Chapter 2: Nekrygaek

"No M'lady, absolutely not! I forbid it! You can forget about it right now, there is no way that I am letting you leave!"

"Dr. Bohnes-"

"No!"

Arianna stared in shock at her old nurse. The woman, who had seemed to age almost a hundred years in only one, was barely topping five feet now. Her hair, or what was left of it, was thin, wispy, and almost translucent, barely covering the top of her head. The strain of the final battle with Shifter had been too much of her, and her once proud body was nothing more than a crippled shell, hunched over and dependent upon a cane for movement.

And yet still she defied her. The old woman, who had helped raised the Princess, had brought her through the Gap both ways, who had helped at more than one occasion in the battle against the Shifter, now balked the Princess from her journey.

"You can't stop me." The old woman stiffened at this and, drawing herself up to her full unimpressive height, Dr. Bohnes glared at the stubborn girl.

"I can and I will stop you. I will not allow you to endanger yourself on such a frivolous and silly quest! If you insist upon leaving you will have to wait until Finn and the Sunchaser returned from their expedition down in the Valley of Fear!" Snorting contemptuously, the woman added: "At least they're getting something useful done, unlike you who just wants to chase after a silly message."

Lincoln and Lori, who had followed Ari in when she had announced that they were going to leave on another adventure, exchanged a quick look. Dr. Bohnes hadn't seen the message in the emerald – for some reason it didn't work when they tried to reactivate it, or make the magic work again, or however the mechanism operated. 'Hologram', Lori had said confidently, but both Ari and Linc had looked at her like she had grown two heads.

So it really was only natural for the wizard to believe that Ari was making this up. Over the past year she had grown more and more desperate for any sign of her parents, and it wasn't hard to imagine her coming up with some cockamamie story about seeing her parents in a unicorn's jewel. Both of them knew better, however, but interfering with a verbal battle between the Princess and the Royal Wizard would have been a very dangerous thing.

"A silly message? You think I'm that… that… You think that I need to see my parents so badly that I'm making things up now?" A look of shock and hurt was etched onto Ari's face, but the wizard seemed entirely unaffected by it.

"Yes. Not only do I think that, I'm nearly positive of it. I asked you to show me this message, this 'video' as you called it, and all you showed me was a pretty stone attached to a chain. Not very informative or magical if you ask me. Pah! The stone didn't even come from a unicorn's horn!"

There was no reply. There was nothing that the Princess could say. The person closest to her, the one she nearly considered to be her grandmother, the one who had guided her through times that had been so hard and so impossible, felt that she was lying for attention. Feeling the tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes, Arianna turned and fled back to her haven, her room, where she could cry freely and alone. That was how she always was, anymore. Alone.

~(~*~)~

The woman was tall, even for her kind. Well over six feet tall, she towered over almost every other female of her kind, save for the one that would never come to her. Not in this form, any ways. Ivy-green hair flowed down to her shoulders, contrasting sharply with the vivid lavender of her eyes. Both colors seemed unnaturally bright against her skin, skin that was pale and translucent, skin that gave her the appearance of the walking dead.

Oh, how close they were.

She walked slowly into the room, the emerald satin gown that wrapped itself around her body swishing delicately with every step she took. She knew that from appearances she screamed wealthy, happy, and content. They were wrong, but it wasn't their fault. Or maybe it was – didn't they put her here? Shouldn't they know?

Why haven't they rescued her from this hell yet?!

The young girl was waiting for her in the middle of the floor. Slowly rising up from her kneeling position, she turned and faced the woman. "Ge! You made it! I'm glad!" Bronze hair framed her face, curling up under the chin. It matched her eyes perfectly, giving her face a permanent tanned look. A small dress hung off of her thin frame, exposing her dirt-smudged arms. A pair of torn and dirty cotton pants covered her legs, and large leather boots that rose nearly to her knees covered her feet. "Did you deliver the message?"

The green-haired woman nodded. "Yes, I personally…" Her voice trailed off and she grimaced at some memory. "…personally made sure that they would receive it. I doubt that there's any way they could possibly miss it." 

"Good." The girl nodded. "I don't want to think about what we would have had to've done if they didn't get it. Do you think they'll listen to the message? Or do you think they'll ignore it like they did?"

'They'. Never were they referred to by their real names, except during the nightmares that the girl had, tossing and turning and screaming out, begging for them to look back on her. But never, other than that. "I think that the girl will pay attention. And what she wants she will eventually get."

"Good…"

~(~*~)~

The mare snorted and tossed her head, the ornate 'bridle' jangling loudly. Eyes the same color of the sun just before it sets, a deep burning orange, rolled back, exposing the whites. "We," she stated, stopping and stamping the ground with her hooves. "Are lost."

The girl on her back swore and flicked a strand of sky-blue hair back behind her ear. "But we can't be lost." Her voice sounded slightly petulant and weary, the voice of a person who had been traveling for too long. "Iciliana, you said you knew the way. And now you've gotten us lost?"

"I got us lost? And who was the one who insisted we take that side-trip down into the village? You can't blame me for not knowing where to go from there."

Sighing, the girl dismounted, wincing as her joints cracked from the sudden movement. "Then I guess we take a break here, for the night. It's not like wandering around will help us anymore. Do you want me to untack you?"

"No." She wasn't surprised at the mare's response – for the past week she had been declining the offer. "We're close. I can feel it… they cannot know." Blowing gently into the girl's hair, she added: "Do not worry about me Seda. I have survived worse things than simply traveling before."

"Okay…" Hugging the mare around the neck, Seda stepped back to look at her. Awe filled her to know that she was traveling with such a beautiful unicorn: Sapphire blue melted into sky of her mane, almost perfectly matching Seda's hair. Her eyes were a stark contrast to the rest of her, but that was what she loved the most. That and her horn, a crystal so clear that it was nearly impossible to see. The jewel at the base of it was clear diamond, proof of her heritage. A Royal, or maybe something even more wonderful…?

The tack that was on the mare consisted of a bridle with a metal nosepiece, covering the top of her muzzle and extending to her forehead, ending in a point between her eyes. Her neck was uncovered, but from there a blanket covered her, ending at the tips of her hooves. On her back was the outline of a saddle. It looked extremely uncomfortable, but Seda wasn't a unicorn. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it appeared.

"What are we supposed to do when we find?"

The mare, Iciliana, blew hard. "… we don't do anything. Not at first. We find out how much they know, how much they all know… we search for the missing one, and then, only then can we begin to fully plan what our next move is. Aki is…"

"Don't say it." Seda placed a calming hand on the mare's neck. "Spies are everywhere. Don't say anything that may get you in trouble."

"Wise, for being so young." Sighing, she lowered herself down to sleep in the manner of a foal. "No fire tonight. We are too close." Nodded, Seda sat down and curled up next to her.

"Too close… too close indeed."