With All Your Heart

We have to keep pushing forward this time... "Yes!" Spirit cried out, jerking awake. "Yes we will keep pushing on!" The yellow lupe blinked, she was lying on the scratchy sand of another beach. The sand was made from black shale rocks, the black sands of Krawk Island.

Spirit tried to get up but found that there was a dead weight across one set of her legs. She looked down to find that it was Scinan, completely unconscious, where he had collapsed after getting off the salt field. Carefully, Spirit withdrew her legs from underneath his body not wanting to wake the green lupe. She walked around him to looked at his face, wincing slightly from the cuts on her sore paws.

But looking at him front ways made Spirit instantly forget her own discomfort. Scinan's paws were dark to the ankle with dried blood. Deep cuts and gashes crisscrossed his his pads, cuts that were far worse than her meager injuries. Spirit sat down, crying helplessly. How would she ever manage to treat his paws in this place? There was nothing on Krawk Island that would help Scinan.

"Pull yourself together ArizonaSpirit!" Spirit snapped at herself. "Sniveling isn't going to help Sci." He wiped the tears from her eyes and just sat, thinking, staring at Scinan. He was always saying that the world was different now and that it didn't work the same way as it did before. Maybe, there was a chance that there was something here on Krawk Island that could help her.

Spirit thought, pondering desperately on what to do. The only thing she really didn't know about that was here. The one thing that was a complete mystery, was the Mysterious Cave. Maybe, she thought hopelessly, that mysterious fungus has healing properties, maybe it will still be there. Still unwilling to leave Scinan, but wanting to figure out how to cure him none the less, Spirit trotted off, looking fearfully over her shoulder at Scinan.

The small stream that wound its way out of the Mysterious Cave was completely dried up. The fungus that grew on the walls there had lost its luminescent quality and was all shriveled up. But the fact that it was still there gave Spirit hope. She reached out and plucked the crinkly object from the wall. As soon as she touched it, Spirit's paws began to smart and burn. But then the pain faded and Spirit glanced at her paws and gasped. The small scrapes on her pads were completely gone, not even scars remained in their places.

Spirit's heart overflowed with joy. Ecstatically she picked as much of the fungus as she could and hurried back to Scinan. He still had not moved from where he had lain when she had left. His breathing was soft and his heartbeat slow. Spirit's happiness evaporated into worry as she treated the scratches on Scinan's paws. She then proceeded to scrub the dried blood from his fur. What startled her the most was that after the blood was removed, the fur underneath it was as black as shadow.

Still worried, Spirit dragged Scinan up the beach to a sheltered place, then she left to see if she could fine more things that would help her. Spirit searched the Neapian's houses first, even though she knew it was wrong to steal, this wasn't the world she'd known anymore, and she needed to find something that would help Scinan.

Spirit also found it odd that she no longer seemed to need to sleep, eat, or drink. The sun was gone from the sky so she had no way, or idea on how to keep track of time anymore. This world truly was empty of everything it had been before, and Spirit wondered absently if it was even possible to die anymore. She could feel pain, but even that was starting to ebb away.

Spirit found herself straining to remember things. Fiyre's pranks, Aisa's voice, Inu's battles. Everything was ebbing away, she didn't want it to happen but there was no way she could stop it. She had to let everything go, this world was different than the last. She had to release the old world in order to survive in the new one. Slowly everything faded into shadow, except the one firm ideal that she had to fight this world for them. For the ones that she couldn't even remember anymore. No matter what it took she would fight for them.

Spirit paused by the Swashbuckling Academy. She didn't know why she felt slightly drawn to the place but, her path veered to the ruined building. She went into the large great hall and found round black stones scattered everywhere. She smiled slightly. "The Capitan's sayings." She murmured.

The Lupe bent to pick one up. She held it tightly in her paws, concentrating on the stone with everything she had within her. "DON'T TRUST THAT SCURVY TECHO ON MYSTERY ISLAND!" The blasting roar of the old pirate Eyrie exploded out of the stone almost knocking Spirit backward. She dropped the stone with a cry and rubbed her ears. "Jeez! Now I know why Inu's deaf to anything Aisa says."

Something glittering in a corner caught Spirit's eye. She frowned and went over to it. It was one of the Techo Master's pieces of wisdom. She picked it up, wondering what it was doing there. When she squeezed it, the shining words that were projected in the scorched ash of the Academy floor read, 'wherever you go, go with all your heart.' Such a great piece of wisdom Spirit had never known. She pressed the stone against her chest, trying to draw some sort of comfort or answer from it. "I will Master," she whispered, "I will keep moving onward, with all my heart." She raised her gaze to the torn up sky. "No matter where my path leads me, no matter how ominous or hopeless it may be, I will go with all my heart. I will not fear what awaits me at the path's end."

Spirit turned and marched out from beneath the twisted beams, and sagging fallen in roof of the Academy. Something pricked the Lupe's ears, she turned her head back toward the beach. Where she had come, where Scinan still lay. Voices, there were voices coming from behind the bank that sheltered Scinan's body. There were people, someone was there. Spirit's heart rose, then dropped like a stone. If this world was so horribly mutated, what would these people be like?

With the wisdom stone in her mouth, Spirit bolted back toward Scinan, and toward the voices that flitted on the wind. The Lupe skidded to a stop on the bank and dropped the stone in shock. It fell down and landed near Scinan's head, glittering in what light was left. Standing in a half circle around the unconscious Lupe were six tall beings. They were all wrapped in long gray cloaks. The cloak hems were ragged, and fluttered slightly in the wind. The deep hoods were pulled up to hide their owner's faces in shadow.

Spirit leapt down from the bank, growling. Straddling Scinan's motionless form, she bared her teeth at the strangers. "Who are you?" She snarled.

"Don't you remember?" One of them asked quietly, voice empty of emotion, and hope.

"I don't think I'd soon forget creeps like you!" She snapped back. "What do you want here?"

"We came looking for the dark souled one." Replied another, "the one responsible for this destruction."

"Well you won't find them here!" Spirit replied, "go look somewhere else."

"How astonishing," another murmured, "their powers are so faint. How could such feeble creatures survive in this place?"

"We too are feeble my friend." Another reminded, "so feeble compared to what we once were."

"You," Spirit said, lowering her guard a bit. "You were part of the old Neopia too? I thought you came from this world."

"The same could be said of you." One of the beings said. "Are you not a spawn of this nightmare?"

"Of course not! Do I look like a spawn to you?" Spirit cried angrily.

"This... is not Neopia anymore." Said one of the beings, one that had not spoken before now. "The rules of what is and what isn't have been torn to shreds and thrown to the ground. There are no rules anymore, there is nothing that we may count on anymore, not even each other."

Spirit shook her head. "I don't believe you, I can count on Sci." She cocked her head at them. "It's so strange, saying that this isn't Neopia anymore, that things are different, it's what Scinan keeps saying." She looked hard at them, "who are you?" the lupe inquired again.

Another spoke, unlike the others, this one almost had a regal tone in her voice. But it was just a ghost of an emotion. Just a hint of something that had been there and no longer was. "You do know us, ArizonaSpirit, and you will remember." The being reached up with pale hands and drew back it's hood.

Long gray bangs, held in place by a silver circlet, fell to frame her narrow, pale face. Her eyes were also pale, not just light, but pale, almost faded. But even though she had become as powerless as a gray faerie, there was no mistaking her. It was Fyora, the faerie queen, of Faerieland.