Her eyes opened groggily, blinking away the fog of deep sleep before they goggled in surprise. Her heart thundered in her chest as she shot upright, realizing she was covered with a turquoise blanket accented with pink polka dots. When brown eyes scanned the rest of her unknown surroundings, they saw sunlight sheen through sheer pink curtains draped against the turquoise wall littered with various music posters and music themed abstract art. A ferret cage was stationed on a cedar wooden nightstand that matched the framed bed she lay in that had fairy lights dangling from the headboard, and various toys were piled in one corner of the room next to wooden doors to what she assumed was a closet, carved with an f-hole design she recognized on classical stringed instruments.
…where am I? her mind buzzed, trying to figure out why she found herself not in her room as she tugged at the light-green pajama set centered with a pink heart, her other hand reaching for the silk bonnet protecting her curls. Nightclothes she couldn't recall ever wearing let alone changing into before bed. She looked down to the red ferret sleeping next to her beneath the covers, realizing that she wasn't alone.
"Nee-Nee." the nine-year-old shook her fairy godmother, only stirring her lightly in a low groan before she shook with a little more force. "Nee-Nee, wake up."
Red eyes blinked slowly as she gained her bearings, confused as to why nothing around her looked familiar until her eyes flashed wide "…where are we?"
"I don't know…" Hazel was uncertain herself. "All I know is that we were in my room before Schumann showed up..."
Scooting from under the covers, Nyekundu stretched before nestling herself into the small crevice between Hazel's legs. Hazel reached to give gentle strokes along red fur as the godmother looked to her goddaughter with a subtle frown. "Hazel…how is your shoulder?"
"It's strange…." Hazel glanced to the shoulder that had been previously dislocated, moving it with ease. "It feels like nothing ever happened to it."
Nyekundu pursed, recalling the taffy-pink sparkles emitting from the albino ferret's eyes and around Hazel's shoulder. That ferret was no ordinary ferret, but only that much she knew for certain.
"Do you remember what happened last night?" Nyekundu asked as a starting point to figuring out how they both ended up here.
"I do…" Hazel's brows pinched when Marcus's furious glower flashed across her mind. Feeling a sudden stab of terror in her gut, she continued stroking Nyekundu's fur, finding comfort in the repetitive act.
"So you remember Schumann finding his way to your room? Healing your shoulder?" Nyekundu quizzed, and Hazel's brows grew pensive.
"Yes…" Hazel recalled the glittering pair of pink eyes before everything went dark. "I thought I'd just dreamed that."
"No, I remember that too, Kakao." Nyekundu tenderly brushed against Hazel's palm. "And I wonder if Schumann is the reason we are here."
As Hazel considered this possibility, the resonant bowing of a stringed instrument soon sang through the wall adjacent to the bed, causing the pair to glance towards the same direction as where Hillary's room would be. "That…sounds like a cello." Hazel spoke as if uncertain, though she could recognize the mellow yet rich timbre of the music.
Nyekundu looked to Hazel, arching a puzzled brow "…Hillary doesn't play cello."
Hillary doesn't play anything… Hazel muttered in her mind, coming more and more to the conclusion that wherever they were was not her home as a knot swelled in her throat. Sure, they were technically kidnapped, but it didn't feel like they were taken by aggressive force. If so, then why did it feel like dread had a chokehold on her?
"Perhaps…we should check it out?" Nyekundu sounded hesitant yet set on finding answers to their many questions, and Hazel turned to her with a similar expression. The chill up her spine suddenly felt as if leaving this bed was like diving out of a plane without a parachute, but they can't sit like idle ducks forever.
And so, Hazel scooped the red ferret into her arms and pulled back the blanket, scooting off the mattress as her bare feet planted against the plush white carpet. Holding Nyekundu against her chest as her tentative steps led them to the white door that led out into the hallway. When she twisted the knob and pulled back the door, the cello's colorful and graceful song sang louder through the hall. She peeked her head out, looking left and right before her eyes narrowed. If she wasn't in her house, then why did the hallway look exactly like the upstairs hallway at home?
Hazel cradled Nyekundu tighter and she braced herself, stepping out on a leap of faith as she crept towards the open door that was in the same spot as Hillary's room, except Hazel knew it wasn't. Stopping just behind the doorway, she swallowed and peeked into the pastel-pink room, her lips parting in silent surprise. Spotting the strawberry-blonde string her bow against reverberating strings as her fingers glided along the fretboard with the elegance of a musician beyond her years.
It's Missy…she realized as she observed Missy sway almost intentionally yet almost unaware of her upper body's movements, swept in the lullaby of the deep, warm notes that could wrap around like a loving hug. It was a song Hazel didn't recognize, an improvisational flow of melodies strung together in a natural secession as if deliberately composed. The corner of her eyes also spotted the albino ferret nestled on one of the pillows printed with the same musical design as the duvet, taffy-pink eyes admirably observant to the young cellist. Captivated by her music with his tail gently wagging, calm and content.
"…Schumann?" Nyekundu breathed quietly, looking up to Hazel whose eyes started to grow wide.
As if he had sonic hearing, Schumann's ear wiggled before his head snapped in the direction of the door, causing Hazel to make a short gasp audible enough to distract Missy out of her musical zone in an abrupt stop of her bow. Muting the strings with her palm, Missy turned to her door. Half expecting her father to appear until she caught the little black girl quickly hide away behind the doorframe.
"Oh, good, you're awake!" Missy smiled, careful in sliding the end pin back into her cello before lowering it onto its side.
Squeezing her red ferret closer, brown eyes hesitated to peek back from behind the doorway, making Missy giggle.
"Don't be shy, come on in!"
Mustering the bravery to do so, Hazel shuffled her bare feet to step from cream marble onto cream carpet. She felt her bones shiver to the chill shooting up her spine, stopping inches from the room's only exit as her gaze drifted to taffy-pink eyes fixed on her.
"How're you feeling?" Missy asked, her smile as welcoming and polite as her tone. "Did you sleep okay?"
Her mind scrambling, Hazel gulped another lump in her throat. Finding the mousy voice to squeak "…w-where are we? And…why are we here?"
Placing her bow on her music stand, Missy's furrowed brow seemed slightly thrown by 'we.' That was until she saw the red ferret cradled in Hazel's arms and her eyes gleamed with a perky spark. "I met Remy Buxaplenty last night at his grandparent's country club; he'd mentioned that he dyes his ferret's fur! Do you do the same to yours?"
Blinking, Hazel glanced down to Nyekundu's equally quizzical gaze. "…s-sure..." she decided to play along, making a mental note to question Remy about this later as she then turned back to Missy. "…but that doesn't answer my question."
She saw Missy's exuberant smile soon wilted as if her façade had been exposed, sighing as she met eyes with her albino ferret now staring at her. "Spirit told me you weren't safe with your family…" she expressed solemnly, holding Schumann's gaze before looking back to Hazel "...so you were brought here. Where you are safe."
Hazel lightly frowned, now only more confused than before.
"Hold still." Molly instructed, seated Indian style atop the plaid duvet. Dabbing her brush in the eyeshadow pallet. "And keep your eyes closed so the bristles don't get in your eyes."
"O-Okay…" Glasses resting beside her, Tootie sat curled on her knees, squeezing her eyes shut. Bunching the fabric of her plaid skirt, braces biting down on her bottom lip.
"Relax, will you?" Molly cocked a brow with a subtle scoff. "I can't do much with your eyes all scrunched up like that."
"Oh." Tootie squeaked, relaxing her eyelids. "Sorry…"
After breakfast earlier that morning, the younger girls had been sent to the camper's back bedroom. Apparently for some sort of 'surprise' that wasn't entirely a surprise considering what day it was. So, to pass the time, Molly had offered to do Tootie's makeup, using the excuse that she 'gotta look fly' on her special day, especially now that Tootie has officially entered the 'double digits club.'
In her now ten years of life, Tootie had never worn a lick of makeup ever. While the bible does not condemn the wearing of makeup, jewelry, or anything deemed an 'adornment,' she had grown up with the ideology that inner beauty was of upmost importance above physical appearance. Her mother only ever wore lipstick, and even then, she applied the lightest coat. Priding herself in modesty, decency, and propriety.
She remembered when Vicky had first experimented with makeup not even two years older than her current age, the image of red lipstick vividly in her mind. Vicky had slathered her lips with the thickest coat, and her eyes had been lined with so much liner she'd made herself look like a raccoon with two black eyes. That was the day their mother smacked her square in the face, the one and only time Nicky ever dare put her hands on her children.
She'd chided Vicky as a loose woman, called her 'impure" to her face. All because of a little girl's curiosity of her mother's makeup bag…
When Molly had proposed the idea to do her makeup, Tootie was apprehensive at first. The only thing Molly had planned to do was give her touches of eyeshadow and eyeliner in much lighter versions of her everyday makeup, but Tootie questioned if a ten-year-old should be wearing makeup in the first place. Questioned if she herself would be judged as 'impure' if she put makeup on her face. Then again, the popular girls wore makeup way younger than ten, and that was that when Timmy's ogling over Trixie ramped up…
So, maybe if she wore makeup, then…he'd start ogling over her?
She shuddered when bristles brushed against her lids, tearing her from her random train of thought. Trying not to flinch too wildly from the foreign object prickling her eyes with each appliance of purpureus pigment.
"Dude, hold still." Molly groused gruffly. "Do you wanna get your eye poked out?"
"I-I'm sorry…" Tootie squeaked again, restraining herself. Why does any female subject themselves to this? It's so itchy…
The two godchildren lapsed in silence, listening to the background of Swizzle and Rose hovering off to the side. Continuing their discussion on the final preparations for Fairy Fort as Molly blended the blotchy shadow into a seamless application. Then, Tootie cleared her throat, thinking what she'd meant to brush past Molly for her opinion. "Um…hey, Molly?"
"Yeah?"
Curling fingers crinkled her skirt once more "…are you afraid of getting older?"
Picking up more pigment in her brush for the other eye, Molly took a second to contemplate and then shrugged. "Don't see the point. It's gonna happen eventually."
Tootie opened her eyes for the break of Molly dipping the brush into the eyeshadow, her tone somber. "Doesn't it bother you that we won't really remember our fairies? Or that we might not even remember each other?"
"Dunno about forgetting each other…" Molly remarked, waiting for Tootie to close her eyes again before applying the pigment to her barren eyelid. "Still…being scared about altered memories doesn't change the fact that it's gonna happen."
Tootie stiffly squirmed under Molly's patting brush. "I wonder if the others feel the same…"
"Well, remember when Dwight had his birthday?" Molly mentioned. "He was all Debby Downer about it, too. Still…" she observed her work before doing away with the brush and eyeshadow in preparations for the eyeliner. "there's no use bein' all sad about it."
Tootie thinned her lips.
"We all now know our fairies will have to leave someday, but at least we'll get to remember them in our sleep for however long we live after." Molly dug in her makeup bag for her go-to eyeliner. "A luxury other godkids don't and probably never will have."
Contemplating these words, Tootie watched as Molly found the applicator, gesturing with a brief close of her eyes for Tootie to do the same. Tootie shut her eyes once more, and Molly leaned to steady the eyeliner pencil near Tootie's lash line.
"The only thing we can do is just…try to enjoy what we have while we still have it. And our memories."
Doing her best to keep her lid still, Tootie considered these words that she'd never expected Molly to say. "You really think that?"
The gothic girl paused, momentarily glancing towards her fairy godmother. Swizzle was hovering with crossed arms, listening begrudgingly to Rose fret over her list and her desire for everything to be perfect for the godchild who'd been taught to despise celebrating a day most mortals don't make it to.
"I got enough bad memories…we all do, in a way." Molly's voice lowered, somewhat sour yet hushed in a controlled manner. Finished lining one lid in black wax as she moved on to the other. "I just want at least one thing in this life to be worth growing up instead of giving up..."
When she felt the eyeliner leave her lid, Tootie's eyes softened at the corners in a sympathetic expression, brows furrowing. Perhaps it was better to live in the now than focusing on a future they can't change. "Yeah..."
Hearing Rose and Swizzle poof into their respective teal tabby and dark-blue raven disguises on the bed, Molly and Tootie turned to the slide of the curtain drawn back by a redhead teen while the scruffy man held a pink-frosted cake. Lined with decorative cream icing along the top rim and bottom base with four purple candles alight, surrounding white and pink-striped candles molded in the numbers 1 and 0 centered on the top that Tootie eyed with diffident curiosity once she'd corrected blurry vision with her purple specs.
"…that's…my birthday cake?" Tootie guessed meekly.
"Yep." One corner of Vicky's lips lifted in a weak grin. "You make a wish in your head, then you blow out the candles."
An internal cringe twitched in her cautious gaze, subconsciously hunching her shoulders. Staring at the burning flames melting waxy sticks like a wildfire scorching a tall tree to ash. Then she inhaled her nerves into a concentrated breath before blowing it out. Reminding herself that just because the bible had negative connotations of birthdays doesn't make birthdays connotatively negative.
Celebrating a life milestone is nothing to feel guilty about, and blowing out a couple of candles does not condemn her to a destructive doom of God's wrath that she no longer knew was certain to occur. It's okay to enjoy a day that is supposed to be all about her, now that she was free from instilled fear and manipulative control…
It's okay to be a kid.
Counting to three, Vic initiated for him and the other girls to start the tune of 'Happy Birthday,' taking his time approaching Tootie with the cake balancing in his grasp. While Vicky at least attempted to share her uncle's enthusiasm no matter how cringe it felt to do so, Molly hated singing and thus droned the words. As for Tootie, she lowered her chin, a reddish heat flushing her cheeks under the attention spotlight. Partially relieved when the song eventually ended and Vic lowered the cake to her level.
"Now, close ya eyes and make a wish." Vic instructed, grinning with a patience she'd never received from her own father. "But don't say it out loud before ya blow out the candles or else it won't come true."
Even though she knew she can always just make wishes out loud without closing her eyes that would come true, she told herself that this was just part of that 'birthday trope' Vicky had explained to her in the days leading up. Playing along as she shut her eyes, thinking of a wish that perhaps no fairy's magic could ever grant in a matter of longevity. Something she hoped would stand not only the test of time, but the test of fate.
Me, Timmy, Remy, Chloe, Gary, Dwight, Molly, and Hazel… her eyes squeezed tighter, filled with more desire for her wish to be a reality…I wish we can all be like family for the rest of our lives.
Solidifying the wish in her mind, she reminded herself of how Dwight had taken a deep breath before blowing out the candles on his cake, opening her eyes as she blew out each fire one by one. Starting to wonder if these candles really were magic when lavender sparkles glistened within the swirls of smoke rising into the air.
She was not the only one to notice this as Molly and their godmothers eyed the lavender glitters shimmering and twinkling that spread out with the dissipating fumes, their questioning glances immediately directed towards the birthday girl who could only stare back with the same bafflement. Vic and Vicky seemed oblivious in their eruption of cheers, though no one in the room appeared to be aware of a black raven's lavender eyes sparkling as they peered through the window into the bedroom.
Flapping her wings to maintain flight, the black raven let out a resolute caw as her wings began her flight away from the Flagstaff camper. Gliding through the rural, rundown mobile homes of Happy Trail, flying through the exit gate in her ascent into the crisp, morning sky.
She soared in her path, exclaiming another shrill caw in her graceful flight. Her wings whirring at a furious rate sailing through the suburban neighborhood where a house of white walls and red roof sat now an empty shell waiting for a bid on the seller's market. Cutting through chilly winds as she zoomed passed the vacant residence lined in French-lilac and roofed in boysenberry metal, the house once the home of extremist beliefs justified as Jehovah's love.
Her quick yet extensive journey only reached its end when she began her descent into one of the older neighborhoods of the city, where one decrepit house hung on its last leg. A house left in the poorest conditions of broken windows, peeling paint, a patched roof, and cracks along the walls. Outstretching her wings, she slowed her flight. Gliding towards the single window that led into the isolated room above the dilapidated garage.
Grime coating the dark shadows of olive-green walls, a middle-aged man crouched on the crinkled sheets of his bed with folded knees. Ribcage poking the thin layer of pale skin, garbed in nothing but his white boxers. Wood floors cluttered with papers scattered in disordered piles, decades of researching some imaginary world that turned out to be just that…imaginary. Cabinets reposed as if knocked over by force, dented with doors hanging by its hinges. The screen to his PC monitors black with cracks of death, killed by one man's burst of frustration from the night prior.
Glum eyes glared at the birdcage, a cage that had remained empty since the death of his only friends. Carlos and Wilma, the two birds who had shown him that it was possible to be loved unconditionally, that it was possible to love him. A possibility that was now buried in the back yard with them. Mr. Crocker sulked in dark's silence, consumed in isolation. Only showing any signs of life when the tiresome peck of a beak against glass made him groan, dark eyes drifting to the window.
He recognized the mysterious raven from the day before, when the van's battery gave out. Stranded on the side of the road until he'd been approached by the same raven that'd flown off without a trace after his childhood tormentor thought giving his van a boost would atone for his transgressions. The raven continued pecking its beak against the glass as his brows slanted, wondering how that bird not only managed to seek out his house but why that bird was at his house in the first place.
"Stupid-tuvid bird…" Mr. Crocker grumbled under his breath, his nerves pinching further the more aggressive the pecks became as if it was trying to pry its way in. His nostrils flared, clenching his fists with a gritting jaw. Stomach twisting with the force of his restraint that soon snapped like a rubber band stretched beyond its limits, shooting off the bed in peeved stomps.
"Go away!" he barked behind the window, fist pounding on his window to scare that raven off. "Pester somebody else!"
Instead, the raven cawed defiantly, and her beak continued to peck at the window with no backdown. Snarling his lips in thinning patience that expelled in a throaty grunt. Reluctantly, he unlatched the locks and shoved the pane upwards, a swoosh of winter's chill following the raven's swift zoom inside. Circling along the ceiling until it landed on the headboard of his bed nearest the empty bird cage, rousing its feathers. Making itself at home in a calm, almost calculated stare.
Shutting out more cold air from entering, Mr. Crocker was guarded in his approach, each step cagier than the last. Glare locked with the raven whose eyes held the illusion of a lavender lamp glowing among the dark shadows. When he stopped just feet away, he creased his brow. No unearthly idea of what to make of this…
Though he would soon find out.
"…why did you come here?" he hissed, and when lavender eyes began to sparkle like before, his mind could hear his own voice echo words that he did not think himself.
[I am tethered to you.]
His brows raised in disbelief, but only for a moment as they slanted skeptically "…what even are you?"
Huffing its chest, the raven's eyes went aglow once more, and his own voice denoted [I am Parisa.]
The heck? This bird has a name? those were the only words he actively conjured in his mind. He cocked one brow, tucking his chin slightly. Narrowing his eyes as he probed "How is it that we can understand each other?"
[I am tethered to you.] the raven now known as Parisa repeated.
"Yeah, you said that." Mr. Crocker grumbled, arms crossed against his bare chest. "I mean how?"
Parisa's stare did not waver. [Not 'how,' but 'why.']
The center of his chest tightened, nails digging into his arms. Growing irritated as he turned away, shaking his head. "I must be hallucinating…" was his way of telling himself that he can't be this crazy. Lying to himself until he could believe it as true. "Yeah…that's it…none of this is real…"
[Humans do not passively perceive the world.] he heard Parisa state matter-of-factly. [They actively generate it.]
His perplexation slowly turned him back around, shifting from one foot to the other in hesitant and unsure movements.
[Reality is not but a controlled hallucination.] Parisa continued. [We all are always hallucinating. It is when we agree about our hallucinations that we call it 'reality.']
A deep furrow creased his brow, searching for answers he could not find within the raven's self-contained gaze. "The heck does that even mean?"
Parisa tilted her beak to the air in an emphatic manner, a brighter, more prominent glow shimmering in her eyes. A majestic glow of regality tinged within the nasally voice speaking in his head. [My existence to you is as real as your existence to yourself.]
He grimaced, every thought he actively thought leading to a dead end like a tangled web of mental disarray. Beginning to question if he should start taking his medication as prescribed, because at this point, he just might be as crazy as everyone says he is.
AN: I was recently sent a link to a comment replying to a post on X/Twitter that called my Fairy Academy series brain rot. I don't definitively know if they meant to be offensive, so getting upset is juvenile, I know that. But life has been really dark for me lately, so it discouraged me way more than it should have.
I know my stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea in general, though IMO, it's more important to write what you're passionate about versus what's popular or trending. But to get sent that post on X...that coupled wth these freakin artist scammers on any new chapter or fic I post on FFN...
No, I'm not giving up on this series. I hate when my favorite fics are abandoned without explanation, so I try not to do that. This is just me explaining the lack of consistency that I apologize for...