New chappie! Please review!
You must break it…you need to succeed. Failure is not an option; now open your eyes and see the world for what it is…you will not fail in your mission. Anna-Maria gained consciousness with a start, her eyes flickering faintly before they completely focused.
She tried to sit up, but found that she was strapped to her bed. A monitor nearby began beeping and Foaly soon entered the room. "Nice to see you're finally awake, Fairy Girl; you had us worried for a while."
"Foaly? What happened?"
The centaur clapped an ice pack to her forehead. "You fainted. Now just lie back and relax, you'll be fine soon enough."
She pushed the ice pack away weakly. "Foaly, I…I saw…one of Catalina's memories. Robert Fowl, he was… mesmerized – I had no control, I couldn't …Artemis? How is he?"
The centaur frowned and pushed a button to make the bed rise into a chair-like position. Then he pressed a cool cloth to her forehead and Anna-Maria was forced to remain silent from the pressure. "Artemis is fine, thankfully. Although he did narrowly miss getting hit by a shuttle on the way here –" He paused, noticing the half-human girl's widened eyes. "Really, he's fine; which is something I can't say for you. The mud boy did say that you zoned out for a couple of minutes – not in those exact words, of course, but that was his literal meaning and –"
"Foaly! The point…please."
"Right. Basically, you lost consciousness a few feet away from Fowl Manor, Artemis noticed and brought you here, and you've got a bit of a bump on your forehead. As for the supposed memory, you must have dreamt it."
She sighed heavily and pushed his hand away. "Foaly, I did not dream any of it! I…I was Catalina for a few minutes…in her body and mind. What are the possibilities of …of me actually being Catalina – in a reincarnated form?"
"None whatsoever. Catalina did promise that she would come back one day, but not in a reincarnated form – as a specter; and only when the curse was broken. And," He added as Anna-Maria opened her mouth. "No more talking for now. Artemis and Holly will have my front hooves if I don't let you rest."
"But Foaly I –"
"Shush; it's the middle of the night. Artemis and Holly are still asleep, let's keep it that way, alright?"
Too tired to argue, she simply nodded and lay back to think. We still have the third task to complete – if only we knew what it was. I really need to… She stretched and yawned for a moment. I need to ask Foaly about that and if Artemis and I put our heads together we may figure it out soon enough. She stifled another yawn. In the meantime, I think I'll go back to sleep.
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When Anna-Maria opened her eyes, she saw Artemis standing over her. Believing the sight to be a vision from a half-finished dream, she merely smiled sleepily. "Good morning, Anna-Maria." The half-fairy screamed and fell sideways off the bed.
Artemis smiled at an old memory. "And what are you grinning about?" She demanded, hoisting herself up off of the floor huffily. She tossed her head back defiantly, flicking her bangs out of her line of vision.
"I was merely remembering the time you tricked me into believing you had amnesia and fell similarly out of your bed the next morning six years ago."
"And you still haven't learned! If a girl is asleep, it is impolite to enter her room; I told you that, remember?"
"Even if that girl happens to be my fiancée?"
"Especially then."
"Very well, I shall comply with your wishes…for the time being." He smiled his trademark vampire smile. "Certain…compromises will have to be made in the near future."
Anna-Maria didn't bother asking what he meant; she could guess. Instead, she shook her hair out of its still damp ponytail and fixed a few strands behind her pointed ears. "Yes, I suppose. But one also has to make certain sacrifices…"
His smile faded slightly. "Sacrifices?"
"Yes. Such as…I will require a share of chemistry equipment and room for my experiments, so…"
"Would you prefer your own laboratory or would sharing mine work just as well?"
She tilted her head to one side, considering. "The latter will do well enough. Now, we need to settle on names…"
"Names?"
"For the children, of course."
"Children? Have you been conferring with Mother recently?"
"Not recently; just a few talks with Foaly. He recommends 'Jasmine' for the first girl and 'Vincenzio' for the second boy."
"First girl? Second boy? How many…?"
"Nine should be sufficient."
"N-nine?"
"Would you prefer nineteen?"
Artemis raised an eyebrow. "Nineteen? And you believe you will be physically able to support nineteen pregnancies and births?"
"If I don't get ovarian cancer."
"Ovarian cancer? Is that why you want to have nine children; to decrease your likelihood of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer?"
"No, I like children…and I am waiting for Holly, Mulch, and Foaly to stop gawking at the window and realize I noticed their presence from the beginning of this conversation; hence the…somewhat irrelevant subjects of discussion."
"And you found it necessary to moderately worry me?"
"Sorry, Artemis. I won't do that again." She turned to the three fairies (who had, in the meantime, crept sheepishly into the room) with a glare. "As for you three, why do you continuously peek into my affairs?"
Mulch tried to hold back a snort, but failed. He was soon laughing maniacally on the floor, with Holly and Foaly standing over him, frowning disapprovingly.
"What is so funny?" Anna-Maria demanded. Artemis whispered something to her, and the tips of her ears turned a dull red. "Oh. Oh, my…that was far from my meaning, you can quite certain of that. Um…this will not be mentioned again, at any time, sì?"
Holly and Foaly nodded while Mulch continued to laugh erratically on the floor (Foaly silenced him with a small kick). The dwarf stopped immediately. "What? Oh, yeah, sure."
The girl ignored him for a moment. "Anyway…how are we supposed to figure out what the third task is? What was the verse you found, Foaly?"
The centaur accessed his palmtop and searched the files for a bit. "'Only the strength of the heart will overpower the curse and destroy it for eternity'; apparently Catalina was a poet."
"How are we supposed to know what that means?" Holly inquired, stamping on Mulch's foot to get him off of the floor.
"If I continue to…experience Catalina's memories like I did yesterday –"
"Not that again. Anna-Maria, it is completely impossible to –"
"To produce a curse and experience the memories of an ancestor?" Artemis finished for him. "I doubt that either is impossible. If so, we would not be here in this situation, would we?"
Anna-Maria smiled at him gratefully. "As I was saying, maybe I will be able to get inside her head long enough to think like her and figure out what she could have meant. Of course, the problem is that I don't know what triggers these memories and I can't control them."
"Then we will have to wait."
"Or," Everyone turned to look at the centaur. "You can visit Catalina's old home and see if she left any clues."
"Where is her old home?" Artemis asked.
"In the Amazon forest. You might want to take some mosquito repellent with you."
Anna-Maria looked at Artemis. "Are you up to it?"
"Are you?"
"If you are."
"There's your answer."
Great…now they have to go the Amazon rainforest – that will be eventful. Please, please review! And what was with that weird image value thing I had to type in before I could login?