Thank you so much, my brave followers, for giving this a try. To sell this to you just a little bit more, I'll publish chapters 3 + 4 right now…maybe I can convince you when I show a little bit more. Please, stick with me!
Dust
Chapter 3
Boom-boom-boom.
The shots exploded through the silent forest, and the birds scattered from the trees.
Teresa lowered her arm and approached the target. Three shots. Three hits. At least she knew how to do that. Not that the male pixies were inclined to take her hunting with them. But it felt good to have one practical talent at least.
He collected the shell casings and was about to shoot some more, when a sound reached her sensitive ears.
All pixies had acute senses- eagle-like sight. Bat-like hearing. So Teresa picked up even tiny noises from a great distance.
Someone was approaching. Too big for one of the forest's animals. So most likely a pixie. Whom was she kidding- there were no other creatures present for about a thousand miles. So- definitely a fellow pixie.
She turned and waited for her visitor to show up. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw her mother, slightly out of breath (she was not used to running anymore), hair disheveled.
Teresa smiled.
"Mother!", she cried out, "What are you doing here?"
Hesitation gripped Elisabeth's small frame, and Teresa felt herself frowning. What was the matter with her calm, solemn mother? Who never spoke up and lived her life in paths set by her husband?
"I…", Elisabeth finally said, "I was…looking for you."
"I thought as much", Teresa shrugged, "so?"
Elisabeth wrung her hands.
"Do you…", she started, "…do you remember that you asked me where all your writings were some months ago? I…I told you your father had burned them."
Teresa turned, anger flaring up like a flame.
"How could I forget?", she growled.
She had been devastated. But she knew it was useless to confront her father- he was as stubborn as a mule. And so convinced he was right in this matter.
"Teresa..", Elisabeth murmured, "I lied."
Teresa turned, facing her.
"What?"
"I was a coward, baby. I couldn't tell you what had really happened, so I blamed your father. I knew you wouldn't try to talk to him- I'm sorry."
"Why do you tell me now, mother?", Teresa asked, her voice deadly calm, "And what the hell happened to all the stuff I was working on for the brunt of my life?"
Elisabeth faced her. Damn, this had to be done. So she better be brave about it.
"I have to tell you now", she whispered, "I send your works to the fairy king. As an application- for the post of his chief advisor."
For several minutes, it was so silent that the tiny feet of small mammals could be heard everywhere. Teresa felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe all of a sudden and now had to concentrate on every single movement her heaving chest made to stay alive.
Smart Teresa. Not able to comprehend her mother's words.
"You did WHAT?", she asked, the words getting louder gradually.
"Teresa, I know you are unhappy! I know you can't live like this forever! What did you plan? To meet a pixie man, get married, carry his babies and clean his house? When books are everything you're really interested in? I love you. And you have to be anywhere your talent is needed!"
"That was not your choice to make!", Teresa screamed.
Her heart was torn in a horrible turmoil, excitement and fear chasing each other, heartbeat irregular, and she was still hardly able to breathe, dammit. A fairy king had possibly read what she had written! It was impossible to understand. She felt like passing out for a moment.
"It was my choice to make, my brave little girl.", Elisabeth sighed, "I'm your mother."
"Why tell me today?", Teresa scowled, "Sudden wish to make a clean sweep?"
Elisabeth shook her head and produced a letter from under her apron. The royal seal of the Faebar was unmistakable- square in the middle. Teresa knew it from the countless books she had read. Books her father only kept because he thought it to be important to know the enemy.
Teresa felt the blood rushing through her brain like a flash-flood, drowning everything. Something screamed at her to take flight. Close her eyes and don't look into the coal-black eyes of destiny. Damn, how pathetic.
She took the envelope, her fingers trembling. Obviously, shooting practice was over for today.
"This never was your place, my dear", her mother said through a haze of tears, "it pains me to let you go. But it pains me more to see you suffer."
Elizabeth nodded, turned and went away through the darkening forest.
xxMentalistxx
Teresa spent the bigger part of the night just running through the woods, the letter burning a hole into her pocket.
She couldn't touch it. She felt giddy, nervous, cold.
She ran as fast as she could, for hours, until the forest ended and she could look out over the vast expanse of pixie territory. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay the sparkling cities of the Faebar tribe. And yes- how much she longed to see them. She took a small torch from her bag and rammed it into the ground. It only took her some minutes to light it- all pixies were masters at starting fires.
The soft glow painted shadows on the trees at her back. In front of her, there was only plain land. Like an ocean of possibilities.
Teresa took the letter from her pocket. Slightly wrinkled now. The paper thick and smooth. She looked at the seal, golden. The Faebar's emblem visible in its middle.
She lifted her hand. And broke the waxy seal.
Nothing happened. No fanfares. The ground wasn't shaking. The early morning birds didn't stop singing, though Teresa Lisbon was about to lose everything she knew about life to make a journey into an unavowed abyss.
No wonder her hands were shaking when she finally opened the letter.
The message was written in some kind of code. Advanced, unlike anything she'd ever seen. The hacker inside her was already intrigued.
She took pen and pencil from her bag and started working. She thought and wrote and mused endlessly, laboring well into the day, struggling through the heat of the noon and the quiet of the evening. And finally, when darkness wafted up again and Teresa had to light another torch, the words were falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle. She took her time to complete the decoding sequence, memorizing it thoroughly. Then she studied the letter and started to read.
The message said: "Come to the court of the Faebar on Araula 12th at the hour of the yearning to enter a period of testing for your worthiness to serve the Faebar's beloved king as chief advisor of the council."
Teresa felt herself tumbling, her empty stomach lurching, her fingertips going cold.
On the twelfth of Araula she, Teresa Lisbon, oddest of all the pixies, would finally see a fairy city.
Okay…next chapter is already up. If you read this, please give me feedback!