Well, I found a place that seemed like a fairly good place for a break and then went with it. Yay! I may not be able to post anything tomorrow, because I have a doctor's appointment and those tend to take hours. =( Boo.

Ohh, the ending part of this chapter is so cheesy, but I edited it about ten million times and it doesn't seem to bad to me. Anything that smacks of romance makes me feel so awkward. I need to write more of it so that I lose that awkwardness...

It was about at the point where they were talking about Brynn's helmet that I realised that I like to make Hanso embarrass Brynn as much as he can. Poor, poor Brynn. She probably hates me.

I have no idea how big faerie bubbles are supposed to be. I imagine them being about the size of marbles.


"It all began one lovely day here in Faerieland, when I decided to finally liberate some of the expensive-looking stuff I had noticed Xandra kept in her home," Hanso began. "I'd been watching her for a while, and waited until I thought she was out of the house to go in and take the stuff that she technically wasn't supposed to have in the first place." He glanced at Brynn as he spoke to judge her reaction. She met his gaze and tentatively nodded her approval. "Of course, I didn't know I was actually performing a great heroic deed at the time, but that would soon become clear."

Now Brynn shook her head, but she still didn't say anything, so he continued. "Unfortunately, I hadn't learned her schedule as well as I thought, because Xandra was there, so I had my hands full. She chased me around and tried to blast me with her magic, but I was much too agile and her aim was pretty bad. I escaped and headed to an island out somewhere, I don't remember." That was a lie, but he didn't really want to give too much detail about where he'd gone. "I had a colleague of my mine spread it around that I had magical artefacts for sale, and I quickly got a message from someone who wanted to meet in Faerieland, which was pretty weird."

"It was Hubrid Nox," Adele said knowingly.

"You mean, Xandra disguised as Hubrid Nox," Ileana corrected her.

"Yeah. I was...surprised, to say the least," Hanso said. "I showed Nox all the stuff I had to offer, and he just wanted that round thing. He paid a good price for it, too. So I rounded up the rest of the stuff and was about to leave, but something told me that I should probably wait and see what Nox was up to. The whole situation seemed really, really weird. I mean, what was he doing in Faerieland, of all places? It just wasn't right!"

"And yet, you didn't let that stop you from selling him something that you knew might be dangerous," Brynn said.

"Brynn, he was a customer. I had to give him what he wanted!"

"What happened to the other things you stole?" Adele asked.

"Oh, I held on to 'em. Now they're in the castle vaults. Apparently, Xandra liked to collect a lot of dangerous stuff. I actually did us all a big favour by taking them from her!"

"Yeah, you've made that pretty clear," Brynn muttered. "Move on."

"Well, I think we all know what happened next, right?" Hanso asked, looking at the kids. "What did 'Nox' do?"

"He used the artefact to turn everyone at the faerie festival to stone!" Tanith said.

"Yeah, that means all the faeries and some faerie neopets." Ileana pointed to herself and her brother. "Like us! We were stone!"

"Somehow, Nox, er, Xandra, whatever, managed to miss me, but she had no idea I was still there, so that's probably why. It seemed she was only after the faeries and a handful of faerie neopets. I'm definitely not a faerie, so..."

Brynn chuckled. "I'll bet you'd look good as a faerie ixi."

"Ohh, no, Brynn. I'll do that only if you agree to paint yourself faerie, too!"

"Hmm." Brynn rested her left elbow on her knee and her chin on her knuckles. She looked lost in thought. "I suppose it might be nice to have wings..."

Hanso cringed, and Brynn laughed and sat up straight. "I'm just kidding! ...Kind of. I can't imagine you as a faerie ixi. That wouldn't suit you at all."

"No, it wouldn't. If I'm ever painted another colour it would probably be pirate or something. Anyway, after 'Nox' turned everyone at the festival to stone, I decided to stay and take a look around."

Brynn shook her head. "You mean, you were going around town, seeing what you could steal from the fossilized faeries!"

"Nooo, Brynn, not quite. I was, uh, enjoying myself, trying on some of their jewelry!"

"Trying on jewelry?" Adele asked with a giggle. "Did he really do that, Captain Brynn?"

"Ooh, yeah, I did!" Hanso spoke up before Brynn could. "I was wearing this charming tiara for a while. You should have seen it!"

"I didn't see that, but I wouldn't put it past him," Brynn told the kids. "Hanso does some really weird things sometimes."

"Do I? I guess I do. All was quiet for a while, and then I heard some voices approaching, so I ran and hid behind a faerie statue, which was actually a fossilized faerie, I guess. It turned out that King Altador and two of his guards had come to see what had happened that the festival! Word can really travel around fast."

"It did. It's not every day that you can see a bright flash of light from Faerieland all the way down in Brightvale," Brynn said. "King Hagan thought that was very odd, so he sent me to go check it out."

"Yep, Brynn showed up a few minutes later. They were all extremely glad to see me, of course."

"Oh, no we weren't," Brynn immediately interrupted, shaking her finger at him as she spoke. "If I remember right, we all pulled our swords out on you twice!"

"Details, details..."

"And King Altador said you looked unsavoury, and King Jazan lifted you by the collar of your shirt and shook you around—and the jewelry that fell out of your pockets was a clear indication that you had been stealing..."

The kids giggled at the mental image on that.

"...and you had the nerve to try to charge us to tell us what happened..."

"I woulda stuck with that had you not been there. I didn't trust anyone else, especially not Jazan. I agreed to tell everything for free just for you, sweetheart," Hanso said with a big grin. And then he paused. "Huh. You know, I was confused at first as to why Jazan was spying on me, but I think I figured it out later."

"Why did King Hagan just send you? Why didn't he send any other guards with you?" Tanith asked Brynn.

"Well...we didn't really know what was going on," Brynn said. "All we saw was a bright flash of light. Since I was one of the highest-ranking and most athletic guards, King Hagan thought I would be the best to check it out. By the time I realized how bad things were, it was too late to go back to Brightvale for reinforcements. And when I did go back to Brightvale, it was a mess!"

"Not to mention, Altador pretty much gave you command of the guards he brought with him," Hanso added. "Even though they weren't, uh...the brightest of the bunch."

"And, honestly, when I saw Hanso, I figured this was some cruel twist of fate to punish me for allowing him to get away so many times," Brynn added. "I knew we'd be in for a tough time."

Hanso laughed. "Cruel twist of fate? I thought it was awesome, because then I might get to hang out with you somewhere other than the Brightvale dungeons. Anyway, where were we...?"

"At the point where you told us your first version of the events that froze the faeries," Brynn told him.

"Ah, yes! I told them what happened, or, part of it, anyway, so we headed to Faerie City to take a look into it. I don't know how Altador knew of Xandra, but he did, and he knew she was doing research, so we headed over to go meet her. Unfortunately, when we found her and that old ogrin who was with her for some reason, she was still mad at me from our previous encounter."

"Why'd you go with them to meet Xandra in the first place?" Cael asked.

"I didn't know who she was yet," Hanso admitted. "I'd spent lots of time studying her house and her schedule, but I had never taken the time to be sociable and learn her name. Thieves don't usually do that. So I didn't know who this person called 'Xandra' was until I saw her."

"And she wasn't too happy to see you," Ileana giggled.

"That's an understatement," Brynn muttered.

"Yeah, she tried to blast me again, and I had to explain everything from the beginning. Xandra really liked to emphasize that stealing from her was apparently some really big deal—"

"—and it was—"

"And, Brynn, didn't Xandra say something weird to you? Like, about you trusting me or something?" Hanso grinned at her. "I know I heard something..."

"N-no," Brynn stammered. "I mean, I trusted your story, but so did King Altador!"

"Good enough. Xandra claimed she didn't know which artefact 'Nox' had used to turn the faeries to stone, so I drew a picture to show everyone which one it was. Hey, does anyone have a piece of paper and a pencil handy? I could draw a replica of the picture if you want to see it."

Brynn muttered something under her breath and raised one of her hands to her forehead in a gesture similar to what's usually referred to as a "facepalm."

"I do!" Erik said. "Hold on." He took a notebook out of the backpack he'd carried with him, and dug a pencil out of the front pocket of the bad. He handed both to Hanso. "There you go!"

"Thanks, Erik. Let's see here... I think it went like this." Hanso scribbled for several moments. "Ah yes. Just as much of a masterpiece as the original!" He held it up for the kids to see. "That's me, obviously," he pointed to the stick figure representing him, the only real details being a short ponytail, a large round object in one hand, and a small cloud of dust behind him. "This is the artefact, and this little cloud of dust shows how fast I was going. And back here," he pointed to the second figure, a long-haired female with a big scowl on her face, "That's Xandra. She wasn't really pleased about my visit, and making her mad was a lot of fun."

"I've always meant to ask: Why did you include Xandra in your drawing?" Brynn asked.

"I just liked seeing her angry. No real reason! Thanks, Erik, you can keep it." Brynn muttered something under her breath while Hanso handed the notebook and pencil back to the bruce. "So we then made our way to the Haunted Woods, since we still thought that it was Hubrid Nox behind the whole mess."

"But it wasn't really Hubrid Nox," Ileana said again. "It was Xandra in disguise!"

"Yeah, you've said that a few times, Ileana," Hanso said. "Frankly, I've always wondered why Xandra chose to disguise herself Nox. It seems like a really weird choice. She must have had some deep-seated grudge against him, too. But the fact that she was very familiar with the process of buying stuff on the black market shows that she was very, very evil!"

"Uhm..." Tanith hesitated. "B-but, you were selling stuff on the black market... Doesn't that make you evil, too?"

Hanso paused, wide-eyed and shocked, as Brynn and the other kids burst out laughing. "Uhm, uh..." he stammered, for once at a loss for words. "No. It doesn't. I'm not evil. And that's that."

"She's got you there, Hanso," Brynn said, still giggling as she gave Hanso a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"Shut up, Brynn. Anyway. Let's move on! I guess Xandra just wanted to lead us in circles so that we wouldn't be able to rescue the faeries. Whatever the case, we headed to the Haunted Woods and arrived at Nox's castle. Brynn was really nice to me; she didn't even handcuff me on the way there, even though some of the others really wanted to!"

"They would have, if I hadn't convinced them that you weren't that much of a threat," Brynn said, still smiling, though she had mostly regained her composure.

"Did you really have to go with them, anyway?" Cael asked. "I mean, Xandra knew what the artefact looked like, and she had it with her, anyway..."

"Yeah, well, they just wanted my company, I guess." Hanso shrugged.

"No, that wasn't it," Brynn interjected. "As far as we knew, you had committed a crime. You were in custody. Faerieland's law enforcement system wasn't working, so I took charge of you!"

"You just wanted me around, darlin'. I figured that out really fast."

The kids giggled while Brynn glared. "That's not true."

"Yeah, it is! Don't deny it!"

"Just move on, please!"

"So we arrived at Hubrid Nox's castle. It was a bright and cheery place deep in the beautiful Haunted Woods. Jazan suggested that we take Nox's castle by force, which, honestly, just shows how reckless and stupid he is."

Brynn shook her head but said nothing.

"The skeith and draik from Altador were supposed to be watching me, which they did. They watched me wander off and try to find an alternate way in. Apparently, they didn't quite understand what 'keep an eye on Hanso' meant, but that worked out fine for me. For some reason, everyone but me wanted to use the front gates, which wasn't very smart."

"I don't think any of us had ever been in a situation like this before, so we didn't know what to do," Brynn protested. "We don't sneak around. We take direct action."

"And it worked out really great for you, didn't it?" Hanso asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Brynn's voice faltered. "Well, I followed you, but..."

"No one else did! And guess what? Someone—Xandra, I think—tripped the castle's security system, and everyone but me and Brynn were trapped!"

"You also ran into Nox before I caught up with you, didn't you?" Brynn asked.

"Oh, yeah. Lemme back up a little. I climbed through the window into what appeared to be some sort of library, and ran into Nox. He didn't recognize me or know what I was talking about, which I thought was really weird. Of course, he was who knows how old, so maybe he was getting a little senile, but—"

"You'd never actually met Nox before, just Xandra disguised as Nox," Ileana stated.

"Would you cut that out? We all know that," Erik whined. Ileana turned around and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Very good, Ileana. Brynn came in just as Nox was leaving, so she didn't actually hear any of our conversation. She didn't see him throw the crystal ball at me, either!"

"I can't believe you let that scare you," Brynn muttered.

"Hey, you still had my dagger, so I was completely unarmed. I guess I could have thrown the crystal ball back at him, but I've never used those as weapons before, so I'm not sure how they work. I saw which book Nox pulled to open the passageway, so I opened it up for us and Brynn and I made our way to the security system's control room! It took us a little while to figure it out, but we made it."

"And I lost my helmet in that horrible tunnel," Brynn added. "I don't even know how that happened..."

"You accused me of tripping you, if I remember right."

"I did."

"Even though I didn't."

"You look better without a helmet, Captain Brynn," Ileana said.

"Yeah, you do," Nuala agreed. The other kids nodded.

"I need one when I'm on duty, though," Brynn protested. "It's important to protect one's head."

"You got through the rest of our adventure just fine without a helmet," Hanso pointed out. "And you look much, much better without it. I think I willed it off: since I knew we might be stuck together for a while, I wanted you to lose the helmet, but I knew you'd never take it off of your own accord. And then your fall in the tunnel took care of that! It was destiny, really!"

"Oh, you—"

"You're very beautiful, so you shouldn't let the helmet hide that."

"Shut up." Brynn was apparently trying to sound angry, but her face was a deep shade of pink and her voice a little uneven. The kids giggled again.

"So, anyway, Brynn and I managed to disable the security system and save everyone, and they decided to reward me by tying me to a tree! Great reward, huh? They apparently thought that I'd been the one to tip Nox off to their arrival, although it was actually Xandra's clumsiness that had done it."

"That seems pretty mean," Tanith said, looking at Brynn as she spoke.

"Well, I hadn't actually heard Hanso and Nox talking, so I didn't know what happened," Brynn said with a sigh. "I didn't think Hanso betrayed us, but some of the others, especially King Jazan and Xandra, really wanted to punish him for this, so..."

"Not even King Altador stood up for me that time," Hanso grumbled. "The ogrin master did at least scold Jazan, which was great, but it didn't change anything. The draik never said anything and the skeith was too busy eating ice cream."

"...Ice cream?" Nuala asked.

"Nox had a lot of it for some reason. The skeith helped himself to it."

The kids exchanged glances. "Can we go get some ice cream real fast?" Ileana asked.

"Sure, we can take a little break," Hanso said. "Do you have money?"

"Yep, Mama gave me my allowance this morning," Erik said.

"Mine too."

"Mine gave me mine yesterday!"

"If you want to go run and get a treat, the food store is right there," Hanso said, pointing. "I'll be right here when you get back."

"OK, let's go!" The six kids got up to go and buy themselves treats.

"Do you want anything?" Brynn asked.

"Nah," he answered. "You?"

"I brought some faerie bubbles, actually," Brynn said, pulling a bag out of her knapsack. She rarely carried a purse, and even when she did, she refused to call it that.

Hanso watched her pour a few into her hand. "You've really taken a liking to those, haven't you? You always have some on you! The candy makers here must be enthralled."

"They're not taffy, but they're an acceptable substitute. Do you want any?"

"Sure, if you don't mind."

Brynn dropped a couple into the palm of his hand before popping a raspberry-flavoured one into her own mouth. "You know," she said after a moment, "I don't think I've told you this, but..."

"Something you haven't told me? Do elaborate."

She sighed, a low, sad sigh rather than a quick, exasperated one. He was expecting her to be angry or something, so this surprised him. "This story brings up some bad memories, of course, but I'm really sorry about the way we treated you at Nox's castle. I...I should have done a better job of standing up for you. I knew you didn't betray us, even though I had no proof..."

"No need to apologise, Brynn. It's all water under the bridge now."

"I knew there had to be more to it." She looked up at him, her baby blue eyes locking with his. Her eyes were so pretty! "But I...I just couldn't say anything." She looked down. "And that still bothers me."

Hanso smiled. Though Brynn was already sitting very close to him, he wrapped an arm around her waist and managed to pull her a little closer without actually pulling her into his lap. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. It all worked out in the end. Oh, and I forgive you. I'm still working on forgiving Jazan, and I don't think I'll ever forgive Xandra, but I forgive you and Altador and everyone else."

Brynn managed to crack a small smile and looked up at him. Their faces were just inches apart, yet she didn't appear to feel awkward at all, which made him happy. "I'm glad to know that," she said. "But I wish you and King Jazan could learn to get along."

"Pfft, fat chance of that. I'll be surprised if he ever lets me in Qasala again, after that stunt I pulled."

"Which one? Salting the coffee or stealing the scroll?"

"Both."

"Maybe he's plotting revenge? I'm just glad we got to keep our jobs after your little...'stunt,' you called it?"

"I'd be shocked if he's not plotting revenge! I think the queen expects me to steal things sometimes, you know? She wasn't at all surprised, so I really think she expected me to do that!"

Brynn sighed and shook her head. "Would you like another faerie bubble?" she asked, holding up a starberry-flavoured one.

"Sure, I'll take it." He held out his free hand, Brynn dropped it in, and he popped it in his mouth.

"I think King Jazan and Queen Nabile are supposed to come and visit before too long," she said after she popped lime faerie bubble in her mouth.

"Are they? That'll be fun."

"...I can't believe you managed to say that without sounding sarcastic at all."

"...You know what? I can't believe I did, either. Aha, they're back!"

The kids had returned, each sporting a faerie-themed sundae. Hanso noticed that most had wings. Were the wings edible? He'd have to watch them to find out...


Next chapter coming when I can get around to it...