I remained utterly motionless when I finally awoke. The first thing I did, as MiracleStar had taught me, was to listen. There was no sound around me. Just utter, oppressive silence. The next thing I did was feel. Cold stone beneath my fur, cold shackles around my wrists and ankles. Slowly, reluctantly, I opened my eyes. I was in a cold dungeon cell with all four paws chained hobbled and chained to the floor.
I slowly stood, testing the extent of my bonds. Not far. I tried to stretch my wings and winced sharply as I realized there was a cord binding them against my body. It ran around my chest and constricted my breathing. I hunched over, letting the pain in my head and chest slowly subside. So it came to this, the faeries themselves were taking an interest in us, enough to use Diganis against us.
The memory of her hurt. Another soul sucked into our own evil and the consequences of us. What were we, us Dragon Thieves? Why did fate throw stones at us? I wondered if they would destroy my wings like they did to Diganis. I saw them tattered and torn, hanging from my back like leaves in autumn as I gazed at a full moon sky and longed to taste the stars. I shuddered.
The door to the dungeon opened and a light faerie stood illuminated in its entrance. She walked towards me and I remained still, tense and still. She unchained my wrists from the floor and led me like a dog from the slack chain. I followed along with a strange twisting feeling in my stomach. The fear and doubt and uncertainly crowded into my mind and I longed to scream, to claw, to bite, to fight back in any way I could. I tripped over the chains on my ankles and the cord around my chest tightened painfully as I tried to spread my wings in reflex.
The faerie led me through the main hallways of the palace to a large set of double doors. Everything was so fine, so ornate, and a subconscious part of me was busy calculating the worth and how easy it would be to haul off. I giggled a bit at the thought and the faerie looked back, sneering. I bared my fangs at her.
She pushed open the door and led me inside. I stopped just at the entrance, staring, but she tugged hard and sent me sprawling onto my face. My wings jerked again and I wound up knocking all the air out of my lungs. I gasped for breath and struggled to my feet, dimly aware of the faerie leaving behind me and shutting the doors. I straightened myself as best I could and tried to gather what dignity remained up around me.
Fyora herself stood in the center of the room, just a bare antechamber with naught but a few ornate candleholders in the wall. She was regal and elegant in a silken gown and brilliant tiara that flashed in the light. The picturesque of queenly grace and beauty offset by a haughty and calculating stare I had never seen on any pictures of the Faerie Queen. This was not the Fyora we Neopians knew.
Opposite her was someone I knew all too well, but now was a stranger to me. She stood there, her hair cropped shorter than I'd ever seen in my life, a brown line hanging at the bottom tips of her ears. Her bangs fell forwards a little bit to hide her angular face, but I could see a cold glint of utter hatred and disgust on her face. It was not directed to me nor Fyora. She wore a tight fitting black outfit I had sometimes seen her thieve in. This time it was different though. She wore gloves and more weapons than I thought she owned. Little silver slivers of darts, many daggers strapped on her legs and waist, a crossbow resting in the small of her back, a rope looped around her chest, and in her hands rested a stiletto. She was turning it over and over again, examining the tip and the hilt and the gleaming blade. My owner. MiracleStar. Kristen.
"Some choice this is," MiracleStar finally said to Fyora, after glancing over to me and back.
"Some choice I have," Fyora retorted, "I did not want to do this."
"You've lied to me so many times I don't know when I can start believing you again," my owner retorted, still studying the stiletto, still not looking at me.
"Not everything I have said was lies."
"But a lot of it was."
There was silence between them and I started to speak up, but stopped myself. This was not my place to intervene.
"Kristen..."
"Don't call me that."
"I need you again. It wasn't such a problem when you left... but I have not been able to replace you and now a need has arisen."
"So you blackmail me into returning by using my pets."
"I use whatever means I have to. That's what being queen means. It's time you stopped running from what you are Kristen."
"Don't call me that."
There was a long and strained silence between them. Fyora turned away from her and looked at me. I returned her gaze with frank curiosity.
"Do they know what you are?"
My owner did not reply.
"Kristen? Have you ever told them?"
"It's funny," she replied in a husky voice, "how strongly loyalty can be drilled into a child. That even when the years go by and this child is grown and on her own, the old loyalties still call. It's like a poison in the blood, that loyalty. I would kill it, if I could. I'm good at that. You saw to it."
"You had no future, no hope, nothing. You were an orphan and I was a queen," Fyora said irritably, "We've gone over this before."
"And I still hate you for what you did. For what you made me."
"Stop talking in riddles!" I finally cried in despair, "Tell me what's going on! I'm a hostage, yes, but for what?!"
Both turned to look at me. MircleStar smiled grimly and with a quick motion of her hands made the stiletto disappear.
"I'll tell the story. Better me than you. I was an orphan, found by the faeries and delivered into Fyora's hands. She needed me for a specific purpose and thus my fate was sealed. I was raised in a world of poison and silence and secrecy. I was made for one purpose: to kill those that my queen ordered me to. I'm an assassin, a shadow in the dark that has the blood of many on my hands. It is not a glamorous thing, not something to be admired or envied. It is something to be scorned, hated, and despised. I did not know this but lived my life content with what I was, almost - sadly - eager for my next assignment. I lived from knife blade to knife blade until one day someone informed me of what I was. Before I destroyed him he told me what I was, a creature of revision, a mindless animal blindly serving my master. That night, as I cleaned my stiletto, I decided that was enough. I wish I could say I left for some great and noble purpose, that I left for love, or perhaps my own moral compelling, but that's not it. I left because I didn't want to live for someone else. I was selfish. I still am; I got you and the rest for selfish reasons. It's my redemption, if such a thing even exists. I taught you all I could for it was all I knew. As your skills grew I saw myself mirrored and promised I would never take you that last step into my world. And now Fyora has once again forced my hand."
She fell silent once more, glowering at Fyora, a black-clad sentinel. Finally I understood what this revulsion was for. Her past, herself. I shuffled closer, not daring to look up.
"Why have you done this?" I asked Fyora in a whisper, "Have we not suffered enough? Hasn't she done enough?"
"I have need," was her simple reply, "And this is the only way."
"Fine. Leave them out of this and I'll dance to your strings again," MiracleStar finally said, straightening up and looking Fyora straight in the face.
"I cannot leave them out of this and nor can you."
"What is going on?" I wailed.
"I will not have my pets be what I am!"
"You have no choice! None of us have any choice."
"There is always a choice. I can walk away and let you sort this mess out yourself."
"And let your pets loose their wings?"
"Like Diganis lost hers? I whispered, horror growing in my eyes.
Cold realization and horror dawned on my owner's face.
"I hate you," MiracleStar gasped, turning her back.
I could see her shoulders shaking.
"I hate you," she repeated.
"I never sought for your love. I need your dagger and the hand that wields it. Nothing more. You will need your pets. This is not something that can be accomplished alone and they are aptly trained for the mission. I will explain the details and then you will have your pets returned to you."
From a hidden cue the light faerie returned again and picked up the chain lead to take me away.
"Wait!" I cried, "Why are you doing this? I don't understand."
My cries were ignored as the faerie forcibly dragged me away. I twisted, desperate for a reassuring look from MiracleStar. She did not even glance in my direction before I was firmly pulled into the hall and the gilded doors swung shut with the finality of the grave.