Maid to the Rescue

Cynthia stood in a kind pose, her wand extended gracefully outward, an unwavering seriousness in her gaze. As angry as she was, not for a second did her elegance fade.

“Miss Cynthia!” I cried with joy.

I was so happy to see her that it moved me to tears. I regretted flying off on my own. It would have been smarter to tell her where I was going before leaving, rather than chase the fairy down alone. But how could I have known things would end up like this?

It's been a rough few days. Maybe that was my omen to watch out for. I just wanted this day to be over with, but in our favour.

Shadow arms shot out of the tree, heading for Miss Cynthia at a quick pace.

“May pink lights spawn mid air. How bright they'll be, giving evil a scare!”

But the yellow haired maid flicked up her wand and the evil arms caught ablaze with a wondrous pink fire.

The tree shrieked, retracting its appendages.

“Everything will be alright now, mistress Yalda.” Cynthia smiled at me.

“Miss Cynthia…”

A gap of molten rock still separated us. The girl fairy on Cynthia’s shoulder reached into a tiny bag and pulled out a blue piece of dry ice, tossing it into the magma.

Once the ice touched the blazing molten rock it exploded into a haze that quickly scattered across the surface of the magma. All the cloudy blue vapor sublimation instantly cooled the magma, turning it into obsidian and creating a pathway for Cynthia to walk across.

“You have no power over her,” the maid announced to the tree. “Leave her alone.”

Once she was close enough to the central hill of ash, I rose up with the last of my strength and jumped onto her bridge of black rock. One of her arms wrapped around me as I hid behind her big skirt.

“And so, the servant arrives. Have you no shame, denying the will of darkness? I would expect better from you.”

“I won’t entertain your expectations, Mali.” Cynthia sternly spoke to the tree. “This child has no interest in being corrupted by your darkness.” She waved her wand, a trail of pink light traced out into the air and she drew out a heart. The heart fell down onto me and burst over my body, sending comforting waves of kind magic into my soul. “Let us leave with that other fae, and there will be no further conflict.”

“The child came here with a thirst for knowledge. Shall I let her leave half unsatisfied?”

I wasn’t sure what about eating that fruit was going to make me knowledgeable, but dad always told me there’s no shortcuts in learning. No chance I'd learn all the universe's secrets by just eating something, especially if it came from an evil tree.

“I think we all can appreciate wanting to educate the youth,” Cynthia stated, “but I find your corporal punishment to be quite ineffective.”

Same here. He was just a jerk for beating me up like that!

The tree didn't take kindly to her sophisticated sassing. The dark energy in the room grew exceedingly more potent, creating a pressure that was suffocating.

Miss Cynthia showed a minor amount of distress in the form of a bead of sweat. But she remained as confident as when she'd first arrived, keeping a very collected demeanor.

Hundreds of dead tree branches warped into shadow arms, all of them rising upwards to intimidate us. It only took one of those arms to scare me, but many hundreds were a terrifying sight.

“My patience runs ever so thin. You bring shame to your ancestors. Or, have you fully embraced your humanity?”

What did he mean by that? Was Miss Cynthia not a human? She looked like a human to me. But then again, looks can be deceiving. I'm an example of that.

Cynthia wasn’t moved by his attempts to egg her on. She remained calm, not losing her cool at all.

“Mali, do you realize that several powerful warriors have assembled on our estate? If this child comes to harm, they'll be here in an instant, bringing vengeance with them.”

“Hmmm…”

“We'll be willing to leave in peace, ‘if’ you give us the corrupted fairy. Unless, you’d like to come back with us. In that case, I have been needing to stock up on firewood for the house. Winter is right around the corner.”

The Mali tree was wise to her threats, knowing that we would have a big advantage once my friends arrived. And I'm sure that Uncle could easily chop him up into firewood. Heck, his petrified trunk probably would crumble to dust the moment someone hit it.

“Very well, you may leave.” he conceded, lowering his hundreds of arms back to their place as branches. “But I know she will return. Her hunger for knowledge will lead her back to me eventually.”

“Stupid tree!” I shouted. “You’ll be waiting forever, ‘cause I won't be coming back anytime soon!”

“Oh, but you'll be back here sooner than you think. And when you are, the taste of darkness will be over your tongue.”

Mali allowed the dark fairy to be released. The orb of shadow flew down to us, but Miss Cynthia flicked her wand, sending out a pink whip to lasso it in. The orb tried to escape, but was unable to break itself free.

“Yalda, would you be a dear and throw stardust into the air?”

I had plenty to spare. A sandy version spawned in my palms and I tossed it up as she instructed.

It was almost the highlight of my day to throw all those glittery particles up and let them rain down on us.

“Hear now my decree,” Cynthia began to sing. “I see a trapped fairy, let us set him free!” As she sang, a pink wind came to life around her and vortexed up the stardust.

The vortex moved to encircle the dark orb, eating away at it like twinkly acid and allowing the corrupted male fairy to fall to the ashy ground. As he touched down, the girl fairy flew off of Cynthia's shoulder and grabbed onto him.

Her body was just barely strong enough to lift him, but only up into Cynthia’s hand after she holstered her wand.

We didn't waste any time getting out of there after that. She took me back up the stairs, putting the fairy into a pocket on her apron.

The girl fairy then began to mumble some gibberish and created an illusionary rock to block the entrance to the chamber. It was convincing enough to likely deter anyone passing by.

Now that the danger was over, Miss Cynthia came to me and chopped my head lightly. It didn't hurt, but the very gesture made me feel like I was in a lot of trouble.

"I apologize," she said. "This was my fault for not keeping a better eye on you." She knelt down and gave me a hug. "You're a brave girl, but don't wander off without telling someone. Okay? There's some scary things in this forest, maybe even worse then that tree."

*Sniffle Snif*

"I'm sorry," I said, thankful that I didn't run into anything worse. "It's just, I saw that fairy take one of the pink flowers we were looking for. She ran off with it, trying to give it to the other one."

Cynthia gave a mean look to the girl fairy, then gave a disciplinary nod of her finger.

"Kiw'u, shame on you for not telling me your friend was possessed."

Wait, she knew who this was?

"Kiw'u?" Her name was weird to pronounce.

Apparently, according to Miss Cynthia, these fairy were actually employed by the estate to tend to the flower garden. She was well aware that they had the ability to influence the colour of each flower.

"They can change the colour of a flower based on their mood," Cynthia said, pulling up a pink flower. "If they feel love, it'll be pink."

"La," Kiw'u cheered.

"Love?" That explains why some of those flowers were turning orange and green as I was chasing her. Orange usually symbolizes excitement, and green can mean anxiety, I guess?

"The other fairy, who's resting in my pocket, is Ui'o. We'll let him rest for a while, then see if we can figure out a way to get that residual dark energy out of him."

I was worried about Ui'o. (An even harder name to pronounce) But I think I might be able to use stardust to cleanse him of all that bad stuff.

Speaking of which, there was a lot of questions I had about that evil tree... When I started bringing them up, Cynthia replied with a sigh.

"I'll explain on our way back to the estate. You probably need to know about those trees sooner or later anyways."

'Those trees...' I didn't like the plurality of that statement.