Disclaimer:I don't own anything or anyone from Artemis Fowl.(Ain't it a *hic* bloomin' shame? :P )
We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by
embracing one another.
~Luciano de Crescenzo
It was several minutes after Opal and Alina were gone before Holly and Artemis began trying to release themselves from the piton cord binding them together. "This is just wonderful," Holly grunted as they lay on their sides. An over-strenuous attempt to get free had caused them to tip over, and now they were in a somewhat uncomfortable position, and still unable to move very much. "We're going to be stuck here until Retrieval shows up to drag us out, and they'll blow everything out of proportion. D'Arvit that Opal!"
"Swearing isn't going to help us get out of here," Artemis pointed out in his usual annoying fashion. "But do be a bit quieter; we don't want to attract unneeded attention, if possible. Are you sure you don't have any kind of projectile or knife that we can use?"
"Of course I'm sure," Holly hissed at him, her annoyance coming through her voice clearly. "If I had something like that, I would have tried to use it already!"
"What about magic?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow that she couldn't see. "You could use it to burn through?"
"No," she replied unhappily. "Magic is fine for melting through plastic ties, but piton cord is made to be resistant to flame, magic, and it's incredibly hard to saw through."
"Oh...right. Holly," Artemis added, wanting to reassure her. "It's okay. We'll get out of this; we always have in the past, and we can do it again."
After more wiggling, Holly, still unable to get free, laid still. All of a sudden, in the silence following her stop to moving, she heard light, quick footsteps coming up the stairs from the TV room and into the kitchen. A moment later, they came onto the soft carpet of the room Artemis and Holly were laying bound in, and suddenly, a curious face was right in front of Holly's.
"Hi! Are you an elf?" Elsa's face cocked to the side, and a tiny smile was twitching at her lips. Her hair was in two pigtails, and they hung down, tickling Holly's forehead as Elsa bent over her. After an uneasy moment, Holly glanced over at Artemis to watch him nod.
"Err...yes, I'm an elf. Can you untie us?" Holly asked after seeing Artemis nod. It might not be the best thing to tell Elsa, but at least they would be able to get free.
"Okay," Elsa smiled even more widely, causing her eyes to close for a moment before she set to work. "I'll have to get a knife," she added, after trying unsuccessfully to untie the knots several times. "Don't worry, I'll be careful."
She disappeared for a moment, then reappeared holding a paring knife with a three-inch blade. Using it, she began sawing at the piton, though it still took time.
"Elsa, where are your parents?" Artemis asked as he sat up, massaging his upper arms and wrists. Though they hadn't been bound for an extremely long time, he wasn't the most muscular person, so it hurt him more than it would Holly.
Cocking her head once again, Elsa sat on a stool she'd pulled out from under an old rollover desk and swung her legs. "Mama's at the store, and Daddy's at work still. Daddy gets back at 5:30, but I don't know how long Mama will take. She spends a long time shopping, though..." she looked at the clock, then back at Holly and Artemis. "It's only 2:00...so you can stay and play with me, right?"
Artemis winced, then answered as he would to one of his brothers. "Not ri-" At this point, Holly interrupted him, shaking her head in his direction for a moment.
"We can't stay, Elsa," Holly said gently, realizing the cause of the girl's confusion. "Alina's gone away, and we have to find her, and bring her back to you. Can you tell your mom and dad that Alina's having a sleepover with her new friend Holly, and she won't back for a while? It would really help us."
"Sure!" she nine-year-old said brightly, and seemed to brighten up a bit more. "Who's Opal?" she asked suddenly, proving to Holly that she'd been listening at least a little to their conversation before.
"She's not a good person," Artemis put in. "You wouldn't want to meet her, I assure you."
"Oh, okay. I'll tell Mama; she and Daddy won't mind that Aly is gone for a little bit. They're still sad about Casey," Elsa explained, as if they knew who Casey was and what had happened. "And Aly gets sad sometimes too, because she says she can't remember. She told me once, and you can't tell anyone else," Elsa's eyes darted back and forth, as if she were about to share an enormous secret. "She told me that fairies took her memories away, after she found some of them. She said that they can hypnotize you by looking in your eyes, too."
Glancing uneasily at Holly, Artemis was about to reply when Elsa interrupted once more. "Can you hypnotize people?" she asked Holly, cocking her head again. "That's so cool!" she exclaimed when Holly hesitantly nodded.
"One more thing, Elsa," Artemis added, before the little girl was about to skip down the stairs and back to her movie. He gestured at Holly to come forward, and she caught on to his idea. "You don't have to tell Mama or Daddy about us, okay?" she murmured, using a touch of the mesmer on Elsa.
"Oh...okay!" she whispered, then bounced away, calling over her shoulder, "I'm really good at keeping secrets, you'll see!"
Alina had her hands over her eyes, not because she was afraid, but because Opal had ordered her to keep them there until they were off the ground. Because she had never flown in a plane before, she couldn't tell when they were in the air, but when the shuttle tipped slightly, she couldn't help herself. She grabbed onto the armrests of the seat she was strapped into, and with eyes wide, gasped at the sight around her.
They were high, so high in the air that she could no longer see the ground through the veil of clouds that separated her from the Earth. An odd sense of joy filled her, and she laughed, flinging her arms wide. There was a viewscreen that wrapped around the entire cockpit, so there was nowhere that she could see. She looked up, and the stars twinkled merrily back at her, as if they knew exactly what she was feeling.
"Quiet!" Opal snapped at her, concentrating wholly on flying the shuttle. It wasn't extremely difficult, but she liked to put her best into anything she did. If anything she did was not her best, than it would mean that everything Foaly did was better. That infernal, piggish centaur! she hissed at the vision of Foaly, head back and ears splayed, laughing at her. That image haunted her every day, and would until the day she died. Which, if she had her way, would be never. That was a slightly disturbing thought, but she was sure that if she could someday finally kill the centaur, then the vision would persist no more.
"Sorry," Alina whispered, her happiness vanishing right away. You would think that being yelled at all the time would make it easier to bear, but to her, it seemed to be worse every time. Even a small snap could have her in tears, though she was getting better at making her face an emotionless mask. For instance, right now, she kept her face emotionless, biting her tongue viciously, until it bled. It worked, though she pretended to yawn for an excuse to wipe her moist eyes off quickly. She was wishing more and more that she'd never met Opal, let along seen her. It was no use now, though, and she realized this with no small amount of regret.
After Opal set the shuttle to autopilot, she unstrapped herself, then walked into the passenger section of the shuttle, beckoning for Alina to follow. When she came through the door, Opal was seated already in another chair, leaning back, and waiting for something.
"Wh...what do you want me to do?" Alina asked, almost too scared to ask, but managing to make her voice mostly steady for the question and stepping a bit closer.
"Are you honestly that stupid?" Opal asked, not opening her eyes but curling her lip distastefully. "I don't want you to do something, I order you to do it. Massage that," she pointed to one bottle sitting among several others. "Into my scalp. It has been so long since I have had a good massage."
Hesitantly, Alina picked up the bottle, poured some of the oil contained within it onto her hands, then began rubbing it into Opal's hair.
"Not like that, idiot!" Opal's fingers demonstrated with easy dexterity exactly how she wanted Alina to massage the oil in. However, try as she might, Alina couldn't get her fingers to work exactly the same way, and was becoming quickly frustrated.. After several minutes of failing to meet Opal's satisfaction, the pixie jumped up, cheeks flaming, and struck Alina across one cheek, hard.
With eyes filling with tears, not from sorrow, but from pain and rage, Alina looked into Opal's eyes, glaring her already-budding hate. A fast-moving trickle of blood spilled from a long cut caused by Opal's long fingernails, and Opal smiled sweetly.
"I shall have to train you to perfection," she whispered, running her claw-like fingers through Alina's hair, almost lovingly. "But," the pixie added, "You have already shown how easily you hate. Very good, but I will teach you utter loathing."
Wow. I still can't believe I'm to chapter 5; I've never gotten this far into a longer fic before! *faints* I'm totally having fun writing it, and thank you everyone who has reviewed; it really means a lot to me. :) Updates probably will be a little slower this week because I have school still(*sighs*), but once Christmas vacation really starts, I'll be writing more. ^_^
Also, I'm not exactly sure, but I'm planning on this fic having anywhere from 20-26 chapters, though it depends on how much writing time I have. Oh, and for those who would, it'd be awesome if more people voted on the poll I have set up in my profile. It doesn't take that much time; just a few clicks of your mouse, and it's really appreciated. ^_^ Same with reviews; you don't have to...but it's really awesome. :P
I hope you all enjoy this chapter, comments and constructive crit are always, always welcome, and thank you to everyone who's stuck with me this far! *applauds readers and reviewers*