A Hero's Welcome
By
Elendil Star-Lover

Selena of the Moon: Those that you love, those that love you, they never go away. They just go where you can't see them, but they are always watching over you.

Lord Darigan paced his way up the black onyx steps to his daughter's room. He could hear weeping sounding from beyond the door, decorated by two crossed swords, with his sharp, Korbat hearing.

His daughter was Lady Selena Tiamat Darigan of the Moon, and not even when she was an innocent child chasing butterflies in the courtyard that was formerly home to the Orb had she EVER cried. Life in the cold, barren Citadel had made Selena of the Moon grow fierce and strong, into a warrior that lead battles and won wars, and never had she ever allowed herself to show her underlings weakness and cry, because if she did, then they, too, would lose hope, and she couldn't have that.

She had done a good job with the Citadel, before General Kass, one of three people---Galgarrath, Vex, and Kass---that had been Lord Darigan of the Flame's childhood playmate, through her out via magic nullifier. It was well known that Selena was one-fourth Dark Faerie and her power vastly exceeded that of Jhudora, and Kass had known that she would not give up her home, her throne, without a fight.

While she reigned in the Citadel, she kept it open to the sick and hungry. She fed the people before she fed herself and, according to Galgarrath who had been the captain of her personal guard when she was a child (and he had the stress-caused heart condition to prove it!), often worked herself until she collapsed. She was the first in either family to TRY for peace.

When Kass reigned the Citadel, his first act was to quite literarily throw Selena out by means of her own bedroom window. He then blamed her "death" on King Skarl, as well as all the other misfortunes Darigan had. He squandered everything---such as it was---on war and let the people starve. He had nearly destroyed the Citadel with his Novas because they overheated the engines, and, worst of all, he made Selena of the Moon, known for her strength and leadership skills, cry.

There is something particularly heart-wrenching about when someone like Selena cries. They, who have never experienced that kind of sadness, often don't think they will ever recover from that kind of pain. To others around them, it is a sure sign that the end is near.

Selena had been on countless Meridell vs. Darigan battles. She chased a young knight off the battlefield once. When Lord Darigan first made his move at Meridell, she had saved a young Ixi from the spiky bushes growing out of the ground, earning herself a sprained wing.

She was known for her fierceness in combat and her ability to push herself beyond the line her opponent was not willing to cross. Her whole life, since she was six years old, had been dedicated to becoming strong-willed to help her kingdom, her Citadel.

So what made this great lady cry?

&&&

The death of a soldier from the other side.

Meanwhile, in Meridell Castle, Lisha herself was faring no better. She was no battle queen, had not grown up in one of the worst places imaginable. In fact, she was a bookworm.

She was used to tears, after all, she was a magnet for bullies back home. Before she met Morris, Boris, and Kayla, she cried daily because she had no friends to back her up against those mean, mean Neopets that attempted to crush Lisha's self esteem. Not to mention those awful, awful gangs used to tease her about how her brother, Jeran, ran away from her because she was such a wimp.

After she met Morris, Boris, and Kayla, things were different. She had her own group that liked the same things she did and, when all of them were around, they could fend off a bullying attack pretty good.

Lisha had not cried since she entered Meridell.

She had her big brother back and was able to accept the fact that she might never get home, and could make the best of it. All those years of being tormented because Jeran vanished were over and she was finally free.

Curled on the foot of the steps in the Grand Hall, Lisha looked up. Staring back at her was the serious, handsome face of her brother, in full Meridell armor and holding a sword. He stood over two fallen Darigan Skeiths, sword in hand with its tip resting against the ground.

Oh, Jeran, why did you leave me again?

Tears stained her eyes as she stared at the painting. That wasn't the Jeran she knew, the Jeran she remembered. To her, Jeran was the strong young Lupe that held her in his arms, holding her close as remembrance finally dawned on his face and he knew that this little yellow Aisha was his sister, the sister he left behind, whose name he still remembered, though not face, and who he had always felt was missing from his life even as he trained for the Meridell army.

He had done some strange things, including send a letter to an unknown female Darigan Eyrie whose only identity was "Daughter of Darigan". Lisha had heard about her, and nothing she had heard about this Selena was good.

Lisha had been told that this femme fatal was known for her fighting skills and her ruthlessness. Most knights feared her since more than once she had put Jeran, Sir Borodere, in the infirmary tent.

Lisha hadn't understood why she was instructed to give a letter to that dark creature with glowing green eyes, nor what the letter said. But she had watched that beast read the letter and how she climbed to her feet to leave the library. The Eyrie, Selena of the Moon, had claimed allegiance to King Skarl if it would get her Citadel back and had not been allowed to fight beside Jeran, as the Meridellians feared espionage, so they had confined her to the castle and the young Aisha could not imagine where this creature would head off to at such a time.

Where are you going?

Your brother rides to save his lady's Citadel. He might need help.

That was when it dawned on Lisha about this girl and why Jeran liked to see the vicious thing and the only Darigan he ever encountered that could put him on the ground in a swordfight.

Jeran had fallen in love with her. In the end, he died for her, not Meridell, but try telling the kingdom that. In fact, try telling King Skarl that the victory wasn't his.

"All I'm saying is: why is it THEY get the first look at the body? That Darigan she-demon and her father may have been AGAINST Kass, but it is we who won and it is we who Jeran fought for!" he was raging at one of his guards in the presence of Sir Galgarrath and Master Vex, emissaries from Lord and Lady Darigan.

The old Grarrl, Galgarrath, growled back, "Lady Selena has taken the body into her room for a private viewing and will not listen to reason. She is a headstrong child and, unbeknownst to neither you nor Lord Darigan, they were close as children."

"SO?" King Skarl raged. "He is OUR knight, not yours! If she wants to see him so badly, she can watch the funeral from the trees!"

Master Vexed closed his eyes solemnly, "If you would like to come to the top of the Citadel and demand that she give Sir Borodere's body back, you may, but bring a medical kit with you and three surgeons."

He then lifted his left hand and showed off clawmarks apparently sustained from arguing with the Lady of the Citadel.

"She does not cry often and as I recall, she kept a straight face when she smacked Kass' court dancer," he continued.

King Skarl rolled his eyes.

"I don't care if Darigan got his citadel back or not, it was Meridell's victory, MY victory!"

Lisha couldn't stand just watching anymore. She ran as fast as her small feet would carry her, bursting into the hall.

"SHUT UP!" she raged at the Skeith. "It wasn't US he fought for! It was HER! HE one the war for HER, not YOU, so just SHUT UP! If SHE wants to give HIM a Darigan honor, LET HER!!"

Lisha stopped, panting and fuming, her glasses steaming. Her fists were balled so tightly that it hurt and every breath felt like she was inhaling fire.

"NOW look what you two have done, you upset the girl!" His Royal Grumpiness jeered at the two Darigans.

&&&

It had been a very long time since father and daughter laid eyes on each other. Since she was nine, all Darigan thought of was defeating Meridell and getting their Orb back. Then he exploded, while Selena cowered under a desk in the same room.

When Darigan returned, an Usul girl called "Sally" had taken him in and named him "Mister Scary". At some point, both that Meridell knight and Selena had been trapped in the barn with Sally and "Mr. Scary" as Kass' knights paced outside.

Why don't you like Mister Scary, Miss Selena?

Let me tell you about my father, little one. My father was a gentle man who only wanted what was best for his people. Then he let his weakness overpower him. He ruined the citadel, lost the War, and made an attempt to destroy Meridell, and failed at that, too. Then he got himself killed.

By that time, Selena had the little girl trembling so violently that the knight pulled her away and sparked a conversation over if they could overpower the guards. Selena said she could do it in such a nonchalant manner that the knight's blue jaw dropped and he demanded why she never did anything before.

You didn't ask.

She then walked right out the barn and hypnotized the guards, using a gift given to all Darigan females, including Kass' precious Court Dancer. It was thanks to Selena that the four of them managed to escape, but she caused Lord Darigan to realize what a fool he was and it was that night that he decided to put things right.

He pushed open the door to her room. It had changed so much, from covered in plushies to covered in swords. From white marble to black onyx. From child to adult. From lord to lady.

Nothing was constant in this citadel anymore. Nothing lasted more than a few minutes and no Darigan could ever tell what the future held.

Except, maybe Selena of the Moon who had apparent precognitive ability.

The body of the literally fallen blue Lupe knight lay on a table in front of Selena's four-posted bed, limp as a rag, bloody and bruised from his fall. Selena sat on her bed, staring at it, purple, black-clawed hands supporting her chin. Her glowing green eyes glistened, but she had run out of tears.

Darigan looked away from her. He had done this. It really was his weakness that called for the downfall of the Citadel. None of his efforts had helped, his people still starved and froze, disease still ran rampant, and even the nobles were dirt poor.

If he had said no to The Three then, maybe that knight would still be alive. He had wanted to protect his daughter, and so agreed to help them, but they had lied. His daughter had grown up strong and healthy, but hardly happy.

He sat down beside his child, staring at the body, and wrapped his right wing around her lean shoulders.

She hissed, shoved him away, and got up. Who could blame her? Darigan had abandoned her for The Three when she was growing up, and then to watch her own father explode in a ball of fire...

"I am sorry, Selena. I know you don't believe me, but..."

"I believe you," she answered. "I just don't understand why either of you couldn't have made a compromise. The two of you combine kingdoms and become co-lords, sharing the Orb..."

"I would have agreed to that, but I doubt King Skarl would have agreed."

"Did you ask?"

Lord Darigan looked away again and faced away from his daughter. A heavy guilt weighed on his batlike wings, dragging them downward. Would this young knight have been spared if he had tried?

"No, I didn't. You were the first to try ambassadors of any kind, but by then it was too late, wasn't it?"

Selena ducked her head close to her right shoulder, emerald green tears running down her cheeks and fading into salty clearness as they fell. Her father wasn't there when she was ruling the Citadel, before Kass through her out.

Her father never saw the way she tried to strike a deal with the Faerie Queen about getting an Everlasting Apple, nor how she took the Aisha sister of Jeran into the citadel when she had gotten lost, offering her a grand Darigan Royal Family meal of one potato each to prove a point. He never watched her in the fields, catching an updraft with a pale of water to put out a fire that had caught on one of the only fertile farms in all Darigan.

Lord Darigan never did that. He had sold his soul to The Three very early on, trading his sanity and virtue for his daughter's safety and well-being. It was a noble decision, sure enough, since Selena did grow up strong and healthy, and was able to keep the people afloat.

But his tale still hurt when he told it.

"I know that I haven't been the father that I wanted to be, Selena, but..." he told her, coming to stand behind her and putting a clawed hand on Selena's shoulder, just beyond the wing's edge.

"Just get out," she hissed in reply.

As Selena heard Lord Darigan leaving, a deep pain filled inside her chest. How many years had she endured, fighting to keep her kind alive and for peace between Darigan and Meridell? There were often times she told the young knight, Jeran, that she hated him just because he was Meridellian, and then he would slyly ask her why she wanted peace so badly.

I want what is best for my people. My petty quarrel with your king doesn't mean anything in that department.

You mean your father?

No child should have to watch their father lose his mind and then combust.

Indeed, she remembered that conversation like it was yesterday. One more time, Selena had crawled into the young knight's tent, knife in hand...and then allowed herself to get caught. Logic told her that if Meridell lost its greatest hero, it would fall to Darigan, but Selena was not by nature a terrible person and, while she claimed hatred for the Meridellians, she would not take the life of another when he was defenseless. She was the Daughter of Darigan, whom the people had always loved, after all, not the Daughter of Kass, whom the people feared, because her heart told her how wrong it was.

Each time she got caught, she was able to escape. Either Jeran would show some unneeded kindness and leave her under guarded, or her guards were unbelievably stupid. Not that it was necessary, since Sir Borodere himself would admit that the Lady of the Citadel was by far a better fighter than he. Growing up in a desolate citadel, scraping a living off rocks, kind of does that to a female.

Not to mention that Lady Darigan seemed to be a little insane. She had an attention span like a gnat when it was convenient, breaking into a song and dance to stop an argument from breaking out or to start one, whatever worked at the time. She was reckless as anything, putting herself between a sword an innocent bystander when one of the soldiers lost sight of his goal, then grabbing the blade and jerking it out of his hand. Then her eyes would turn black, but would still glow, and the knight would run back to his commander, tail between his legs.

When Lord Kass attacked her in the middle of the night, disabling her black magic and heaving her out of her own bedroom window, she allowed him to think she was dead and hid before running to Meridell, swearing allegiance to Skarl. He didn't believe her, even she smacked the Court Dancer and pointed out that she had nothing to gain by feigning sincerity.

As a ruler yourself, you should be able to understand. Why would I serve under another, if I am the true heir to the Citadel, and he is just a general?

None of her brains, her wits, her cultivated appearance of slight insanity, could help her now. This wasn't a battle where she could just take to the air and flee or disarm the other fighter, blinding him with magic, and win. This wasn't a meeting between two rulers, this was...

She passed by the body one more time, running a black-clawed, purple paw across its right paw. Then she stopped, green eyes motionless and dead ahead.

Her heart quit beating inside her chest and her mind reeled as it shut down and ceased to work properly. Selena's tongue seemed caught in her throat, choking her as he knees began to quake and she almost sank to the floor.

You're still warm...

&&&

Back at Meridell Castle, King Skarl was still throwing a fit.

"He is a knight of OUR kingdom, why does SHE get to see the body first?!" he demanded, stamping his foot.

Master Vex opened his eyes again coolly, saying, "Because he fell under OUR citadel and Lady Selena was the first to come across him. Once again, if you would like to argue with her, you may, but bring Balthazar to put her in a bottle."

Lisha clenched her fists, tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't believe this. The only reason that King Skarl wanted to see Jeran so bad was because he wanted to show the people of Meridell that there hero fought bravely, because they needed a moral boost.

Not because he wanted to see the boy he raised.

King Skarl advanced upon Master Vex, who didn't budge an inch, trying to use the intimidation that worked on the Draik guards, roaring, "I WAN--!"

"HOLD EVERYTHING!" hissed a female voice as something bright purple and deep black and feathery dashed through the above open window, landing hard on the marble floor like a cat, crouching on all fours.

Lady Selena Tiamat Darigan of the Moon, Daughter of Lord Darrnan Darigan of the Flame, Son of Jhudora, then jumped back to her feet in a fluid grace that only a Faerie had and broke into a run towards the onlookers.

She was barefoot, not an uncommon look for her, but her feet were unused to slick marble and she skidded several feet when she tried to come to a screeching halt, smashing her face into the white marble walls.

"I'm too old for this..." Galgarrath moaned as Selena shook herself off.

Indeed, as captain of her personal guard, he had been chasing her since she was old enough to walk, let alone fly, and it had started to show when she was three.

"What are YOU doing here?" Skarl demanded.

"Just wait a minute, your royal fatheadness, I have a surprise!" she chirped cheerfully, like the happy-go-lucky six-year-old Jeran often told his sister and her friends about.

"Oh, ok---HEY!" King Skarl shrieked, as the two Darigan emissaries and his guard snorted, at first thinking that the Lady Darigan had brought him some sort of tribute, but then suspecting something else.

But before he could order Selena out of his castle, a bright blue Air Faerie flew through Selena's private entrance, carrying something golden and shining and blue. The Faerie's blond hair swirled behind her as she dropped the limp form onto a table, saluted the most powerful of the Dark Faeries, and then left, all in about thirty seconds.

It was Jeran's body, and there was a significant drop in tension and temperature in the room. Everyone went utterly silent, faces paling and going downcast as tears formed in glistening eyes.

Lisha and Skarl both felt their hearts start to burn as they remembered things that the fallen warrior had done for them. Neither of them thought they had ever been very grateful, as Lisha never had a chance to thank her brother and Skarl never showed anyone any sort of gratitude at all.

As time seemed to stop, Lisha approached her brother, near the same paw that Selena had touched. As Lisha wrapped the bright blue fingers in her own, intertwining them until not even the difference in color told where one paw began and the other stopped, Jeran gave a twitch.

And then groaning, he sat up.

Lisha's eyes lit up, full of bright color and joy as tears streamed down her face. Never before, not even when she found him, did she feel such a happiness as she did then.

Jeran looked very tired, his eyes dull and weary and every bone in his body aching, but he had never appeared more beautiful to either his sister or Lady Darigan, sprawled across a table and weakly supporting himself enough to let everyone know that...

"You're still alive!" Lisha breathed.

"Of course. If I had died, Selena would have killed me!"

A/N: I'm a little worried this is too dark for the Neopian Times. What do you think?