Chapter 9

The day of crazy happenings had come to a close and Artemis and Dash parted ways for once in mutual understanding. After being praised by what seemed to be every fairy on Pixie Hollow, Artemis had finally managed to get to her house. Once inside, Artemis immediately closed the door and sank to the ground in exhaustion. Even though she was extremely tired, she knew that she was filthy and slowly stood to clean herself up. When the mud was all gone, she then slipped into her bed and immediately fell asleep. As usual, she dreamed of her time with the pirates.

The cage was cold and hard when Blackbeard tossed Artemis into it. With the gate shut, she watched helplessly as her captor walked out, laughing as he closed the door. Once he was gone, Artemis began looking at her surroundings. It was dark inside the room, but the light from the windows allowed her to see what was within. There was a small bed in the corner next her with a small table next to it which only had a lantern on top. A large desk sat on a rug in the middle of the room with various odds and ends sitting on it and a large chair to match it. There were several book shelves that were all full of books and a few old paintings hung from the walls.

As she looked around, Artemis felt the hairs of the back of her neck stand up and she quickly turned around. There was nothing, but the feeling never faded. Slowly turning back around, she jumped in fright when she came face to face with a crow. Artemis had never seen a crow before and she felt they generally weren't to be feared, but this one was different. It had scars along it's face which looked to be made from large claws and it's red eyes gazed down at her in an eerie way.

Then, as if to taunt her condition, it began banging into the cage, cawing as it went. Feeling immense fear of this creature, Artemis curled herself into a ball in the middle of the cage to protect herself from the dark bird and cried until she could cry no more.

Artemis woke up from her dream due to a noise. It wasn't Fawn's usual knock to indicate another start of another day, in fact it was still dark outside. The sound was a screech only an animal makes when it was in pain. Not wanting to go back to sleep and not wanting to keep the creature suffering, she immediately got up and went to her closet to change. Quickly changing into a brown top with sleeves that didn't go past her shoulders, a corset like belt went around her stomach and another piece of fabric went over it, pants, and her usual long combat styled boots. Quickly putting her hair into a braid she then went straight out the door and flew into the sky.

From what she could see, it was only a little bit before dawn, which meant nobody else would be awake at this time. Flying high above the trees, she listened for the animal again. Hearing it, she flew a little bit towards the direction it came from. Stopping a few times to only hear it again, she then found it had come from a part of the Fall Forest not a whole lot of fairies go to. This particular spot was rather eerie looking and it was a little nerve wrecking to even think about going in. Then she heard the screech again, louder this time, and she had no choice but to go in.

Flying slowly close to the ground, Artemis kept an eye out for any predators that might be lurking within. Then, she saw something rather peculiar. Landing to get a closer look, it turned out to be a large indentation in the ground that went on in a straight line a little bit ahead. She knew only an animal who had fallen could've made this. Wasting no more time, she slowly followed the indentation to not startle the hurt animal.

As she walked, she came into a clearing which surprisingly was the only less creepy place in this part of the forest. Looking around for the animal, she began to feel as if something wasn't quite right. The hairs on her arms stood up and there wasn't a single animal lying around anywhere. She then recalled her dream and this didn't help her feel any better. Then she heard the sound a twig makes when it has been stepped on. Artemis looked in the direction the sound had come from just as a large bird came charging at her.

Quickly flying into the air out of it's reach, she looked down and saw the bird was a hawk. Then she realized it was the same hawk from the day before and for some reason it wasn't flying up after her. Instead, it looked at her with what she could guess were angry eyes. Eventually it must have mustered some determination, because it hopped into the air to get her. It didn't reach her, instead it fell on it's wing and let out the painful shriek Artemis had heard. This was when Artemis realized the reason it didn't fly after her was because it's wing was broken.

She didn't know what to do. If she tried to help, the hawk would try to kill her, and if she wanted to help, she wouldn't know how anyways. Artemis hadn't been taught how to mend wounded wings and the sun was rising, which meant she would have to start her job soon. Then a thought struck her. The hawk definitely needed help and there was one fairy she knew could possibly teach her how, Clara. Taking one last glance at the large bird, Artemis took off in hopes of persuading Fawn to let her have the day off. She just hoped she would be convincing enough.

Author's Note: All righty my lovelies, a new chapter is out! Whew this was slow for me to work on, but hey it's here. Anyways thanks for the continuous interest everyone and I shall post another chapter soon!