Celebrations, and the Pitfalls Therein

     This was for several reasons. First and foremost was that this year’s festival had, in fact, been taking place two months before. Ironically, he had been there – or nearby, at least – just in time for its abrupt and premature conclusion.

     He’d had plenty of time to regret that his actions that day mostly consisted of selling a dangerous magical artefact on the black market to a known supervillain. But that was before the revelation that the buyer was not who “he” seemed and that Hanso’s theft and sale of the artefact had more-or-less contributed to the real villain outing herself. He’d since come to the conclusion that, at the end of the day, said actions were probably a good thing.

     Accidentally a good thing, but it was better than nothing. Happy birthday to him, he thought wryly.

     “Do you ever stop to think about just how weird our lives have gotten?” Hanso asked the Brightvalean knight who’d been his several-times arresting officer and long, ill-kept-secret crush as she fiddled with the stuffy bowtie of his borrowed suit.

     Brynn paused for a moment to give him a faintly amused look. “Do you mean the part where we’re actually working together now, or the part where Queen Fyora herself wants us to start hunting down dangerous faerie artefacts for her?”

     Hanso thought it over for a moment. “The first one, mostly. And also the fact that we’re being hosted by a faerie. Whose house has visible cracks in it. Because Faerieland is on the ground for the first time in anyone’s memory.”

     The faerie in question, a bubbly Air Faerie by the name of Issandra, was a clerk for the Faerieland palace. Despite the aforementioned cracks in her house’s walls, it was one of the relative few that had suffered no serious structural damage in the Fall of Faerieland and was still deemed stable. She’d promptly opened her home up to as many of the less fortunate Faerielanders as she could while their homes were being rebuilt.

     Until their own living situations could be ironed out, this also happened to include Faerieland’s newest heroes.

     “Do you think we’re gonna get rooms in the palace?” Hanso continued, swatting Brynn’s hands away as he finally got fed up with her miniscule adjustments to his tie. She wasn’t normally the type to fuss over appearances, so he could only guess that she was treating this like some kind of military dress uniform… thing.

     Brynn let out a small huff, but let the bowtie be. “That will probably depend on how the barracks are set up,” she replied, turning back toward the mirror to scrutinise her own attire. “At least, for me it will. Your position is technically part of the guard, but I’m not sure what Queen Fyora has planned for accommodations.”

     She frowned and started to brush at and smooth down her dress. It was a simple, practical gown of a deep blue colour that Issandra had lent to her for the occasion. Hanso privately found it much nicer than the stiff Neovian-style suit she’d found for him.

     “Okay, Brynn,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve successfully banished every single speck of dust in this room. Can we get going now?”

     Brynn let out a low sigh. “Sorry. It’s just, we’re among the first Neopets to ever be specially invited to a Faerie Festival. I want us to make a good impression, especially with everything that just happened.”

     Hanso smirked. “I thought everything that just happened was why we were invited to this shindig.”

     Brynn scowled at his reflection in the mirror, but there was no real bite to it. “You know what I mean.”

     By the time the two of them left the bathroom they were sharing with a half dozen other people, Issandra’s house was uncharacteristically quiet. Most of the faeries had already gone to the make-up Faerie Festival to celebrate their recovery from petrification. And with Queen Fyora officially opening this one to all Faerielanders in a show of unity after the Fall, many pets had left or were preparing to do so as well.

     One of the exceptions, a Faerie Blumaroo who’d just recently returned from his evacuation of the kingdom, looked up from the book he was reading. “You two still here?" he asked. “I figured Queen Fyora’d want to host a big ceremony for you or something.”

     Brynn gave her dress one last self-conscious tug and said, “She does, but it isn’t happening for another hour. We’re heading that way now.”

     The Blumaroo nodded. “Fair enough. Well, have fun at the festival, big-time heroes. I might take a look later, but for now I’m just enjoying a break from all the chaos.”

     Hanso shot his housemate his best dazzling smile and hoped his uncertainty at that statement didn’t leak through. Big-time heroes. That was probably the weirdest part of all these recent events.

     It was impressive how thoroughly the faeries could set up a party when they put their minds to it. Barely a week had passed since the Fall of Faerieland, and yet even amidst all the broken-up streets and ruined buildings, it was easy to tell that the festivities were well underway. The same grounds that had hosted the previous, ill-fated Faerie Festival were cleared of rubble and swept of dust. Broken pillars and statues were covered as artfully as they could be by decorated tarps or strung with faerie lanterns and streamers in defiance of the sense of loss they’d otherwise inspire. And among it all, faeries walked and flew and did that weird swim-flying thing Water Faeries did on land, sharing greetings and goodies with one another as well as the wide-eyed Neopians who were probably attending the Faerie Festival for the first time.

     Hanso and Brynn were still at the fringes of the gathering, but it wasn’t long before one of the faeries spotted them. “Oh!” she called out before fluttering to them on delicate-looking yellow wings. She was a Light Faerie, with a regal and somewhat mysterious air that reminded Hanso of Fyora, and when she spoke her accent was faintly Altadorian and something else he couldn’t quite place.

     “You two must be Hanso and Brynn,” she said. “King Altador has spoken highly of you both.”

     Hanso just raised an eyebrow at that, but Brynn let out a small gasp of recognition and bowed her head in respect.

     “Lady Siyana!” she said just a little too quickly. “It’s an honour and a pleasure to meet you.”

     The faerie (Siyana apparently, which made a lot of sense now that Hanso thought about it) placed an encouraging hand on her shoulder and offered them both a good-natured smile. “Please, the pleasure is all mine. The two of you have done Altador a great service, not to mention the rest of the world.”

     A playful smile tugged at the corner of Hanso’s mouth. “Do you mean Altador the Lupe, or Altador the country?”

     Brynn whipped around to shoot him a warning glare, but Siyana just giggled behind her hand.

     “Both, if we’re being completely fair,” she said. Then, leaning in toward Brynn with a wink, she conspiratorially whispered, “I can see why you keep him around.”

     Brynn was two steps away from being completely mortified at this point, but Hanso decided he already liked this faerie. “So, is the big guy here?” he asked, peering around Siyana’s shoulder as if Altador (the Lupe, not the country) was about to materialise behind her.

     Siyana nodded. “Oh, yes. He wanted to go looking for The Betrayer’s statue right after checking in on our kingdom, but Psellia and I convinced him to start his search here and take a day or two at the festival while he’s at it. Goodness knows the man could use a break.”

     Turning, she pointed past a number of game booths, toward the centre of the festival grounds. “If you’re looking for the stage, it’s down that way. Altador is off socialising somewhere at the moment, but I believe Marius and Pollux have already gone to wait for the ceremony.”

     After a few more pleasantries, Hanso and Brynn decided to head in that direction. They took a roundabout route, avoiding the crowds among the game booths and the stands peppered about that were selling food and trinkets by cutting across a small field serving as a green. They managed to avoid attracting too much attention in the bustle this way, and Hanso was once again free to appreciate how quickly the faeries could set up a shindig. He’d have to try out some of the games once the Queen’s fancy ceremony was over.

     Another faerie was waiting for them at a pavilion that had been set up as a stage right where Siyana said it would be. She ushered the two of them behind the curtain with no small degree of enthusiasm at their presence, and in the enclosed back space they found a pair of familiar Altadorian guards sitting at a table off to the side.

     The Draik, Marius, let out a good-natured snort upon spotting Brynn and Hanso. “Well, long time no see,” he said wryly. He and his partner Pollux were wearing parade armour, as functional as it was fancy and much cooler looking than Hanso’s own suit.

     For a split second, Hanso wished he’d thought of that. Then he remembered that he was the only one here who didn’t wear armour.

     Brynn plopped into an open chair gracelessly, already more at ease in the presence of her fellow guards. “See, you’re joking, but in some ways it actually does feel like it’s been a while.”

     Marius nodded. “I know what you mean; It’s been a long week. But it still feels strange being back here already. I don’t think Master Hikaru even made it back from Shenkuu in time.”

     Pollux looked up from where he was munching on flower crackers. “King Jazan isn’t here either,” the big Skeith added.

     Marius shrugged. “True, but I overheard Ladies Siyana and Psellia making bets on whether he couldn’t make it or just decided he was done socialising for a while. Not sure how they plan to figure out which one is right, though.”

     Hanso took the last free chair and swiped some flower crackers from the bowl Pollux was hogging. The guards could talk about long weeks all they wanted, but he figured he had them all beat. He was the one who’d gone from their little squad’s outcast to its hero in less than an hour, after all.

     He paused for a moment as the thought crossed his mind, and then shook his head and stuffed his face with the crackers. Trying to make a competition out of that sort of thing tended to annoy people, anyway. To keep the conversation going, he said through a mouthful of crumbs, “Well, at least we’re here. Five out of seven ain’t bad on such short notice.”

     Brynn nodded, choosing to ignore his lack of manners this time, and reached over to grab a couple flower crackers for herself. But Pollux frowned and drummed his claws on the table. “Weren’t there eight of us, though?” he asked.

     A heavy, awkward silence descended on the table. Brynn and Marius exchanged uneasy looks, but Hanso just rolled his eyes and broke the silence with a flat, “I’ve elected not to count Xandra, on the grounds of her being the one behind all the problems we wanted to stop and then trying to kill us all.”

     Brynn snorted with laughter and had to cover her mouth to keep from spewing half-eaten crumbs everywhere at his blunt assessment, and Marius let out a small chuckle of his own. “He’s got you there,” he told his fellow guard.

     Pollux held up his hands. “I was just saying…”

     The curtains started to rustle behind Hanso as the conversation went on, the noise and music filtering in from the Faerie Festival briefly becoming louder as one was pushed aside. He turned to find King Altador stepping in and making his way over to the little group. The king looked as regal as ever, but his face lit up upon finding Hanso and Brynn there.

     “Ah, Brynn, Hanso! It’s good to see you again,” he said, walking up and clapping both of them heartily on the shoulders. “I hope Faerieland is treating you well.”

     While Brynn simply smiled and greeted him back, Hanso smirked. “Uh, yeah Faerieland’s treating its heroes well. Surely you guys have gotten to experience some of it too.”

     Marius shrugged. “Maybe after we’re shown off at the ceremony, but we didn’t exactly get a chance to actually beat the bad guy. Most of the people here don’t recognise us like they do you.”

     “We did get a pretty big welcome back home, though,” Pollux reflected. “Probably not as big as you and Captain Brynn got here.”

     Brynn craned her head to look back toward the front of the pavilion, ears pricked for any changes in the noise outside. “Is the ceremony about to start?” she asked.

     Altador nodded. “Yes, I believe Queen Fyora will be starting in a few minutes. Hmm, Pollux, I would recommend putting those crackers down and cleaning up before that happens.”

     The ceremony was about as nice (and as boring) as Hanso expected. He and the other heroes waited behind the scenes while Queen Fyora gave a long speech about how Neopians all over the world had come together to help the faeries and their land in their time of need, and how she hoped to turn the tragedy of the Fall into an opportunity for Faerieland to unite and give back and become stronger than ever before. Then she bade him and the others to come forward to be formally acknowledged and thanked, both for their own efforts in undoing what Xandra had wrought and as a symbol of the thanks she wanted to extend to all who had aided and investigated during the faeries’ petrification.

     Hanso stood up in front of the crowd, smiling and waving in his stuffy suit, and that part was honestly not bad. He and Brynn – he especially – even got singled out and given special medals of honour for the parts they’d played in taking Xandra and her giant wraith buddy down.

     Then the ceremony ended, and they got to go out and mingle with the adoring crowds, and that’s where things got kind of crazy.

     “Of course the wraiths were freaky and dangerous. Nothing a quick-witted and charming thief like me couldn’t handle, though,” he said, flashing his most winning smile at the faerie who’d asked him the question.

     The faerie nodded enthusiastically and held out a book of some sort for him to autograph. Before he could, though, another faerie reached out from the crowd and touched his upper arm with a hand that was glowing with green magic.

     “This blessing will allow you to use an Earth Faerie spell,” she rattled off breathlessly. “Aethia can teach you how to use it!”

     Hanso blinked. “Uhh…” He debated pointing out that he already had more faerie blessings than he knew what to do with by now, but the Earth Faerie looked so pleased with herself that he just said, “Thanks.”

     Just as he finished signing the first faerie’s book – by which time three other people were trying to shove something else into his hands – a Korbat fluttered in among the crush of people. “Were you conscious or aware of anything when you were stone?” she asked, getting right in his face to take a closer look at his medal. “My faerie friends said they weren’t, but the spell that hit you was a little different from the one that hit them, so I want to know if the effects were different!”

     Hanso tried and failed to take a step back and give himself room to breathe. “Um, no I wasn’t. Did… you want me to sign anything?”

     A hand suddenly reached from somewhere behind him to grab his arm, and he was just about to snap something about personal space when he heard Brynn’s voice in his ear.

     “Are you enjoying the spotlight, or do you need a rescue?” she asked.

     Hanso couldn’t keep the relief off his face when he turned toward her. “The spotlight’s nice, but this is just getting ridiculous. I could use a little space.”

     Brynn gave him a wry smile. “Good, me too. I think it’ll be less hectic once we’re away from the stage.”

     She let her hand drop to grab his and pulled him through the crowd with an air of authority that forced it to part for the two of them. Once they’d escaped the mob, they made their way toward the game booths that they’d seen earlier.

     “You know,” he said after his third time being stopped for an autograph (and the second time Brynn had to give hers as well), “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m looking forward to when the hype dies down and I can enjoy a nice, normal level of fame.”

     Brynn playfully rolled her eyes. Clearly, the hordes of screaming fans had been enough to curb her worries about looking good to the crowd. “Only you would consider something a ‘normal’ level of fame.”

     “Hey, you forget, I used to work for Kanrik. I’ve seen how it works.”

     They’d made it to one of the booths by now, and Hanso gave it a good look-over. It was one of those ring-toss-onto-a-bottle games, only the bottles were bobbing gently as they magically floated in the air. He wondered whether it was as rigged as these bottle games usually were, or if the faerie running the booth figured her little floating trick made it challenging enough on its own, but either way it looked entertaining enough to waste a few Neopoints on. He took out his wallet.

     “Honestly?” Brynn said, leaning against the counter to watch him try his hand at the game. “I’m just looking forward to a Faerie Festival where we don’t have to dress up for a big ceremony. Queen Fyora said she was thinking of opening it up to more pets in the future.”

     Hanso nodded and made his first toss. The ring bounced off of a bottle’s side and clattered to the ground, but at least it gave him a better idea of how to throw them.

     “Yeah? I guess things are gonna be different for everyone now,” he replied.

     “Mm-hm.” Brynn’s tail swished lazily as she watched him miss his next two throws, each ring hitting the lip of the bottle but just missing its mark.

     “You really do deserve the good changes, you know.”

     Hanso fumbled his next toss and looked over at her. “What?”

     Brynn frowned. “I’ve seen the look you get sometimes. It’s not just that the praise gets overwhelming, is it? You’re afraid that all of this –” she nodded at the joyous festivities surrounding them “– isn’t really meant for you. That you don’t really belong.”

     She let her gaze drop to the ground, and her voice softened so that only he could hear it. “I feel the same way sometimes – it’s part of the reason I always want to make a good impression. And I won’t lie: selling stolen goods to someone you thought was Hubrid Nox was an ]incredibly stupid move, even if it did turn out for the best.”

     Hanso frowned. “Wait, I thought this was supposed to be a pep talk.”

     Brynn raised a hand. “Let me finish.” She looked back up, her intense gaze meeting his own.

     “My point is, it’s what you did afterwards that really counts. How you acted when things were at their worst and you could either doom the world to save yourself or doom yourself to save the world. That’s why all of this was even possible, and you deserve the people’s admiration for it.”

     She shrugged. “...Even if they do go a little overboard sometimes.”

     Hanso couldn’t help but smile at that. He even felt his face flush a little in the wake of such high praise from someone who knew him well enough to really mean it.

     Before he could respond, though, the sound of soft clapping drew both of their attention away from the game booth and one another. A young Air Faerie was hovering a short ways back from the booth, wings fluttering as she offered a sort of one-woman applause.

     “Oh, sorry. I couldn’t help but overhear,” the ventured as their eyes fell upon her. Focusing her attention on Hanso, she added, “She’s right, you know. I was actually wondering, um, would you like a faerie blessing? I can give you one.”

     Hanso cast Brynn a pleading look. She sighed, offered the faerie her best diplomatic smile, and said, “Thanks for the offer, but he has plenty of blessings already.”

     “Oh.” the faerie paused. “Do you want a blessing?”

     Brynn’s tail twitched. “No.”

     The faerie seemed to realise she’d pushed too far and struck a nerve, because she squeaked and flew off with one last hasty thanks.

     Hanso tossed a playful grin to his partner. “Thanks for that. I think I’m on the verge of combusting from all the magical blessings. Think I could get you as a bodyguard?”

     Brynn leaned back against the booth again and stuck her tongue out at him. “Too late, we’re already partners.”

     “Hmm. Shame.” Hanso returned to his game, took a few moments to carefully scrutinise the way the bottles bobbed in the air, and made his final throw. The ring hit the lip of a bottle just as it rose, spun around it a few times, and then slid smoothly down to fit perfectly around its neck.

     The End.