Chapter 28

The taste of the salty air lingered on Black Beard's lips even though he and his men were far from the ocean. For weeks now, he had been preparing for the chance take care of the fairies for once and for all. Endless days upon endless days, half of his crew had been harvesting resources from the island and the other half were melting these resources and turning them into cannon balls or bullets, in case they were again attacked by the annoying Captain Hook.

Looking on his men's progress, the pirate thought nothing could bitter his day. He was wrong, as he noticed the silhouette of the shape shifter Morwen. Now in his human-ish form, the man and beast stood side by side in silence.

"How much longer?" Morwen suddenly ask, jumping straight to the point as usual.

"A few more days and I should have enough cannon balls to burn Pixie Hollow to the ground." Was Black Beard's answer, refraining from letting his agitation towards being ordered around show.

Sensing the Captain's agitation, the shape-shifter turned to him and said "You have until the day after tomorrow. I don't care how many cannon balls your men have to finish making, but both my master and I are tired of the delays and if you are to redeem yourself of your mistake, then I'd suggest you make sure everything is ready before nightfall of that day. Morpheus needs to feast on the heart of Pixie Hollow and has waited long enough to satisfy his hunger."

"My men and I will have our part finished, the question is, will you have yours?"

"Don't underestimate my capabilities human, unlike you, I am willing to lay down my life in order for my master to succeed. I'll have that barrier down and you will burn every inch of that disgusting home of those foolish pixies."

Distracted for a moment by a noise to his left, Black Beard turned his attention back to his companion with a questioning stare "That's all very well, but how will you do it? After all you are not a Hawk Rider."

"You humans are so dimwitted, you have to have everything spelled out for you in order to understand. By blood you fool, and it's high time those Hawk Riders become something useful."

Seeing the crazed shape-shifter smile with glee at the thought of what he plans to do, Black Beard was soon left to his own devices as Morwen transformed back into a crow and flew off to the darkest part in all of Neverland.

Artemis and Dash had spent two hours at the waterfall until they both came to the conclusion of it being best for the fast flyer to leave in order for Alfonse calmed down. As soon as Dash had left, it turned out the older water fairy was nowhere to be seen. Deciding he had went out through one of the tunnels, Artemis thought it would be okay if she practiced on her own. Taking her sword, she did a couple of swings and jabs on the helpless dummy until beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

There was a small stream she had drunk from during her many days of training and again, she let the water cool her down. In the midst of her drinking, she could feel her brand's sting, indicating Strider was flying towards her. Turning around, she placed her palm on the hawks head and let the Hawk Sight envelope her senses. As usual it proved to be too much and she had to let go. Breathing heavily, she stroked Strider's head and went inside.

Walking into the main hall, she noticed a light only produced by candles coming from the library. Entering, she looked around until she saw the form of her teacher sitting in a far corner with the 'Secrets & History of the Hawk Riders' open on his lap. Artemis didn't think it was a good idea to disturb him and decided to look at the books on one of the bookshelves.

"Did your friend leave?" Alfonse suddenly asked, not looking from where he was reading.

"Yes." Artemis answered, doing the same.

"Good."

Sighing in annoyance, she walked over to him and asked "Why is it such a problem if Dash knows or anyone for that matter? We can't keep ourselves a secret forever you know."

"Because everyone is better off not knowing."

"Why?"

Alfonse flipped a page and muttered "You know why."

"No I don't." Upon not receiving his full attention, she took the book out of his hands and let her frustrations take over. "When I first found out that I was a Hawk Rider, I thought I had found my purpose. But it turns out my purpose is to hide behind these walls and prepare for a fight which might never come! You gave me all these rules and never explained to me the true reason why I should follow them! So I want to know why! Why do you lock yourself away? Why haven't you continued to do your duty? And most importantly why am I supposed to follow your example?!"

Silently regretting her temper, she was soon met with the cold stare of Alfonse as he towered over her and began with an even voice, "You think I've been hiding? I've been waiting! Waiting for another one of my kind to be chosen, so I could redeem myself of my mistake by preparing them for a war which has been upon us for thousands of years! As you can see I have nothing! My hawk is gone, along with my family, and the woman I had loved for years without her ever knowing! Now to top it off, I have to train a short fused young fairy who can't even connect with her own hawk!" and watched her try not to cower.

In a calmer, yet tired tone "I once thought the way you do, about letting the world know about us. I even managed to convince Queen Clarion of it being a good idea. However, I was wrong as it turned out that sharing who I was had let Morpheus find us faster and send Morwen more often to kill us. In the end it led me to realize my next mistake."

"Which was?" Was all the animal fairy could say.

Whatever answer Artemis had thought she would get, it certainly wasn't this. "Because of me, I not only lost the woman I had ever loved, but Queen Clarion had also lost her only sister."

Author's Note: Hello everybody! Ah nothing beats a complete chapter :). It was a little fun writing this one, which isn't saying much as I enjoy writing the chapters featuring the villains and I had fun writing Alfonse's past. Well sadly the fun is almost over as I am slowly counting down my list of chapters I have left to do in order to complete this story. But I do want to thank you all for your continuous support especially my new reviewer ShortyStarRose who I wholeheartedly loved seeing how invested you are in wanting to see more interactions between Artemis and Dash, which don't worry there will be a couple more. So that's all I have to say right now and I shall update another chapter soon! Tootles!