Hey there! Happy Easter to you too! -hides in corner- Please don't be angry with me. This is the first thing I've put up in a while and it isn't even the story that I'm supposed to be working on! I'm sorry about that. I'm working on said story as we speak, and hopefully I'll have a chapter to present to you all this week.
So~ About this story. I love playing The Darkest Faerie, neopets's game for the PS1 and PS2. The graphics are terrible, but I've loved it since I was in about sixth grade. This story will take many liberties with the game (distance between places for example). Please just follow along and enjoy. This story will also only be updated once a month, because I noticed I have been writing this story for months and only have two complete chapters. The next update will be told at the end of the chapter and it may in fact become sooner as I write more chapters and/or complete the story.
Neopets copyright Viacom (I believe). If I owned neopets, I'd be a liiiiittle less strict about a few things. Just a tad. And I'd add Tor and Roberta to the Gallery of Heroes!
If you steal this fanfic and submit it to the Neopian Times, I will hunt you down and hurt you. Badly. I'll send the Meepits on you too.
A pitiful moan brought him to the realm of consciousness. A shriek shook off all remnants of sleep completely. Tor jumped up with his sword unsheathed, but stopped when a wail escaped Roberta's mouth. Immediately he knelt by her side and tried to think of what he could do to wake her. "Roberta?" he asked, shaking her form. She would not wake. "Roberta!" he cried, trying again.
Hot tears began to slip down her blue cheeks. He put a paw to her forehead; a fever. Did she catch a local illness? Is she having a nightmare that causes fevers? he wondered, shaking her again. I've got to find help, he decided, and swiftly pulled their things together. Once he was finished, he gathered her in his arms.
They were three days away from Market Town, and even with a Meerca speed potion, Tor knew he wouldn't make it there fast enough. There must be some place nearby, he thought desperately as the Acara in his arms began crying from pain. He began running in a random direction, a small light mote leading the way.
There! A glimmer of light! Tor ran for it, and as he came closer, he realized it was a manor house. It must have been a trader in Market Town that liked to have his privacy. "Please, help!" he started shouting, hoping to alert the owners awake. He collapsed at the gate, already exhausted from carrying Roberta the entire way. "Someone, help me! My companion's hurt!" he shouted, rattling the gate.
At last, the door swung open, and he saw people running towards him. "Please, help me," he called weakly, as he felt fatigue catch up with him. In the back of his mind, before he lost consciousness, he told himself he needed to train if he couldn't carry Roberta without passing out.
"What are we going to do? I don't even know what's happened to them. The girl won't wake and the boy passed out," a feminine voice muttered quietly as Tor felt himself returning to consciousness.
"I checked over the girl. She has a good deal of bad injuries. Several look like sword wounds, truthfully. This Lupe here has some too, actually. It looks like one of hers is poisoned, though."
"Poison?" Tor yelped, fully awake. A soft pair of paws pushed him back down.
"Lie down. You passed out at our front gate last night; you must be terribly exhausted," the owner of those hands ordered. Tor looked up to see a pretty pink Aisha girl wearing a deep green dress. Behind her was a Shoyru dressed in a thick red coat, though it was nearing the end of summer and the weather still quite warm.
"Where am I? Where's Roberta?" he asked, unable to help himself.
"You are three or so days from Market Town, in Brightvale. If that blue Acara you came with is the one you call Roberta, she is in the room next door," the Shoyru answered. "Who are you?"
"I see. I am Tormund, though I go by Tor. I'm a knight from Meridell, Third Class." Tor felt ridiculous for saying all that and clumsily went through his title. He still wasn't quite used to introducing himself as a knight, it seemed.
"I am Lady Lily, and this is my sister, Lady Rose," the Shoyru introduced, she and her sister curtsying.
"Wait a minute…" Rose looked to Lily, a look of realization crossing her face. "Isn't Lady Roberta a blue Acara? I heard she was traveling…"
"Yes, she is—you don't mean to tell me that it's Lady Roberta that's in my bedroom, crying in pain, do you?" Lily cried in shock.
They turned to Tor expectantly. "Er, yes, that is the truth. I don't know what's wrong with her, though!" he defended, lifting his paws. "She just started making pained noises last night a few hours after we had gone to sleep. Did you say she was poisoned?"
"Perhaps you had better come and see for yourself," the Aisha replied instead of properly answering him. Tor leaped out of bed and eagerly followed the pair out of the room. They led him into another chamber, this one filled with books of all sorts. By the bed was another Aisha, this one starry in color and clothed in silver. She turned her head and sighed sadly at their entrance.
"Is she any different, Violet?" Lily asked.
"No. Her fever's risen. I don't understand what kind of poison it is." She smoothed one of her extra ears down in agitation.
The three gathered around the bed next to her, gazing at the Acara in concern. Tor noticed they had removed her armor for a simple white gown and had changed the bandages on her hands. "Will she die?" he asked, frightened.
"Not if something can be done. What happened to her?" Rose asked.
"I don't know. We've been fighting an awful lot of monsters lately; it could have been a number of things."
"All right, start by explaining how she got this." Lily pulled Roberta's right sleeve up to reveal a nasty wound. It hadn't closed over and was festering. A dark, pulsating light seemed to dimly glow around it.
Tor's eyes widened. He definitely remembered that horrible injury. The Black Knight had stabbed her in the arm, making her drop her wand momentarily. Tor recalled feeling a terrible fear that the rest of Roberta would be hurt by that same weapon. Thankfully, she hadn't been hit, choosing instead to stand back and use her other arm to fire spells. "We were fighting the Black Knight over by Market Town. His sword did this," he explained simply. "It must have been at least a week ago, maybe a few days more than that."
"She's been hiding it exceptionally well from you," Rose commented, a hint of surprise in her voice, "if you haven't noticed her in pain."
Tor opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted. "All right, so we know where the wound came from. How can we heal it?" Lily asked, getting down to business.
If she doesn't get better, I'll be in huge trouble with King Hagan, Tor thought. A shiver went down his spine as he imagined what the King of Brightvale could do to him.
"Sir Tor, do you have any motes on you?" Rose asked, interrupting his thoughts.
"Yes I do. Do you think they'll help her?"
"Earth motes would help take away the poison. Light motes would help draw out the dark magic remnants. Water motes might even help cool her fever," Violet rattled off automatically, as if from a textbook. "We'll need an actual antidote, though. This is a wicked piece of work."
"I might have a book on cursed weapons," Lily offered. "Let's see if we can find something there." She stood up and began searching through the stacks of books she had.
"Sir Tor—" Rose began.
"Actually, you can just call me Tor, my lady. I'm not all that used to being spoken to with a title yet," Tor interrupted. He didn't think now was the time for formalities, either, but he wasn't going to say that to her.
She looked mildly surprised, but nodded. "All right then, Tor. Do you know how to use a wand at all?"
He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "No, actually. Roberta and I decided that it would be best if she was the only one to handle the wand. Something about delicate balance and tricky magic. I taught her some sword moves, though. I didn't think it was a good idea to leave her defenseless, should something happen to her wand."
The three ladies nodded. "Do you know how to handle the motes, then? I'm assuming you do, if you have them equipped to your armor." Rose tilted her head at his royal armor he was still wearing.
"Yes. Are you saying I need to place them on her arm?"
"That is exactly what we're saying," Violet told him, her mouth smiling slightly. "Rose, perhaps you should help Lily." Her sister moved to help the other girl in the room instead of replying. The starry Aisha turned again to him. "Take out your stronger earth mote, if you have one. Don't even think of saving it for something else—Lady Roberta's life is much more important."
He gulped and did as he was told. The rock motes looked at him, as sullen as when he had picked up the first one. She guided his hands over to Roberta's arm, and helped him place the motes on it. Green light pooled over her limb as they began trying to help her recover. "Do I do the same thing with the light motes?" he asked.
"Yes. After you do that, I want you to place a weak water mote on her forehead. A fever is good for the body, but we want her to be as comfortable as we can possibly make it." She watched with a careful eye as he followed her instructions. The sun motes spun in circles before attempting to smother the dark magic. "It looks like we're going to need to do this at least twice a day," she commented after testing the wound. "This is strong dark magic. At least the earth motes seem to be helping." Violet peered over her shoulder to her sisters. "How's that search coming along?"
"We might have found something. Come and look," Lily replied.
It was then that Tor realized something as he followed the starry Aisha. He was alone with three elegant ladies who had probably never in their whole lives been without a chaperone of some sort. In addition, he came from a completely different background than they. A wave of confusion welled within him; surely they knew he was not of their class? Even if they were merely wealthy merchants and not nobles, the three of them were still in a world far from his own. Is this how all ladies in Brightvale act?
He looked at the book page Lily was showing them, and jolted. Illustrated on one side was the Black Knight. "How did the artist get such a good look at him?" he asked. "The Black Knight would have tried attacking him."
"Well, you see, the artist who illustrated this had very strong wings," Lily replied with a wry smile. "Anyway, it says here that his weapon is dipped with a poison and forged with evil magic. The strange thing is that the magic only affects magicians. That's probably why you're not hurt the same way she is."
Tor nodded. He had been hurt by the poison, but Roberta had easily cured him with a spell and some potions they had with them. "Hey, I have some potions she used on me. Would they help her?" he asked excitedly.
They looked at each other tensely. "Um, well, we already tried that," Rose replied quietly. "We noticed you had some in your bags, so we attempted curing her. The only thing it's done is stop the poison from spreading."
Tor's shoulders slumped and he sighed. "Then what are we to do?" he pleaded. "We have an important task to finish. I can't do this alone."
"We will try healing her," Violet replied fiercely. "She is one our precious leaders, even though she is quite young. Lady Roberta is a princess in her own right."
A princess? I've been traveling with a princess this whole time and she never said anything? Tor thought. He felt as if his brain died and was trying to revive itself. Except… Maybe she did tell me, I just didn't think she was telling me. Roberta told him once that her uncle was the King of Brightvale—something he knew very well. Since King Skarl was King Hagan's brother, adding the new information from Lady Violet, it must be that King Skarl was also her uncle. Tor knew King Skarl had no heirs of his own, so it meant that Roberta was, in fact, a princess as his heiress.
And yet… she was willing to travel with him, talk with him, do everything with him? Brightvale must really produce the best neopets in the world, he thought. "How shall we begin, then?" he asked.
"Head to Market Town and talk to a pharmacist. We'll take a sample of her blood with us so he might determine the source of the poison. If that doesn't work, we'll retrieve the Black Knight's sword and see if we can find the poison," Rose replied.
"But, who's going to look after Roberta? We can't take her with us."
"Our brother will," Lily answered with a smile. "He'll be home tonight, so we can depart tomorrow morning."
"Will he approve of me, a complete stranger, traveling with you young ladies?" Tor asked, a little nervous. He was only sixteen and he didn't want to get in trouble with the nobles already.
Violet giggled. "Our dear little brother is about your age, Tor. He'll be glad to look after Lady Roberta and so long as you're helping, he'll overlook the fact that he doesn't know you."
"Who knows?" Lily said cheerfully. "He might end up befriending you."
Tor sincerely hoped they were right.
Does this look interesting? See you next month~ The update will be May 25th.
Oh, and yeah, the pets that he meets are in fact based upon mine. I have two Aishas, a Shoyru, and a Kougra (the brother) on my main account. The intention was a Royal Girl Aisha, a Starry Aisha, and a Christmas Shoyru, but I had to rearrange things.
Please take the time to review! I would love to hear what you think. :)
