glided to the entrance. It was dark and silent but somewhere in that cursed structure, she suspected, Ahternity was waiting and watching.

      The air inside is cool and Nuria’s lungs tingle as they recover from the day’s dust and heat. It doesn’t smell like rot and ruin the way she remembers it until she begins to dwell on it and suddenly the scent of muddy mould permeates the air.

      This place is just a memory, then. Nuria decides and her confidence to enter the building is bolstered. The hallway opens up into a large room. The room holds no furnishing but Nuria knows this is where she had set up camp all those years before. She can see it in her mind’s eye even now.

      My pallet was here originally. She regards a large empty corner of the room. But, you put yours in the centre of the room. Nuria can feel the memory of her old companion’s tent like a ghost over her shoulder. A chill runs down her spine between the wings of a flickering flame. She’s certain it’ll be there when she turns around. Her feet turn her in a slow circle and she finds herself face-to-face with something much more than memories.

      In the centre of the room stands a child. A Faerie, a young one, no more than thirteen years old. Their skin is a rich and glistening russet brown colour. Their hair falls in tight curls of black, silver, and gold. The wings slowly fluttering on their back are a deep red with swirls of gold. Their young, soft face is inquisitive, clever, and yet still, kind. They bear a soft smile back at Nuria. The faerie’s small hands take hold of the black gown and they give an elegant bow. As they dip and return to full height, they seem to age before Nuria’s very eyes. They grow taller, both more lean and more robust in different areas, and more imposing. The golden swirls of their wings become intricate patterns and designs. They give off a golden light. The face is sharper but holds the same inquisitive eyes. The full, ruby lips of the faerie open but no words come out.

      “Are you Ahternity?” Nuria takes a half-step forward. “I’m Nuria, I’m trying-”

      Nuria stops mid-sentence. Ahternity, the Time Faerie, is ageing again. The fire faerie is struggling to make sense of what she’s seeing though. As Ahternity’s skin wrinkles and they grow gaunt it also seems they become blurred and difficult to make out. Like something through smudged glass. They seemed to be fading away from this place entirely. Except, not exactly.

      Is that… bone? The skin of the Faerie that was first wrinkling has now almost faded completely. Before Nuria stands the transparent form of a Faerie. The skeletal face still regards her with interest but Nuria can’t read any emotions or intentions on the clear, white bone.

      The myths are wrong. Nuria takes an involuntary step back from Ahternity. Widening the distance between them that she’d been trying so hard to lessen. Ahternity isn’t ageless at all.

      As she had begun to suspect, the figure before her seemed to be having trouble staying upright. The skeletal faerie swayed back and forth in the air. Suddenly, it raised a hand and pointed a long, bony finger at the bright entryway she had come through. Nuria looked and then turned back to the faerie just in time to see a small white cloud of dust be whisked away by an unknown breeze.

      That was not what I expected. Nuria took a moment to settle herself. Breathing deeply, she inhaled through her nose, held it, and exhaled from her mouth. She felt the heat of her wings and the stillness of the room around her.

      A scratchy, scrabbling noise reached her ears. She turned back to the entryway to find a large, looming shadow approaching. Her wings blazed and she felt her right hand fill with fire.

      From the blindingly bright hallway, emerged a surprisingly small shape. Red-brown fur and golden jewellery. A well-adorned Desert Symol stood in the doorway before her with its small eyes fixed pointedly on her. It paused for a moment, twisted to lick and bite at its back left foot, and then scurried back out the way it came.

      Not very talkative around here, are we? Nuria thought but she had gotten the message clear enough. Look at the Symol, follow the Symol. Her wings beat softly and she flew just a few inches off the floor to follow after the mysterious Petpet.

      - - -

      They’d walked for hours under the sweltering suns of the desert. Her guide, the abnormally quick Desert Symol, never looked back or seemed tired. Nuria, on the other hand, was exhausted. She’d slept very little since stealing the hourglass from Fyora’s vault and was really beginning to feel it. Her wings were mere embers on her back and at times there seemed to be two of the little Symol swimming in her vision. She managed to stay upright though. This wasn’t her first trek through the desert and it wouldn’t be her last.

      The Symol led them past sand dune after an identical sand dune. Nuria felt she was treading the same ground but Temple of the Sun seemed to be left far behind them at least. She had been surprised to see it here and at the same time, it seemed only fitting. The terrible place seemed to be a part of her now. Whether it squeezed its way in all those years ago or she built it up inside of herself from memory, she wasn’t sure or wasn’t ready to face.

      She tried to change her thread of thought. The desert was hot enough without dwelling on the shame of what she’d allowed herself and her grief to become. She tried to think of the graceful figure and shining eyes of her best friend. It was hard to think her name without saying it aloud and she dared not speak it in this place but the light of her old friend’s eyes seemed a respite from these terrible thoughts and heat. The year they’d spent together was a hot one too. They were young, on their first assignment, and fittingly stranded in the Lost Desert. Nuria remembered how the desert sun had shown through her light faerie companion’s golden hair. How they’d flown for hours and hours, certain that Fyora’s assignment was based on bad information.

      Her laugh was like rain in that desert heat. I barely even noticed how exhausted I was.

      Suddenly, her Symol guide came to a stop and sniffed the air. It turned a small circle as it sniffed and then approached a nearby sand dune. It sat down with a huff and regarded the sand dune seriously. Nuria watched for a moment and then approached to observe the sand herself. It didn’t seem there was anything special about it. It was no larger or smaller than the other dunes.

      “Excuse me,” A youthful voice came from behind. “I’d like to apologize for earlier.”

      Nuria turned to face the speaker, knowing already what she would find, and saw the young faerie from before with her curls and golden swirls. She didn’t appear any older than thirteen. She hovered a few feet off the ground before settling and smoothing her black dress with her small hands.

      “I had trouble maintaining my form and finding my voice.” Her ruby eyes sparkled with mystery as they bore into Nuria’s. She suddenly felt very exposed despite the fact that she hadn’t even said anything to the faerie yet. She took a deep breath.

      “Hello, I’m Nuria,” The words came slowly and with uncertainty but they came. “I came to seek the aid of Ahternity. Is that you?”

      The young faerie smiled and nodded.

      “I am called Ahternity though it has not always been my name.”

      “So, the myths are true! You used to be a fire faerie like me.”

      “Once, yes. Though it was longer than long ago and is not such a pleasant tale.” The young faerie stepped forward and knelt beside the Symol. She gave him a light pat on the head and began scratching behind his ears. “Nice work. Thank you.” She stood again and faced the sand dune.

      Nuria watched the Symol scurry away and then turned back to the young faerie with the golden wings.

      “My wings weren’t always like this.” Nuria found herself feeling the heat she was usually able to ignore. “Something terrible happened. I’m still not sure what. A spell or trap or something.”

      Ahternity turned to face Nuria as the faerie’s wings began to crackle loudly with flame and fire.

      “I was in the next chamber and I got these. I barely feel them anymore but my… someone I cared about…” Nuria brushed a stinging tear from her cheek. “They were right there, where it happened, they-they’re gone now. I lost them.”

      The time faerie said nothing as Nuria confessed her heart’s truest desires but Nuria watched the young faerie as she became an adult. Her mouth grew harder and wrinkles grew between her brows. Nuria couldn’t help but notice that Ahternity’s eyes did not change. They held the same sincere sparkle from youth to maturity. That sincerity infused her with the courage to continue.

      “They said I would move on. That it would get better in time.” Nuria shook her head as the tears came again. She focused on the sand at her feet. “It hasn’t. It hasn’t at all. Or, maybe I just-” Maybe I just can’t let go of the only person who’s ever loved me. The thought was too painful, too shameful to share.

      “Nuria,” The time faerie spoke in their light voice but it held a wizened edge now. “I understand your pain. Loss is equal and absolute. We all feel its weight one day.”

      Nuria bit her lip. If all the myths are true… A shiver ran between her wings. Ahternity knew loss more than most ever would.

      “But,” Ahternity’s voice hung heavy in the air. “This is not the way. You cannot return to those moments as they were and the past certainly can’t be altered without significant consequence.”

      “You don’t understand.” Nuria tried to keep her voice even but she felt her wings blazing on her back. “I’ll just warn her about the temple, I can save her!”

      “No, child, you don’t understand.” The faerie’s voice was rich with magical authority but it still maintained a polite manner. “Time is not like a book. You cannot flip backwards to see it again. Time is sand in the hourglass, moments fall where they may.”

      “You think I can’t find her? Isn’t that why you brought me all the way out here? Because you did?” Nuria gestured to the sand dune.

      “I didn’t find her. The Symol found you. Some of the granules in this sand dune are the moments of your life. They are mixed and intermingled with who knows how many other lives because that’s how time works. It just falls into place. There’s no rhyme, reason, or patterns.”

      “So, she’s in there. We’re in there. Together.” Nuria felt drawn to the sand dune like a flame.

      “Even if you found her, it would just be a moment. And, once you begin mixing moments, by adding yourself into the past, new ones will fall and mix together. Most will be innocuous but some… Well, it could be a very different world from what you remember.” Ahternity’s voice was beginning to sound tired. Nuria knew that behind her the time faerie was ageing into her elder years and would soon be the frightening skeletal fragment of herself she had seen before.

      “I’m going to find her.” Nuria’s voice was quiet but filled with magic. Her wings blazed intensely behind her.

      “No,” The time faerie’s voice boomed but Nuria could hear its strange skeletal rasping still. “You’re just going to disappoint yourself further. Nevertheless, good luck.”

      A bitter wind picked up in that moment and Nuria knew that the pale cloud of white dust would be scattered with it until Ahternity reformed herself yet again. She’ll probably be back quickly. She seemed stronger that time than when we first met. Nuria looked around to make sure the Symol wasn’t hanging around either and then began to circle the sand dune.

      If the sands are moments in time then I should be able to open them up and fly into them somehow. She lifted herself high off the ground and then poured magic into her wings and her skin as she plummeted down toward the sand dune. She flew into it full force and got a face full of sand in return. Her fists came slamming down against the sand with fiery intensity. Nuria’s heart beat loudly in her ears. I’m so sick of sand! She thought and flew back up again. Her wings blazed and her hands filled with fire. She cried out as she pointed both hands and poured two streams of fire onto the sand dune.

      The heat was intense even to Nuria as she held her battle cry and the magic for as long as she could before finally tiring out and collapsing back to the ground. She breathed heavily as she knelt on the sand and then looked up to regard her sand dune nemesis.

      The smoke cleared and in the air hung hundreds of tiny portals. Nuria could see herself even from a distance as she moved through the moments of her past. And there, early on, was the sparkle of a light faerie’s wings. Nuria’s wings blazed yet again and she shot off from her kneeling position. She called out to the portal with her magic and it expanded rapidly. She raced through the sparkling magic.

     - - -

      Year Four

      The Temple of the Sun sat huge and grotesque in the cold desert night. Its stone walls had become crooked and misaligned from years of slowly collapsing around its own weight. Everything about the place seemed wrong. There was moss or mold growing in the corners and shadows despite the arid air and no small creatures ever ventured inside.

      The ancient temple was quiet, the faeries had gone to bed hours ago and the meteors stopped falling shortly after. Nuria regarded the temple solemnly. She had once been so insatiably curious about this place but its presence in her life had only spoiled and soured as time went on. The more they had seemed to learn about the temple the less they knew what to believe at all. She tried to release the thoughts and return to formulating a plan.

      Nuria, for some reason, hadn’t expected to find her younger counterpart here. She had mistakenly assumed that her essence would only manifest in one body but clearly, she would have to find a way to navigate this path with her past self included. Maybe she could engineer some kind of distraction and lure the young fire faerie away from the temple. Just then, as if Nuria had called her own name, her younger self stepped out of the darkened temple entrance and took to the air toward her. Nuria gulped and felt her wings alight with anxiety.

      The young fire faerie landed a few paces away and they stood regarding each other for a long moment. Nuria noticed her younger self’s eyes dwelled on the burning wings of flame on her back for a long time. I hope you never have to feel their heat, she thought. The younger faerie still sported her brilliant wings of yellow and red. There was some understanding between them and no sense of their magics poking and prodding at each other but just flowing together as one.

      “It’s hard to explain.” Nuria began. “But, I’m here to help you.”

      “Something is going to happen to her.” Her past self asserted. Nuria found her own voice to be surprisingly unfamiliar.

      “No.” Nuria said firmly. “Not if you leave this place and never come back.”

      The fire faerie thought for a moment. A cool breeze blew across the still sands of the nighttime desert.

      “She’ll never go for it.” She said finally. “The Academy would throw us both out and she’s worked so hard to get here.”

      “I know that.” Nuria said. “You have to convince her, tell her what will happen.”

      “She’ll say that we can just be more careful now that we know about the risks.”

      “Risks? This is beyond risk!” Nuria felt the heat of her anger and her wings as she raised her voice. “This is a fact. There’s something in there, you wake it up, and she-“

      Suddenly, the two faeries are bathed in brilliant white light. Dread and anticipation well in Nuria’s stomach. Xoe. But, it wasn’t and as quickly as the light arrived, it moved on. Moving fast across the desert. Nuria and her younger self take a few steps forward involuntarily as they watch in shock and wonder. A large spaceship is moving quickly through the night sky. Somewhere in Nuria’s mind is a memory of a ship like this but she can’t place it.

      “What’s in that direction?” Nuria asked quietly.

      “Sakhmet, and Qasala are just over that dune to the west.”

      “We need to follow that ship.” Nuria’s fiery wings beat heavily and she soared straight up into the night sky. The younger fire faerie followed her up quickly.

      “What about Xoe? She’s asleep at the camp.” She said.

      “We can go check it out and come straight back.”

      “But, the temple? You said it’s dangerous?”

      “It is!” Nuria called as she took off through the air toward the foreign lights. But it’s not awake yet.

      - - -

      The ship hovered over Sakhmet with its blinding searchlights turned off. The base of the spaceship appeared to be no more than a few meters above the tallest spire of Sakhmet’s palace. As the capital of the Lost Desert, Sakhmet is large and opulent with many beautiful buildings, Neopets, and cultural wonders to behold. The faeries waited on a distant sand dune and watched the ship.

      “How did you find me anyway?” Nuria asked.

      “Something she said,” the younger faerie replied “I felt the heat of your wings.”

      “Hm.”

      “How did you manage to go back in time? Can I do that?” The fire faerie eyed Nuria.

      “I met Ahternity.” Nuria said with a smile.

      “What?!” The faerie gasped. “She’s real? And, she helped you come back here?”

      “Well, not exactly.” Nuria replied. “She said it might make things happen that aren’t supposed to.”

      “Like what?”

      A high-pitched whine filled the air. The sound of metal scraping against metal on a massive scale. Both faeries' full attention returned to the ship before them. Something began to fall from the ship, small and dark, then another, and another. The ship streamed packages like raindrops. Like an invasion. Nuria’s rage burned hot in her chest and on her back.

      “Go get Xoe.” Nuria said through gritted teeth. “Now.”

      - - -

      It hadn’t been more than a couple of minutes since her past self flew away that she heard a small musical voice behind her.

      “Hello.”

      Nuria turned slowly as her heart pounded in her chest and her ears. She came around to face the beautiful angular face of her very best friend. Xoe’s long strawberry blonde hair was messy in the most pleasing way, her wings fluttered softly behind her and caused tiny refractions all around her like a frame of light.

      Xoe’s eyes were just how she remembered them. A soft, unassuming blue that was more reminiscent of a Beekadoodle than the sea. They seemed to sparkle as the young light faerie gazed back at her. They looked at each other in silence and that quiet seemed to fill a hole that had been gaping in Nuria’s chest for a long while. The horrific truth of their research in the Lost Desert’s Temple of the Sun had come swiftly and violently, taking them both by surprise and stealing some innocent part of them that couldn’t be returned. Xoe couldn’t confide this to Nuria of course, she had lost more than her innocence to the temple, but Nuria could tell that something had changed and she had lived with that absence of spark for years after the culmination of the events. She had walked the desert a hundred times over, wandering, searching, longing to fill that hole.

      It seemed that they were the only two in the world as they gazed at each other. Nuria finding something she’d long lost and bearing the weight of the things she’d done to find it again. Xoe searching for an answer as to what had happened to this faerie that stood before her, someone who so very resembled her best friend.

      “How long have you been there?” Nuria asked.

      “I followed her out of the temple.” An obvious yet shocking answer. Nuria couldn’t think of what to say in response.

      “How does it happen?” Xoe asked quietly. Her eyes searched Nuria’s fervently.

      “I’m not sure. I was making dinner and you were still cataloguing artefacts. I tried to get to you but…” Nuria trailed off. “Your Ashley Quick CD was playing.”

      Xoe’s face reddened and her eyes filled with tears.

      “And, that’s how you got those?” Xoe nodded toward Nuria’s burning wings.

      “No,” Nuria dropped her gaze to the sandy earth. “I was hurt but nothing serious. This happened when…”

      “What?” Xoe asked.

      “When I found you.”

      “Oh.” She said softly. A silence grew between them for a few moments. Nuria felt confused. There was so much she wanted to say and yet it didn’t feel like she thought it would. Maybe because of the presence of her younger counterpart, or maybe, she wondered, due to how much time had passed for her. How had she not considered that it might be wrong to share the trauma of someone passing with the person before they’d passed? Now, in the chill of the desert night, it seemed ridiculous and cruel. A streak of orange light was approaching fast and Nuria turned back to observe the city of Sakhmet again. She heard the young fire faerie land behind her in a flutter of wings.

      “I’m glad you’re alright,” She heard the voice of her past self. “I was so worried when you weren’t there.”

      “I’m sorry, I should have told you.” Xoe’s musical voice. “I was just afraid and confused and I wanted to-“

      “I get it, I would have done the same thing.” The fire faerie said, “So, what’s going on?”

      “It’s an invasion, Dr. Sloth by the look of it, I must have pulled it with me somehow because he never invaded Sakhmet in my time. Those look like Virtupet robots that have been dropping into the city for the last ten minutes.”

      “The royal guard and city watch won’t hold them for long.”

      The three faeries took off in streaks of brilliant magical light into the chilly night air and flew in an arc over the walls of Sakhmet.

      - - -

      Sakhmet was under siege. The royal guard was doing much better than expected but they were simply outnumbered. Their ornate steel and gold armour and long scimitars were more formidable than they appeared as well. The three faeries had divided themselves amongst the city proper with Nuria taking the palace and its surrounding district. Nuria had no trouble with the robots individually, their blasters were a mild enough strike and they seemed unfamiliar with the magics she levelled at them. Most unnerving, was their pixelated faces that seemed to never stop smiling.

      Nuria spotted two Gnorbus with ornate beads and feathers in their manes being surrounded and flew over to hover above them. She spun in a slow circle and felt her palms fill with an immense heat. Then, she released two thin streams of fire from her palms and obliterated the surrounding robots. She nodded at the pair of Gnorbus and flew back up to a better viewing height. The city was awash with smoke and sand but overall the damage to the buildings seemed minimal. Nuria could see her younger self lobbing fireballs from the roof of a building but couldn’t find Xoe in the commotion.

      A great siren began to sound from the ship, wailing over and over again. Nuria turned her attention to the Virtupets’ ship and saw that the stream of robots had paused for a moment. Then, one descended by itself. One lone robot? Or… Nuria flew closer and watched as the figure landed. Dr. Frank Sloth, or an excellent facsimile, regarded the battle-worn city with a foul smirk. His long black coat trailed the ground and his right hand held a chrome blaster while his left wielded a Sleep Ray.

      “Neopia,” His deep voice intoned. “I have come to set you free.”

      Above, the ship began releasing Virtupet robots once more. Their dark shapes clouded the sky. Nuria hoped that the other faeries were nearby but she couldn’t take her focus off of Dr. Sloth himself. She floated down to the ground and walked into his line of sight with her wings blazing. He raised the blaster in the air and fired a warning shot.

      “Faerie,” He began again. “You’ve done well protecting this place but now it’s-“

      A beam of pure yellow light exploded through Sloth exposing the wires and gears that were lying inside that hideous head. The Sloth robot collapsed before them. Xoe flickered into view as she released her invisibility spell and gave Nuria a reluctant smile. The moment was short-lived as more Virtupet forces had invaded during the confrontation. Xoe and Nuria dispatched a couple that were overwhelming the nearby guards and looked around for Nuria’s younger counterpart. She was nearby, on a different rooftop now, and keeping an eye on them as she conjured her fireballs.

      “Look! The ship!” A guard in the crowd shouted and dozens of faces turned to the sky. Virtupets had once again stopped streaming from the ship but that wasn’t what the guard had seen. The ship was growing closer, either falling or being driven by a malevolent force. Nuria heard Xoe gasp and their eyes locked.

      “How do we stop it?” She asked and Nuria looked back at the looming ship. The ship seemed to be the entire width of the city.

      “I don’t think we can.” Nuria said solemnly as she looked at the crowd of Neopets around her.

      “What do we do?” Xoe’s voice shook.

      “Save as many as you can.. Teleport, don’t fly, every second counts.”

      “I’m… not the best at teleportation.” Xoe said in her small voice.

      “Go somewhere familiar, somewhere…” Nuria’s stomach churned. Close. “Take them back to the temple, it’s not big enough to attract attention.”

      Xoe nodded and approached a nearby group of guards. Nuria flew over to her younger counterpart and told her the plan before approaching a nearby dwelling and knocking heavily on the door. A young Gelert answered the door with nervous eyes.

      “My friends and I are going to help your family. We need to get out of here, right now!”

      - - -

      The three faeries stood on the roof of the Temple of the Sun and watched Sakhmet crumble into dust and rejoin the desert sands it came from. They all wept openly as did the many Neopets below them that were able to be saved in time. The city had survived the ship’s impact well enough but shortly after a series of small explosions began in the back of the ship before ultimately engulfing the entire monstrous thing in flame. Nuria had flown through the burning city over and over saving anyone she could find but not everyone is as resistant to heat and smoke. All in all, it appeared they had saved less than half the city. Nuria stared at the ruins with sorrow and shame.

      I have to fix this, Ahternity was right, I can’t stay here. Nuria felt the heat of her wings on her back. Everything had turned out exactly how Fyora and Ahternity had said it would. Neopia was crumbling and it was all her fault. She’d failed. But, I warned them. They’re okay. Nuria glanced at the two young faeries on her left as they held each other in their grief. She had done something right. This younger version of herself wasn’t as bitter and jaded from decades alone and everyone in Neopia needed Xoe’s light even if they didn’t know it yet. Nuria had saved them. And, maybe she could again.

      “Can you take me to Faerieland?” She said suddenly. The two faeries looked at her quizzically with tear-stained cheeks. “I don’t see it on the horizon.”

      “It’s on the other side of the world.” Xoe explained with a sniffle.

      “Of course it is.” Nuria said.

      “Why are we going to Faerieland? Shouldn’t we stay and help these people?” Nuria’s younger counterpart asked.

      “They’ll be safe here for now. If Sloth has more invasion forces they are focused on the other large settlements.” Nuria’s stomach churned at the thought. “I think I can help them if we hurry.”

      “Let’s go, then.” Nuria’s past self replied and fluttered up into the air above them. Xoe nodded but looked down at the Neopets below them first and gave a small wave of her hand. Nuria watched as a soft light washed over the Neopets and they all seemed to be put at ease somehow.

      “That was lovely.” Nuria told the young light faerie before taking off into the air with her younger self.

      Xoe joined them and the three faeries took off through the atmosphere with a cacophonous boom as they rushed toward Faerieland. Despite the speed of their travel, Nuria was able to make out the world below in great detail. Qasala had also been invaded and it appeared the battle was ongoing, the Lost Desert itself seemed two or three times its usual size, and she thought she saw an unfamiliar creature made of plants and vines moving on the outskirts of the desert.

      The faeries soared through the blue and purple sky, breaking through clouds, leaving small trails of magic as they flew. They would be in Faerieland soon and Nuria would break into Fyora’s secret vault once more to find the Hourglass and return to the Sands of Time. Maybe by leaving this time Ahternity would be able to repair some of the damage or, at least, prevent more. Maybe. Nuria pushed herself to fly faster, faster, faster…

To be continued…