Within the Silence

Chapter Two: The promise.

As the last notes reverberates I feel the tingling sensation at its highest peak and I feel something like an explosion. I'm pushed back into my bed, laying there breathing deeply, Piccolo safely clenched into my right hand.

I have no idea what that was, but I'm sure this was a one in a lifetime sort of thing.

As I groggily sit up I regard the music stand which had been jumping up and down rather strangely, different from when I just successfully ended a difficult song. No, it was something different, and as I got a good glimpse of it my eyes widened.

I couldn't believe what I saw in front of me.

"Awtch!" I hear a high-pitched voice from the other end of my bed as a tiny creature sits up rubbing its head. "I've known softer landings..." it complaints before looking around. "Where am I?" it suddenly asks and I realise a tad bit too late that it's talking to me.

"Huh?" I blurt out as I crawl backwards to the back of my bed, trying to keep as far away from it as possible.

"Huh? What's with that reply?" it asks before closing in on me, and only now do I notice it's actually a little humanish being with tiny bug-like wings...fairy wings.

"Are you a pixie?" I ask, trying to keep the trembling from my voice but failing miserably.

A loud laugh suddenly echoes through the room and I curse myself for asking Lin to put a spell on the walls so that I could practice for hours on end years ago. If only the others would've heard something they would've appeared to come to my aid...I guess.

"I'm so not a pixie!" the girl replies, smiling broadly as she puts her hands in her sides. "I'm a fairy."

"Fairy?" I ask, pulling up an eyebrow, completely forgetting about my fear as I look at her up and down. She looks like a fairy sure enough, only twenty times too small. As I look more closely at her she's a small looking girl with long black-blueish hair like my own that reaches her butt, like mine, but I cannot make out more about her face for she's also wearing a red mask behind which I can only see a pair of dark blue eyes looking at me. Other than that she's wearing a simple red dress that ends just below her knee, with a split to the left side going up mid-thigh. Her small wings are light blue in the form of an X.

"Aren't you a bit small to be a fairy?" I ask her, smirking down at her as she walks over to me over the covers on my bed.

"Small?" she asks, as if only noticing now, and I nod.

Then she checks herself and only then seems to notice.

"Jeez you're right! This wasn't supposed to happen!" she exclaimed rather angrily after which she quickly calms down. "Well, I guess I'll have to work with this."

"Work?" I ask her.

She looks up at me with a smirk equalling mine from a few seconds ago. "Yeah, work. That's why you called upon me right?"

"I'm not sure I'm following." I admit to her, trying to back off even further, glancing at the door which is directly to my right. If I make a dash for it, I might get out in time.

"Music."

My eyes are immediately pulled towards her as I hear her voice say that. Something in me clicked when I did. That voice. Though higher it sure reminded me of something. Something I cannot put my finger on.

"What's with it."

"You called upon me for a reason right?"

"I dunno." I tell her, crossing my arms in front of my chest. It's not like I expected you to appear out of thin air."

"Then...how?" she asks and I point towards the score book now lying on the floor uselessly.

"I just bought a book."

She remained quiet for a short period of time. "I see. Then this is destiny's doing."

She turns towards me. "Then I must say how glad I am to finally see you."

"Why the sudden change in attitude?" I ask her, raising an eyebrow. "First you say I called upon you, and now that it doesn't seem that way you tell me you've been expecting me showing up."

"Well it is both true. If you'd said you called upon me I would've helped you first, but now that you told me you just summoned me out of sheer luck, it's you who has been chosen to help me."

"You need help?" I ask, not able to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

She nods and smiles up at me.

"It's really been a long time."

I snap. "Look. If you're really going to keep that up I'm going to get someone to make you leave okay?!"

She seems shocked at that. "I'm sorry. This must be strange to you."

"Understatement." I bark, glaring at her. She really pissed me off suddenly.

"I guess you don't want to help."

I sigh at her crestfallen look and the sadness in her voice, and I know I'm going to regret what I'm going to say next. I already know, but I'm unable to keep myself from saying it.

"What do you want?"

Her eyes lit up from behind her mask and a smile creeps up her face. "I need you to save my planet."

A moment of silence passes before I burst into laughing.

"Hahaha! Why not immediately ask me to save the whole magical dimension?!" I quickly regain my composure, it is not nice to laugh at someone's request. "It's impossible, ask someone else."

"I cannot." she replies to me and I glare down at her.

"Sorry chick, but you've got the wrong person before you."

"I don't think so." she's smiling at me again and I notice her looking around. "You're a musician, right?"

"Riiiight."

"Then you have what it takes to help me and my planet."

I sigh again, leaning back. "Look, little one, I cannot save a planet. I just can't. Ask the Winx if you want to be saved."

"The Winx?" she asked, suddenly very interested.

I regard her as she expects me to reply.

"Uhm, the Winx have been gone for quite some time now. It's a joke. A bad one, I know, but a joke. A way to say that what you're asking is downright impossible. There haven't been real heroes like the Winx in over fifteen years."

She just smiles at me after this. "I see, so no one else stood up."

Suddenly I feel the tension change, and I know she's not kidding.

"You're serious?"

She sighs. "Yes. I need help." Then she looks up at me. "As I already told you, I am a fairy, and in order to get enough power to save my people and my planet, I need your aid."

I blink.

"Look." I say, breaking the silence. "I cannot help you."

"Of course you can!" she talks back.

"No! I can't!"

"Why not?!" she asks, raising her voice.

"Because I don't have any magical power!" I shout back at her. This hurts. Telling I have no real power whatsoever is like pushing salt into an open wound. I live my life trying to forget the fact that I'm a total loser in the magic department, trapped in the magical world.

I turn my head away from her.

Then I feel the tiniest of hands on my cheek and I look down at her as she sits on my shoulder. "That's not true. You have magical powers."

"Then why can't I do anything?" I ask her, trying to forget the real reason why not having magical powers hurts me.

"Because of the same reason why my home planet is now in need of saving."

I regard her somewhat weary. "I don't understand."

"It's actually pretty easy." she says in a kind voice as a smile fights its way up her face. "It's already a fact that you have magical powers, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to summon me by playing the scores. But" she turns to me.

"The reason your powers do not develop, is because the opposite of our power is overruling ours."

"The hell?" I ask, she slaps me.

"Watch your tongue."

"Sorry."

"What I meant, Rhapsody, is that your power is being pushed down from its core."

A short silence followed after which she continued. "I may look like this, but I was a really powerful fairy, so I know. I know your power, maybe even better than you do, for we share its origin."

"And that is?" I cannot keep the hopeful tone from my voice. For years have I been curious as to what exactly my powers would be if they did get stronger, and now this strange creature said she already knew while others would never tell me what it was?

"Music, Rhapsody. You are a fairy of music."

I felt a tear flow out of my right eye and down my cheek. I looked down at my hands.

"Music?"

"Yes, Rhapsody." Tune said, a gentle smile plastered onto her suddenly very mature looking face.

"But then...why?" I stumble to get the words out.

"W-why don't my powers develop? I-I can't even transform!"

The little creature smiled sadly. "As I told you, your power is being pushed down at its core." A short silence befell us as I watched her search for words.

"You do know what the opposite of sound is, right?"

"Uhm, silence?" I try.

She nods. "Years ago, when the Winx's powers were at its peaks a sudden, unforeseen enemy rose to power. The Opposites...they called themselves, dark witches, wizards and fairies, deciding that a new time was upon us. Before the Winx had time to react, they were oppressed, driven apart and chased."

"Well I knew they split up and disappeared..." I mumble, and Tune sighs deeply.

"We...of that age...hoped there would be a day someone would stand up. To save us all."

"You hoped that?!" I exclaim. "You hoped someone would just stand up and take the place of the Winx?! They were the most powerful fairies in all of the magic dimensions! No one could even get a tenth of their strength! You do know that they even had a power never seen before, right?!"

Tune nodded. "I am from that time, so I know."

I'm weary about her answer so I've got to ask. "You fought side by side with them? Didn't you?"

She thinks for a moment and then looks up at me and replies: "Yes. I did."

Without me wanting it my eyes water. It's all so much to take in: A magical music score, a pixie-like fairy coming out of it, the talk of why the worlds aren't as beautiful as they used to be, the real thing that happened to the heroes of all time the Winx and then hearing that I do have magical powers. It's all a bit too much to take.

"Rhapsody." Tune suddenly speaks again and I look down at her.

"Believe me you can do this. We can do this together, but you need to really want to help me. Are you willing to do this for me?"

"I really think you have the wrong person before you. If what you say is true I'm the weakest among fairies...I really think you should go to Faragonda at Alfea to ask another music fairy."

"Rhapsody. You summoned me here. You used music to get me out. This is destiny. Whether you like it or not."

"Then why do you want me to reply?!" I yell, overwhelmed. "Why do you suddenly want me to reply whether or not I want to, if you've already decided for me?!"

"Because, if you do not take this decision for yourself...you might not get out alive."

My eyes widen. "Come again?"

"If you do not take this quest upon you by your own will, you might lack what will get you out alive."

"And that is?"

"The want, and the need for a truly happy end. In other words: Hope."

"Hope?" the word feels heavy on my tongue, and I'm not sure that after all this time hoping for my magic powers to appear I'm even capable of feeling something else than despair.

As if reading my mind Tune once more puts one of her tiny hands on my cheek and looks deeply into my eyes. "If this all goes well Rhapsody, you will be a true Music Fairy by the end of this quest."

Despite myself my eyes widen once again, and warm tears escape my eyes, washing away over twelve years of despair.

"You really think so?"

"I don't just think so Rhapsody." she speaks. "I know so. I know you will become a very strong, and talented fairy."

Memories of years of torture by the other children rush through my head, along with the hundreds of melodies who ever saved me from the depths of my desperation, keeping me on the edge of the black hole in which I was being pulled. What would they all think when they finally saw that I was not a waste of space, but a real fairy like I told them I was hundreds of times? But, was I all about this artificial thing? Should I really take on a quest this big with only the need of respect to drive me on?

I shook the last thought off. In due time, my reasons for taking the quest might change, but at this time, my sole need is to become a fairy. A real fairy with real powers.

"Okay. Tell me what I must do."