Teresa Brisby finished bringing the last of the seeds out of storage, all but dumping the large sack of coconut-sized corn seeds in the pile with the rest. She gave a tired sigh as she began rubbing the soreness from her arms, already starting to ache from the hard work; all of winter months spent inactive underground always took its toll on a working mouse's muscles, turning them soft from lack of use for such a long period of time.
It would be a few weeks before she and the rest of her family would regain their usual strength and farming could properly begin.
Though this year would definitely be a harder one to adjust to, given the recent loss of a family member.
Currently twelve years of age, Teresa had only been about three or so when her father moved his family away from Rosebush City and built their little home at the Lee of the Stone, only a few weeks after Martin was born. She barely remembered anything of the capital city, though, and had pretty much been a farm mouse for her entire life.
And it was a good life, overall. Peaceful, warm, with loving parents and siblings…but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't a little…empty.
When her father said they were going to get away from it all, he hadn't been joking: some days, the Lee of the Stone felt like a tiny island separated from the rest of Nimh by a sea of grass and trees. The only non-family member they really ever saw on a regular basis was her mother's adoptive 'aunt', Auntie Shrew, but she was a mean-tempered, no-nonsense old rodent with absolutely no sense of humor and barely any patience for the antics of children; she and Martin constantly got on each other's nerves, getting into shouting fights all the time.
There was also Mr. Ages, an old friend of her father back in the day, but he lived almost half a day's travel from the stone, in one of the old human ruins. He was also a complete and utter recluse that didn't like visitors at all, only interacting with others when he absolutely had to, such as when one of them was sick and needed medicine.
Apart from them, the closest place where other mice lived was Dapplewood, which was at least a three-day trip by foot. She and her siblings had a few friends there, like her best friend Abigail, but they only saw them once every few months, whenever they visited to buy supplies, tools, and other things needed for the farm they couldn't find in the wilderness, as well as sell some of their produce in the market.
It other words, it was a rather dull life for the children; no friends to play with or talk to, outside of each other, and nowhere to really go that didn't require their parents to watch them…or their mother to watch them, as it was now.
The furling paused and closed her eyes, bracing herself as the wave of sadness passed over her, triggered by the knowledge that she and the others were never going to see their father again. The memory of that horrible night they received the news was still clear as day, and the wounds of the loss still fresh in all their hearts.
None more-so than her mother, who now carried the burden of taking care of her family all by herself, having assumed the role of family leader after his passing. A difficult job for her, as she was not nearly as experienced in the matters of leadership and providing for a family as her husband had been, having been the one to care for the children while he brought home the cheese, so to speak. Made all the more difficult by the emotional pain of the loss and the fear of an uncertain future constantly hanging overhead like a dark cloud.
It was heart-breaking to watch; their poor mother, carrying the weight of it all along with the gaping hole in her heart, trying her hardest to protect her children from a world that was simply waiting for her to make a single mistake.
She couldn't stay like this forever. None of them could, lost and weary of the life and love they would never have again.
Things needed to change, and soon.
For all their sake.
Teresa pushed these thoughts down, taking a deep breath to steel her emotions; there was work to be finished for the day, and now they had to make every moment count if they hoped to harvest before winter.
But before that, she needed to check on her siblings to make sure they were doing alright…or doing work at all. She gave a flat look of annoyance at that thought; her brother Martin was supposed to be collecting firewood, but given his absence around the face-cord stack, it was just as likely he had slipped away to take a nap, as he often did when no one was-
"-if you would just give me a second to explain! I've got no interest in you or your mouse friends!"
The young mouse's ears perked up at the unfamiliar shout; she didn't recognize that voice. Who was that?
"Think you can come sneaking about, destroying our crops, and terrorizing our furlings? Now that there's no one around to stop you?"
That voice she did recognize. It was Auntie Shrew's, and she sounded very unhappy; more so than usual. Who was she talking to? She barely had time to ponder the question before it was answered in what was, perhaps, the most peculiar sight she had ever seen:
Strung up like a fresh roast ready for the oven and being dragged through the dirt by her cantankerous aunt was an Honest-to-Frith Fairy; a sight the furling had honestly never expected to ever see outside of bedtime storybooks and dreams.
She looked just how her father use to describe them in his tales of his past; like a furless, clear-skinned, slim-bodied woman with pointy ears, large butterfly-like wings, and other insect body-parts; she was even wearing a pretty yellow-and-orange dress made from flower petals to complete the image. She was much bigger than Teresa had pictured them from said stories, though: easily as large as Justin, her father's old rat friend from Rosebush City, and not a tiny fluttering pixie of fairy-tales by any means.
She was also outright snarling like an angry weasel, baring teeth that were far too sharp and cat-like to be in the mouth of such a human-like creature, though given her current situation she could hardly be blamed for it.
Her entire body was bound in several yards of Auntie's Shrew's home-woven 'No-Fae String', which was wrapped from her ankles to her shoulders like the coils of a long snake, binding her legs together while pinning her arms to her sides and her wings to her back, leaving the Fae unable to do much else but wiggle like a stuck caterpillar, dirtying her dress as she was dragged across the ground by the shrew.
Said shrew had the ugliest look of contempt Teresa had even seen (and contempt was her natural state of emotion, so that was saying something) as she pulled her captive along by the string tied around the fairy's heels, dragging her out from the depths of the cornfield and towards the old, leafless bush at the edge of the farm, where a loose-hanging web of other such strings hung from its bare, skeletal branches. And beside it all was a trembling Cynthia, who was all but clinging to Auntie Shrew, holding onto her aunt's scarf with her good hand as if her life depended on it, forcing the older rodentkin to almost dance her steps around the frightened furling.
It took a moment for Teresa to find her voice again, so taken aback by the unexpectedness of the situation.
"…A-Auntie Shrew, what's going on?" She finally asked when they reached the base of the bush, hesitantly approaching the commotion with cautious steps.
"Ah, Teresa! Perfect timing!" Auntie Shrew said as she promptly dropped the string, allowing the fairy's legs to fall to the ground with a soft 'thump'. "I found this ruffian caught up in one of my traps." She explained as she guided Cynthia from her side to the older furling. She then turned back to her captive with another ugly glare. "It appears she's the one responsible for hurting dear Cynthia, conjuring images of giant monsters to scare the wits out of the poor dear!"
"If you call simply stumbling across each other 'to scare the wits' out of someone." The fairy growled sarcastically as she squirmed against her bonds, to no avail.
"Hmph! You're not fooling me with your forked-tongued lies!" The fat, elderly rodentkin harrumphed, fetching one of the long strings hanging down from the branches of the bush. "I know all about you Fae and your trickster ways!"
"Clearly." Said Fae muttered as the old rodent tied the hanging rope to the one binding her ankles.
"Silver-tongued devils, the lot of you!" She continued on her tirade, pulling hard on the other end of it; the fairy gave a light yelp of surprise as she was suddenly hoisted up into the air by her feet like the load of a pulley, hanging upside down and looking to all the world like a cocooned caterpillar. Numerous items she had in her pockets fell out in a clattering tumble, scattering lightly across the ground around her. "Your kind thinks, just because you have magical power over the world, that you can just torment and harass the 'lesser mortals' however you please, right?"
"Well…" Zoe began with a snide voice.
"Wrrrrong!" But was immediately interrupted, the string given an extra yank for good measure. "You, in particular, have a lot of nerve, poisoning the crops and terrorizing the furlings of a young, recently-widowed mother. Have you no shame in yourself?"
That actually made the winged girl blanch a bit, her apathetic face actually twisting in a quick, almost comical look of realization. "I…well, dang. When you put it that way…I am a bit of a twat, aren't I?"
Teresa made a face at that remark, too late to cover her little sister's ears but instinctively placing her paws over them anyway; she didn't know what the word meant, but she could tell a swear word when she heard one. Not at all what she expected a fairy to say.
She also hoped Martin hadn't been nearby when she said that, otherwise she'd predict there'd be many mouthfuls of soap coming his way in the future.
Auntie Shrew continued rattling on without missing a beat, preparing a second string which she began looping around the fairy's head. "The sooner you self-serving ruffians learn to treat your fellow Soul Bearers with respect, the better!"
"Look, for the last sarding time, I was just passing through and w-I spooked her by accident! I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt!" The fairy said in a truly exasperated voice, sounding completely and utterly done with the situation she had found herself in. "It would save us both a lot of trouble if you would just let me-MMPPHHH!"
Whatever she was about to say was abruptly cut off as the string was pulled taught: it wrapped itself around her head in a way that made it pull directly through her open mouth like a horse's bridle, effectively gagging her on the spot.
"That's enough out of you!" The shrew snapped, tying the string in place at the base of the bush, effectively stringing her up like a slab of meat for all the predators of the wild to snack upon. "A few days out here ought to give you a chance to rethink your lot in life!"
"D-Don't you think that's a bit harsh, Auntie?" Teresa asked, even as Cynthia timidly clung to her dress in fear. "She did say it was an accident."
The older rodentkin gave her a look of disapproval. "Teresa, dear, do remember everything I taught you about the Fae people." She scolded her, taking on her 'teaching stance' as she often did when. "They live for the trickery of Rodentkin; everything that comes out of their mouths is in the name of deceiving us into their vile tricks, so they may swoop in and make off with our livelihoods and even our children when we least expect it! Why, she would go as far as to trick us into believing she was King Nicodemus himself if it meant getting us to lower our guards!"
Teresa pretended to be listening to her aunt's word with rapt attention, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the bound fairy had stopped struggling against her bonds to watch the shrew with a completely dumbfounded look, as if she herself couldn't believe the sheer nonsense she was hearing.
And to be honest, the young mouse found herself equally doubtful, although she was wise enough not to show it.
But no more objections could be made, as she found her aunt pulling her over by the wrist, away from Cynthia towards the bound fairy. "Now, I want you and your brother to keep an eye on this hooligan and make sure she doesn't get away, until I can get help!" She instructed her firmly as she handed her the string that held the trap together; Teresa took it hesitantly, unsure of the whole situation.
"And don't touch anything, Cynthia!" The shrew barked at the younger furling, who had left her sister's side and was playing with all the shiny items that now littered the ground around them. "Could be hexed with one of their dastardly curses for all we know…"
The old rodentkin clutched her walking stick and promptly poked the fairy in the side of the head with it.
"As for you, you fluttering floozy!" She snapped, resulting in an insulted *mmph!* of anger. "I wouldn't try anything. I shall…return!"
And with that, she promptly hobbled off in a huff, muttering under her breath as she began the long trip to Mr. Age's house, leaving the two children to watch over their 'captive'.
Zoe waited until the shrew disappeared into the woods before she gave a truly exasperated sigh and slumped against her bonds, unable to do much more than hang limply in the air. There were many ways she had planned to spend the first day she and Spyro returned to Nimh, and believe it or not, this was not one of them.
'You just had to try to play the nice route, didn't you?' She mentally berated herself in agitation, both from her own mistake of getting caught and from the rope that was starting to chafe. 'Couldn't have just blown the farm off the face of the map and be done with it when you had the chance, could you?! You just had to go and be Miss Goody Two Shoes for once?! Now look at you; captured by an old hag and a bunch of furlings! Next time Mr. Shoulder Angel decides to open his big mouth, he's going on the spit!'
She gave a weary groan, utterly done with the situation but unable to do anything to get out of it; Spyro was never going to let her live it down when he came back for her…and the Hollow forbid Avalon and the council ever find out about this little screw-up.
She was pulled out of her internal rant when another furling emerged from between the corn plants: the grey boy mouse with the blue t-shirt, which he was dusting the dirt off of. And judging from both his timing and the grumpy look on his face, he had been waiting until the shrew left until he revealed himself…a smart move on his part, Zoe decided.
"That bossy, loudmouth bullfrog," the boy furling grumbled, slapping his palm with his stick as if it was a weapon. "Who does she think she is? Ordering us around like she's Mom…"
"Martin!" The girl furling, 'Teresa', hissed at her brother.
Zoe turned her attention away from the incoming sibling conflict to try her luck by escaping herself. The shrew had made a mistake stringing the gag in her mouth; while it may have had the ability to cancel out fay magic, her teeth were still as sharp and deadly as ever. She bit down into the rope, ignoring the burning sting of salt in her mouth, and began working her jaws back and forth in a sawing motion.
She could feel the tiny threads snap one by one to the sharp edges of her fangs; if she could keep this up without being caught for just a few seconds longer…
A sudden weight pulled on her from the side, causing her to bob mid-air and the strings to dig into her arms and legs; she gave a muffled yelp of pain before straining her neck over to see what caused it; out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy furling 'Martin' climbing up one of the strings hanging from her side directly to her, moving with a surprising amount of speed and agility than she would've thought a creature of his girth could.
"Martin, what are you doing?!" Teresa asked in a fretful tone.
"I'm untying her, what does it look like?" He stated as if it was the most obvious thing, shimmying up until he plopped himself on Zoe's back as if riding a horse; despite being less than half her size, she could still feel the additional weight pull on her bonds, un-surprisingly heavy for such a chubby furling. His soft fur also tickled her bare arms, and it took a good deal of willpower to keep from reacting.
Teresa looked outright alarmed at the idea. "B-But you heard what Auntie Shrew said!" She objected, still holding onto the string she had been handed. "If we let her go-!"
"Since when does anything that loud-mouth says actually comes true?" Martin scoffed dismissively as he fiddled with the binding around the fairy's head. "Besides, Dad always said the fairies were his friends; even had adventures with some before he met Mom! I'll believe him over that old shrew any day."
That brought a look of conflict to the female furling's face. "Well, y-yeah. But…" She stammered, now unsure of her aunt's argument.
Whatever further objections she could've made were rendered moot; whether the boy furling had finished untying the string around the fairy's mouth or said fairy's teeth had finally finished biting through it, the gag around her head snapped loose. Zoe barely had time to give a gasp of relief with her cleared mouth before she fell from her suspended trap, landing face-first to the ground with an audible 'THUMP!'. Cynthia gave an audible squeak of fear before she scampered behind her sister's skirts, while the older furling herself gave a small chirp of surprise at the sudden fall.
Zoe, meanwhile, lifted her face out of the dirt and promptly spat the loose strands of string out of her mouth. "Thank you very much! You have no idea how much this stuff burns."
"She's talking!" Cynthia squeaked, only vaguely aware that she wasn't supposed to listen to fairies speak.
The brown-haired fairy only gave the furling an unamused look before she wriggled over onto her back; with a lift and a heave with her legs, she managed to flip herself up into a sitting position, folding her bound legs against themselves to keep herself steady. Then, with an impressive amount of bodily control, she managed to heave herself forward without falling and push herself up onto her feet; at that point, it was merely an act of standing up without falling over and she was upright again. The mice all stared up in awe at how tall she was; at least the same height as the average rat, standing more than twice their own height.
"Yes, yes, it is I: The Great and Terrible Zoe, here to steal all your left socks, turn your grannies into slugs, and all that other evil fairy stuff. You have that for an aunt, you know the drill." She stated flatly off in the most sarcastic voice she could muster, wobbling back and forth in place like a sack full of water. The furlings gathered around her, their expressions now those of curious children rather than fearful ones. "Now that we've established that, can you untie me now? As I said, these strings burn something fierce."
"What are you doing here?" Teresa asked as she walked around her, hesitantly unwinding her bonds yet still genuinely curious.
"You know, I'm actually here to ask you guys the exact same thing." Zoe told her, turning her body in place to follow her gaze. This ended up being a mistake, though; she barely had time to realize this action had thrown off her already-weakened balance when she felt herself begin to tilt forward. "Legs! Legs! LEEEEEEEGS!"
But it was too late. Cynthia, who was following her sister with the end of the string in her good hand, barely had time to drop said string and scamper out of Zoe's shadow before the fairy keeled over like a falling tree and once again found herself becoming personally (and painfully) acquainted with the earth.
"Ow…" She grumbled in the dirt; something definitely broke that time.
She felt the pitter-patter of paws in front of her, and she pulled her face up out of the dirt to see Cynthia leaning in to examine her, her large, outright comically-adorable eyes wide with a mix of childlike wonder and caution. "Oh, the poor bumble-bee lady fell down." She cooed in a pitiful tone, as if trying to make her feel better.
Zoe blanched, taken quite aback by that statement, before promptly rolling over onto her side.
"I-wha-…where in the Hollow did you get Bumble-Bee from?" she asked in an exasperatedly-incredulous manner, working herself up into a sitting position again; it was by no means the worst thing she had been called, not by a long shot, but she was still dumbfounded by it. "A Butterfly, maybe, but why a Bumble-Bee?"
The blonde furling pointed to Zoe's abdomen-tail and, with all the tactfulness a three-year-old could possibly have, matter-of-factly said: "You have a bumble bee butt."
Teresa had to clap her hands over her mouth to stop the squeak of laughter from escaping her lips, failing to suppress the giggles from escaping. Martin didn't even bother to try hiding it, outright rolling onto his back with his arms around his stomach, guffawing loudly. Cynthia was completely unaware as to why her siblings were laughing, but laughter is nothing if not contagious for children, and soon she was giggling as well, even if she didn't truly know why.
Zoe watched the three giggling away without a care in the world, their smiles pure and untainted by the burdens of the world, and she felt that pesky bite of ol' Mr. Conscience gnaw at her insides…until a fourth voice brushed against the tips of her ears; one that she was far more familiar with.
It was so deliberately distant and quiet, she almost missed it completely, but her fairy ears were just sharp enough to pick up noises that mouse ears evidently could not…and the guttural rattle of saurian vocalizations was undeniable. Keeping an unamused expression on her face, she glanced in the direction of the noise; this made it look like she was merely rolling her eyes at the laughing children, as to avoid drawing their attention to the spot where Spyro was hiding.
And sure enough, there he was.
In the cornfield behind the furlings, concealed within the shadows, she spotted him; the dim light barely reflected off his scales, casting a dim outline of his large form in the shade. If that wasn't enough, the star-like glow of his eyes was shining forth in the dark…and within those eyes, even from all the way over here, she could see it: that unmistakable glint of amusement, as well as the gleaming reflection of his teeth, his jaws open and his lips curled up as the quiet guttural laughter bubbled up from his throat.
The fairy found herself genuinely struggling against the urge to snarl in disbelief as well as exasperation; had he been there the entire time?! Just sitting back and watching her be dragged around like a sack of dead meat, letting these cheese-nibbling rascals use her as a glorified punching bag?! She narrowed her eyes dangerously at him, hoping he could see her displeasure from this distance; it sure was easy to laugh at one's humiliation when you weren't the one going through it, wasn't it?!
The Bond she shared with him be damned; once she got out of this mess, she was going to turn his tail into a dragon-scale purse! It would go nicely with the boots she made out of the rest of him!
"So…" Teresa started, prompting the scowling fairy to turn her attention back to the mice. "If you aren't here to 'curse our farm' or that kinda stuff, then why are you here?"
"As I said before, that's the very question I came to ask you." Zoe told her without missing a beat. "You mice are a few days afar from Dapplewood, don't you think?"
"What do you mean? We live here." Martin answered rather firmly, taking a bit of a defensive tone towards her question. "This is our home."
"And your home is on our land." She fired right back, unfazed by his remark. "This is Feywild: Fae Territory, that you've built your farm on, and we don't like trespassers." She motioned to the stone towering over them with a nod of the head. "Not only that, but the Lee of the Stone is also a very important place to us fairies; a place we gave to a very close friend of ours."
After saying this, she took the moment to observe their reactions. Martin remained stubbornly firm on his stance, scowling at her like she was the one in the wrong here; classic 'stubborn young boy' reaction. Teresa, on the other hand, seemed to recognize the severity of the situation, if the look of concerned fear coming over her face was anything to judge by. Zoe was impressed; it appears that at least one of them was smarter than the rustic surroundings would lead others to believe, meaning that at least one of their parents was capable of schooling their children. A luxury not a lot of Mice Rodentkin could afford, as higher education was something only the Rats or richer families of lesser rodentkin could afford.
And Cynthia was…wait, where was the-?
That's when she saw her, and the fairy had to bite down on her own tongue to keep from outright screaming.
While they had been talking, the youngest mouse had wondered over where all of Zoe's belongings had fallen out of her pockets and was now going through them like the child she was, fascinated by all the shiny new toys to play with. And the one she decided to play with none other than the Speaking Crystal that she had just been talking to Avalon with! And she was rubbing her good paw across the surface! If she touched it two more times like that, the spell would activate, and she would get a personal introduction to the King of Feywild! Then there would be no chance for negotiation at that point.
Zoe wanted to shout at her to not touch it but doing so would only make things worse; not only was the tension between the two already dangerously tense at this point, but revealing she had direct connections to the royalty all fairy kind would probably only encourage them to use it.
The very innocence of childhood that was her saving grace was now turned against her in the most ironic sense. Truly a double-edged sword.
"Well, we were here first!" Martin snapped at her, drawing attention back to the conversation. "And we've never seen this 'special friend' of yours."
Zoe turned back to the two older mice, though she kept the nerve-wracking sight of Cynthia and the crystal in her peripheral vision. "That's because said friend and I have been away for a while, and only just got back this morning." She explained, already aware of how contrived that sounded.
"How do we know you're not lying?" Martin continued, waving his little stick at her face like a sword.
Zoe cocked an eyebrow at the rather silly display of childish bravado. "Let me ask you this, then: how long have you mice lived here?"
Martin opened his mouth to say something, but Teresa beat him to it.
"About nine years." She explained, looking a little suspicious herself but still playing the role of peace-keeper. "Dad moved us here a few weeks after Martin was born."
'Figures…' The fairy thought to herself; literally only one year after she and Spyro had left for the Dragon Realms…and roughly the time they were supposed to come back home to Nimh, were it not for the greenskin idiot with the eggshell ego dragging them into that stupid quest to save said realms. Another truly ironic situation.
"And we've been gone for ten, so you just missed us." She told them with a sigh, already internally cringing from how much of a lie it sounded like; even it was true, it sounded way too convenient to be believable.
And they apparently thought so too, if their doubtful, now-distrusting faces were anything to go by.
Teresa gave her own sigh and glanced toward her brother expectantly, who only nodded in response. "Okay…maybe Auntie Shrew was right this time." He admitted, picking up the string that he had untied Zoe from, earning a groan of defeat from the fairy. "Guess fairies can't be trusted after all."
Zoe gave the mouse boy a flat, unamused glance, as if she was about to say something, until a sudden movement behind them caught her eye; the movement of a very large creature that finally decided to act.
Martin had barely taken a step towards her before she spoke again, a bright gleam of pride and smugness in her eyes.
"Then perhaps you'll believe the word of a dragon instead."
The male furling looked confused, and turned to look at his equally confused sisters, when a deep, draconian growl thundered through their bones like the rumble of an earthquake, impacting them with all the subtlety of a thunderclap. They didn't have the time to comprehend their own shocked fear before the cornstalks behind them began to sway and crack, the tall plants being shoved aside as a massive saurian form pushed its way through. Large wings shoved the wall apart as their owner stepped out from his hiding place, his form and power looming over the four creatures with all the presence of a dormant volcano, just waiting to erupt.
Cynthia stared up in overwhelming horror as the monster she had just encountered made its presence known.
Whatever bravery Martin had been flaunting quickly crumbled away as he realized the sheer size and form of the beast before them.
And Teresa quickly began to regret her wish for change as the large dragon with royal-purple scales watched them with eyes that burned with a literal glow of flame.
For even with all the imagination her father had given them with his stories and teaching, even with the surprise of seeing a real-life fairy, nothing could've prepared her or her siblings for the moment they would first come face to face with an Honest-to-Frith Dragon.