1 month later:
Everyone was out in the Great Hall enjoying themselves. Boober would usually stay in his hole where it was quiet, but he wanted to be close to Jessa. He snuggled her while eating some Doozer sticks and Jessa chatted with Wembley. They were discussing something that never once occurred to the residents of Fraggle Rock.
"If Doozer sticks are made from radishes, how do the Doozers get them?" Jessa asked.
"Gee, I don't know," Wembley replied.
"Maybe I can ask."
"Don't bother," Boober interjected while caressing her. "Doozers don't talk to us."
"Why not?"
"Nobody knows why, Jessa. It's always been that way."
Jessa glanced at the little green creatures building something nearby, confused about their lack of interaction with those outside their species.
"I guess fraggles aren't hard-working enough for them," she half-joked.
Wembley chuckled while Boober grabbed some more Doozer sticks, not for himself, but for Jessa.
"Would you like another Doozer stick, my love?" he asked sweetly.
"Sure," Jessa replied with the same level of sweetness as Boober held it close to her mouth.
Jessa took a bite and chewed, savoring the flavor. Boober watched her eat it before stealing a kiss on her cheek, which made her tail wag. He fed Jessa the rest of the stick, only to receive a kiss in return once she swallowed it.
"And who says chivalry is dead," Jessa murmured while hugging him.
Boober grinned and blushed, his baloobius glowing brightly. Wembley had been oblivious to their tender moment, his attention on Red instead, who was getting ready to perform a dive into the pool. Boober and Jessa looked on a second later as she made her announcement.
"She's going to drown," Boober said after she finished her speech.
"No she isn't, babe," Jessa replied.
Red jumped off the rock and did the same number of flips she did the day Jessa and Boober went to Sweet Water Lake and landed in the water with a splash.
"How many flips was that?" Wembley asked after clapping along with everyone else.
"I have no clue," Jessa replied. "But it was impressive."
Gobo and Mokey were nearby waiting for Red to come up out of the water, but she didn't. This worried Boober and the others.
"I knew it," Boober said while squeezing Jessa's hand. "Red is drowning."
"Don't jump to conclusions just yet, Boober," Jessa replied. "Maybe it's part of her stunt?"
But Red still didn't resurface, and Gobo couldn't wait any longer as he ran for the pond.
"I'm coming, Red!" He shouted before diving in.
Once underwater, Gobo swam around to look for her, which didn't take very long. He saw Red floating near the bottom, but she was unconscious. Gobo's heart sank, but he swam over to inspect what had caused this. Her ankle was tangled in a vine and even when Red couldn't struggle against it anymore, it still clung to her. Gobo took out his pocket knife and cut the vine off before dragging Red back up to the surface. By that time, everyone had gathered around the pond, fearful of what might have happened. This was confirmed when Gobo swam back up with Red in his arm.
"Help me out here, guys!" He shouted to his friends.
Jessa pulled them both out of the water, but Red was unresponsive.
"Oh no," Boober lamented. "She's unconscious."
"Is there anything you can do?" Jessa asked him.
"Red!" Gobo shouted while shaking her. "Red!"
But it was no use. Mokey had started to sob along with Wembley, and Boober did what he could to bring her back but to no avail. There was too much water in her lungs. Jessa clenched her fists, knowing how to save her: using her water-bending ability. After Boober's methods proved to be futile, Jessa held out her hand and her eyes glowed blue. Nobody noticed it at first, but it quickly came to their attention once the water flowed slowly out of Red's mouth and floated in the air. Boober gasped in both horror and astonishment, just as everyone else was. Once all the water was out of Red's lungs, Jessa waved her hand swiftly in the direction of the pond, to which the water flew and it landed with a splash. Jessa put her hand down and her eyes returned to normal, but this time, she let her silver eye color show and didn't conceal it with black.
"Jessa, how did you-" Boober began to ask, but was cut off by her.
"I'll tell you later."
"Jessa," Boober insisted.
"Later," she pressed.
Red coughed before regaining consciousness and found her friends surrounding her.
"What happened?" She asked, completely dazed from her near-death experience.
"You got caught on a vine in the water," Gobo replied to her. "So I jumped in and pulled you out."
"But you were close to dying," Boober added, still in shock over what Jessa did.
"And Jessa, well..."
Gobo couldn't finish his sentence before they all looked over at Jessa, who now stood a good distance away.
"What did she do?" Red asked, not grasping what had happened.
Jessa didn't answer her question, instead crossing her arms and looking away like a sullen child.
"You're what?" Boober asked.
"I'm half fraggle and half shazzle," Jessa answered with about as much enthusiasm as an atheist being dragged to church. "My story is very long, but I'll tell you what I can."
They had all gathered in the girls' room. Jessa sat on her bed facing everyone else, who sat on the other side of the room. Boober couldn't help but feel betrayed. His girlfriend, a shazzle? Why had she kept this from him?! Did Jessa think he was that stupid?! The magic sword she had made sense once Jessa explained its origins.
"I thought you said you found that sword after you ran away," Gobo interjected.
"No, I stole it from the other shazzles after they killed my parents."
"Why did you keep this from us, Jessa?" Boober asked in a hurt tone. "From me?"
"Do you know of any fraggle that would accept something like me into their herd?"
Boober opened his mouth to say something but came up short. Jessa began the rest of her story and explained the shazzles to them. However, she did leave out the more graphic details.
"My parents were horny idiots who decided to commit the ultimate sin and have me. And I grew up as this. A half-breed. As you would expect, that led to a lot of hate from the shazzle's end."
"What were your parents? Wembley asked. "Which one of them was which?"
"Dad was a fraggle, and my mom a shazzle."
Jessa then grabbed her sword and pressed a crystal on the handle that acted as a button, and it opened up as an object levitated before landing in Jessa's hand. It was a photo of Morrigan and Lenny before they had Jessa. Lenny was black and dark purple like his daughter while Morrigan was blue. Her wings and eyes were blue because she was an Aquatic shazzle, though she had long brown hair that was the same texture as Jessa's.
"This is them," she said solemnly.
They all looked at it before Gobo broke the silence.
"Your dad looks familiar," he said.
"How?"
"He looks like this fraggle I saw in one of Uncle Matt's journals."
Gobo then got up and left the room to retrieve said journal while Jessa glanced at Boober, who refused to look in her direction. The hurt he felt was indescribable. It hurt Jessa to see this and she looked away.
"That hole under your bed wasn't there," Mokey pointed out.
Jessa looked under her bed.
"I created it for my sword."
"How?" Red asked, who was just as hurt as Boober about Jessa's deceit.
Instead of a verbal answer, Jessa pressed her palm on the wall. Boober glanced over to see lava form around Jessa's hand as it pressed further into the stone, leaving a molten handprint.
"You- you can melt rocks too?" Wembley asked nervously.
"There's a lot of things I'm capable of in regards to element bending."
"But I thought shazzles could only control one element," Mokey told her.
"Most of them are only granted one element at birth, but every 10 generations an All-Element Bender exists. That's what I am."
Boober gasped.
"Shazzles can also fly," Jessa went on. "They grow their wings at 3-years-old."
Before she could explain any further, Gobo came back with a journal and sat beside Jessa.
"It was on one of these pages, Gobo said to her while flipping through to find the picture of Uncle Matt and the same purple fraggle that was in Jessa's photo. "Here he is."
Jessa examined it, only to be shocked at how much he reassembled her dad.
"No way," she thought out loud.
"Let me see your picture, Jessa."
She gave it to Gobo before he started comparing.
"How does your uncle know my dad?" She asked him.
Gobo took Matt's picture out of the journal and read the back of it.
"Matt and Lenny out exploring. Two brothers getting ready for yet another adventure."
"Brother?" Jessa asked in surprise.
"Wow, so you two are cousins," Wembley said.
"Looks that way," Gobo replied. "But how?"
"I knew it!" Red shouted. "I knew you two were related somehow."
"So let me get this straight," Boober said at last. "You're an All-Element Bending hybrid and related to Gobo and Traveling Matt?"
"I didn't know about the family part, Boober."
"You didn't answer my earlier question: why did you keep all of this a secret?"
"Because fraggles are afraid of shazzles. I was hoping this would never come to light. I was hoping I would never have to talk about this. But Red had to go and scare us shitless by drowning."
"It's not my fault those vines got caught on my ankle!"
"Did you think we were stupid, Jessa?!" Boober asked her.
"No!"
Purple flames ignited around Jessa's body, scaring Boober and the others as Gobo quickly backed away.
"I have my reasons for not telling anyone anything!" She snarled. "Nobody else needs to know what I am. They don't know me or what I went through. I don't expect any of you to understand. My past is my own business!"
With that, Jessa snatched her sword and holster and stormed out. She passed by everyone else in the Great Hall, not even bothering to acknowledge them. She stomped to the Terrible Tunnel, which was still blocked off by the boulder. That damn blasted boulder. But Jessa found a nook that was hidden away beside said tunnel. Without a second thought, Jessa slammed her palms onto the rock and it melted into lava, creating an opening for Jessa to get back in. Jessa didn't wait for the lava to cool before entering as some of it dripped on her, but this wouldn't inflict any injury as shazzles were immune to lava. She simply flicked it off and continued walking, but not before removing the bracelet Boober had given her and leaving it on the ground. She couldn't bear to wear it after deceiving him. She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve him. The further Jessa went in the Terrible Tunnel, the harder she cried. At least no one could hear her. Jessa had no idea where to go at this point. She didn't want to go to her other home. It would feel too weird now that she had gotten used to the company in Fraggle Rock. So she wandered around the Terrible Tunnel, crying her heart out. Perhaps she would be better off dead. Perhaps Jessa would continue walking until her legs gave out, and not stop for any breaks. She would go ahead and die of exhaustion and a broken heart. Jessa kept walking, not bothering to draw out her sword. If something planned to kill her before exhaustion set in, she would let them. She was a worthless liar anyway. She didn't deserve anyone.