I promise Gavin WILL see the end of the story through.
Disclaimer: As far as the few things I do own, I could be persuaded to give Mr. Mull the credit for them as well. After all, where would T.C. be without Kendra to love him, Seth to be annoyed with him, or Gavin to be befuddled by him?
Seth Sorenson was glad to be home. He was thankful he had stopped the Evening Star, and the evil dragon king. He was pleased that his grandparents, after hearing about his part in killing the Anata Boga, were treating him with more respect. More than anything else, he was thankful his sister was still alive.
The question was, how much longer would she hold out?
Kendra had passed out after the dragon prison collapsed. They waited a few hours, but when she had remained living, Bracken made the executive decision to move her, to try to get her home. She had gone into a coma. They wrote Grandpa Sorenson about what had transpired and he had it arranged for them to rendezvous with a plane on the outskirts of Santa Elena de Uairén. The further they took her from the ruined prison, the worse her fever had gotten. Bracken hadn't left her side, exerting the full extent of his healing powers to keep her alive.
When they arrived at Fablehaven Bracken ordered some fairies to stand over Kendra while he went to seek an audience with his mother via the shrine by the pond. Several hours later, when he had returned he was very tight-lipped about what she had said. It was clear to Seth though that whatever the Fairy Queen had told Bracken to do, he wasn't very happy about it. The only part of his conversation Bracken would share was to tell the Sorenson family that Kendra needed to be moved to the shrine.
Hugo carried Kendra. Bracken and Seth walked with him. Bracken was to take Kendra to the shrine alone. At the edge of the dock Kendra was handed over to Bracken who gingerly put her into the boat.
"How long will you guys be gone?" Seth asked.
Bracken sighed. "As long it takes. I don't know Seth. I'll send the fairies with word whenever – whatever is going to happen happens." His hesitation did little to reassure Seth.
"Okay." Seth watched numbly as Bracken rowed to the shore of the isle in the pond. The resident naiads must have known something of the situation. The waters were abnormally calm. In fact, the entire Fablehaven preserve seemed hushed. Creatures stood by in the shade, watching and listening. It was, on the whole, very unnerving.
Hugo walked back to the house, but Seth decided to take a detour. He was looking for a distraction, and he went to the only place he knew he could find it.
"Seth!" Newel and Doren cried in unison as he came into the view of their tennis court. Verl had been nervously observing from the sidelines. All three hurried over to greet him.
"We heard about Kendra. Has anything else happened?" Verl asked immediately. He wrung his hands anxiously.
"Shut up!" Doren hit Verl on the back of the head. "Clearly, he did not come here to talk about it. If Seth is here -"
"He's in need of a pick me up!" Newel finished with a grin. "Come onm Seth." He slung his hairy arm around a glum Seth's shoulders. "I think a game of tennis is just what the doctor ordered. We'll go two against two. You can be on my team."
"What?!" Doren wailed. "That means I'll be stuck with Verl!"
"Doren!" Newel hissed. "Do you not see that our friend needs us? Come on. Take one for the team buddy."
Doren threw his hands in the air. "Fine!" he moaned dramatically. "But only because Seth is the single most awesome battery supplying dude ever."
I must look even worse than I feel if the satyrs are trying to comfort me, Seth thought miserably.
"For Kendra." Verl said solemnly as he grabbed a racket.
Seth appreciated his friends, but after five rounds in of being 5 and 0, he'd had enough. He watched some soaps with the satyrs to pass the time, but his mind drifted back to his sister. He wondered what, if anything, Bracken and the Fairy Queen could do for her. Kendra was a favorite of the hers, so surely the Fairy Queen would pull out all the stops.
Seth wished he could do something to help. He wanted to be of use, but apparently, according to his grandparents and Bracken, there was nothing he could do except wait.
He just wanted to do something.
"Hey, Doren."
"Yo."
"Do you still have that punching bag that looks like the Gorgrog?"
Doren was preoccupied with the revelation that somebody was pregnant with a married guy's child. "I knew it!" he shouted, pointing at the screen furiously. "I knew it," he repeated to Newel, nodding.
Newel turned to Seth and answered for his friend. "It's seen better days, but yea. Why?"
"I want to hit something."
Doren's ears perked up. He cast a smirk at Newel. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Newel's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Are you thinking that Carina should never have cheated on Robert?"
"No." Doren shook his head emphatically.
"Then, yes; I probably am."
The turned to Seth with mischievous grins. "Pulverization ritual," they said in unison.
Seth nearly smiled. "Oh, I haven't done one of those in so long."
The satyrs stood to their feet. "You're overdue," Doren agreed.
Verl cleared his throat. "What's a pulverization ritual?"
"Only the best thing ever!" Newel cried. "Next to television," he amended.
Doren shot a furtive look back at the screen. "Carina should have stayed with Robert."
"Come on men! Let's lay waste to a demon. Again!" Newel pumped his fist into the air.
Verl squeaked in a mixture of excitement and anxiety as they rushed off to find the Gorgrog dummy.
Seth spent the next several hours letting out his frustration through the merciless beating, burning, and mutilation of an inanimate object.
*.*.*.*.*
Gavin was weakening with each flap of his wings. He felt weighted down, ridiculously heavy. His eye lids had begun to droop. His chest was tight and his body felt feverish (though of the symptoms this was the most endurable - heat was something a dragon could cope with). He was more powerful and in control of himself in his natural form, but he could still feel the effects of distance between him and the one to whom he was bonded/
He had turned around beyond the fall of the prison, heading north to try to numb the pain. Only now he had lost all sense of direction in his current state. He closed his eyes… and when he reopened them he barely avoided being impaled by the trees. The bat screeched right in his ear. Much to Gavin's chagrin, it sounded like laughter.
He couldn't think straight enough to discern. His body felt like jelly. He could no longer remain aloft.
He attempted to land but ended up crashing down onto the ground folded into his wings. His body convulsed and he changed into his human avatar. He tried to get up and walk, but found he didn't have the strength to do that either. In his human body the fever was less bearable, and he found himself crippled with exhaustion. His chest felt mangled and burned.
The skinchanger had stayed with him. The bat morphed back into a dwarf. He stood over Gavin watching him with a cocked head, innocent eyes roving the body of the boy. He didn't say anything or do anything.
Gavin was ready to change back into his dragon form and eat the guy when he was assaulted.
Two rough arms swooped out of nowhere and picked him up.
"Hey!" He struggled against their firm grasp. His heart thumped wildly in protest of physical exertion.
They were warriors who wore golden armor and had great golden, brown speckled wings. A pair of them held Gavin in their arms and two more had thrown a net over the skin changer (who had changed back into a bat and was desperately trying to escape).
"Astrids," Gavin sneered up at his captors. "Does her majesty request my presence, then?"
One of the winged warriors looked at his companion. The other nodded once. The astrid curled his lip disdainfully at Gavin and punched him in the face. Gavin passed out.
*.*.*.*.*
When he woke up later Gavin discovered that he was drooling off the side of a cliff. He quickly jerked back away from the edge.
Hello Navarog, son of Chaos.
Gavin stood, swaying woozily. He noticed his thoughts were more coherent, and the burning in his chest had subsided to an ache. He was on a lush green hill, at the top, looking out across a thick hedge of trees that encircled the hill. Just beyond the trees he could see the Astrids with TC in their net. He looked to the right and left of him. Just behind him sat a small onyx statue depicting a lovely lady in flowing robes. Gavin realized where he was in an instant.
"Molea." He mockingly bowed to the air. He felt an unfamiliar surge of hope like a blood rush to the head. Kendra's love and trust of the Fairy Queen was extremely strong. It was strange to Gavin, to feel this untempered happiness. It made his head spin, and he didn't like it one bit.
He recovered without much difficulty, smothering her joy with his hatred. He had the advantage. His distaste for the molea and her kind ran deeper than Kendra's reverence of them. He had been alive longer, and feelings of darkness are more easily fueled than feelings of light.
"The Brazilian Fairy Shrine," he mused aloud. "It's the only one we could have gotten to so fast. Last I heard the preserve had fallen."
The existence of my shrines is not contingent upon the upkeep of the land around them.
"I see that," Gavin said dryly. He sat down and leaned in so he was eye level with the statue. "It has also been my understanding that only the good-intentioned, true-hearted, and innocent could set foot upon your shrines," he taunted.
There was a delay in response.
You were brought here against your will. For that reason I can allow you to reside here that we may converse.
"And it has nothing to do with that fact that I am now bound to your handmaiden?" He laughed pleasantly. "Okay, I'll bite. I wonder what we could have to talk about. Oh, tell me, how do you take your prisoners, raw or cooked?"
Do not be insolent with me! The voice of the Fairy Queen had been come cold and hard. You know why you are here Navarog, Demon Prince.
"I get the feeling you're using my titles in a way that bears insult."
Are you not curious as to how you are alive when the Chaos written on your chest would have it otherwise?
Gavin's demeanor altered. "Her brother must have gotten Kendra home," he deduced. "He will have taken her to shrine at Fablehaven. Though we are miles apart, through your magic here we are connected."
You are not as slow as you look.
He clucked his tongue. "Now, now - that's no way for a queen to talk."
Navarog, I had my astrids bring you here that we may make a deal.
"I'm listening." He could hear the exasperation in her tone. She wanted to turn him into dandelion seed fluff, and it was easily within her power to do so, but she was refraining for the sake of Kendra. He reveled in the fact that he had not underestimated the Fairy Queen's attachment to the girl. Nevertheless, she was molea, and was not to be trifled with.
I have found a way to sever the connection between you and Kendra Sorenson without taking your lives.
Gavin absorbed this. "I would have thought that doing so would have been beyond your power. The language of Chaos is older than even you, molea." He did not say this insultingly.
The magic to counter such a spell is uncomplicated, in the way that good which once was had been. Light is profound in its cleansing capabilities. It may require great sacrifice, but the choice is unmarred by gray areas.
"Meaning that whatever this magic is, I will have to make a sacrifice for it to work."
I cannot force this magic upon you. You must be a willing participant or else your unwillingness will render the power behind it obsolete.
"What if I don't want to give it up?" Gavin asked, his facetious air returning. "I have yet to say that I believe the connection between Kendra and I should be severed."
If you do not accept my offer you cannot be allowed to continue on this way. You are a threat to my kingdom.
"You would kill me, and thereby Kendra Sorenson, your beloved human." He was only mildly surprised.
I will do what I must to protect my kingdom.
Gavin rolled his eyes. Self-righteous nobility was, in his opinion, highly overrated."This may come as a surprise to you, but I hardly care whether I live or die."
You may not have cared before… She let him finish the thought.
"You overvalue the level of interest I have in Kendra."
When you were bound, a portion of your darkness went into her and a portion of her light shone into you. What good has already been in you has been enhanced. You do desire to live, as much as any creature does.
She was wrong there, at least in part. He did not feel guilt at the prospect of being the cause of Kendra's death. The molea's premise was flawed. Kendra was a part of him, but he could only want her to live if he had a desire to live himself. Which of course, he wasn't sure that he had.
"Am I to expect that after all I've done, after you sever the one connection I have to this girl, you will let me walk away free? Your highness, I am not one of your naive subjects."
If you will of your own free will take part in this magic, I will offer you amnesty. You will be sent to the dragon sanctuary Silvermoor.
Gavin snorted. "You mean you'll be sending me to Zorthanc, another glorified prison?"
No. I do not speak dubiously. It is not in my nature. You will be given a home in the most outlying Gabanna Nut Tree of the Silvermoor portion of the preserve.
"Where I will remain tucked away where you all can be sure I will do no more harm. Living my days alone in a mountainous tree, forgotten and purposeless? That does not sound much like living to me."
You may take your friend, should he desire to go with you. It is my understanding that he does.
It took Gavin a moment to realize whom the Fairy Queen was referring to. "He's not my friend. He's a crazy skin changing dwarf that followed me from the prison. I actually have no idea where he came from."
Sometimes the things we need most are unidentifiable until they come into our lives unexpectedly and change them for the better.
"Right. I'm fraught with need for the friendship of a psychopathic dwarf." But Gavin thought back to when the dwarf had saved his life.
Do you think of her often?
"Kendra? Hardly."
I am speaking of the naiad that guarded the Forbidden Dragon Sanctuary. Amana.
Gavin stiffened. "Why do you ask?"
She gave her life for you.
"How do you know of that?" he demanded.
She loved you.
"A foolish mistake on her part that resulted in her untimely demise," he rebutted scornfully.
Perhaps it was foolish of her. She loved you nonetheless, falling as all creatures of light eventually do. Consider Navarog that dragons by nature are not light or dark like fairies or demons. They choose as humans do to be filled with one or the other. You have lived a long life. You are older than you have been made to look, in part because you were never given the chance to mature. You have made many enemies, and few, if any, would call you friend. You are tired, whether you admit so to yourself or not. You will have wondered if there is more to life, having tasted death.
The Fairy Queen paused.
But not for Amana or Kendra could you be persuaded to life. I do not appeal to the good in you –I look to your selfish heart. Live on Navarog, if only to experience a world where Gavin can wake up without a Master to answer to, without the burdens of the past weighing you down. Live untethered as you never have before.
Gavin stared at the statue. "You make a good case," he admitted. He saw past her manipulative play on words, and was not blind to her desperation. It was not lost on him that she was only interested in the fate of her handmaiden. All the same, she had a point.
What will it be, dragon? Die as Navarog, or live as Gavin?
There was a clear choice, cut and dry, as the Fairy Queen had promised there would be. He could live, but he would still be a captive. A free captive (oh, the irony), but a captive nonetheless. He couldn't get away with lying. The Fairy Queen's magic would reveal him. He had to be wholeheartedly committed, one way or another - an annoying prospect.
He knew what his decision would have to be.