The two faeries and Bardic burst into a large wooded clearing, to find a tall woman with incredibly long black hair and quite classic beauty standing surrounded by guards with a very surprised look on her face, standing over Rella's unconscious form.

Bardic had no idea who the woman might be, but he heard Emerald hiss, "Rhianna," behind him, so he guessed it was the infamous sorceress he had heard so much about. He started toward Rella automatically, but the sorceress looked at him and extended a hand, pointed towards Rella. "I advise you don't," she said coldly. "I could kill your precious little friend if I wanted to."

Stopping where he was, he grabbed an arrow from his hastily grabbed quiver and put it to his bow, pointed straight at the sorceress. "You do and I put an arrow in your throat," he said, his voice a match for hers in coldness.

Behind him, he heard the two faeries draw their bows as well; the guards stirred restlessly, and not a few of them put hands on their sword hilts. "If it comes to a fight, we're outnumbered," he heard Emerald hiss to Ruby.

"Ah, but except for Rhianna, none of them have magic," Ruby hissed back. "And even Rhianna doesn't have fairy magic."

"It seems we are at something of a stalemate," Rhianna said at last. "How about you just let me take back my maid and leave?"

"No," Bardic said, and a few more of the guards put hands on their sword hilts, glaring at him as though daring him to do anything to their mistress. His arms were beginning to tire from the strain of holding the arrow to his bow, but he kept it steady. "You can take her back over my dead body, you stone-hearted bitch."

Rhianna just raised one classic eyebrow, but was interrupted before she could speak by Emerald. "What's so great about Rella, anyway?" the fairy called. "Why can't you just get yourself another maid? It would be a lot easier than messing with faeries, trust me."

Rhianna turned the raised eyebrow to Emerald. "With as much power as this child has, power I could tap, I would be a fool to let her go. And a fool I am most certainly not." Her eyes flickered back to Bardic, and she smiled. "Well then, Sir Bard. If it is over your dead body that you want it, that is how you shall have it."

She made some gesture to the guards, and they moved forward, drawing their swords. Bardic let his arrow fly, but instead of hitting the sorceress, it merely landed with a thunk, carving a hole into the tree that was right behind where she had been before.

Cursing mentally, he picked another target and fired, praying that the three of them could manage to pick off the guards before one of them got close; at short-range, bows weren't much against swords. The guard he'd picked for a target shrieked and fell; the wound wasn't fatal, but it would keep him out of the action for a while, at least.

Arrows were flying everywhere, the guards cursing and trying to avoid them. One arrow that Bardic at first thought had been misfired hit what was apparently empty air, and someone made a small shriek of outrage. The sorceress reappeared, an arrow embedded in her arm, blood seeping from the wound and staining the sleeve of her long black dress.

Bardic took a chance, aiming an arrow at the now-visible sorceress; it hit her in the throat, and she went down with a sickening gurgle, only to be hit by two more arrows from the fairies as she fell. A sharp stab of pain shot through his shoulder, and he felt blood seep into his clothing; one of the guards had gotten close enough to hit him.

"Bardic!" someone yelled, fear in their voice. Turning, he saw Rella sitting up, and tried to say that it was okay, it wasn't that bad a wound. That was when he saw her dazed and unfocused eyes, and the way she was staring at the battle without really seeming to see it.

Suddenly a wave of fright washed over him, and he thought he heard himself scream. He fell, and he knew he hit the ground. He squelched in the mud--but there's not mud on the ground, it hasn't rained for days--and then suddenly great, intolerable waves of pain were washing over his body. He whimpered helplessly, feeling tears run down his cheeks, and heard someone moaning in ecstasy.

"Rella! Stop broadcasting!" he heard Ruby's voice yell nearby. "The guards are gone, you're affecting Bardic too!"

Suddenly, the pain, the fear and horror, were all gone. Sitting up, he blinked--the ground was perfectly dry, and the only pain was the sharp pain in his arm from where the guard's sword had gotten him. "What the hell...?" Getting to his feet, he shook his head to clear it, and looked for Rella.

She was sitting in the same place she had been before, but was no longer sitting up with that dazed, unfocused look in her eyes. Instead, she was curled up into a ball, hugging her knees and whimpering, sobbing softly to herself.

The guards were gone, the only one besides them who remained being Rhianna, and he was fairly certain the sorceress was dead.

"When Rhianna came, she took our shields off Rella," Ruby said quietly. "She went back into her cycle of memories, but she apparently saw you get injured, and tried to get the guards to leave us alone. So she broadcasted her memories--it was the only thing she could think of. Unfortunately, she doesn't know how to control her power, so she caught you up in it, too. The guards split, luckily."

"Damn," he said eloquently, shaking his head. "That's what I was feeling?" He started towards Rella, then stopped, looking at the faeries. "Wait a second. Why weren't you two affected?"

"We are faeries," Ruby said simply, as if that explained everything.

Shaking his head, he walked over to Rella's curled up form. "Rella?" he asked softly, crouching nearby her.

His only response was a whimper.

So, he tried again. "Rella, come on," he said softly, smoothing her hair out of her eyes with a gentle hand.

"It hurts," she whispered softly, sobbing again. "It hurts, it hurts...make it stop, please..."

"Can't you two do something?" he asked, looking up at the faeries.

"I...we can try." Taking a deep breath, Emerald walked over to Rella and placed her hands on either side of the girl's face, closing her eyes. Rella whimpered, and Emerald exhaled slowly. A few moments later, Emerald's eyes opened. "Rella, wake up," the faerie said gently.

Rella merely whimpered and closed her eyes tightly, tears running down her cheeks.

"Wake up, Rella," Emerald repeated, more demanding this time.

No response at all, this time, not even so much as a whimper.

Ruby walked over, leaning over nearby the crying girl. "Rella, wake up," Ruby said gently, frowning. "You need to wake up."

Still no response.

"Rella, come on," Bardic said softly, figuring it couldn't hurt for him to join in. "Wake up."

Silence.

"Why the hell won't she wake up?!" Bardic exploded at last.

Ruby shook her head, sitting back. "I...don't know. She just..." She took a deep breath. "I...don't think we can get her out of this one."

It took a while for them to get Bardic calmed down, but he eventually listened to reason. Emerald had told him repeatedly, there wasn't anything they could do, but it took a while to convince him of it.

It grated on Emerald's nerves as much as it did on Bardic's, because for once they were absolutely helpless. There was nothing they could do, literally. The only thing they could do was...wait. Wait for Rella to wake up, wait for her to come out of her coma. They might even end up waiting forever, and while that wouldn't be too much of a problem for the faeries, with their immortal lives, somehow she thought Bardic wouldn't take too kindly to that idea. After all, he already wasn't taking too kindly to the prospect of having to wait even a few weeks.

Then again, Emerald could sympathize. She never had been too good at waiting.

And yet now, it was the only thing they could do.

The only thing.

A/n: That was a short chapter…you know, I need to stop making all these a/n's. I know they're probably getting on your nerves. ^_^