NB: This fanfic author does not have immediate access to all the Artemis Fowl books, so there is likely to be someincorrect information in this piece. Apologies to all readers, and any corrections/suggestions would be welcome.
Tomorrow
Prologue - A Second Chance
If we might have a second chance
To live the days once more,
And rectify mistakes we've made
To even up the score
Holly watched Foaly tap at the keyboard, issuing various commands to the machine.
She sighed as she thought of the recent events. "It's a pity, because we were almost friends."
Foaly snorted and flicked his tail impatiently. "Sure. Like you can be friends with a viper."
A flash of some emotion - was it pain? - flickered in her eyes, and she quickly shut her helmet visor. A moment passed in silence.
"You're right, of course. We could never have been friends. It was circumstance that pushed us together, nothing more."
Foaly patted her shoulder companiably. "That's the girl. Keep your ears up.Where are you going?"
"Tara. I'm going to fly. I need the fresh air."
He objected, but she shrugged it off. Firing up her wings, she rose and flew in a casual loop through the entrance hall of the manor. Then she zoomed out into the night, barely grazing the main door. Holly shielded herself, her mind automatically laying out a course for her to follow back to Tara. But she wanted to linger, and look back.
Why did she feel so bad about leaving?
Perhaps it was her morals berating her. After all, what had the Mud Boy done that required his memory of the past years to be wiped?
She hastily shut out the answers she knew she would receive if her thoughts were voiced out loud. This particular Mud Boy had caused more trouble for the People than any other in many, many years.
But still...
It just didn't seem right to take away his memory. Especially since so much of it had changed him, changed his personality and morals for the better. Now, who knows what would happen when those memories were gone...
She turned slightly, flying in a lazy circle back towards the grounds. She could see the manor clearly from her vantage point.
Holly flew in a course that would seem lazy and carefree to her conscious mind, a course deliberated by her subconscious mind, a course that took her closer to the manor than Root would have approved of. Quite soon, she was only a few yards from a window.
She couldn't help it.
She had few friends in her life, and to lose one of them like this...It was getting to be too much.
Maneuvering carefully, she positioned herself just outside the window and shut off her wings. She dropped onto the narrow sill silentlyand clung there, peering in.
The Mud Boy was still asleep.
He looked so much younger, so normal. Not at all like a criminal mastermind capable to turning the entire fairy world upside down repeatedly in a few short years. He looked his age for a moment, whereas he usually appeared older than his years. He looked innocent.
Holly gently touched a glass pane, and quickly recoiled.
"Stop it," she muttered to herself. "It was just circumstance."
She turned her wings on again and kicked off from the wall. Holly flew off quickly, not daring to look back. The pale, cold light of false dawn crept over the eastern rim of the horizon, touching the sky with gray and washing the earth with an ethereal shade of blue. Somehow, it was entirely appropriate to her mood as she sped toward Tara.
If we might have a second chance
to use the knowledge gained,
Perhaps we might become at last
As fine as were ordained.
Artemis woke feeling extremely peaceful, but also with the strangest feeling of being watched. And it wasn't Butler. He was sure it was someone else, someone like an old friend. But there was no one around.
How strange.
And that dream. It was quickly slipping away, but there it definitely been something wonderful... But now he could make no sense of it.
Artemis Fowl dismissed it as a figment of his overactive imagination. After all, what importance could it have been?
"Maybe I am coming down with something," he thought.
Artemis Fowl the Second glanced at the clock, saw that it was six in the morning, and realized something.
He was to return to St. Bartleby's later that day, and he had not started any of his packing yet. Of course, he would not do any of it himself, but that still accounted for quite a lot of fuss about the house. Especially from his mother.
He sighed. How inconvenient. He had been planning a major diversion of money from several French banks to his own accounts today, but now it would all have to wait.
Something - could it be remorse? - pricked at his conscience.
Or maybe...
Maybe he wouldn't carry through with the plan at all. Somehow, something just didn't feel right; it was an intangible sense of something that was morally wrong.
Now Artemis was puzzled and annoyed. Was his father's newfound sense of heroism and piety contagious? Surely, he could not have been thinking of doing something by morals, now could he? After all, the best profits were made in shadier areas - generally out of sight of the law.
Still...
"Perhaps there are other things that I might busy myself with for now," he thought to reassure himself. "The other plans may wait for later."
Thus thinking, Artemis went to prepare for the day. But as he washed his face, he found an odd piece of something like contact lenses in his eyes. He stared at them for a moment. Then carefully, he laid them aside as he hurriedly finished washing and dressing. Snatching up the lenses again, he went to find Butler.
So another day began.
But though we can't retrace our steps,
However stands the score,
Tomorrow brings another chance
For us to try once more.
To be continued...