Disclaimer:I don't own anyone or anything from the Artemis Fowl series. Honestly; I'm not a middle-aged Irish man, am I? Nope. Just an almost-15 Minnesotan, and that's probably all I'll ever be...unless I go and publish a book someday. Hopefully!

Anyhow, though I don't own Artemis Fowl, I do own Alina and Elsa Blau, and the whole Loss Factor theory-idea-thing. :P


Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.

~Unknown


"You have to come out and face reality sometime," Opal called through the door of the bathroom in a sing-songy voice. She was fast becoming annoyed with this weak, emotional human girl. What she had envisioned in Alina earlier she couldn't recall, except for the girl's odd resilience to magic. It had taken a considerable amount of magic to heal the small wound from the feather pen used to seal Alina Blau's contract.

This was the reason that Alina's memory had not been too severely effected the the mesmer and mindwipe that had stolen the memories of her baby brother. Mindwiping might have been considered more technological, but there was a great deal of magic involved, without which the mindwipe was unpredictable. Her memories of her sibling was not to be effected by the mindwipe, but it had seemingly 'broken away' from the computers and devastated that corner of her mind.

"I don't want to come out..." Alina whispered, her tears now dry upon her cheeks and no other sign of her crying visible. She shifted, wincing as her numb body protested the motion by throwing up a response of stinging pins and needles. Standing shakily, she pulled a cup from the dispenser, taking a slow, long drink of water, then throwing the cup away. It was made of a material almost like paper, though she could tell that it wasn't paper at all.

"Well now,"Opal clicked her tongue, as if talking to a very small child. "Not wanting to come out is not going to stop me from blasting my way in there, is it? Come out, now." she waited a moment, and when she heard the faucet being shut off, she spoke once more. "I'm giving you fifteen seconds, little girl. You're not the only one who needs to use the facilities, after all." Tapping her foot in time to the counting in her head, Opal waited, one, two three...

On the eleventh second, Alina jerked the door open, pushing past Opal and into the somewhat expansive cockpit. She slumped into a bucket chair, massaging her temples, cogitating her fate in the next few days. For sure, she knew she wouldn't be able to stand much more of the pixie, and the thought that she was now bound to this monster was a horrifying undertone to her thoughts.

When Opal came out, she took a seat straight across from Alina, turning to face her with a smile that seemed sad for once.

"Is it not interesting how easy it is, to teach and to learn to hate? Parents may teach their children otherwise, but when they fight with one another, what does that teach the children? When children are taught that fighting and killing one another is bad, but their countries have wars, slaughtering each other by the hundreds, how does that teach anything but hate?

"So in truth, it is far easier to hate than to love. After all, when you hate, you need no regrets, because the only person you care about is you.

"What a twisted world we live in, with our inability to decide which we'd rather do; love - or hate our brethren."


"That is confusing," Holly agreed, a lopsided grin on her face. "I don't know why you bother reading it, though. Things are so much more natural without knowing how things will turn out. I don't want to know if I end up dead after this, because then I'll lose my confidence, my will to fight. I'm not going to give up on a fight half fought; that's not my style."

A rueful expression on Artemis's face expressed his opinion of her style. "Of course it's not your style; it never is. Isn't it better to know, though, because if you know what will happen, you will then know how to avoid it, if possible?"

She snorted, a most Holly-like expression of emotion, then gave him a skeptical look. "Honestly Artemis, where's the thrill in that? I don't want to know when I'm going to die, unlike so many mud men. I'll die when I die, and you'll die when you die. There's nothing we can do to stop death, and it's stupid to try." Noticing the change from emotion to emotionlessness on his face, she gentled her tone and continued. "Don't worry. I don't plan on dying in this mission, and you shouldn't either. Unless there's nothing left on earth you think is worth staying for."

"Well," he pretended to consider the thought, then finally smiled, hiding his true emotions behind a mask, as he had so many times before. "I don't really plan on dying either, unless there's a certain someone I absolutely have to save. Other than that someone and maybe a few other someones, there's nothing on Earth or under it that's worth living for.

"You know, even material things such as paintings and gold lose their value after a while. I suppose that, compared to people, those are all worthless. Then again, it depends on what kind of eyes you're looking through. The way I see it, certain parties are more important than gold or priceless paintings."

A long silence spanned between them, neither knowing what to say next. Holly finally broke the silence with a short laugh. "Don't get all mushy on me, Mud Boy; I've got a hard mission ahead of me, and there's no Retrieval or Recon for backup this time."

"Just like all the other times," he muttered, then looked up to her, his opposite-colored eyes sparking with energy he hadn't truly felt since their last adventure. "We, Captain, have survived more incidents, deceptions, and paradoxes without either Recon or Retrieval; why should we start needing them now?"

"Who said we needed them?" she laughed, forgetting for a while about the whole screwed up mess of the Loss Factor theory.


"Uh oh!" Elsa whispered, then ducked behind a chair. This chair happened to be the same chair that Commander Trouble was hiding behind, so they were squished together in the small space, Trouble attempting to keep his equipment from making any noise, and Elsa trying desperately not to giggle.

"Shh!" she constantly told him, though she was the one making all the noise. "Shh! You're making a lot of noise, Mr. Fairy!"

"Elsa!" her mother called once more, her voice resounding through the house, bouncing off walls and wood floors. "Where are you?"

"I'm hiding with my fairy friends, Mom! Be quiet now, okay?" Elsa laughed again, then hushed the poor squished Commander once again.

Her mother's heavier, treading footsteps crossed the living room and into the kitchen, apparently carrying something from the rustle of of paper and the click of cans hitting one another. "Okay then, Honey. Just make sure that you go upstairs and clean your side of your room, okay?"

Inching from behind the chair, Elsa stood, beckoning for Trouble to follow her upstairs. The entire Recon team followed with their shields switched on, then stopped as stock-still as possible as Elsa paused by the kitchen door. "Mom, Aly's gone to a sleepover with her friend Holly. She said to tell you."

With a snort, Mrs. Blau turned away, her attention on unpacking groceries now. "She can stay there as long as she wants; it's better in this house without her."

Continuing up the stairs, Elsa didn't notice two of the blurs break off from the group, entering the kitchen and watching her mother's every move. The Commander voiced his commands through his helmet, and with a small flash, Mrs. Blau was unconscious, sitting in a chair one LEPrecon had pulled up, and being hooked up to a mindwiping rig.

Elsa was already in her room, picking up stuffed animals and various other toys from the floor and piling them into a wicker chest in the walkin closet. Aly's bed lay crinkled and unmade, after she'd gotten out of it that morning, and underneath the pillow lay several of her sister's favorite books along with a booklight. After sitting on Aly's bed, Elsa pulled out one of the books, entitled Someone Named Eva. The book was easier than Aly's preferred level of reading, but it was 'still a good book', according to her sister.

As she carressed the smooth, shiny cover of the book, Elsa sighed, and for once, she understood. Aly wouldn't be coming back. Not this time. With this realization, the seemingly little girl missed her big sister more than she ever had before. In earlier times, she had perfect confidence and assurance that Aly would come home; after all, the things she did, such as camp and school and sleepovers, they were all only temporary. Sliding the book back under the pillows, Elsa set about the task of making her sister's bed, straightening most of the crinkles, though some were too deeply lined to be straightened.

When Aly hid her choice, prize books under her pillow, she would tell Elsa of all the things that fascinated her about the books, and why they were under her pillow. According to her, they gave her dreams when she could feel them, firm and reassuring under her head in the middle of the night.

Completely forgetting about the fairies, Elsa curled up, pulling the warm feather blanket over her child's body and snuggling up to the book-hiding pillows on her sister's bed.

Maybe, if they give her dreams, they'll give me one dream.


Wow! Chapter seven; I've never been this far into a fanfic before! ^^ I'll probably end up being sappy and doing the same, 'WOW!' thing every chapter...unless someone protests. :P

Anyhow, I'm sorry all about the lack of update; life has been kind of busy the last couple weeks, what with Christmas and New Year's...but I'll be trying to update at least once a week from now on. :)

This chapter's a bit shorter than the ones before, but it's okay, right? I finished it, realized that it wasn't quite long enough, but there wasn't really anywhere I could add onto, so I just left it this way. We'll just pretend it's as long as the others, right? ^^

Anyhow...the book mentioned, Someone Named Eva is by Joan M. Wolf, and it's about a girl during WWII who is deemed a 'perfect' German citizen, with the right hair and eye color, the right face measurements, and all that, and what happened to her during that. It is fiction. Also, it's supposedly more for 6th graders, but I read it and loved it. As the person who recommended it to me said, it's not a happy book, but it is a good book. So yeah. If you're looking for something to read, so read this book! ^^

I've also got a new poll up in my profile, so go vote there, please. It doesn't take more than a couple clicks of your mouse, and it'd make my day. ^^

Comments and constructive crit are always welcome, and Happy New Year to everyone!(Tribute thing : this chapter is 2009 words long. :P)