Disclaimer: Meh. I do not own MapleStory or its characters. I have the game of course. But seriously MapleStory belongs to Nexon.

'Someone has entered the time portal again.' Queen Ephenia thought, annoyance showing on her face.

It had been a long and tiring month for the Queen of the Fairies. Ever since the time portal opened, groups and groups time travelers had been going in and out of their time period. The humans' encampment had been affected by the corrupted time magic that came from the unstable portal, trapping them in a time loop, repeating events that had occurred right after the first visitor from the future entered Ellin Forest. The time travelers themselves were affected by the magic, having no choice but to play out the role of the first time traveler.

Unlike the humans, her area was completely unaffected by the corrupted magic, hence her time flowed normally. But because of this, with every attack from the humans, Queen Ephenia's power weakened. She still was powerful enough to knock the weaker ones out, but with the stronger ones she had difficulties, sometime the battles ended with her defeat, others with their defeat till they got stronger.

As her time flowed normally, Ephenia had to wait for the events to occur for a while before the time travelers attacked her, giving her enough time to recuperate and replenish her forces.

At this Queen Ephenia thought,'I wonder how long will this one take before they come to attack me,' before using her magic to pinpoint the portal and gauge the power levels of the time traveler. She often used this power to estimate if she would win easily or face defeat during the first encounter.

However...

'...!' Ephenia froze when she felt the power of the time traveler. The magic was warm, powerful, had the familiar tingle of a forest's pure magic not unlike hers before her desperate deal with the Black Mage, and carried the power of the Great Spirit. It was the last two that had her surprised. The power of the Great Spirit was one that was familiar to her, having been there when its power was bestowed on her best friend long before the Black Mage's arrival. The forest's pure magic was the other familiar part of the time traveler's magic. Only those who lived in the forests all their lives were blessed with its powers. There were only three groups of sentient beings that could consciously harness its powers. The Fairies of Ellin, The Elves of Elluel, and the Halflingers of Leafre. But only one out of the two had contact with the Great Spirit, and only its monarch was capable of fully harnessing her power.

"Mercedes?" Ephenia breathed out in shock as the magic of her friend washed over her. In deep thought, she immediately turned closed of the flow of magic.

'Mercedes? Her power is much weaker than I remember. About half the power she had before. I wonder what happened. Why did she come from the time portal of all things? Does that mean that she's alive in the future?' Ephenia thought while fluttering about her nest, before she stopped in her tracks. 'But doesn't that mean the Black Mage was defeated?'

With those questions in mind, Ephenia steeled herself and prepared her nest for her friend's arrival. If she was right, a being like Mercedes would not be affected by the time loop, and by observing other travelers or finding the little sister of her Elder of War, Mercedes would find the answers she needed and come to her.

It was almost a day later that Queen Ephenia sensed Mercedes nearing her nest. Her Fairies had told her that Mercedes had asked around, even resorting to talking to Ephenia's subjects to find her answers. In the end, according to her Fairies, the Queen of the Elves was left with even more questions than what she began with.

The Fairy Queen fluttered about nervously as Mercedes came closer and closer to her home. The sound of rushing winds as Mercedes bounded across her forest sounding her approach. Then, it stopped. And the sound of footsteps rustling the grass began, coming closer and closer. And then...

"Ephenia?" Came the quiet, unsure voice of her once friend.

"Mercedes. You're here." replied the Fairy Queen, keeping her tone of voice as neutral as possible.

And as the dark rain pelted down in the forest warped by time, the Fairy flutters forward towards the Elf, the first meeting for her in months.

Kiri: The first in the three-shot I'm making. Its somewhat related to Queen of the Fairies and Fairies of the Queen.

RaiDraconis: And part of her Magical Decline universe.

Kiri: *Reels back in shock before yelling* Gak! What are you doing here! GET BACK TO TRAINING! BEING STUCK AT Lv 108 IS NOT FUN!

RaiDraconis: You think I don't know that? *Sigh* I'll leave. *Disappears into MSEA game on desktop*

Kiri: *Twitches annoyed* Guess my MSEA characters will pop up time to time to annoy me from now on.

Like she said, this is part of my Magical Decline universe. In the Magical Decline universe, this three-shot is only a few months after the portal opened, hence Ephenia will still be quite powerful. This fic will cover a second theory of mine regarding TIME. Yes, time will be a concept that will pop up quite often in this particular three-shot. Once the entire fic is up I'll post my theory onto tumblr for others to read it, since it has quite a few spoilers for what I have planned to write for this fic. The next chapter will be a little longer, mainly because I have more to write about for Mercedes. So look forward to it people!

Also, a 'thank you' to Ten-Faced for reviewing my MapleStory fics! Its a great encouragement for me when an author reviews!

(To those who do not know what theory I'm talking about, go to [rainixdra. tumblr post/ 57442269145/ time- warped- ellin- forest- theories- on- the- effects-on]. Get rid of the brackets and spaces. The full theory is there. To those who've read Fairies of the Queen, Past and Present, please go read the theory on tumblr. Its been updated since I forgot a few things in the theory I wrote down there...)

Chapter 1 Completed/Edited 18/8/2013, 7:00 PM