The Void Within: Plot Dialogue

The sound of the door clicking shut registers faintly in Ozzy’s ears as he drags the wax crayon across his sheet of paper. Blue—light blue, the colour of the Neopia Central’s sky at noon, and a shade duller than the cyan he’s favoured for most of this drawing, but that’s exactly what he needs. He’s been experimenting with shadows lately, and has just learned to use darker colours instead of blacks and greys—

“Whew!” Nyx shakes her hair out wildly as she enters the kitchen, then runs a hand through it to straighten it out. “It sure is windy out there today—I could barely stand up on my own. Good idea shutting the windows, Ozzy.”

Ozzy raises his head. “Thanks,” he says, without mentioning that he only shut the windows because it was too bright in here. But then he notices something strange in Nyx’s posture: she’s angled herself so she’s half-stuck in the corner, and with one hand behind her back. “Um… are you okay, Nyxie?”

“Never better!” Nyx says, a big, bright smile on her face, but she says it too loud and too fast, and it makes Ozzy worry. She quickly pushes away from the wall and nods her head toward his drawing. “What’s that?”

Quickly, Ozzy rushes to encircle his drawing in the impenetrable fortress of his arms, and jumps halfway over the table to hide it for good measure. “Don’t look, I’m not done!” he cries.

“Okay, okay! I won’t look,” Nyx laughs. “But hey, check this out…”

She comes closer, still with one hand behind her back. From his position on the table, Ozzy watches with wide, curious eyes until she’s right up next to him. “I got you something.”

“You did?”

“Yep. So close your eyes… Uh-huh, just like that. Three, two, one… Ta-da!!”

Ozzy’s eyes open, and he blinks away a blur from scrunching them so tightly shut. When it clears…

He gasps. In Nyx’s hands—both of them—is a plushie. But not just any plushie: a paint brush plushie.

A Grey one.

Struck and hesitant, Ozzy reaches out—breath held, as if the slightest exhale will shatter the illusion, and he’ll wake up from this dream. It’s not a dream, though: it’s real, and the soft felt of the Paint Brush Plushie and the smooth silk of the purple ribbon around its fuzzy handle are enough to prove it.

His fingertips run over the ribbon. Only belatedly does Ozzy look up at Nyx, awe sparkling in his wide, grey eyes. “Is this really for me?”

“Of course!” Nyx’s smile has softened, and she steps back as Ozzy takes the plushie in both hands. He holds it up and gives it a few gentle swings, as if brandishing a toy sword or painting an imaginary canvas.

“I’m glad you like it,” Nyx says. Ozzy startles, then slowly stops swinging his brush. He gazes back at his sister, a smile growing on his face.

“I do! Thank you, Nyxie. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” Nyx laughs, then turns to start her daily rummage through the cupboards. “Now, it’s getting close to supper time, so any special requests?”

Ozzy swings his plushie again, pretending he’s painting food into the pantry. “Can we have cereal?”

“Again?!” Nyx’s palm strikes her forehead dully and she sighs, but with a glance back into the open cupboard, she finds that there isn’t much choice. And so, with a wry smile, she says, “All right. Islandberry Crunch it is.”

The sun is high in the sky over Neopia Central, without a single cloud in sight. It’s one of those days that seems a little too bright to Ozzy, and he can’t help but feel self-conscious about how dour and grey he looks—like he must be sucking the colour out of the day just by stepping outside.

“Ahh… nothing like a bright, sunny day to clear out those clouds hanging over your head,” Nyx says, stretching her arms up high above her as she turns her head toward the sky. She angles her face down a second later, though, and flashes her brother a wink. “Right, Ozzy?”

Despite himself, Ozzy smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees meekly, clutching his new plushie tighter to his body. It’s the perfect size for hugging, and it makes him feel better.

“That’s the spirit.” Nyx keeps her brisk pace as she heads toward the thick of Neopia Central, toward the hustle and bustle of happy shoppers and other errand-goers. It’s hard for Ozzy to keep up with her—she’s always been much more athletic than him—but he manages with her only pausing twice to let him catch up.

“I’m glad you’re coming with me on my errands today,” she tells him, but Ozzy isn’t sure he believes her. He’s just slowing her down. “They’ll be quick, I promise, and then you can go back to your artwork. Just a quick stop at the bank, and to pick up the payment for my last shift at the Neolodge… Then we can go to the school supplies store to get you those new crayons I promised. Ah, and I missed some mail yesterday, so I’ll have to check the post office to see if they have it. Hmm, maybe we should stop at the Soup Kitchen while we’re at it, too—”

Ozzy clutches his paint brush plushie closer. That’s so much! He wants to say. My head is spinning! But he keeps quiet, because Nyx is in business mode, and there’s nothing that can stop her when she’s set her mind to something.

As she speaks, she holds out her hand. Ozzy takes it without thinking, but nearly drops his plushie in the process. Nyx doesn’t seem to notice; she just keeps talking, listing out all the things she needs to do, until…

“Here we are,” she declares when they come to a stop in front of the bank. “Wait here, Ozzy, I’ll only be a minute. Just have to collect that interest, make a quick withdrawal, and then we’re off to the next stop.”

“The Neolodge, right?” Ozzy asks. “Do you want me to go get your Neopoints for you?”

Nyx laughs. “Are you asking because you want to help, or because you think I’m going to stop and chat with one of the guests again?”

“You always stop to talk with the guests!” Ozzy complains. “Especially when they tell you stories about their vacations and all the places they’ve been.”

Something changes in Nyx’s eyes. It’s as if her gaze grows distant, faraway. “I guess I do,” she mumbles. “It’s just… well, it’s exciting, you know?”

Ozzy doesn’t think so. “I guess.”

“Tell you what,” Nyx begins, “you go get those Neopoints, I’ll finish up at the bank, and we’ll meet at the post office. Then we can get something to eat and head home, okay?”

Ozzy nods. “Okay.”

“Great. See you soon, Ozzy!”

“Oof!”

Dirt and gravel crunch under Ozzy’s fur. He grunts as he slides in the gritty sand of one of Neopia Central’s pathways, spitting out a clump of grass as he comes to a stop. Above him, a shadow looms: a long neck, stubby arms, a plated tail. When he opens his eyes, blinking crust and dust out of them, a pastel Chomby grins down at him with the bag of Neopints Ozzy had just collected from the Neolodge dangling from his hand.

“G-give that back,” Ozzy says, voice much softer and weaker than he wants it to be. He swallows down the waver in it, and tries again, reaching up to tug on his ears. It’s an old trick Nyx taught him—focus on how that feels, not whatever’s upsetting you. He takes a deep breath. “That’s not yours!”

“I’m holding it, aren’t I? That means it is,” the Chomby says. He laughs, and from somewhere behind Ozzy, another voice chimes in,

“And so’s this stupid plushie!”

Alarmed, Ozzy lets go of his ears and opens up his eyes. He tries to scramble to his feet to stop the bullies from ruining his plushie, but his knees crumble beneath him and he ends up back on the ground. “Stop…”

“Aww, what, afraid we’re gonna keep it?” The other bully is a spotted Quiggle, and his grin is big and mean.

“Why would we want to do that?” the pastel Chomby says. “Why would anybody want a grey paint brush plushie? It’s so ugly and drab.”

“Perfect for a washout like you!”

The bullies break out into laughter—loud, grating, cacophonous laughter that echoes in Ozzy’s ears so loudly it feels like the world is shattering around him. He slams his hands to his ears again, squishing them as hard as he can, like pushing them back into his head will make the laughter stop…

THUMP! BAM! POW!

The laughter stops. Ozzy cracks an eye open, just in time to see the pastel Chomby fall on the ground next to his Quiggle friend, holding his face and groaning in pain. He rolls, tail thrashing, and the Quiggle staggers to his feet…

Only to scream and scramble back on all fours as Nyx stomps toward him.

“Yeah, you better run!” she shouts, brandishing her fist. “And you—!”

She turns back to the Chomby and picks him up by one of the plates on the back of his neck. “I’d better not catch you messing with my brother again, got it?!”

“Okay, okay!” the Chomby whimpers, practically flying out of Nyx’s hand once he’s found his legs. He runs after his friend (who’s long out of sight now), kicking up dust behind him as he goes.

“A ‘sorry’ would be nice, too!” Nyx shouts, but there’s no point. She sighs, hands on her hips, and shakes her head before turning to face Ozzy with a smile on her face that makes the tears on Ozzy’s sting just a little less. “I can’t stand bullies like that… They think they’re so tough just because they’re big. Are you okay?”

She holds out her hand. With a tiny sniffle, Ozzy nods and takes it, allowing his sister to lift him gently to his feet. “I—I’m sorry, Nyxie, I shouldn’t have gone off alone, I didn’t mean—”

But Nyx silences him with a hug. “It’s okay,” she says as she lets him go. “You’re all right now, and that’s the important thing. Here…”

She walks over to pick up Ozzy’s fallen grey paint brush plushie. Nyx holds it out to him, and Ozzy takes it back gingerly, tears still in his eyes.

“Don’t listen to them, Ozzy,” Nyx tells him. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

When his plushie is back safely in his hands, and his hair has been ruffled a little for good measure, Nyx doubles back to retrieve the bag of Neopoints that the bullies had nearly stolen—that Ozzy had nearly let be stolen. If only he had stayed home…

“Nyx, Ozzy! Good to see you both out and about!”

Pouting as he and Nyx step out of the school supply store, a new box of crayons in tow, Ozzy turns to the source of the voice that had called out to them: an old Tonu with laugh lines around his mouth and a craggy stub where his horn used to be. Instinctively, Ozzy clutches his plushie closer to himself, more out of shyness than fear—he knows this old man well; he’s at the house often enough, after all: their landlord, Torgos Hornelius III.

“Hi, Mr. Hornelius,” Nyx greets. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, just picking up a gift for my niece,” he says. “Her birthday is coming up, but I’ve no idea what to get for her. My wife was always much better at picking out presents than I was.” A long sigh huffs out of Mr. Hornelius’s nose, and Ozzy shies away from it. “I’m sure I’ll find something, though… ah, well. Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow. It’s close to supper time, and I’m famished.”

Just then, Ozzy's stomach growls—loudly. His eyes widen, but then he curls over himself, clutching the Paint Brush Plushie to his tummy as though that will retroactively muffle its hungry roar. How embarrassing!

Mr. Hornelius’s bushy eyebrows rise. “My, my! Sounds like someone else is hungry, too. Come, you two; I’ve just had a chat with Hubert and he’s got some new hot dog flavours he’s dying to try out. My treat.”

Nyx holds up a hand. “Oh, no, that’s okay, you don’t have to—we were going to go see the Soup Faerie again—”

“Nonsense! It would be my pleasure to have a hot dog with the two of you.”

A wavering smile comes over Nyx’s lips, and she rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. “Then I guess we’ll have to take you up on that. What do you say, Ozzy?”

Despite the embarrassment still burning hot beneath his fur, Ozzy nods. A hot dog really does sound good right about now…

The smell of grilling meat and mustard wafts over to Ozzy as they approach Hubert’s Hot Dogs. His stomach growls again, another embarrassing reminder of just how hungry he is. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for them to order or get their food, and the three of them quickly settle in to eat.

“Hold on!” Mr. Hornelius says, just as Nyx is about to take her first bite. She pauses, mouth still open, and Ozzy giggles, but Mr. Hornelius isn’t joking around. He holds up one finger to stall them both, rummaging in his pocket for something.

That something turns out to be a camera.

“Let’s take a picture to commemorate a wonderful day,” Mr. Hornelius says, and Nyx’s mouth finally closes into a smile.

“Oh, all right,” she says. “Come here, Ozzy.”

She puts an arm around him, and Ozzy leans into her, trying to balance his hot dog in one hand and his plushie in the other. He nearly drops them both in the process, and then nearly loses his balance again when the camera’s flash goes off, and both of those instances of clumsiness somehow, miraculously show in the picture—

But he’s still smiling in it.

“What a perfect picture,” Mr. Hornelius says, admiring the photograph in his hands. He passes it over to Nyx, and she smiles down at it too.

“Yeah… it is, isn’t it?”

They part with Mr. Hornelius after finishing their food, Ozzy wrapping the handle of his paint brush plushie up in a napkin to make sure he doesn’t get any grease stains on it. The doors to the post office swing open and Nyx confidently strides in, greeting the old Chia at the counter.

Benjamin Stampley smiles at the sight of her. “Hello, Nyx! And young Oizys, too. What can I do for you today?”

“He goes by Ozzy now, most of the time,” Nyx says with a smile, and Ozzy is grateful that she corrected Old Man Stampley so he didn’t have to. “And we’re here to pick up some mail I missed yesterday. Mr. Hornelius told me someone came by to deliver it special, but since I was working a little later than usual at the Toy Shop, I missed it.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Mr. Stampley says, turning to shuffle through the various filing boxes behind him. “It seemed important. Had its own special courier and everything; it was nice to catch up with that one mail carrier from the Space Station… Marilia, I think her name is. Lovely Grundo, most dedicated post-worker you’ll ever meet, but almost never gets any time away…”

Suddenly, Nyx goes tense. Something in her posture and expression changes, even though she hasn’t moved a single muscle other than to flex her hands on the countertop. It makes Ozzy nervous.

“Ah, here it is!” The old Chia turns back and passes Nyx a letter—an envelope with a big, red, stylised ‘V’ on it.

Nyx lets out a sudden breath. “Th-thank you,” she says, smiling. She accepts the letter and tucks it into her bag to read later. “Really. I appreciate it, Ben.”

“Oh, I’m just doing my job.” The old man bows his head. “Ah! Speaking of which, come by if you’d like to pick up another shift. We’re a little short-staffed right now, since our usual carrier’s been off with a bad case of Itchy Scratchies.”

Nyx takes Ozzy’s hand in one of her own, while she waves at Old Man Benjamin Stampley with the other. “Will do. Thanks again!”

The doors shut behind them, and Nyx lets out a breath. “Well! That’s all taken care of. What do you say we head home now?” she says, bright and cheerful even though she still seems a little frazzled.

“What’s in the letter?” Ozzy asks.

Nyx’s smile falters, but just for a blink. “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing… But hey, didn’t you say you were going to finish your drawing tonight?”

“That’s right!” Ozzy gasps. He reaches for Nyx’s arm and tugs on it heartily. “Come on, Nyxie, let’s go home! I want to finish it before bedtime!”

“Something startles Ozzy from his sleep. A sound like the sharp inhalation of breath, but, mind still drowsy, he can’t be sure that’s what it was. All he knows is that he’s not sleeping anymore, and he can see, in his bleary, blurry vision, that there’s still a sliver of light creeping into his room from underneath the door.

Groaning, he slides out of bed, belly to the mattress and sheets coming halfway to the floor with him. He rubs his eyes and grabs his special plushie without so much as thinking about it. It comes everywhere with him, and he really doesn’t want to let it out of his sight after Nyx’s heroic rescue.

Too sleepy to properly pick up his feet, Ozzy shuffles across the floorboards to the door and opens it. The hallway is still mostly dark, but there’s a light on in the kitchen—that must have been what he’d seen, which means Nyx is up late again.

“No good…” Ozzy murmurs to himself. She has work in the morning, doesn't she? So it’s important for her to get a good night’s sleep.

He makes his way down the hall. It’s slow going, from the miasma of sleep and a strange, growing sense of dread. If Nyx does have a shift somewhere tomorrow, why is she still up? She never stays up this late to begin with unless something’s wrong…

The light is brighter now. Ozzy blinks against it when he peeks his head around the corner to look into the kitchen. There’s Nyx, facing away from him with a piece of paper in her hands. The mysterious envelope from the post office, with its bright red ‘V’ on it, lies open and discarded nearby…

“I can’t believe it,” Nyx says softly, unaware of her uninvited eavesdropper. “I… I really got accepted…”

She sniffles. Ozzy recognises that as the sound that woke him up.

“I’m going to Virtupets Space Station.”

No.

He can’t see Nyx’s face from this angle, but from the way her ears are perked, and from the breathlessness in her voice, Ozzy can tell that she’s… she’s happy.

No. No.

“I’m going to be a pilot!”

All at once, the ground beneath Ozzy falls away. The walls fade and melt into nothingness, into big black spaces where the sky should be—but there are no stars, no sun, no light…

No nothing.

No Nyx.

His entire body goes numb. His hands fall loosely at his sides, and distantly, there’s a small plop! on the ground. For a moment, he can’t even breathe.

No, no, no!

Another sniffle, and Ozzy is back in his house, but everything looks—feels—different. The light in the kitchen isn’t as bright, and the paintings and photographs on the walls seem duller too. The floorboards, though—they’re hard under his hands and feet as he scrambles back to his room, running and stumbling and tripping and running even more, as if he were fleeing from the beast he used to think lived in his closet—the one that Nyx always protected him from—

He dives into his bed, pulling the covers up over himself and curling into a tight, trembling ball beneath them. He reaches for his ears and tugs at them, shivering and quaking with the sobs he doesn’t want Nyx to hear—and that he knows now she doesn’t want to hear, either.

It’s fine. She won’t be around to hear him much longer.

The day that Nyx leaves for Virtupets is bright and sunny, with only the slightest of breezes rustling the branches of the trees on the horizon, but Ozzy can hardly register the glory of the day. He spends most of the morning in his bed, under the covers, pretending he’s still asleep. Wishing he was. The only thing that breaks up the long, dreadful morning is when Nyx knocks on his door and gently asks him if he’ll come down for breakfast—“I just opened up a fresh box of Islandberry Crunch,” she says—but he just pulls the covers tighter over his head and ignores her.

Eventually, though, it’s time. He hears, through the sheets, voices coming from the kitchen. Nyx and Mr. Hornelius, probably. He can’t make out what they’re saying, other than the word “care,” but he doesn’t want to know, anyway. They’re probably talking about him and what a brat he’s being.

No, they shouldn’t expect him to be fair, and they shouldn’t be surprised that he’s not coming out to say goodbye. Nyx probably doesn’t want him to, anyway. She’d been looking forward to this day for so long—looking forward to getting away from her big burden of a little brother as soon as she possibly could.

There’s silence in the house for a while, and then footsteps. The front door opens and shuts. For a moment, Ozzy curls in tighter around himself, tugging at his ears to fight off the indecision warring in his heart—but he eventually wiggles out from under his bedcovers to look out the window, to where… where…

Where Mr. Hornelius is standing a few steps along the path leading from their house, one arm raised to wave goodbye.

Ozzy scrunches his eyes shut again, not wanting to see what’s up even further ahead, but… But this might be the last time he sees his sister until she comes back. She’d said it would be a few weeks for training, and then a few more after that…

He opens his eyes. All he can see is Nyx’s back, small and getting smaller with every step. She looks tiny in the vast frame of his bedroom window, even though she had always seemed so big. So safe.

Tears spring to Ozzy’s eyes, and he tries to turn away, just like she’s turned her back to him, but he can’t. It’s too hard to move, suddenly.

But then, Nyx stops. Her feet come to a halt on the path, and she just… stands there for a moment. One moment, and then two, and…

She turns. Nyx is too far away for Ozzy to see her whole expression, but not far enough he can’t see the enormous smile on her face. Despite it, though, she lifts both hands into the air and waves them wildly, criss-crossing at the wrists, and yells so loudly that Ozzy can hear her even through the window glass:

“Goodbye, Ozzy! I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

Ozzy turns away. He slinks back into his bed, and pulls the covers over himself again.

The afternoon sun has dipped behind silver-grey clouds by the time Ozzy leaves the house. It’s later in the day than he had hoped—he’d wanted to leave before lunchtime, but ended up sleeping in much longer than he’d meant to. A part of him wanted to declare today a bust already, but there was still a little voice in him that sounded suspiciously like his sister telling him to try anyway. Funny how he can still imagine what she’d say even though he hasn’t heard from her in years.

All the same, Ozzy closes the door half-heartedly behind him when he finally takes that first step out the door. He keeps his balance this time, even though there’s a bundle of canvases and folders and cardboard-backed painting paper held under his arms, like there is every day that he goes out. He’s finally gotten the hang of carrying it all, at least.

A long, tired sigh escapes him. He really doesn’t want to be outside today, but there’s some solace, at least, in the fact that it’s cloudy and cool today. Maybe he should wish for the sun like so many other Neopians here seem to, but something about grey days like this makes him feel just a little bit more at home.

There’s less colour to suck out of the day this way.

He trudges his way to the Neopian Plaza and sets up in his usual spot. It’s not much, but it’s what he’s used to, and he’s just off the path of passers-by; they should have a good view of him and his paintings, but…

…But it’s another day of nothing, until eventually, after hours and hours of waiting around for something that never happens, Ozzy decides to pack up and leave. One by one, he tucks each desolate grey painting under his arm, and with a sigh, he begins the trek home.

…But he’s not alone.

The further he gets away from the plaza and the Neopets in it, the quieter it should get. He knows this—he finds it relaxing, usually. Today, though, he’s accompanied by the scritch-scratch of little claws in the dirt, and the shhhffffff of something else dragging through it.

He turns around. A strange little Doglefox is following him, with a surprisingly large stick in its mouth.

Ozzy frowns. “Stop following me,” he says.

“Arf!” the Doglefox replies, inadvertently dropping its stick.

With a small huff, Ozzy turns around and continues on his way.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

He claps his free hand over his ear.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

“I can’t play with you!” Ozzy calls back.

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

The next day, when Ozzy makes his way back to the Plaza, he’s not alone. Splinters of wood fall to the dusty path beneath his feet as the same Doglefox from the previous day chews on another stick, so close to him that Ozzy nearly stumbles over the little guy more than once.

He pauses to stare down at the strange creature, frowning and confused, and for a moment debates nudging it away with his foot.

“I don’t know why you keep following me,” he says, more to himself than the Doglefox. “I already told you I don’t have time to play. I’m busy trying to sell my paintings.”

The Doglefox looks up at him, its stick still held between its paws. “Rrr-arf!”

Ozzy sighs. It’s going to be a long day, he thinks.

And he’s right.

As usual, there doesn’t seem to be anyone interested in his paintings. Nobody comes up to say hi or to ask him about prices. A few more Neopets do look his way, but most of them seem more interested in the Doglefox than him. Typical.

But it doesn’t bother him as much today as it normally does. Maybe it’s because it’s a little warmer than usual. Maybe it’s because the Doglefox looks like he’s having a good time. Maybe it’s just because the Doglefox is cute, wagging his tail and chewing on that stick… or any of his sticks, because somehow, in the few moments Ozzy hadn’t been watching him, he seemed to find new ones. Bigger ones, skinnier ones, ones with extra branches.

Where is he getting them all?

The Doglefox isn’t just good at finding sticks, though. He does tricks with them while he’s playing, too: turning onto his back and kicking the stick to make it spin; throwing the stick off into the distance and then running to go get it; sticking the stick in the ground and dancing in circles around it…

The most impressive, though, is when the little guy tosses one of his sticks up into the air and catches it in his mouth.

“Whoa!” Ozzy gasps, lurching forward on the stool he’s set up and clapping his hands to either side of his face. The Doglefox seems to notice; stick still in his mouth, he turns around, wagging his tail.

“Rrr-rrr!”

Excited by his audience of one, the Doglefox does it again. He lowers himself closer to the ground, giving the stick a few little hefts to test it before he launches it in the air again. One, and two, and then up it goes…

BONK!

And down it comes again, squarely on top of the poor thing’s head.

“Rrrow…”

“Heh… Haha… Hahahaha!”

Ozzy can’t help but smile. The absurdity of it all sweeps him off his feet and he bends over, clutching his straining tummy and laughing so hard he can barely breathe. The Doglefox looks up at him, tilting his head in confusion, but his tail starts to wag, and wag, and wag…

Ozzy lifts a hand up to his face, catching a tear before it falls from his eye. For the first time in what feels like his entire life, it’s a tear of joy.

For a while, things are good. The Doglefox follows Ozzy home every day, then trots off to Fyora-knows-where, leaving a stick at the front door to pick up in the morning; then morning comes, and the Doglefox is always there waiting to follow Ozzy back to the Neopian Plaza and stay with him while nobody looks at his paintings. Strangely, Ozzy doesn’t even mind that nobody looks anymore—sure, he still needs the money, but Mr. Hornelius doesn’t really bother him for it, and the looming threat that he may not have a place to live if he doesn’t sell his paintings soon seems like a distant memory.

But of course, it’s all too good to be true.

It’s one day when he’s throwing one of the Doglefox’s many sticks that it happens. While the little guy is off fetching, taking a little longer than usual to return (he probably found an even bigger, better stick to bring back), familiar voices pierce through Ozzy’s hearing like the whizzing of an arrow:

“Wow, look at all this junk!”

“A bunch of ugly, washed-out paintings to match an ugly, washed-out painter. Ha! My baby sister could paint better than this.”

Dread curls its icy claws in Ozzy’s chest, but he turns around anyway, toward the source of the voices. He knows who it is before he sees them, though: the pastel Chomby and spotted Quiggle that Nyx chased away what feels like a lifetime ago, back to torment him again.

The Quiggle leers at Ozzy’s paintings. He’s holding up one of the canvases now, between his finger and thumb, like it’s a gross, smelly rag that he’s afraid to hold properly. The Chomby laughs and points.

“Yeah, and all your baby sister knows how to do is scribble!” he says. “Give that painting here, I know how to make it better.”

“N-no!” Ozzy protests, reaching out for the painting. “Stop, give it back—”

But it’s too late. The Chomby pushes him over, then turns around and shoves his foot through the canvas.

“No!!!”

The Quiggle bursts out laughing, and drops the half of the canvas he’s still holding to point at Ozzy. “What’s wrong, washout? You gonna cry about it?”

“Of course he is,” the Chomby chimes in, before Ozzy can even open his mouth to protest. “All he does is cry now that his big sis isn’t here to wipe his nose.”

A too-familiar burn rises up in the back of Ozzy’s throat and behind his eyelids. No, no, he can’t cry now, he can’t prove them right—!

But he can’t help himself. A sniffle escapes him and he curls up on the ground, clutching at his ears. The bullies’ laughter rings out above him, filling him, their words sinking in past his skin and settling right into his heart…

“Owww! What the—?!”

Suddenly, the laughter stops. Ozzy cracks a tearful eye open to see what could have possibly silenced the bullies, and for a moment—just one tiny, breathless moment—he half expects to see tall antenna-ears, vibrant purple hair, and a righteously furious expression.

Instead, he sees… a stick?

“What the heck was that?” The Quiggle asks, eyeing his Chomby friend warily. The Chomby rubs at the back of his head, gritting his teeth.

“I don’t know, I—”

“Grrrr-rrr-rrr-ARF!”

The bullies turn to the side. Ozzy opens both eyes. There, just a few metres away, the little Doglefox stands, rump raised and fur bristling. His nose is curled up and his teeth are bared in an adorably ferocious snarl, warning the bullies away.

They burst out into laughter.

“Ha ha ha! Oh, that’s rich!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Seriously! There’s no way that mangy thing could ever—”

“What, now that your sister’s here, you’ve got a little pest to fight your battles for you, washout?”

The laughter continues, and Ozzy pulls himself to his feet. He dusts himself off, ready to tell the bullies that his friend is not mangy and is not a pest, but before he even gets the chance, the entire world seems to leap into action.

“Rrr-rrraaar!” The Doglefox moves first. He runs up toward the Chomby and launches himself into the air, jaws open and sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight. Before Ozzy even knows what’s happening, the Chomby bully cries out and flails his arm around in a blur of minty green and orange.

“Waaugh!”

After what seems like way too long, the Doglefox lets go. He lands firmly, almost gracefully, on all four of his paws, then whips around so fast Ozzy almost can’t comprehend it. His tail is still bristling, and his ears are pinned back flat to his head.

“ARF! RARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!”

“Wahh!” The Quiggle jumps about four feet in the air, and the moment he lands, he turns and scrambles away. “Help! This thing is feral! RUN AWAY!”

Together, the two bullies take off, leaving Ozzy behind to blink disbelievingly. He shakes his head, trying to clear his brain out long enough to process what had just happened. As he does, though, something else catches his eye…

“Um…”

He reaches out for the Doglefox’s discarded stick, and holds it out to him gingerly. “You, uh… you dropped this.”

The Doglefox blinks. All at once, the anger drops from his face—no more wrinkled snout, no more flattened ears. His eyes are big and shiny again, and his dopey, tongue-lolling smile has returned.

“Rrrarf!”

Without warning, the Doglefox leaps at Ozzy. He stumbles back, only just barely able to catch him, and then bursts into his own fit of delighted, uncontrollable laughter as the little guy licks him all over his face.

That night, when the Doglefox drops his latest stick (a big one that Ozzy had found for him, with two branches jutting out at the top) at the doorstep, Ozzy holds out his hand before the little guy can turn around and trot off.

“It’s cold at night,” he says, slowly and measuredly, “so, um… I think you’d better come in. Besides, a hero like you needs something good to eat, right?”

The Doglefox barks and runs in the open front door—or at least he tries to. The stick he’s picked back up is just a little too big, and he’s holding it horizontally, so it ends up bouncing off the doorframe and sending the poor critter flying.

He lands on his back and Ozzy gasps, bending down to check if he’s okay.

“Rarf!”

Ozzy laughs. The Doglefox’s tail is wagging, and he’s got a big, tongue-lolling smile on his face.

“Be careful,” Ozzy warns, and helps him back to his paws. He takes the stick for his new friend, and gives it back once they’re inside the kitchen so that he can’t hurt himself by running into any more doorways.

With the Doglefox seemingly safe and happy enough, Ozzy turns to the empty cabinets. “Now, it’s getting close to supper time,” he says, “So, um… any special requests?”

“Rrrf!”

“Hmm.” Ozzy has no idea what that means, so he decides to choose what to eat himself. There’s… not much, really. He hasn’t exactly been the best about food shopping lately, and Mr. Hornelius hasn’t brought anything around for a few days. But there is one thing, and it puts a smile on his face…

“There!”

Ozzy sets two bowls of Islandberry Crunch cereal on the table, then sits down in one of the chairs. “This is my favourite cereal. Here’s one bowl for me, and that one’s for you.”

The Doglefox jumps up on the counter. He sniffs at the bowl, the giant stick still in his mouth, and makes a weird motion with his head, halfway opening his mouth while still trying to keep the stick balanced in it. Ozzy snorts. Is he trying to eat with the stick still in his mouth?

“You sure like your sticks, huh?” he says after swallowing a mouthful of cereal. Then, with a glance toward the fridge, he hums. “Wait a second. ‘Sticks’ sounds kind of like…”

Ozzy rises from the table. He makes his way toward the fridge slowly, and carefully peels two taped-up pieces of paper from it before returning to the table and carefully setting them down: one drawing, and one photo. He points at one of the Neopets in the photo—the tall blue Aisha he had been trying so hard not to think about for the last few years.

“This is my sister. Her name is Nyx.”

The Doglefox tilts his head to the side, curious. “Rrf?”

“I was just thinking… um… you know, since you’re going to be living here now, you—well, you probably need a name, and…”

There are a number of pastels, pencil crayons, and markers on the table, haphazardly left behind from some of Ozzy’s art projects over the last two weeks. He reaches for one of the markers now, grateful instead of embarrassed that he hadn’t cleaned up, and takes back the Doglefox’s cereal bowl.

On it, he writes four letters:

S T Y X.

“Styx,” Ozzy says. “That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. Your new name.”

The skitter-skritch of claws and paw-pads scrabbling against the wooden floors carries to Ozzy’s studio, alerting him to his imminent visitor—or at least, it would have, had he not been so focused on the painting in front of him: gloomy clouds, towering castles and lavish fountains, their once-colourful images now rendered in nothing but shades of grey.

“Arf! Arf!”

Ozzy’s ears twitch as his little friend’s presence registers to him, but he doesn’t look away from his painting—he’s trying to get the shadows just right, and he’s always had a hard time with the smaller, more delicate brushes required for fine details. Broad, sweeping strokes with large brushes are more his style, but that doesn’t seem to catch anyone’s attention, so maybe if he tries something different…

“Not now, Styx. I’m almost done…”

Apparently undeterred, Styx trots into the room and marches right up to Ozzy’s feet. He’s got a stick in his mouth, as usual—he’s amassed quite a collection now, all of them piled up at the foot of Ozzy’s bed where Styx likes to sleep—and he drops it right where Ozzy can see it in his periphery, tail wagging and tongue cheerfully hanging halfway out of his mouth.

Ozzy glances down at it and frowns, truly rueful. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t stop right now. We’ll play later, okay? Promise.”

With a whimper, Styx lowers his head. His ears droop and the tip of his fluffy tail brushes against the ground, and for a moment, Ozzy feels something pulling at his heartstrings. He really is busy, though, and he wasn’t lying about promising to play with Styx later…

But strangely enough, Styx perks up a moment later, turning and scampering off to a different corner of the room. Ozzy glances at him as the little guy rummages through a messy array of canvases, palettes, and a collapsed easel or two, but doesn’t pay too much attention. He probably spotted something that looked like another stick.

A moment later, the Doglefox emerges with something in his mouth. Ozzy doesn’t really see it, since he’s turned back to his painting, but his attention is drawn back to his fluffy friend when he drops whatever he’d been holding and nudges Ozzy’s foot with his nose.

“Ruff!”

Ozzy sighs, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment and laying his paint brush aside. “All right, all right, what is…”

The Grey Paint Brush Plushie stares up at him from the floor, balls of dust and cobwebs clinging to it. The room goes cold, all of a sudden, and a lump forms in Ozzy’s throat, icy and sharp like he’d just swallowed an iceberg.

Styx bends down to nudge the plushie toward him with his nose. His tail is wagging, his ears flopping as he raises his head. Ozzy turns away briskly, back to his latest black-and-white painting.

“Why do you want to know about that? It’s… it’s nothing. Nothing important, anyway.” It hurts him to say it, but the anger and sadness burning inside him and melting the lump in his throat—the abandonment he can still feel branding him just as strongly today as it had when he’d first seen Nyx reading that letter—hurts even more.

Styx whimpers. He picks the Paint Brush Plushie back up and nudges Ozzy’s foot with his snout, but Ozzy doesn’t turn around to look at it, or him, again.

“I told you it’s nothing,” he snaps, hating how his voice comes out broken but cold. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it anymore.”

Another whine, but this time Styx backs off. Ozzy can hear the scritch-scratch of his claws against the wooden floor, leaving this time, but he chooses to ignore it. He’d forgotten all about that stupid plushie before now.

He’d wanted to forget all about that stupid plushie.

It’s not unusual for Ozzy to feel satisfied with his paintings. He knows he’s pretty good at what he does, even if he’s not the best—he can’t be the best, because nobody wants to buy his art—but he likes it all well enough. This piece, though, the landscape (or rather, cloudscape) of Faerieland that he’s painted, a mixture of imagination and photographic reference, is something that he feels strangely proud of. It’s all in greyscale, of course: the glittery buildings and sparkling facades are cast in shadows and one-dimensional light, while the clouds that make up the ground are the same dreary lack-of-hues as the ones up in the sky over the Neopian Plaza today.

He likes that it reflects his environment. He likes even more that it reflects his thoughts on the place—on the land that, years ago, his sister promised they would go to together.

The land that he knows now, he will never see in person.

The watercolour strokes of Faerieland on his paper are devoid of people. No Faeries, no Neopets. That, too, reflects this dark and gloomy day. Ozzy doesn’t really mind, though. He’s got Styx with him, happily chewing on yet another stick, so there doesn’t need to be anyone out in the Plaza today.

He reaches down to pet his Doglefox friend, and Styx cheerfully lifts his head to nuzzle into the touch. His tail wags wildly. It makes Ozzy smile for a second to think that, at least if nobody else cares, he’s still got his little buddy with him.

Hours pass by. Nobody comes out. It’s as if the plaza itself has frozen, like it’s nothing more than an image Ozzy had painted on one of his many canvases. Maybe it’s because it looks like it’s going to rain, or maybe it’s just because everyone has finally gotten sick of seeing his face. Whatever it is, it…

“Hey. You there.”

Ozzy startles as a voice pierces through his thoughts. In front of him is… is…

A girl?

Immediately, Ozzy sits up straight. He looks at the girl, a pale green Acara with twisty black horns, a stylishly-tattered dress, and the reddest eyes he’s ever seen. The girl looks back at him, and Ozzy has to turn around to check that she is, in fact, looking at him, and not some other Neopet that maybe suddenly appeared out of thin air, but… there’s nobody else around.

Just him and Styx, as usual.

He points tentatively at himself. “Uh… me?”

“Yeah. Anyone else here to talk to?” the girl says, a smile on her face that’s just a little bit scary, but this is the first time anyone other than Styx or Mr. Hornelius has talked to Ozzy in a really long time, so he almost doesn’t notice.

She doesn’t say anything else. Ozzy doesn’t know what to do, and she’s staring at him expectantly, so he ends up defaulting to his usual plan of action: looking down at his feet. “Um… Can I, uh… help you?” Stupid, stupid, stupid! Of course you can’t!

From the ground, Styx looks up at him, curious. His tail isn’t wagging anymore, but he's clinging to his big stick with his mouth and both paws.

“Yeah, actually,” the striking green Acara says. She comes close, bending at the waist to lean forward, and jabs her finger at Ozzy’s collection of artwork. “I’m curious about your paintings. I’ve been looking for something new to… brighten up the place. So to speak.” She grins. “You got anything good?”

“Huh?”

“I said, have you got anything good?” She comes closer and peers around Ozzy’s shoulder.

Get a hold of yourself, Oizys! Ozzy quickly nods and gets to his feet, sliding off his little stool and standing next to the girl. “Um, yes! I… I think so, anyway.”

The Acara grins, her sharp teeth visible. “Then let’s see what you’ve got.”

All that evening and all of the next day, Ozzy feels like he’s floating on air—like the watercolour clouds he had painted in that picture of Faerieland are real, and he’s walking on them now. He can’t remember the last time anyone had told him they liked his paintings, and especially not one he’d been proud of.

He wishes he had asked for the girl’s name, but, as he sits over his morning bowl of Islandberry Crunch cereal and Styx watches him with a tilted head, he resigns himself to never knowing it. After all, she’d gotten what she’d come for, so why would she come back? There was no good reason for her to.

But to his surprise, when he sets out for the day, Styx trotting happily at his side (he’s got three sticks today), the Acara is already there waiting for him.

“There you are, Painter!” she says, her sharp-fanged smile bright like the sun cutting through the clouds overhead. Without even realising it, Ozzy starts smiling too.

“You’re back…!”

“Yeah, I am,” the Acara says, hands on her hips. “And you’re late. I was almost convinced you weren’t gonna show today.”

“I show up every day, even if I don’t want to,” Ozzy says, but he doesn’t really know why, so he claps his hand over his mouth. “Er, I mean…”

“Whatever,” the girl says, waving a hand dismissively, and even though it should feel like she’s being rude, Ozzy is actually grateful that she’d shut him up before he said something really embarrassing. “You’re here now, just like I hoped. I wanted to see if you had any more…”

He doesn’t hear the rest of what she says, though, because his brain catches on one specific word, and everything else melts away as it echoes in his mind.

‘Hoped.’

She had hoped to see him?

“Uh, hello? Neopia to Painter,” the girl snaps, waving her hand in front of Ozzy’s face. Ozzy startles, and below him, Styx growls.

“Grrr…. grrr!”

“Shh, quiet, Styx!” he says hastily, then looks back up to his… customer? “S-sorry about that. Um, what did you say you wanted?”

“Another painting,” the girl says. “I liked the one I bought yesterday soooo much, I thought I’d come get another. So, what’ve you got for me today, Painter?”

“Before I knew it, I’d made another friend.”

The girl introduces herself to him as Vira. Ozzy likes the way it sounds—like a painting, but with sound. She tells him that he has a funny name (“Oizys? Who on Neopia could have come up with a name like that?”), but she also tells him that she likes ‘Ozzy’ much better, which is a relief, because that’s the name he prefers too. It’s what his sister—

No. He’s not thinking about that.

He and Vira become fast friends. She’s a little mean, but not in the same way the Chomby and Quiggle bullies were. She’s mean in a way that’s sharp and confident, and doesn’t make Ozzy feel stupid or like he’s sucking all the colour out of the world. A part of Ozzy wishes he could be as carefree and unabashed as Vira is, but just knowing he has her attention is enough to make him feel a little bigger, a little brighter. She likes his art, likes to talk to him, and likes to spend time with him.

Styx, though… Styx doesn’t seem to like her. He growls sometimes when she says one of her mean jokes, but Ozzy chalks it up to the one time she accidentally stepped on one of his sticks and broke it. He’d apologised on her behalf, but from the way Styx kept growling at her even after that, and how he had kept growling at the bullies even after he’d scared them off, he doesn’t seem to be the most forgiving Doglefox.

It’s probably a good thing the bullies never came back.

Styx does tolerate Vira when she’s around, though. When they’re at the plaza, he maintains his distance, gnawing huffily on a variety of sticks and twigs and branches, keeping to himself except when someone miraculously comes to inspect Ozzy’s paintings but then walks away without buying anything.

“It’s okay, Painter,” Vira tells him every time it happens, “they don’t have taste like I do. You couldn’t pay them to appreciate art.”

Styx doesn’t seem to like it when she says stuff like that either, but Ozzy doesn’t really know why, nor does he know what to do. What the little Doglefox likes least of all, however, is when Vira comes over for tea (a special floral tea that she’d bought and taught him how to brew), and when Ozzy takes her into his makeshift art studio to show her his latest projects.

“You’ve gotten good at this,” Vira says about the tea Ozzy has brewed on one such day. “Could have used a little more time to steep, but you’ve got the sugar right, finally.”

“I just didn’t want to keep you waiting,” Ozzy says, sipping his own tea carefully. It’s still too hot, but he’s gotten used to the flavour now.

“No, you wanted to act quick and get it to me while that Doglefox wasn’t in the kitchen nipping at your heels.”

Ozzy frowns. Styx is in the kitchen now, curled up by the refrigerator, and he bares his teeth at Vira. “Grrrrrrr!”

Vira laughs and sticks out her tongue. Ozzy looks away, uncomfortable. “He doesn’t nip at my heels…”

“No? Well, he sure nips at mine,” Vira responds with a shrug and a sip of her tea.

“Rrr-rawrf!” A sound somewhere between a bark and a whine, and Ozzy’s frown deepens.

“That’s not nice,” he tells his little friend, because he doesn’t want Vira to get upset. After a few weeks of spending time with her, Ozzy has started to worry that she might be lonely, too, even if he knows she’d never admit it.

Styx’s ears fall back, flattening against his head.

“Rrrow…”

“Whatever,” Vira says. Just then, something catches her attention, and she stands up to move closer to the fridge. Styx yelps and gets up, scurrying away with his tail between his legs. Ozzy watches him go, feeling guilty, but he doesn’t follow. He trails after Vira instead.

“Who’s that?” Vira asks, pointing at the photo on the fridge of Ozzy and Nyx with their hot dogs, and then a once-special drawing that Ozzy had gifted to his sister years ago—one of him and Nyx, standing side-by-side.

Ozzy flushes. “That’s, um…”

He can’t say it.

Vira looks at him with one brow raised, either unimpressed or expectant. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with her.

“...Nobody,” he finishes. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

Vira’s boots fall heavily on the creaking floorboards as they make their way down the hall. Styx trails behind them, wary, as they head toward Ozzy’s studio, where his latest painting sits on an easel waiting to be shown off to her. Ozzy is excited about this one, and has been for a while; he’s certain that Vira will like it. Maybe more than she’s liked any of his other paintings.

When they pass by Ozzy’s bedroom, though, Vira pauses. The door’s open a crack, but not enough to see much inside the room—just the foot of his bed, maybe one of his shelves.

Suddenly, something changes in Styx. His ears perk up and his fur bristles, and he leaps in front of the door to Ozzy’s bedroom to stand between it and Vira, nearly knocking Vira over in the process.

“Grrr! Rrruff ruff ruff! Grrr!!”

His rump rises up in the air, and his growls and barks fill the hallway. There’s no stick in his mouth, for once, which should worry Ozzy, but it doesn’t worry him nearly as much as the little guy gnashing his bared teeth at Vira.

“Augh! What the—?! What’s his problem?!” Vira shrieks, whipping her head toward Ozzy.

“I don’t—”

“Whatever it is, control the stupid beast!”

“About what?!”

“I… I don’t know,” Ozzy finishes lamely. “C-come on, Styx, calm down! It’s okay, boy, everything’s okay…” He looks around, eyes shifting back and forth between Styx and Vira. He has no idea what set Styx off like this, but it’s bad behaviour—and it’s upsetting Vira, too.

“I’m sorry, Vira,” he says. “Just give me a second…”

Vira scoffs. She crosses her arms. “Whatever. Just make sure he doesn’t try to bite me.”

Ozzy sighs and lowers himself to his knees to speak to Styx. “You should stay here,” he tells the Doglefox, and it earns him a heart-wrenching whimper in response. “Don’t follow us right now, okay? You’re upsetting Vira.”

He stands up again and continues to lead Vira to his studio. For a few steps, Styx follows behind him…

Until Vira snarls and rolls her eyes.

“He’s following us, Painter,” she mutters, clearly displeased, and it makes something in Ozzy twinge. He whirls around, his nose crinkling.

“I said stay here, Styx!” he snaps, and immediately regrets it. Styx’s tail droops between his legs and he gets his shoulders up, staring at Ozzy with big, hurt eyes.

“I…” Ozzy frowns. He hadn’t meant for his voice to get so loud. He hadn’t meant to get angry. But Vira…

He groans and smears a hand down his face, torn. “Look, just… just don’t bother us for a while, okay?” he says, and then hurries himself and Vira into his studio, leaving Styx all alone.

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but…”

“Ugh, finally!” Vira says when they’re alone in Ozzy’s studio, and Ozzy has shut the door tight behind them. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms again, clearly still perturbed by what had just happened. “That little beast’s had it in for me since day one. What did I ever do to deserve that, huh?”

Ozzy frowns. He wants to defend Styx and point out that Vira hasn’t been nice to him either, but Vira’s already in a bad mood—if he upsets her, she might leave and never come back.

Just like Nyx.

Instead, he tries to change the topic, and goes back to what they were talking about before Styx had started acting up. “So, um… you looked a little lost in thought out there before Styx… uh, barked.”

Vira glowers at him. “So?”

“So… I dunno, I guess I was just wondering what you were thinking about.”

That, at least, gets Vira’s smile back, even if it’s more like a smirk than anything else. “Oh, just wondering when you started getting so nosy,” she says, flicking at Ozzy’s ear playfully.

Despite himself, Ozzy laughs and shakes it off. The danger of upsetting her seems to have passed, at least for now, so he goes back to his original plan: showing his friend his work.

“Okay, I get it,” Ozzy says, moving toward the easel set up in the middle of the room. “You don’t have to tell me, I guess. But look at this—I really think you’re going to like what I’ve painted this time.”

Vira hums. “Is it another flower?” she asks, bored.

“Yes. Er, no. Er… not exactly…”

A dark, elegant brow rises at that, but Vira doesn’t say anything else. At least not until Ozzy pulls the sheet off the easel to reveal his latest painting: an endless field of grey and black and white flowers, spanning into a wide, open, clear greyscale sky.

For a moment, Vira’s eyes go wide. Ozzy wonders if she recognises the field—if he’d done a good job at recreating the stories she’d told him. He thinks he might have, if her breathlessness and slow steps toward the canvas are any indication—but before he can ask, she shakes her head and turns away, snapping back to her usual cocky, confident self.

“Not bad,” she says, a smile evident in her voice even if she doesn’t turn around to show it to Ozzy. “I like the flowers. But it’s still missing something.”

Ozzy smiles, too. “I know. I’m not done yet—but I will be soon. And when I am… I want you to have this. The painting, I mean. I want you to keep it.”

Vira glances at him for a second, her eyes still wide and her mouth slightly agape. But again she turns away, hastily hiding her expression from Ozzy.

“...You’re such a sap,” she says. Ozzy is pretty sure she means Thank you.

That night, Ozzy stays up long past the point he should be asleep. He’s in his bedroom, but the canvas he’d shown Vira earlier is in there with him, because he hadn’t been able to sleep for the excitement of starting on the next stage of painting. Instead of painting now, though, he’s taken a pencil to the canvas to vigorously sketch out a lone figure in the middle of the greyscale flower field: a figure with big ears, sleek and elegant wings, and graceful, twisted horns…

Behind him, Styx slinks into the room. He nudges the back of Ozzy’s heels and paws at him, a tiny whimper in his throat, but Ozzy doesn’t look up from his drawing. Instead he frowns, bushy eyebrows bunching together in the middle, and sketches out another stroke on Vira’s dress. “Not yet, Styx. Hang on, I’m almost done…”

“Rrrooww…!”

“I said not yet,” Ozzy repeats, more firmly this time. “I want to get this just right. We can go to sleep when I’m done.”

The paw that had been tugging at Ozzy’s pyjama pants falls to the floor. In the corner of his vision, Ozzy sees Styx curl up at the foot of the bed as he likes to sometimes, where he’s got all his sticks for comfort.

What he doesn’t see, though, is that something is different about the pile. And what he doesn’t hear is Styx sniffing at the pile, nor the little growl that floats into the night before the tiny Doglefox takes off running.

“I pushed him away.”

“Styx! Styx!! Here, boy!”

Ozzy cups one hand to his mouth as he calls out frantically to his little friend. His other clutches at Styx’s cereal bowl in the hopes that the familiar object might help draw him out. There’s still a dampness in his eyes, a tiny crust of salt clinging to the fur on his cheeks. His voice is almost hoarse now from the yelling, but he can’t give up. Not when his first friend is out there cold and alone.

Not when it means someone else has abandoned him.

“Styx!”

Behind him, Vira casts her eyes about, looking for the Doglefox. They’re in an open field now, the shops and houses and market stalls of Neopia Central long behind them, because there are footsteps on the path leading out of the city: tiny little paw prints spaced out far apart, different from the close little trot that Styx usually takes up when he walks to the plaza with Ozzy.

Vira comes up next to him and snorts, glancing down at the paw prints on the path. “Still running, huh? Looks like he really wanted to get away.”

Ozzy bites his lip. He doesn’t want to face the thought that Vira might be right, but her voice makes the one whispering inside his head louder: Of course he wanted to leave. Why would he want to stay with you?

He opens his mouth and yells, “STYX!!!”

Their search leads them to another path, and then another. Still, the Doglefox’s pawprints continue on, into a sparse line of dark green-and-brown trees, and then into trees less green and healthy. Overhead the canopy thickens, but not with leaves: with branches, gnarled and twisted and angular, like claws reaching up into the dark clouds above them. Below them, thorny brambles begin to creep onto the path, as if grasping at their legs.

Ozzy shivers. “Um… V-Vira?”

“Styx… here boy…” Vira pauses her calling, and turns to him. “What?”

“Th-this is… I th-th-think we’re in the Haunted Woods.”

Vira looks up and around. “Uh, yeah. You got a problem with that?”

Ozzy hunches in on himself, clutching the cereal bowl with Styx’s name on it closer to himself. His eyes dart back and forth, certain that he just saw something move. “N-n-n-no,” he lies. “I just… d-don’t think this is the k-kind of place he’d run off to.”

“What are you talking about?” Vira asks sternly, hands on her hips. “You see those itty-bitty paw prints, right? And all those ratty twigs? What else could possibly be leaving them behind?”

“I guess… But…”

“But what?”

“Why would he be in a p-place like this?”

Vira sighs. For a second, the cold irritation drops from her face, and something else softens her brow. “Who knows?” she mumbles, her voice distant, but in a second she’s back to her usual self, and she flits over to Ozzy to drape an arm around his shoulders. “But it kinda suits us, doesn’t it?”

She shakes him. Ozzy doesn’t say anything. He isn’t sure she’s right, but… something is telling him she’s not entirely wrong, either.

Vira releases his shoulders, then takes his hand. “Come on. This way. I’ve got a good feeling.”

Ozzy follows along helplessly, so worried he can’t even appreciate how warm Vira’s hand is—or maybe it isn't warm at all. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t feel like he knows anything anymore.

He tries to shake off the uncertainty. “What do you mean by ‘a good feeling?’” he asks, still glancing through the trees surrounding them for any sign of Styx. All he sees are shadows—creepy, shifting shadows.

Next to Ozzy, Vira shrugs a shoulder. “I dunno. It just feels right, though, doesn’t it?”

The path narrows. The brambles and thorns that had lined the sides of the trail thicken, and now Ozzy has to be mindful of stepping over them. Some of the brambles have tiny, glistening black berries on them. Berries that he’s never seen before. The further they go, the more there are.

“Yeah… yeah,” Vira says. “I think we’re going to find exactly what we’re looking for here.”

As they move deeper into the woods, the sky grows darker, and the light fog that had begun to curl around their feet grows darker and more opaque. The blues and purples of the trees and bushes appear dull in the darkness, until all the colours that are left in the world are muted tones of violet and darkening shades of grey. Despite his usual comfort in this sort of gloom, all it does now is give Ozzy the chills. He hopes, in the back of his mind, that Styx didn’t get lost in such a terrible, dismal-looking place.

The brambles and vines and thorns from the path and the hanging branches of trees tangling together are so thick now that Vira has to push them away so they don’t tear (too much) at her sleeves or her wings, or at Ozzy’s clothes. In the gaps she creates, Ozzy peers through the fog—and he thinks that, a short distance away, he can see something like a brick facade.

“What is…?” he starts to ask, then stops.

Vira doesn’t say anything. She just leads him deeper and deeper into the thicket with its twisted vines and sparkling berries, closer and closer to the building.

“Ahhh…”

“What was what?” Vira asks.

“Th-that!” Ozzy shrieks. “That voice! Who—what—?!”

“I have been waiting for you, Grey One. For someone who can wield my power…”

Ozzy keeps looking around, loosening himself from Vira’s grasp and spinning in place, as though he can find the source of that low, gentle, crooning voice whispering to him. Styx’s bowl falls from his hand, and he clutches at his ears.

“I—I—I don’t care about that!” he yells out into the gnarled and wretched canopy. “I just want to find my friend!”

“Your friend?” The voice speaks with dull surprise. “Ah, you must mean the Petpet who abandoned you…”

A part of Ozzy wants to say that Styx didn’t abandon him. What comes out instead is a shrill and desperate question: “D-do you know where he is?”

A sigh, little more than a frigid breeze cutting through the trees, brushes past him. “I cannot help you find your friend. But…”

Ozzy tugs on his ears again, tears in his eyes. “B-but…?”

“But I can make it so you never lose anyone again.”

The wind picks up. Vira braces herself against it, one hand up to obscure the lower half of her face.

“I can make all of Neopia understand how you have suffered…”

The hanging tree branches part before them, and so too do the brambles and vines around their feet slither out of the way. In their place is a wrought-iron gate, its black paint peeling to reveal grey metal underneath. Vira walks toward it, facing away from Ozzy, and Ozzy reaches out to stop her—

But she just keeps going, leaving him behind.

He scrambles to follow after her. And there, just beyond the gateway…

The room is a yawning, open space. Curling vines dotted with those strange, sparkling berries sparsely line the wall, leaking in through the cracks in the grey brick facade. Ozzy hardly notices them at all, though, because what’s taking up his attention is the small set of stairs in the centre of the room, leading up to a stone plinth. From the ground, thorns and vines weave around the stairs and sprout from the plinth, wrapping around something glowing with a strange, shimmering, monochrome oil-slick light.

A Paint Brush.

A Grey one.

Suddenly, it’s as if all the air in the room is sucked out of it, fleeing with a rattling gust of wind that sounds like rasping, echoing laughter. It grates against Ozzy’s ears, but something about it feels… soothing, almost. It doesn’t make him want to curl up and cover his eyes or ears like it did before.

Now…

“Take it, Grey One,” the voice in the wind coaxes. “With the power of the Acrimonious Paint Brush, you can make all of Neopia grey, as well.”

Ozzy wrings his hands together. Belatedly, he realises they’re empty, no longer holding Styx’s cereal bowl; but that thought is almost a distant whisper in his mind now. All he can see is that strange Paint Brush, and Vira walking toward it.

At the base of the stairs, she turns around to face him.

Then, slowly, she raises her hand.

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but…”

Vira’s teeth are sharp when she smiles.

“Do it, Ozzy,” she tells him. “Take it. You can make Neopia a better place for Neopets like us. You can get your revenge on everyone who left you. You can make them see what you see every day. What we see.”

Ozzy swallows. His foot shifts forward—not a step, not yet. But Vira stretches her hand out more insistently, and her red, red eyes are alight with fervour, with desperation. But her smile…

Her smile falters, like she can’t keep it up. Like some great emotion is trying to seep in through the cracks, just like the vines and berries through the grey brick wall. “Once everyone’s an outcast like us,” she says, “once everyone is grey and gloomy and ugly and twisted—then no one will ever have to be lonely again, Ozzy. No one.”

Lonely. There’s that word—the one he hates so much. The one that Vira had said to him, once, the first time he’d made tea for her, and he’d made it so weak she said she couldn’t even taste it. He had thought, back then, that she was talking about how lonely he was, but now, looking at her wavering smile…

She wants him to take the Paint Brush. She thinks it will help him—help them. His only friend left in the whole wide world is asking him to take it, to help paint a world for them where they’ll feel more at home. Where they’ll belong.

And she would never, ever lead him astray.

With a deep breath, and with all the courage he has left in him, Ozzy takes Vira’s hand.

Together, they walk up the steps to the plinth.

Together, they come to a stop before the Paint Brush.

“It might hurt a bit,” Vira says, gazing at the vines as she unlaces their hands and pats Ozzy’s shoulder encouragingly, “but I know you can do it.”

Ozzy nods. He doesn’t look at her. He just looks at the Paint Brush, and its grey kaleidoscope shimmer, and the thorns and vines surrounding it.

He reaches through them. The barbs stick in his sleeve; the thorns tear at his fur and sink to the skin beneath. They’re sharp, and Vira’s right: it does hurt, but each prickle is a reminder to Ozzy of how much everything has always hurt.

How much it hurt when he and Nyx lost their parents.

How much it hurt when his bullies tormented him.

How much it hurt when Nyx left.

How much it hurt when people would pass by him day after day, acting like he didn’t exist.

How much it hurt when Styx left.

How much it hurt when he abandoned Ozzy, too.

Just like everyone else.

Compared to that, the vines are nothing. Compared to Ozzy’s anger, billowing up inside him again and again and blossoming into something that finally, finally feels like purpose, nothing feels like it can ever hurt him again.

He takes hold of the Paint Brush, and for a moment, all the pain disappears. The vines and brambles surrounding him and digging into his flesh wither and fall away, crumbling into grey ashes on the dusty ground. And with them, so too does Ozzy fall away.

All that remains now is the Grey Painter.

The day that Nyx leaves for Virtupets is bright and sunny, with only the slightest of breezes rustling the branches of the trees on the horizon, but Nyx can hardly register the glory of the day. She gazes out the window, looking up toward the sky, and tries to think of the stars twinkling far beyond the clouds—but the darkness of space can’t compare to the darkness that’s fallen over her mind this morning, thinking about Ozzy holed up in his room.

She tries to coax him out, even knowing he probably won’t come. He had been so upset when she’d finally broken the news to him, and even though it had hurt Nyx, too, she couldn’t blame him for reacting the way he did. She isn’t sure she wouldn’t have done the same in his shoes.

“Are you all right, Nyx?” Mr. Hornelius asks, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. He had just finished stocking the pantry with groceries, including a few extra boxes of Ozzy’s favourite cereal. Nyx looks up at him with what she hopes is a reassuring smile, even if she doesn’t really feel it.

“I’m worried about Ozzy,” she admits, even though it’s not much of an admission. “And to be honest, I’m not really sure I should be going to Virtupets at all.”

Mr. Hornelius gives her a sympathetic nod and removes his hand. “It’s scary to go off on a new adventure, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“But is it so scary that you don’t want to go at all?”

“No!” Nyx yelps, sitting up with a jolt—but then she slumps back down in her seat at the kitchen table. “I mean, I want to go… I want to see the world, you know? But I don’t want to leave Ozzy, either.”

“I understand.” Mr. Hornelius’s voice is kind. He takes a seat at the kitchen table next to her. “But you won’t be gone forever, will you? It’s just a few months—you’ll be back before either of you knows it, and you can write in the meantime.”

“I know, but…”

“And I’ll be here, too.” When Mr. Hornelius smiles, it’s gentle and warm, crinkling the corners of his lips and stretching out the crow’s feet at his eyes. “I’ll take care of Ozzy while we wait for you to come back.”

Nyx smiles. Finally, it feels real. She sits up, reaching for him. “You promise?”

Mr. Hornelius takes her hand.

“I promise.”

“There are things you didn’t see.”

Ozzy still hasn’t come out of his room by the time Nyx has to leave. She stands at their front door with Mr. Hornelius, worrying at her lip; as she glances over at their landlord, he looks up into the window of Ozzy’s room. Nyx follows his gaze, but doesn’t see Ozzy: just a quick little movement the same colour as his sheets.

“He’s… he’s not coming out, is he?”

Mr. Hornelius gives her a sad, resigned look, as if his heart is breaking, too. He doesn’t say anything. He probably doesn’t even know what to say. Nyx doesn’t know, either.

She takes a deep breath, then shakes herself out and tries to smile. “Take good care of him for me while I’m gone, okay? And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You have my word,” Mr. Hornelius says, placing a wrinkled hand over his heart.

And with that, Nyx is off. She takes the first step onto the path leading away from home—the path that will lead her toward adventure, and to the dream she had always kept locked safely away in her heart.

But it’s hard. The first step is the hardest. The second step might be easier, and every one after that even more so, even though it slowly becomes more and more difficult to see the horizon through her tears.

Nyx stifles a sob, lifting an arm to her face and scrunching her eyes shut to try and staunch the flow of tears—but it’s no use. She comes to a stop when she’s far enough away from the house to keep her from wanting to run back, and then turns and takes one last look back at the home in which she raised her little brother.

“Goodbye, Ozzy!” Nyx calls, lifting both hands above her head and waving them frantically back and forth. A wide smile spreads across her face, hope blooming in her chest even as she says the most difficult words she’s ever had to say. “I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

“Or that you didn’t want to see.”

Months go by, and a gloomy sky hovers overhead as Torgos Hornelius III walks up to Ozzy’s door. It’s not the first time he’s been over this week—he had come by twice already to check on the young man and gotten no response—but he can’t help but worry.

To that end, he’s brought a few containers of Bangers and Mash and Baked Juppie, and even a slice of Islandberry Drum Cake, which he had decorated with pieces of the Islandberry Crunch Cereal that Ozzy loves so much. The poor lad doesn’t seem to leave the house very often, and probably isn’t eating well because of it.

Torgos approaches the door and knocks on it gently. “Ozzy?” he calls, as softly as he can while still making sure he’s heard. “Are you there? I’m just checking in…”

The old Tonu presses his ear to the door. His hearing isn’t quite what it used to be, but it’s far from lacklustre—and just like all those visits before, there’s no response, at least at first. Then…

A shuffle behind the door, and then a whimper. A familiar voice mutters, “She usually sends more by now…”

Torgos frowns. Is Ozzy talking about his overdue rent? He thought he had made it clear to the boy that there was no need to worry about it—he wasn’t about to kick poor Ozzy or his sister out of their home…

A frown spreads over his face. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard from Nyx in quite some time. Her letters had stopped coming a few months ago, but he hadn’t thought much of it until now—Virtupets is a busy place, and her work schedule must have been hectic.

He knocks on the door again, rebalancing the containers of food he’s got in his arms. “Are you hungry, Ozzy? I’ve brought you some food…”

No response. Not for a minute, or five minutes, or even ten. Eventually, Torgos decides to leave the containers he’d brought at the doorstep, just as he has for every other visit in the last few weeks.

“I’ll just leave it here for you, when you’re ready,” he says, and departs.

“You were so focused on the factors out of your control…”

The Neopian Plaza is busy and loud. There are Neopets everywhere going about their business, enjoying the first sunny day after a string of dour, cloudy ones. Outside of Pizzaroo, two Neopets in particular lean against the wall, munching on their slices of meltingly hot, cheesy Mushrolivepepper Pizzas.

“Pfft. Looks like he’s got something going for him, finally,” the spotted Quiggle says, glancing over at an assortment of paintings and canvases all set up surrounding a dreary Grey Yurble. A few Neopets stop to look at the paintings, and a few coo and smile at a weird little Doglefox chewing on a stick next to him. “But from here, it looks like his paintings are just as washed-out as he is.”

“No kidding,” his pastel Chomby friend says, snout wrinkling. Despite their low opinions of the grey Yurble and his artwork, though, he seems to be getting a fair amount of attention from other passers-by: there’s a blue Lupe who stops to admire one of the landscape paintings, and a rainbow Buzz who tries to ask for the price of one of them, only for the Yurble to look down at his feet and ignore him. Others look from a distance as well, and murmur a couple compliments to their friends that only just carry over to where the bullies are standing.

That won’t do.

“Hey.”

Her voice startles the Quiggle and the Chomby, and they look around wildly until they spot her emerging from the bushes. Both of them flinch away, mouths open and melty cheese slipping off their half-eaten slices of pizza. It would be comical if it wasn't the kind of reaction she always got.

Nobody loves you when you’re ugly and twisted.

But she puts her feelings aside. None of that matters right now—she’s used to looks of disgust, and she has a job to do.

“It’s terrible, right?” she says, looking past the Quiggle and Chomby and smirking. They follow her gaze to the Yurble sitting gloomily amidst his paintings, and both of them scoff. “He really thinks his art’s good enough to sell? Yeah, right. I can paint better than that, and I can barely draw a circle.”

The Chomby and Quiggle laugh, just as she knew they would. She’s been watching them for a while, after all—and her patron has been watching even longer.

“I think he needs to be taken down a peg.”

In unison, both the Chomby’s and Quiggle’s heads swivel around back to her. “What do you mean?” The Chomby asks, wide-eyed, while the Quiggle nods.

“I mean that Yurble should be shown exactly where his so-called ‘art’ belongs.” Her grin widens, and she lifts her foot up high—only to bring it down, hard, on the ground, and to grind the toe of her boot in the dirt. “Get it?”

The Quiggle nods even more enthusiastically, and a mean-spirited smile crawls across the Chomby’s face—exactly as she had expected. “Yeah… yeah!” the Quiggle says, while the Chomby turns around and pounds a fist into his hand. “Let’s go show him!”

They set off without so much as glancing back at her. But that’s fine. It just means she can slink away, back into the shadows, and watch the fun unfold.

“You were blind to what was happening in front of you.”

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

Scritch-scratch scritch-scratch shhhhffff…

Oh, how she hates that sound. It grates on her ears like nails on a chalkboard, or like the songs of happy Neopets singing off-key in the flower fields. She grinds her teeth just to distract from the noise, as if that will do anything about the pesky little Doglefox that now follows her mark around like a… like a… well, like a dopey little Doglefox.

She pulls out her dagger, running her finger along its hilt. The chain connected to it jingles, and a chill settles in beneath her fur, just as unnerving as it is familiar.

Patience, my toxic flower, a voice croons to her from the dagger, so softly that the grey Yurble and his infuriating new friend can’t hear it even as Vira follows them from the shadows. All will come in due time. This is only a minor delay…

“I know,” she mutters to herself, slumping against a tree she’s decided to lean on. The sky is a deep, twilight purple now, and she looks up into it, eyes darting between the stars. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier these days, and the Yurble never stays out past sunset. He’ll be home soon, and with that stupid Doglefox, too.

She needs to do something about it. It’s in her way.

In her patron’s way.

So she waits. She waits for hours and hours, staying out until the sun goes down and the moon is high up in the sky—and then even longer after that. She waits until she knows the Yurble will be asleep, and she makes her way to his house, flying up to one of the windows to take a peek inside.

There. The bedroom. The grey Yurble is sound asleep behind the glass, snuggled up under the covers, and at the foot of his bed… That stupid, annoying Doglefox, all curled up in a pile of sticks and cuddling with…

Oh. It’s too perfect.

She smiles to herself as her boots touch down onto the ground, and touches the hilt of the dagger again—glowing, now. Her patron has something to tell her.

She glances over at the nearest shadow, and nods.

“Yes, my patron,” she says, softly. “I think I understand.”

“I think she’s been using you for a very long time.”

Once upon a time, there was a little Doglefox living alone in Neopia Central. He was a happy little Doglefox, spending his days wandering the paths of the happy city and barking at the happy Neopets who went about their business. Sometimes, some of them would even feed him if they had extra treats or if the shopkeepers in the bazaar had any food to spare.

The little Doglefox loved Neopia Central. He loved the people, he loved the food, he loved the sun and the clouds and the wind. But what he loved most of all were the trees—the ones that provided him shelter when it rained, and that would sometimes drop their sticks for him to chew on.

Sticks were his favourite things in all of Neopia. He loved to bite them, he loved to play with them, and he loved to carry them around with him. They gave him something to gnaw on when his teeth hurt, and they helped him feel brave when things were scary, just like the trees they came from. They helped him feel a little less lonely, too. Because even though Neopia Central was so busy and there were so many nice Neopets, something always felt like it was missing for the little Doglefox.

Day after day, he would go looking for the thing that was missing. With a stick in his mouth and his ears and nose perked, he would roam Neopia Central to find it. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he would understand when he found it. It would smell right, he was sure, because everything had a smell. The Doglefox didn’t know what every smell meant, but he knew that the good smells would lead to something nice. After all, that was how he knew who would play with him and which shopkeepers had his favourite food.

One day, while the little Doglefox was exploring, looking for this missing thing, he tripped over the stick he was carrying in his mouth.

Crash, tumble, oomph!

He ended up rolling into a bush filled with berries. The branches weren’t very sharp, but they were thick and troublesome to push his little paws through. Luckily, he still had his trusty stick to help him get out, so he used it to move the branches out of the way and get through the bush. A part of him was a little sad about it, though. The berries smelled nice.

But wait! There was another smell, too. Something… something good. Something really good!

The Doglefox put his nose to the ground. It wasn’t there. It was up ahead a little, and getting closer, and closer…

A foot fell onto the path in front of the Doglefox.

The Doglefox looked up.

And then he saw it—he saw what was missing.

The little boy was covered in grey fur. He had droopy ears and limp hair and watery eyes, and he had the biggest frown on his face that the Doglefox had ever seen. He was carrying big squares with pictures on them—pictures of skies and fields and trees!—and a few long things in his hand that almost looked like sticks. The Doglefox didn’t know what they were, but he knew that the little boy was the best thing he had ever smelled in his life.

“Arf!”

The Doglefox watched the boy stop in the middle of the plaza and put down his picture-squares and the colourful sticks. Everything in the Doglefox’s body was telling him to go to this little Neopet, but a part of him was nervous. What if the boy didn’t like him? What if he didn’t want to be friends?

But then The Doglefox smelled something else. Something dark and smoky and rotten, like a flower that had fallen off a bush and been rained on for a whole week. He wrinkled his nose and shook his fur, because he didn’t like it. And the smell was close…

Whatever it was, he couldn’t let it get to the little boy! So, clenching his teeth around the stick that had helped him get here, The Doglefox made a run for it. A run for the little boy.

“Arf arf arf!”

“He knew from the moment he saw you.
You were his person.”

At first, the boy didn’t seem to know what to make of him. He frowned his big, sad frown, and told the Doglefox that he couldn’t play, but that was okay. The Doglefox didn’t need to play with him. He just wanted to be around the little boy, because he was special and the Doglefox knew it, even if he didn’t know why. He just hoped that the boy would understand one day.

So he stayed, and day after day he walked home with the boy, because he liked the boy’s company and he was worried about that rotten-flower smell that sometimes followed him around, and because sometimes the boy would smile at him when they walked together.

Later, he learned that the boy’s name was Ozzy. Even later, he learned that Ozzy had the brightest smile in all of Neopia, and that when he laughed, it was the most amazing sound the Doglefox had ever heard.

But then one day, trouble struck: two big, mean Neopets approached Ozzy and tried to ruin all his picture-squares, which the Doglefox learned were called ‘paintings.’ The boy worked so hard on those paintings and was always making new ones. The Doglefox couldn’t just stand by and let those mean Neopets upset him!

So he did the only thing he knew how to do: he gathered a stick in his mouth and chased the bullies away.

After that, the boy smiled even more. He even invited the Doglefox to come inside his house with him! It was the best day of the Doglefox’s life, because that meant that he and the little boy were finally friends. Best friends! And Ozzy even gave him a name.

Styx.

It was the best name in all of Neopia. The Doglefox, now called Styx, loved it because Ozzy gave it to him. It was important to him, too: it sounded like Nyx, who was the girl in the pictures on Ozzy’s fridge. She was Ozzy’s big sister. Someone he loved.

Styx was pretty sure he loved Nyx, too.

But then things changed. The rotten-flower smell that hovered around Ozzy turned out to be a girl called Vira. Vira was rude and mean, and she didn’t like Styx. She tried to pull Ozzy away from him, and blamed Styx for things he never even did! No, he did not like Vira at all, and he tried to tell Ozzy… but Ozzy wouldn’t listen. Not even when Styx barked really loud and tried to warn his friend that Vira was looking at his special plushie.

He knew then that he had to take matters into his own paws.

“But he also knew that you were in danger!”

One night, all of Styx’s worst fears came true. The special plushie in his pile of sticks, the one that looked like a paint brush, was missing, and the room was full of the awful smell of rotten flowers. He sniffed at his messy pile of sticks for good measure, but in his little heart, he knew the truth: Vira had stolen Ozzy’s treasure!

He growled out, “I’m going to get it back for you, Ozzy!” and took off running into the night.

“And he was right. She was never your friend.”

It doesn’t take long to earn the Yurble’s trust. Soon enough, he’s inviting her to his house, they’re sharing pots of tea, and he’s showing her all his paintings, even though that stupid Doglefox of his keeps sniffing around and nipping at her heels. Ugh, that Doglefox—the biggest thorn in her side right now, easily. If it wasn’t for him, she’d probably have turned Ozzy over to her—their—side for good by now.

But it’s fine. Her patron told her to be patient, so Vira will be patient. She knows what to do now, anyway.

So she waits, as always, until there’s a moment for her to act. It comes soon enough, on a day when Ozzy is leading her to his studio, excited about—surprise!—yet another one of his dull and gloomy paintings. They pass by a door she’s never seen past before, but today it’s open, revealing…

There it is. The Paint Brush Plushie she’d seen in the bedroom window all those weeks ago, right there for the taking.

Suddenly, the Doglefox barks. He growls at her, fur bristling and teeth bared, and Vira bares hers right back, snarling in anger. “Augh! What the—?! What’s his problem?!”

Ozzy gets between them, trying to soothe the Doglefox while still placating Vira. It’s annoying, more than anything else—but it’s also an opportunity. If she just pushes him a little further, maybe Ozzy will send the Doglefox away for a while, so they can get some time alone…

She scoffs and crosses her arms, turning away so Ozzy can’t see her smirk. “Whatever. Just make sure he doesn’t try to bite me.”

“From the very start, whenever you had your back turned… She was plotting.”

Ozzy’s painting rattles her.

For a moment, Vira isn’t sure what she’s seeing—it must be a dream. Yeah, it has to be. She’s dreaming, seeing her flower field painted in such vivid detail, such loving brushstrokes. And it’s not done. Ozzy told her it wasn’t, and that when he finishes it, he wants her to…

She thinks about the Faerieland painting she had bought, and something clenches in her stomach. She bites her lip, and glances at the painting in front of her one more time. Ozzy has left the room to go check on the Doglefox, but he’ll be back any minute. This isn’t the time for her to… do whatever it is she’s doing now. Get sentimental, or whatever. She doesn’t care—she doesn’t.

She has work to do.

So she rushes out of the room and makes her way to Ozzy’s bedroom. The coast is clear—she can hear him talking to Styx outside—so Vira pushes the door the rest of the way open and flits over to the Paint Brush Plushie on the floor, nestled in a pile of sticks. A part of her wants to roll her eyes at it, but she doesn’t have time to indulge in any feelings right now, even ones of disgust. She just takes the plushie and flies away, stashing it behind Ozzy’s couch so she can grab it on her way out. Tonight, she’s going to put the final phase of her patron’s plan into action.

Tomorrow, she will meet the Grey Painter.

Nyx was tired. Tired of surviving. Tired of feeling as though she was letting everyone down. Above all, she was tired of fighting Vira. She had taken down bullies twice her size before, so the fact that this tiny, unruly Acara was consistently giving her so much trouble was beyond infuriating. Every time she tried to reach out a hand to Ozzy, Vira always seemed to be there to bat it away. And she always knew exactly what words to use to drive the wedge between them deeper still.

They had been fighting for what may have been minutes, but felt like hours. Nyx wanted nothing more than to just lie down and let the exhaustion take her. Between her muscles aching, her bruises burning, and her fingers cramping, it took everything she had to fight her increasingly heavy eyelids from closing.

A jarring RATTLE roused Nyx from her dreary state. She barely had time to react as Vira’s dagger whizzed through the air towards Baelia. Nyx leapt forward and managed to deflect the dagger with her Void Dampener, sending the blade clanging against the device and careening upwards. A sinister smile spread across Vira’s face as she yanked the dagger back down, nicking Nyx’s shoulder.

The wound was the straw that broke the Apis’s back. Nyx sank to the cold cobblestone waiting below, her injuries and exhaustion all caught up with her at once. Her eyes blinked weakly as she stared up at Baelia and Ozzy. The grey faerie’s arms were up as she attempted to shield Ozzy, who peered through her fingers with a silent, pleading scream plastered on his face.

“Hmph! What a stupid way to go down.” Nyx heard Vira cackle above her. “Come on, Painter, time to get out of here!” Craning her neck, Nyx could see the cursed Acara begin to flutter away before turning back upon realising Ozzy was not following. Utterly heartbroken, he looked over at Vira and murmured…

“I…” His fingers loosened, and the Acrimonious Paint Brush fell to the ground with a THUD.

“No.” A voice so defiant comes from the little Yurble that it hardly sounds like Ozzy at all.

“No? What do you mean ‘no’?” Emotions flash across Vira’s face faster than she can process them. Her visage scrunches up with confusion and then tenses up with fear before it quickly contorts into a snarling mask of fury.

“Are you betraying me?!” Vira’s knuckles turn bone-white as she clutches her dagger as if it were a handrail on Terror Mountain.

“No!” The meek voice that answers sounds much more like Ozzy.

“No, no, no, is that all you can say?!” Vira hisses at him from behind folded arms.

“N—I mean, I’m not betraying you! But I think… Maybe… the Grey Faerie… might be… right.” Ozzy sighs, exhaling as if he were trying to expel the memories he just relived from his head with a mighty gust of breath.

“I was lonely. I thought I had no friends at all… But then Styx came into my life… And so did you. I had friends for the first time ever. I was so happy when you bought my painting, Vira… No, I was happy just because you were talking to me. And now that I’ve seen what I have…”

“What are you talking about?” Vira fiddles with her chain as she looks away.

“I think maybe you felt the same, too.” Vira’s wide eyes blink in astonishment, darting around swiftly, before narrowing and meeting Ozzy’s gaze once more.

“...Ridiculous.” Vira’s wings flick irritably as she eyes him. “You’re not making any sense – not that you ever did in the first place.” Without warning, Vira turns on Luxinia, dagger in hand. “Did that Light Faerie do something to you?”

“Vira, please, listen to me. Remember when you told me that you didn’t always look like this? If someone was purposely trying to manipulate me, then don’t you think maybe the same thing happened to you?”

“Hah… Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Vira broke out into a cacophony of unsettling laughter. “Oh, you really are stupid, aren’t you? Even if someone was trying to mess with me, I chose this! Because, unlike you, I’ve got a spine. And nothing is going to stop me from getting what I want!”

“I’m not trying to stop you, Vira.” Ozzy’s gaze fell to his feet as he twiddled his thumbs. “But maybe… Maybe there’s another way for us to get what we need.” He took a step toward Vira, leaving the Acrimonious Paint Brush behind. Vira lifted her dagger as he approached, as if preparing for another fight, but her trembling hands and darting eyes revealed hesitation.

“Wait… Ozzy, what are you doing?!” Vira demands as he continues walking, undeterred. The Yurble comes right up to her… and holds out his hand.

Vira stares at him in open-mouthed, earth-shattering shock. It’s all she can manage to do for several seconds, until she pulls herself together enough to respond.

“Why… why would you…?” Her voice starts timid, small, before suddenly elevating to a deafening roar. “Don’t you get it, you dunce?! Our patron saw you as a component in her crafts. I saw you as an assignment.”

“That’s not true! I know that you—” Tears well up as Ozzy tries to get a word in edgewise, but Vira won’t let him finish the thought.

“Listen to me!” As Vira rants, her callous facade begins to slip, emotions forming lumps so deep in her throat she practically has to spit the words out. “We never cared about any of your stupid problems past how they could help us. We bent you to our will. Isolated you, pushed away everyone who tried to help you, cultivated your hatred like you were another one of my poison flowers! We– I used you! You should hate me more than anyone…”

“...But I don’t. I don’t know what I was to you when we first met, but I do remember how you smiled when we were together. I saw the way you looked back at my painting. Some of it had to be real, it had to be. I know you, Vira!”

“You don’t know me at all.” Vira’s eyes trail down as the words softly fall from her lips. She absentmindedly removes her helmet and begins to tug at the lining with her fingers.

“Please… We don’t need to fight anymore. The Grey Faerie – I mean, Baelia, is right. It’s not too late. Not for me, and not for you. Please, Vira.”

“I…I…” For the slightest of moments, Vira’s fingers extend towards Ozzy as she looks back up at him. Then, without warning, she abruptly turns away. Even with her back to the group, Vira cannot hide her trembling hands.

They’ve got Ozzy.

It’s all Nyx can think about as she watches the massive, writhing, incomprehensible void beast recede into the distance, the figure of a Dark Faerie atop it. She can’t even see Ozzy himself anymore, and her heart begins to race, pounding against her ribs like it’s trying to get out and follow after them. Follow after Ozzy.

Her breathing quickens. Without her realising, pinpricks of darkness begin to close in around the corners of Nyx’s eyes, and only belatedly does she realise that those dark spots are actually bubbles of void energy and wisps of frantic power, undulating and twisting around her limbs.

She cries out, part in surprise, the rest in rage and desperation and grief, and extends her arm toward the beast. She can feel her feet about to leave the ground, the pull of the void’s energy tugging on her arm like she’s nothing more than an old Usuki being torn apart by a rambunctious child. Further and further the power extends, twisting and solidifying into a construct, a tentacle that speeds toward Ozzy, closer and closer but never close enough—

“Nyx! Look out!”

Her world widens again with the sensation of a voice piercing through her senses, but Nyx’s mind remains just a second behind: it isn’t until she feels something scrape against her arm, and something else barrel into her side, that she registers the rumbling and crumbling and crashing all around her. Whatever hit her sends her tumbling to the ground, filling her sight with dirt and dust and whirling colours of brown and grey and red and trampled-grass green and dissipating purple.

And then she comes to a stop.

Groaning, Nyx lifts a hand to her head. The final remnants of the void tendril she had conjured dissolve into nothingness, and she lets out an anguished whine. Ozzy and the Malevolent Being are further away than ever—further away than Nyx knows she can even attempt to reach. But she still has to try. She has to save him. She can’t abandon him again—!

She tries to stand up, but something is holding her down. In her single-minded determination, Nyx still hadn’t fully grasped the situation around her: there are broken pieces of marble and concrete surrounding her, dust still floating in the air and scratching down her throat as she breathes it in. She coughs, and then so does something—someone—else: the heavy lump of red and orange fur sitting atop her chest.

Luxinia and Baelia rush over to them, arms extended and voices mingling to form a shapeless noise that Nyx can’t comprehend. She sees Luxinia in front of her, reaching down to pull Tavi off her chest—

Tavi.

It was Tavi.

Tavi who had pushed her. Tavi who had broken her concentration.

Tavi who had stopped her from reaching Ozzy.

Baelia’s hands reach for Nyx next, wrapping around her wrist to pull her to her feet. It hurts, for some reason, but something that hurts far worse is bubbling up beneath the surface of Nyx’s skin instead, and the moment she’s upright she wrenches herself out of Baelia’s grasp.

“What was that for?!” Nyx demands, whirling on Tavi immediately.

Tavi flinches, eyes wide, and Luxinia is so startled she backs up a few extra steps, letting go of the Kyrii entirely.

“What are you talking about?” Tavi asks, stunned. “Nyx, didn’t you see—”

“I almost had him!” Nyx stomps her foot, jamming her finger up at the sky to point at where Void Beast—Vocivus, the Malevolent Being had called it—is now little more than a wriggling speck. “Just a little more and I could have—I could have saved my brother if only you hadn’t—”

“Nyx,” Luxinia starts, but Tavi interrupts her gently with a raised hand.

“It’s okay, Lux,” she says, calm despite the obvious strain in her voice. “Nyx, I know you’re upset, but—”

“I was so close!”

“No, you weren’t.”

Tavi’s voice is firm, her expression set except for the slightest wobble in her lip. She steps forward, reaching a hand out for Nyx, but Nyx moves back, ducking out of the way of it. Tavi’s arm hangs in the air for a second, her fingers still extended, but eventually she drops it, forming a trembling fist at her side. “Nyx, please, I know how you feel—”

“You have no idea how I feel,” Nyx spits, and regrets it the moment the words are out.

Tavi flinches again. Luxinia moves to stand in front of her.

“Maybe not, but I do,” the Light Faerie says. “And I also know that Tavi is right, Nyx. You couldn’t have reached Ozzy just then. The building next to you—it… it was coming down, and it would have crushed you if Tavi hadn’t jumped in to save you.”

Nyx blinks. “What?” She looks to the side, where, sure enough, the building she had been next to was standing just a moment ago. Now all she can see is a pile of dust and debris—the same dust she’d been coughing on as Baelia had helped her to her feet.

She looks back at Luxinia, and then at Tavi. Nyx bites her lip, then, and because she can’t face them—can’t face the truth—she looks away

“I didn’t ask her to save me.”

Luxinia gasps. “You don’t mean that, Nyx.”

“No, I do!” With an anguished, aggravated groan, Nyx reaches up to her head and grabs her own ears, tugging them down to try and distract from the flood of emotions battering against the dam of her self-control. “All I wanted to do was save my brother, but no one asked me what I wanted! No one ever does, least of all Tavi! She always thinks she knows the right way to do things, even if it’s a gamble! She never stops to think about what other people want. It’s always all about her and her tea and her stories and—”

“She saved you!” Luxinia insists. “You were so focused on saving Ozzy that you stopped paying attention to everything else. You didn’t see that building start to crumble right in front of you. And if you had been—if you had—” She cuts herself off, voice choked-up. “Where would we be if the worst had happened? Both—both you and Ozzy would be gone, and we’d have lost two friends.”

Nyx lets go of her ears. She looks at Luxinia, expression open and shattered—but…

“That’s enough,” Baelia says, her voice soft and quiet, but there’s an air of finality in her words that Nyx finds she can’t argue with, even though she wants to. Even though she’s embarrassed, and even though she’s frustrated, and even though she’s guilty of having said such hurtful things to her friend.

The destruction of Altador surrounds them. Nyx gazes out at it, taking in the sight: the rubble, the debris, the smoke and the dust. Somehow it all seems so far away, still, compared with the image seared into her mind of Ozzy, wrapped in chains, reaching out to her for help as he was carried off on the back of Vocivus.

Even now, Nyx feels the urge to go after them. There’s a thrumming under her fur, a fizzing sensation beneath her skin screaming at her to use her powers, to chase, to fight, to move. To get out of the suffocating darkness of—

But when she blinks, she returns to Altador from the cold, desolate place she had almost withdrawn to in the back of her mind. The sounds of chaos and destruction rise up around her anew: Luxinia calling out for anyone injured, Styx barking as he sniffs out someone else buried under the rubble. There are countless other cries for help, too, some familiar and some not: an adult calling out for their child (a mother for a son, or a sister for her brother?); howling petpets, strays who have nowhere to go; high, shrill sobs of little children who don’t know what’s going on.

Nyx bites her lip. She can feel herself shaking, but tries to suppress it and push it away, dismissing it as useless residual anger. It doesn’t quite work, but she has to try and ignore it. Everyone—Tavi—had just wanted to help, but…

Her breath comes faster. Shallower. She tries to steady it, to calm herself, but the racing of Nyx’s heart is now almost as loud in her ears as everything else around her, and the sound of her panting breath is just making it worse. She has to focus—noise or no noise, there are people in need. She has to save them. She has to.

Just like she couldn’t save Ozzy.

“Yip!”

Bracing herself against the noise, scrunches her eyes shut and tugs on her antenna-ears, digging deep inside herself to call on that thrumming energy within as she stomps over to the first pile of rubble. The power of the void crackles inside of her, sparking and popping, and she focuses hard to try and smooth out the crinkles as she forms it into long, smooth tendrils that stutter and fade intermittently. She needs to focus, because there are people calling out for her to help—calling and calling and calling and calling—but—

A tug at her tail brings Nyx back to herself again, and all attempts to summon her powers fizzle out and dissipate. When she looks down, Juni is looking up at her, his glittering void-covered fur too bright in her eyes. She lifts a hand to cover her face, then turns away from her little friend to rush over to where a young Pteri’s tail is stuck under a crumbled statue.

“Yip? Yip yip?”

The Pteri flies away when Nyx frees him—good, no injuries to his wings—but there’s no time to celebrate. Nyx shakes her head and moves away, frustrated at how slowly she’s moving, and gets to work tossing stones and broken marble columns aside with her hands. “Not really,” she says, belatedly remembering to answer Juni. “I… I keep messing up. It’s getting to me. But there’s no time to let it bother me; there are people who need us.”

Juni whines. He flutters up to sit on Nyx’s shoulder, his fur itching as it brushes her cheek. It makes her skin crawl, and she jolts—not because she doesn’t appreciate the gesture, but because there’s something wrong with her right now, and it feels like every sensation is too much.

Luckily, Juni is the smartest Faellie in Neopia, so he hops off her shoulder the moment he realises she’s uncomfortable. “Yip…”

“It’s not your fault,” Nyx says. She pauses her rifling through the rubble to grind the heels of her palms into her eyes, then gets right back to it. She manages to summon a few void tendrils, but they fade after batting away a stray Shade, and it makes her growl in frustration. “It’s not anyone’s fault but mine. It’s always my fault, always…”

“Yip yip yip yip yip!”

“Yes, it is!” Nyx’s voice comes out louder than it needs to, and she clamps her hands over her mouth as if that can retroactively soften her tone. Juni stares up at her, head tilted, and she lets out a quaking breath, trying to scrape the sob out of it before her friend can hear it.

“I’m fine,” she insists, even though Juni hadn’t asked this time. He doesn’t enquire further, either. He just scurries off, using his newly-acquired sight powers to seek out more Neopets in need, and points them out to Nyx.

She follows Juni’s lead, and the teamwork helps to settle her—at least a little bit. The physical labour helps, too. Having something to focus on at least can quiet her mind for the time being, but Nyx can still feel herself trembling. It makes everything so much harder: she keeps dropping what she’s holding, she can barely focus on her powers, and her arm hurts—it’s still bleeding, she distantly notes. But that’s okay. She’s making some progress, at least, and that’s what matters, right? As long as she can save someone. Anyone. And it’s probably for the best that she can’t focus on her powers long enough to properly manifest her void tendrils, anyway, because every time one materialises she sees his face, panicked and scared and desperate to be saved, and she sees—sees that eye, and—

“Yip!” Juni points to another pile, and Nyx obediently heads toward it, breathing hard and fighting back tears as she rips away pieces of debris with her bare hands. She sinks down to her knees, and Juni comes up beside her, lifting away smaller stones himself.

“Yip… yip, yip yip,” he says, after a moment, still helping her dig.

Nyx grits her teeth. “Yeah,” she says, short. Another chunk of ravage gone.

“Yip yip, yip yip yip yip. Yip.”

“I know!” Nyx pounds her fists against the pile of wreckage they’re digging through, and it nearly causes a miniature landslide. “I know I should. But it’s not that easy. I’m still mad at her, and I…”

“Yip yip, yip yip! Yip—”

“It’s not okay!” The sob that Nyx had been holding back before wrenches from her now. “How am I supposed to face her after what I said? I can’t even—”

Nyx’s heart has started racing again, pounding so loudly in her ears that she can hardly hear Juni over it. Her breath comes in short gasps; her hands shake more than ever. But through her blurred and streaking vision, she sees Juni pointing toward something—”Yip!”—and hears the same rrrrrumble and crack! as she had when she’d tried to reach for Ozzy.

When Tavi had pushed her out of the way of a falling building.

Tavi!

That’s what—who—Juni is pointing at. When Nyx follows the line of his paw toward one of the few tall buildings left in Altador, she sees Tavi standing atop it, her arms wrapped around two small children who must have been stranded.

“No!”

Then she hears it: the telltale CRACK! and BOOM! of something giving way and breaking. Dust billows up from the ground at the base of the building Tavi’s standing on, where long, thick, jagged lines have cut through the clean white facade. On the roof, Tavi drops to her knees and pulls the children closer, bracing them—

Suddenly, Nyx is gone, her mind transported somewhere else entirely. A flash in the back of her mind, a split second of panic, and she’s back out in the far reaches of space with Juni, the moments right before her ship had pitched wrong and its walls and windows began to crack under the pressure systems’ failures. She had pulled Juni to her chest, wrapping his tiny frame in her arms and curling around him, trying to shield his body from impact. And then…

Then they had been lost, stranded in the emptiness of the universe before being sucked into the Void.

Another rumble, and a shrill scream. Nyx is back again, then, her eyes wide and vision tunnelled in to focus on Tavi and the children on the building’s roof.

And then, as if in slow motion, the building begins to fall.

“Tavi!”

With a leap and a flare of energy, Nyx takes off. She rockets past Juni, careening through the ruined street to reach her destination. Shades fly at her, drawn in by the sudden movement, and without thinking, Nyx conjures up tendrils of void energy and bats them away with ease. They don’t matter. Nothing else does. All that matters now is one thing—one person who needs her, now.

Just like Ozzy had.

She skids to a stop before the crumbling building, barely taking any stock of the situation. The ever-widening cracks in the front of the building don’t even register to her, nor do the chips of stone and marble dropping from above. They should hurt, but Nyx can’t feel any pain—all she can feel is the drive to move. The building tilts dramatically toward her, and Nyx backs up, stretching her arms out and conjuring the power of the void.

“Jump!” she cries, reaching for her friend and the kids she’s protecting with open arms and tendrils both. Tavi doesn’t hesitate: she pulls the children with her and jumps off the roof of the building. Nyx leans up, begging and pleading with her powers to just stay stable long enough to save someone, just once—

A tendril wraps around Tavi and the kids, curling safely and securely around the three of them. Nyx grimaces through the staring, but she’s grinning, too. They’re safe, they’re safe, they’re—

She sets them down on the ground a short distance away, where nothing can get to any of them. Tavi straightens up, checking on the children to make sure they’re all right, and then turns to Nyx, her eyes wide and teary.

“Nyx!”

Nyx releases the void energy and laughs as she starts to run toward her friend, relief flooding through her every bit as much as the renewed hysteria of almost losing someone else.

But it’s not over yet. Distantly, Nyx registers that pieces of the building are still coming down around her, pelting her skin like hail on concrete. She thinks it should hurt when she realises what’s happening, and she expects to feel the pain of their impact, but all she feels suddenly is a strange, otherworldly cold seeping in through her skin.

The last thing Nyx sees before the building crumbles is Tavi reaching out to her.

The sky is a deep shade of violet when Nyx looks up into it, stars twinkling beyond the smoke and dust rising from the city. It’s so much thinner than it was before, the air so much clearer, and it’s almost… quiet now.

No, it is quiet. Except for…

A short distance away, Nyx can hear the faint, but distinct, sound of sobbing. Someone is still in trouble, she’s sure—which means her job here isn’t done yet. Even after everything that’s happened—losing Ozzy, a building falling on her, and… whatever she had just gone through in the dark—there’s still work to be done, and she can’t waste time wallowing in her own imbalance.

But when she steps out of the rubble of the building that had collapsed on her, and follows the sound of the sobbing…

…It’s her friends’ faces that greet her.

“Guys…?”

“Nyx!”

Baelia is the first to notice her. She stands up from where she had been huddled up and tries to run, stumbling over her shaking legs, reaching out for Nyx as she goes. Nyx reaches back, her eyes welling with tears to match the ones starting to pool in Baelia’s.

“Hi, B.”

Baelia’s hands fall on Nyx’s shoulders, then pull her into a hug. Nyx returns it without thinking, tilting her head to tuck it into the crook of the Grey Faerie’s neck. Something in her throbs, then—not in pain, not exactly. But there’s a burning in her throat and an ache in her chest that makes her wonder when she’d last been hugged.

Baelia lets her go too soon, but Nyx doesn’t say anything. She looks past Baelia to her other friends, who have gathered around for their turn: first Luxinia, then Styx, and finally Juni, yipping like mad to scold her and welcome her back at the same time.

“I missed you, too,” she says, ruffling the tuft of fur atop her Faellie companion’s head. Juni jumps back down to the ground, mock-offended, and tries to flatten it back out again. Nyx laughs, and almost cries again—it feels like it’s been forever since she last laughed, too. But then she looks up, searching for the one person who hadn’t greeted her yet.

“Tavi…”

A short ways ahead, Tavi turns her head. Her lips waver, and her eyes screw shut, as if she were fighting against herself. Nyx can’t blame her. After everything she had said before, when Tavi had only been trying to help…

No. When she had helped. When she had saved Nyx, Nyx had shown gratitude by yelling at her.

“We looked everywhere for you,” Luxinia says, somewhat awkwardly; Nyx wonders for a moment if she can sense how upset both she and Tavi are. “We thought you were…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not,” Nyx says. “I’m fine. I don’t… really know how, or why, but I think it has something to do with this Void stuff on my arm. I think it’s changed me a little more than I realised.” Before anyone can ask any further about it, she shakes her head to stop them, because she doesn’t really want to relive everything that had just happened. “How is everyone else, though?”

The others exchange a glance. “We… We’re all fine,” Luxinia says, biting at her lip. “After what happened to you… Well, we and many others helped to get as many people out of the city as possible.”

Nyx swallows. “H-how many…?”

She looks at Juni, trusting him to give her a fair, accurate, and (mostly) unbiased report, even though Nyx isn’t sure she really wants the answer. But she has to know.

When Juni’s ears droop, Nyx’s stomach sinks. It’s what she had expected, but...

“Not enough,” Baelia whispers, just to confirm it.

Luxinia jumps in. “But—but you know, a whole building fell on you!” she says, aiming for chipper but falling just flat. Nyx doesn’t know how to feel about that. “You made it out of that okay, right? So there’s no telling, you know?”

“I guess.” Nyx sighs. “I’m sorry. I… This is my fault. If I hadn’t gotten so mad and gone off on my own, maybe we could have worked together to save more people.”

“Nyx…”

“No, Lux. Don’t tell me that isn’t true. I know it is. I thought I had been growing, and I was trying to be better, but I keep getting angry and… And look where it’s gotten us: Ozzy’s gone, I upset you all, and so many more people have been hurt, all because I was selfish.”

“But Nyx—”

“Stop it. Both of you.”

Nyx and Luxinia turn. It’s Tavi who had spoken, this time. She’s looking right at Nyx, her whole body shaking. “You did the best you could. We saved as many as we could. Now we need to go save someone else, don’t we?” She tries to force herself to smile, but Nyx doesn’t need Luxinia’s powers to know that it’s fake. “Lux was just telling us that she knows a way to get us to Faerieland. So go on, Lux, tell us.”

“Um… right,” Luxinia says, her eyes darting from Tavi to Nyx and back again, until they settle on Nyx. “You remember my friend, the giant Walein…?”

Luxinia had told them her plan: construct a giant horn to summon the Walein that brought them to Neopia Central at the beginning of their journey, using pieces scavenged from the rubble. Baelia had reassured them that she could make one… not quite easily, but she could do it. When Nyx looks over to see her progress so far, it seems to be going well: the mouthpiece is done, and she’s working on a cone to put at the end of the horn now. Next to her, Styx drops a twig on top of a pile of sticks he had gathered, and Baelia graciously makes a show of trying to make them into something useful.

Everyone else has scattered to dig through the wreckage for anything they can find. Luxinia is using her lantern to search from above, and Juni is scanning the rubble with his new sight-powers, which they’ve decided to call Nether Sight. That leaves Nyx alone to use her void tendrils to sort through the debris—they’re working again, albeit with slight flickers here and there. And Tavi…

Nyx puts down the brick she had just lifted, deeming it useless. She glances over her shoulder at where Tavi’s poking around the rubble, but it doesn’t look like the Kyrii has accomplished much.

Nyx takes a breath and resolves to go over there, even though a tight knot in her chest warns her that Tavi probably doesn’t want company now. (Or maybe just doesn’t want hers.)

She goes over anyway.

“Hey,” Nyx says, boots crunching gravel beneath them. Tavi stops what she’s doing and lowers her head further toward the ground.

“Hey,” she says back, without looking up.

Nyx swallows. “Tavi,” she starts, voice wavering, “I just wanted to say… I wanted to say that I’m so—”

Before she can finish, Nyx is knocked right off her feet, the breath punched from her lungs. She lands flat on her back with a small “oof!” and scrambles for a moment, but then realises she’s trapped where she is, because there’s a warm, soft, shaking red Kyrii on top of her.

And that Kyrii is crying.

“Tavi—?!”

“Don’t you d-dare apologise!” Tavi sobs, lifting her head and pounding (a little painfully) on Nyx’s chest. “I’m the one who should apologise! I was upset and took a risk I shouldn’t have, just like I used to, and I—you almost—and the last thing I would have said to you was that you couldn’t have saved your brother—and then we were just going to leave, because we thought we’d lost you!”

She heaves one more great, trembling breath, squeezes her eyes and mouth shut, and then shuffles off of Nyx, wiping at the tears staining her fur. Nyx sits up too, letting Tavi cry for a second, because she doesn’t know what to say. And then…

“I yelled at you,” she says, softly, “because I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that you’d saved me. Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before, and I—I don’t really… know how to have friends.” Tavi opens her mouth to protest, but Nyx lifts a hand to stop her before she can get the words out. She doesn’t want to make Tavi lie and say she really is a good friend. She isn’t.

But she wants to be.

“I blamed you when I shouldn’t have,” Nyx continues. “It was easier than blaming myself for being too slow, or for not being there when Ozzy needed me… again. I couldn’t control my emotions, and I… I panicked. I said a lot of things that I shouldn’t have, and a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

Tavi sniffles. “You were upset. I d-didn’t take it personally.”

“But that’s just it. In the moment, it was personal.” Nyx reaches out for Tavi, but stops just shy of taking her hand. “I decided to be mad at you because I was mad at me, so I lashed out… and nearly lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had because of it.”

There’s silence between them, just for a moment. Tavi sniffles again, then smiles—a real smile, not forced this time—and laughs, a hiccup more than anything else, before closing the distance between their hands to entwine their fingers together. “You know… I’m loving all this self-realisation, and I appreciate the apology, but the truth is that you could have shot me with one of your void blasty thingies instead of just yelling at me, and I still wouldn’t care right now. I’m just so glad you’re alive!”

“I’m glad I am, too,” Nyx says. “And that you’re safe and sound. Thank you for saving me, Tavi. And I don’t just mean from that building.”

Tavi turns her head, trying and failing to hide the flush staining her cheeks beneath her fur. “Aw, I know you’d have done the same for me… and you did! So I’d say we’re about even now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Nyx mutters, but she accepts the concession anyway. There’s one more thing on her mind, though…

“So… are we good, Tavi?”

Tavi nods. “We’re more than good,” she says, squeezing Nyx’s hand. “And we’re going to make things right. Not just between us, but between you and Ozzy, too. So come on.” She grins and stands up, pulling Nyx to her feet beside her. “Let’s find whatever B needs, call that giant Walein, and get our butts to Faerieland!”

The dust from the broken doorway begins to descend, settling on the glittering, shimmering marble floors of Faerie Castle’s royal chambers. A fitting image, Drakara thinks as she steps over the crumpled, supine form of the Battle Faerie, hardly sparing her a glance. Let her lie there. Fyora had already broken her right hand; let the left one shatter, too.

Fyora herself, though—the foolish queen risks a glance at the fallen Battle Faerie, then returns her gaze to where it should be. Where it always should have been: right on Drakara.

The Faerie Queen’s eyes harden, and she lowers herself into a fighting stance, the dust beginning to swirl about in the air again as a breeze kicks up around her.

“Please, don’t make me do this,” Fyora says. Her voice is cold, but there’s a tremble in it—could that possibly be a hint of regret at what she had done? Or is that simply fear for what is to come?

Either way, it nearly draws a laugh from Drakara. She clicks her tongue, tsk-tsk-tsk, as the light in the room begins to change. Orange and yellow and green and blue and periwinkle and violet all begin to swirl around Fyora as her hands and her staff begin to glow, and she summons a shimmering orb of white-pink light before her.

Drakara lifts the Acrimonious Paint Brush, holding it loosely, almost lazily, in her hand. Fyora grits her teeth. That does make Drakara laugh, and she steps forward, pulling back the hood of her cowl.

“Try me,” she says, welcoming the fight she had been dreaming of for almost longer than she can remember.

They move at once. Drakara brandishes the Acrimonious Paint Brush: sloshing rivers of grey sludge and Void essence whorl around her feet, rising into the air to surround her. They bubble and glimmer, Void energy and Faerie-magic combining with the brush to create something stronger, more powerful than that paltry tool, her failed Grey Painter, could ever have conceived. In time, perhaps—if he had been left in the forge just a little longer—he may have proven worthy of her careful planning. But now, as ever, Drakara knows she must only rely on herself.

The streams of grey and void and magic converge into a wave, and Drakara sends it rushing toward Fyora with a cackle of glee. It is all Fyora can do to raise her arms up before her and divert the tsunami with a wall of pink light, sending it cascading past her in two separate rushes. The dual waves crash against the walls, decimating everything in their path, sending furniture flying and glass and wood shattering. A part of Drakara internally sneers at the shoddy craftsmanship of everything in the room, but she isn’t terribly surprised by it.

The last of the deluge fizzles away, and Fyora leaps into the air. She conjures her magic again with her staff, pink glowing against the remnants of grey sludge, while her beautiful, perfect wings flutter to keep her aloft.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Drakara!” she cries.

“Oh, that’s funny,” Drakara retorts, though there’s no laughter on her lips. “You certainly seemed set on it before!”

Something snaps in Fyora then. She sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and grunts, shooting a beam of sparkling pink magic at Drakara from her staff, flecked with rainbow hues. It’s child’s play compared to the power Drakara now wields, and she sends another wave of grey magic at the Faerie Queen, meeting her head-on.

The two beams of energy collide, erupting in a flare of power that sends both Faeries careening back. Drakara manages to keep her footing, but Fyora, with all her dulled edges from years of complacent rule, is not so lucky: her back hits the chamber wall and she slides a short way down it, staff falling from her hand and clattering to the floor.

She manages to land on her feet after pushing herself off the wall, but the landing is rough: her knees buckle, but she stays upright, and she glares at Drakara through the messy, misplaced strands of pink hair that have fallen over her face. Through her teeth, Fyora grinds out, “We don’t have to do this. We can work this out—”

Another deluge of grey slings itself at Fyora, nearly knocking her back off her feet. At the last second, she manages to pull up another barrier—without the aid of her staff, this time—but it isn’t enough. The grey energy is supplemented, now, with tendrils of void energy, each and every one of them lashing against the barrier like greedy, starving tongues.

“Oh, like that’s ever been your strong suit!” Drakara sneers, pushing harder against Fyora’s barrier. Harder, harder, harder; more and more force applied—a hammer striking at a crack, a whittle carving around a flaw—until the barrier shatters, and Fyora is once more sent staggering back.

Drakara advances. One step at a time, the steady ring of a struck anvil sounding out with every click of her boots.

“But then again,” the Dark Faerie says, “you always were afraid of what I was capable of, weren’t you? You were afraid of what my weapons could do. How they could so easily strip you of your power.” Her lips curl up into a sharp, joyless smile. “That’s really why you did what you did, isn’t it?

Fyora steps back. “Drakara—”

“Don’t call me that,” Drakara snarls. “You lost that right long ago, Fifi.”

“Catch it! Catch it!”

The two Faeries flew through the air over the castle gardens chasing the mechanical Carmariller, dipping and whizzing past the cloud topiaries, rushing between the elaborate statues that lined the gardens, and darting over the extravagant fountains reflecting sunlight in their crystalline geysers. One trailed behind the other, just slightly, her wings sparking with the effort of keeping pace with her friend, sending bright orange embers flecking behind her, only for those sparks to rise into the air and fizzle out before they could ignite. Meanwhile, the one ahead—an Air Faerie, swift and clever and decisive as the south-east wind—laughed as she rolled out of the way of an oncoming gush of fountain-water, her pink-and-blue hair swirling about her.

“Look out!” she called back, her pale blue wings glittering. Belatedly, the Fire Faerie leaned to the side and spun into a proper roll, very nearly rocketing through the fountain instead of around it; the end of her dress wasn’t lucky enough to make it out of the roll entirely dry, but she didn’t mind. The strength of her flames would make everything right again.

More importantly, her friend had pulled ahead of her.

“Wait up, Fifi!”

Drakara sped up in the air, extending her arms to cut through the wind resistance. Fyora laughed, rising up higher, and the two of them continued their pursuit. The tiny mechanical Carmariller was just ahead of them now, and they were gaining fast…

POP!

Something fizzled. Drakara’s eyes grew wide, and she reached for Fyora’s arm—“Look out!”—to pull her back. The Carmariller’s flight pattern stuttered, and it swerved and zig-zagged in the air, the mechanical parts of it rattling…

Drakara made a dive for it, but was held back by a sudden gust of wind. Fyora’s arms stretched out toward the Carmariller, guiding the savage breeze she had conjured to swirl around and surround it. The mechanical Petpet jittered in the air, its flight completely stopped, and went briefly, eerily still—

Before it fell apart with a tiny burst of fire.

Nuts and bolts and gears broke off from the Carmariller’s central mechanism, bursting through its metal carapace. Most of the shell remained intact, but with the damage that had been done, the poor clockwork creature could no longer function. Its pieces floated around the now-nonfunctional shell, dancing around it in an invisible tailwind, and slowly, Fyora used her magic to lower the whole thing to the ground.

“Quick thinking, Fifi,” Drakara said, alighting upon the cloud-garden’s ground next to her dearest friend. “You’ve really been practising your wind magic, huh?”

“A little,” Fyora confessed, a sheepish smile on her face. “But really, with how much trouble you get us into, I’ve just been practising to keep us safe!”

“Oh, like you’re not the one who suggested I make this little guy to keep an eye on what was going on in the castle.” Drakara laughed, laying a hand on Fyora’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you were hoping to achieve with that, anyway.”

“Me neither, truth be told,” Fyora said. “But there has to be something going on. It feels like something big is coming—like the queen is hiding something, or like there’s unrest in the court. Can’t you feel it too, Drakara?”

Drakara looked away, down at the broken Carmariller. She forced herself to smile, and walked over to pick it back up. “I don’t know. But if something is coming…” She turned to Fyora, and her smile became real. “We’ll stick together through it all. Won’t we?”

“Congratulations, Fifi.”

The voice came from somewhere behind her, echoing throughout the chamber. Fyora drew her attention away from the mirror, from her own as-yet unfamiliar reflection staring back at her: her wings, no longer the beautiful hue of the morning sky; her hair, fully pink now, without a single strand of blue left.

“Or should I say ‘Queen Fyora’?”

Fyora didn’t know how to feel about it, but she did know how to feel when Drakara came into her line of sight, leaning against the grand archway that made up her new bedroom door. Relief washed over her, blooming in the form of a smile.

“Thank you,” Fyora said. Drakara pushed off from the doorframe and made her way over, her beautiful, flame-orange wings fluttering as she moved. The tiniest crackles of fire danced in their iridescence, and Fyora felt her smile grow wider. Drakara’s energy always had been infectious, and she could practically see the excitement dancing beneath her skin.

She came to a stop before Fyora and reached out, running her long, calloused fingers through the ends of Fyora’s hair. “This’ll take some getting used to,” she said, in that teasing, clever way she sometimes would. “And so will this.”

Her hand danced up to trace the contours of the crown now sitting atop Fyora’s head. For a moment, she just lingered there, staring—but then she drew her hand away and turned toward the bed, making herself at home and sitting on the edge of it. “How does it feel?”

“Strange,” Fyora admitted. She looked at herself in the mirror again. “But not… wrong. I feel like… Like this was meant to be. Like I’ve become more like myself.”

“We always knew you were destined for greatness,” Drakara said.

“And so are you.” Fyora stood and made her way over to her friend, reaching out to take her hand.

“Maybe.” Drakara looked away in what Fyora could only assume was a play at modesty. “That staff I made you did do a lot to get us where we are now.”

“Exactly. You’re the one who said every queen needs a sceptre,” Fyora teased. “I mean it, Drakara. We’re going to do a lot of good together. I won’t be able to do this without you.”

Drakara smiled.

“All hail the queen,” she said, and squeezed Fyora’s hand.

How could everything have gone so wrong?

The edge of Faerieland was cold, the wind screaming in Drakara’s ears. Below, she could see the rolling oceans of Neopia, the hills and trees and mountains that made up the world they were supposed to protect. She glanced back behind her to measure the distance, unable to contain her fear. A fall from this height, without wings…

One of the guards stepped forward, a dull box in her hands that may have once been silver. Dark smoke unfurled from the seams of it, drawing all light and colour out of the surrounding air.

“Please,” Drakara begged, her eyes fixated on the box. “Please, no…”

Behind the guard, Fyora approached. The shimmering pink of her wings seemed duller as she stepped next to her guard—next to the box, that dreadful, colourless box—and her expression was set. Drawn tight. Carefully, carefully blank.

Just as it had been for years now.

Drakara fell to her knees, unable to hold onto her pride any longer. She could feel flames begin to manifest around her in small bursts, desperation breaking through the fissures in her composure. “You can’t do this—Fifi, please! After all we’ve been through, after all I’ve done for you—”

“Drakara,” Fyora began. Her eyes fell on her old friend, cold and flat as the tone of her voice. “You have been brought here today to be sentenced for your crimes.”

“My crimes?” Drakara gasped out, disbelieving. “What crimes? The creation of weapons to ensure peace for—”

A deep breath interrupted her, Fyora closing her eyes to force herself back into the stoicism she had adopted as Queen of the Faeries. “For the creation of unfathomably dangerous weapons, and for the continued pursuit of magicks forbidden to Faerie-kind…”

“No!” Drakara protested. “I did it for—I made those weapons to keep us safe! To keep you safe!”

Fyora swallowed. Her eyes opened—there was a waver in her stony facade, now, a wobble in her lip. A flaw that needed to be mended. “You disobeyed warnings. Repeated warnings. You endangered all of Faerieland with your research and your subterfuge. You endangered yourself.” Here she took another breath, swallowing thickly. “You knew the risks of your work. The same risks that the warlock, Bertrand Ashby, took and lost his life for. And yet even after you were told to abandon your research—for the good of Neopia—you persisted.”

“I did it for you, Fifi! You know this!”

Fyora looked away, for the first time, as though she were in pain. “It matters not your reasons, Drakara. Your weapons, in the wrong hands, could bring about the end of Faerieland—or the end of Neopia itself.”

“Or they could do a lot of good!” Drakara pleaded breathlessly. “Like—like your staff. Look at your staff, Fifi, I made that for you, and you’re still—”

Fyora snapped her gaze back to Drakara, as composed as she could keep it. Cracks still shone through. “For your crimes, Drakara, you have been sentenced…”

“No!”

Fyora swallowed. “You have been sentenced to be banished from Faerieland. You will be stripped of your wings and magic, and will undergo the Grey Ritual.”

“No…” Drakara’s voice was gone, nothing left of it but a husk—a shell without clockwork, a kiln with no flame. She crawled forward, on hands and knees, and reached out, one last time, to the Queen of the Faeries. To her old friend. Her most beloved companion.

“Fifi… Why?”

Fyora turned away. She gestured with her staff—her precious staff, the exception to the rule she had made up to punish Drakara with—and struck her arm out sharply, as if she meant to slice the air in twain. The guard holding the box approached Drakara, unlatching the dulled silver clasp.

“Fifi! Fifi!!!”

“I’m sorry, Drakara. It is for your own good. Once you have found yourself… Found an identity outside of your… obsession, then you may return.”

Drakara scrambled forward, desperately reaching for Fyora. Another Faerie—the new Battle Faerie, with her violet hair and her brilliant ice-and-fire sword—stepped before the queen, shield raised and blade at the ready. Drakara’s eyes flitted from her to Fyora, and in that moment, she realised she was truly—and forever would be—alone.

The guards approached. Drakara tried to fight. But in the end, the box opened, ripping the colour and magic from her. Her wings shattered and fell away, dissipating into the air like smoke rising from dying flames, and she was torn from all that she had loved.

Energy rolls off the Acrimonious Paint Brush in waves as Drakara raises it before her. She smiles at it, admiring her handiwork, and then turns her burning gaze onto Fyora once more. The precious thing—she’s wounded and outmatched, but there’s still determination in her eyes, fierceness in the set of her jaw. That jaw has begun to waver slightly now, though. A crack in her shell that Drakara’s keen eye homes in on as though she were wielding a chisel, not a brush.

“You know, Fifi,” she croons, advancing slowly. “I never quite understood what you said when you took the throne—what you meant by ‘becoming more like yourself.’ Do you remember telling me that? Hm?”

Pink-violet eyes narrow, and Fyora grits her teeth. “Of course I remember. I remember everything.”

“As do I.” Drakara’s smile falls, but she quickly replaces it. “But memory is all we share now, isn’t it?”

Fyora shifts, bracing herself against the wall. She can hardly hold herself upright, it seems. Good. But Drakara does not allow that small victory to distract her, satisfying though it may be to see her once-good friend in pain. “When you stole my power and stripped me of my wings, I felt lost. Alone. As though I would never experience joy, happiness, or companionship ever again—but the hollowness within me ran far deeper than that. I thought I would never feel anything again. Not rage. Not sadness. Not even longing.”

She turns the Acrimonious Paint Brush in her hand. “I wandered for years, trying to find myself. Trying to figure out what I did wrong. And then, one day… I heard it. A voice I had long ignored, calling out to me again… Just as you once had. ‘How far you have fallen,’ it said. ‘O, sad Grey Faerie, you have suffered much in the darkness, while those who sought your downfall still yet bask in the warmth of the light. You, with no name, no purpose—come to me, and I shall give you all that your heart desires.’”

“And so I followed the voice. I obeyed it. And soon, once I had proven myself worthy of Her grace… She gave me what you took from me.

“Wings. Power. A name.”

Drakara’s lips curl upward, no humour at all in the cruel sneer that pulls at her expression. “She named me, and I was reborn. No longer a Grey Faerie, or even a Fire Faerie—a Dark Faerie. Who I was meant to be all along.”

“You’re wrong,” Fyora spits, stumbling as she tries to straighten her posture. “You aren’t a Dark Faerie, Drakara. You never were—not a real one. Just look at your wings!”

“Silence!” Drakara’s arm whips out, the wisps of grey energy surrounding the Acrimonious Paint Brush following the sharp, sudden motion in a blur. “You don’t get to tell me who I am! You don’t get to tell me how to feel when you’re the one who made me this way!”

The Acrimonious Paint Brush slices through the air, sending a wave of grey at the cowering Queen of the Faeries. Fyora ducks out of the way, conjuring up a wall of light to protect herself with, but the power of the Paint Brush batters against it, once again shattering the wall just as quickly as it had come up.

Drakara smirks—Fyora is weak without her staff. Perhaps she always had been.

And yet—

“I know you, Drakara,” Fyora insists, flying higher above the grey deluge. “You may act like a fully fledged dark faerie, but those feathered wings betray you—as does the use of your old name. There's still some of the Drakara I knew in there."

“But there’s none of the Fyora I knew left in you.”

The words are like acid, spat from Drakara’s lips. Fyora recoils as if she had been struck—but she still fights on, creating another barrier of light to shield herself from the next wave of grey energy rocketing toward her.

“I wanted to help you,” Fyora says. “All I ever wanted was—but I hurt you—and others, as well, all in the name of trying to make things right. I know that, Drakara. So please, stop this and we can—”

But Drakara barrels on, sending another barrage of grey at her opponent. “When I was given my new name,” she spits, “it was as if I gained back a piece of myself that I had lost. The piece that you took from me!”

Fyora’s eyes dart about. Drakara sees it—sees them land on her staff, a short distance away. The Faerie Queen lunges for it, but Drakara is one step quicker: she brings the Acrimonious Paint Brush down, as if trying to cleave the very air, and this time, her aim proves true: a barrage of grey slams into Fyora, sending her through the window of her chambers to land on the balcony outside in a heap, rolling and tumbling over herself—nowhere near the picture of elegance she was when the two of them were younger, back when they were nothing but an Air Faerie and a Fire Faerie. Two friends with nary a care in the world.

In the chaos and the overwhelming torrent of grey, Fyora’s staff gets swept up. Drakara directs the deluge toward the balcony’s edge and off it, sending her creation—her gift to Fyora, something she had been so proud of, so long ago—plummeting down to the gardens.

Fyora reaches for it anyway as it falls, but Drakara moves fast: she stomps on Fyora’s outstretched arm, pinning her wrist to the floor with a cruel grind of her heel. She grins, wild, and laughs, applying more and more pressure.

“It wasn’t just a part of me you took, Fifi. You took everything, and I have spent a lifetime trying to reconstruct it all! Now that what I seek is finally within my grasp, I will do the same to you as you have done to me!”

Fyora groans in pain. The sound is like music, played on the most finely-carved and tightly-tuned viola. Beautiful. But not as beautiful as the sight of Fyora is, with grey seeping into the violet-pink of her dress and slowly crawling across the surface of her skin. Even the tips of her wings are starting to lose their colour and vibrancy. It is as if, at long last, the very essence is being leeched from Fyora—slower than Drakara would like, and a part of her is mildly annoyed, but she has waited this long already. She can wait a little longer. After all, while the Faerie Queen did not achieve her position alone, until now, she had still been powerful enough to hold on to it by herself.

Fyora takes hold of Drakara’s ankle with her other hand, gritting her teeth as her fingers curl weakly around it. She yanks, but to no avail; Drakara simply grinds her boot down harder and sneers.

“Pathetic.” All traces of a smile have been wiped from the Dark Faerie’s face. Now there is only disgust and disdain. “You are nothing without the staff I crafted for you, Fifi. You are nothing without me.”

“Drakara…”

“That’s it. Beg, just like I did. It won’t do you any good, either.”

She steps off of Fyora’s wrist and reaches down, grabbing her old friend by the hair to pull her to her feet. And then, with one final smile as the Faerie Queen tries in vain to struggle from her grasp, Drakara lets her go. She shoves Fyora away, and watches as she falls off the castle tower, grey spreading halfway across her nearly useless wings.

It is both a beautiful and terrible sight to behold. The long-standing symbol of Faerieland’s vibrancy erupts in a kaleidoscopic spectacle, devastated by a single blow from Vocivus. Great surges of rainbow water cascade from the explosion, carrying with them chunks of earth and shards of purple stone. After the initial blast, all is silent for several moments. Then, Drakara’s maniacal laughter rings out; a hollow, lonely sound that echoes out across the ruins of the fountain. It’s only briefly drowned out by Vocivus hissing sharply as he shakes his tail dry and recedes from the approaching waves of rainbow water.

“No!” Fyora feebly protests from the ground, but it’s already too late. The Rainbow Fountain is gone. Drakara pauses her villainous cackling, turning her attention back to her former queen.

“Oh, what’s wrong, Fifi? You’re looking a little grey. We’ll have to do something about that.” Drakara steps over Fyora before whirling around and sitting atop a nearby piece of rubble behind her. “And would you look at that? We’re right here at the Rainbow Fountain… Oh, wait. Ha ha ha ha!” Without missing a beat, Drakara goes right back to her unsettling laughter, this time gleefully kicking her legs as she cackles. Fyora grits her teeth.

“That… wouldn’t have worked anyway, Drakara. You… you know that.” She tries to lift herself, bits of debris digging into her palms, but half of her body simply won’t budge. As if it doesn’t even see the point in moving at all.

“Of course. Just as I knew the Acrimonious Paint Brush wouldn’t turn you entirely grey. You’re too powerful, and I’m not suited for the Brush the way I thought the Grey Painter was…” Drakara looks back on the sheepish Yurble still clinging onto Vocivus’s crest for dear life. “He really is the perfect little bitter battery. Which is why I’ll hold onto him a bit longer. I’m certain I can convince him to be my Grey Painter once more… after I remove all of his distractions.” Drakara turns over the Acrimonious Paint Brush in her hands, lost in thought for the briefest of moments.

“As proud as I am of my masterpiece, its effects are still not immutable. Not like the ritual.” Suddenly, Drakara’s eyes SNAP up from the brush and fixate back on Fyora. “But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that – we were both at the ritual that turned me grey, weren’t we?”

“Drakara.. I-” Fyora tries to tenderly chip in, but she can barely get a word out before she’s cut off.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Fifi. It was never about you - or about what you did. That may be a hard concept for you to wrap your mind around…” Drakara’s gaze falls upon Baelia. “But perhaps your little friend here can help you. You may not be completely grey yet, but give it time… This one, on the other hand, has had plenty of time to get used to it.” Drakara looms over Baelia. “Haven’t you, my little caged bird?”

“I… I…” Baelia can’t hear herself stuttering over the sound of her heart. It’s beating faster and louder than it ever has before. Faster and louder than it’s intended to. The world starts spinning around her as her legs turn to jelly and feel like they’ve vanished entirely, as if they’d never existed at all. She’s pretty sure she’s still trying to say anything other than “I”.

It feels as though each breath is smaller and quicker than the last as the edges of her vision begin to blur into all too familiar iron bars. A cloaked figure taunts her from the other side of the cage. A sinister smile leers at her from just beneath the cowl, hateful eyes gleaming as the hood obscuring them is pulled back, both burned forever into her memory. The very same sinister smile before her now.

There is no more doubt. She can’t deny it any longer.

Baelia takes a slow, deep breath before gingerly exhaling the words she had been struggling to find.

“It is you… Jennumara.” Baelia’s eyes slowly trail up to her sneering former captor.

“So, you do remember me, then. I’m flattered,” Drakara derides her, tousling her hair. Fyora looks on at the conversation with confusion.

“Jennumara?” Fyora repeats the name aloud. Tavi seems to be the only one who recognises the name.

“No… B, is this the Faerie who-”

“Imprisoned her? Yes. And you must be the pest that freed her.” Drakara examines her nails inattentively, like she hasn’t got a care in the world. She certainly doesn’t care that Tavi is there. Eyes ablaze with fury, the Kyrii tries to step forward, but Baelia clutches onto her, holding her tight. Her pleading eyes meet Tavi’s, quelling the fire within them. Drakara hardly notices, continuing.

“That magic lock wasn’t my finest work, I admit... “ She glances down at Fyora, a cruel smile reaching from ear to ear. Using the end of her lance, Drakara tilts up Fyora’s chin. “But I’ve improved on the design since then. What do you say we test it out on our newest Grey Faerie, hm?” Fyora turns away as forcefully as she can muster.

“Unless we have any volunteers, that is?” Drakara spins to face the others. The entire group, even the headstrong Aisha, are all frozen in fear. After all, who in Neopia could stand up to someone strong enough to defeat Queen Fyora? Who in their right mind would dare challenge such an indomitable force of nature? As she glances over the despondent faces of her dwindling opposition, Drakara is certain they all grasped that stark reality. However, she didn’t glance low enough.

“That’s what I-”

“Bark!” Drakara blinked. She was… interrupted? Who in the world would still risk defying her? She looks across the stunned faces in front of her. None of them seems to be responsible for that noise.

“Bark! Bark!” Incensed, Drakara’s eyes flit around until they find the culprit. Near her feet, standing beside the fallen Faerie Queen, is a Doglefox. Tiny, fatigued, and grey from head to toe, but definitely a Doglefox.

“You can’t be-”

“Bark! Bark! Bark!” Relentless, the Petpet barks and growls away, even growing bold enough to nip at the edges of her dress.

“Why, you brazen little vermin! What impudence. Vocivus, show this little mongrel what a real beast sounds like!” Drakara raises the large crystal she first used to summon the creature of the Void, and it glows and hums with a strange power. Vocivus brings his maw down to face Styx before unleashing a thunderous roar upon him.

“YELP!” Styx takes off running, tail between his legs, heading straight towards the Haunted Woods looming far off in the distance.

“Now, where were we before I was rudely interru-”

“You sure like to hear yourself talk.” Nyx murmurs. She shakes off her fear and steps forward.”Normally, I stand up to bullies like you without a second thought, but I haven’t been feeling like myself lately… ” Nyx glances over at Styx’s shrinking form as he runs toward the horizon. “Lucky for me, that Doglefox has more than enough heart for the both of us. And after this is over, you will apologise for scaring him!” Her hand crackles with purple energy as void tendrils spring from around her wrist.

Drakara couldn’t care less.

With a lethargic snap of her fingers, she summons two of her Abyssal Acolytes before them. Bones and armour creak with every step as the skeletal soldiers converge on Nyx. Despite their reanimated appearance, they move deftly with tactical precision. The largest of the two, which appeared to have at one point in history been a Kau based on bone structure, raises its shield, hooves planted firmly. Despite Nyx’s void tendrils lashing out fiercely, the ancient warrior holds their ground, blocking her extending wisps from even reaching a yawning Drakara. While the skeletal Kau keeps up their ironclad defence, the smaller of the two warriors advances on Nyx, deftly twirling their handaxes. Before she knows it, Nyx is backpeddling away from the slashing Abyssal Acolyte that was once a Draik.

“Well, now that those impolite ruffians are learning how to better conduct themselves, we can continue conversing like civilised faeries.” Drakara diverts her focus back to the group as Fyora finally pulls herself up.

“I… don’t understand. How did you…?” Fyora trails off as she speaks, perhaps unsure if she truly wants the answer.

“Become so powerful? Get this far without you? Turn into this half-grey abomination? I already answered all of those questions. Weren’t you listening?” Drakara raps her fingers in mock annoyance.

“Your new name…” Fyora’s eyes widen as the pieces click together.

“So you have been following along! Jennumara was the name bestowed upon me, and with it, came new purpose.”

“Who gave you… Wait, it couldn’t have been-” Fyora doesn’t have a chance to finish the thought before Drakara interjects.

“Ah, I’ve already said too much. Besides, we have more urgent matters to discuss…” Drakara’s eyes fall to Baelia as she fiddles with loose grains of sand between her fingers.

“My…my wings? But how?” Baelia says, wincing as the ever-present pain of the vestigial follicles on her back flares up. Those few feathers have always somehow been so heavy, and right now they feel as though they may bring her to her knees.

“My dear, I am the most skilled artificer in Neopia – and beyond. I could easily hammer out a new pair of wings for you.” Drakara draws ever so slightly nearer. Baelia hears her friends try to move closer behind her, but one twitch of her past captor’s hand and they freeze in their tracks.

“I-I could be useful again?”

“Why, of course. You’ll have your magic and be able to fly. I could grant you it to you all once more.” Drakara says as she raises her hand to Baelia’s face and wipes away a tear that she hadn’t even noticed.

“But how?”

“Oh my darling caged bird, I was the one who took your wings away. Who would know better than I how to restore them?” Drakara’s other hand now grasps Baelia’s face. She hears her friends trying to call to her, but they sound miles away. It is once again just her and Jennamura. Despite no bars being between them, she still could not escape her grasp.

“You’ve lost all your power. All your beauty. All your hope.”

Yes, Baelia thinks to herself, I know.

“But I made you what you are today. And I can make you into what you will be tomorrow, too.”

That makes sense…

“The most powerful, beautiful Light Faerie in all of Neopia.”

A Light Faerie? Her as a Light Faerie again? She hadn’t realised it until now, but she had stopped thinking of herself when it came to Light Faeries… but that’s what she wants, right? Luxinia pops into her mind, then, she is a powerful Light Faerie. Confident and comforting. Shining her brightest even when it’s hard. But she’s never really been anything like Luxinia…

Baelia tries to pull back, out of Drakara’s grasp, but her captor holds tight for a moment before releasing. But the Dark Faerie leaves her arm outstretched to Baelia. Waiting...

“B, don’t listen to her!” Tavi yells from somewhere behind her. She sounds closer now. Tavi! Tavi had done so much for her. Freed her, stayed with her, saw her… but it wasn’t enough. After all these years, they were never able to find her a name. Never able to figure out who she is.

Drakara’s hand reaches closer once more. Baelia hates her, has hated her, with every fibre of being, but… she isn’t wrong; without her, Baelia will always be nothing.

“You don’t need her!” Luxinia shouts. She sounds almost right next to Baelia now. “And you don’t need those wings to be useful! You’re more than that!”

The cries of her friends flood in. Her friends' words push back at Drakara's as hard as they can. Yet, Drakara doesn’t move. Her eyes simply flare as she says, “I’ve heard enough.” And with that, her friends’ voices ricochet away once more.

One voice remains, however. “Baelia, fight this!” Queen Fyora’s voice is weak, but her tone is persistent.

“Oh, Fifi. You, of all people, can’t be acting as though you are on this pitiful girl’s side now,” Drakara laughs as she turns to Fyora. Their eye contact breaks, and Baelia gasps for breath. “Not when you're the one who used to turn Faeries grey.”

“What… what do you mean?” Baelia’s voice almost fails.

“That’s not the full truth, and you know it!” Fyora shouts, turning towards Baelia with a pleading look of guilt. Baelia’s knees buckle, and she collapses to the ground, prompting her friends to try once more to move to her side. Drakara places a hand on her shoulder as a clear message to stay back.

“Come now, Fifi, tell her. Tell her how you hid away every reference to the Grey Ritual, because of how you doomed her and those like her!”

“The Grey Ritual?” Baelia says, barely above a whisper.

Fyora attempts to stand. Nyx and Juni aid her, but she only gets partway before collapsing again. The Queen takes a deep breath and seems to resign herself to the ground before continuing.

“It’s not how she makes it sound, I swear to you, Baelia.” Fyora's voice is weak, pleading, no longer the firm, regal cadence of a Queen's. “The Grey Ritual was meant to be a pilgrimage of sorts… One that faeries who felt a disconnect with their magic could voluntarily choose to undergo.”

“Why…why would you hide this?” Baelia says, as she wraps her arms around herself, trying to quell her shaking

“Because, ‘choice’! ‘Choose’ is the important word for this ritual, but the almighty Queen came to believe herself above that, didn’t she?!” Drakara’s words drip with malice.

“Faeries used to… choose to be turned grey?” Baelia asks, her head spinning.

“When I took my predecessor's throne, I forbade the use of the Grey Ritual as anything other than a means to help faeries find what called to them outside of their magical ties. The one time I went back on that… When I used it as a punishment– just like the former Queen… it changed everything.”

“It certainly did,” Drakara scoffs.

“I swear, I thought it was the only way to save you, Drakara!” Fyora cries, “The others, they wanted you–”

“Silence! You’ve said all we needed to hear.” Drakara smirks as she wrenches Baelia to her feet. “If you could forcibly turn others to ‘save’ them. Then so could I.”

“Don’t you see now, my little grey one,” Drakara continues as she pulls Baelia in closer. “There is still so much that you don’t know. Without me, you’ll forever remain a weakling on the outskirts of society.”

“Stop this,” Fyora’s voice once again pushes back at Drakara. She’s standing now, only slightly supported by Nyx. “There is a lot you don’t know, Baelia… And there is a lot I need to atone for, but the ritual only turned faeries grey. Their hearts are what transformed them after.”

The grey around Fyora begins to creep up her arm as she speaks. “Having someone else turn you into what they think is best… Well, just look at yourself, Drakara. How did that turn out for you?”

“I said silence!” Drakara spits as she turns to Fyora.

Without any hint of her next move, Fyora sends a surge of power right toward them, just close enough to Baelia that Drakara has to release her grip to block it. As Fyora’s attack streams forth, the grey afflicting her inches its way around her body, but she doesn’t stop, even as her other wing begins to droop.

Drakara easily blocks the attack, but it acts as a wall between her and Baelia. Baelia realises this is the perfect opportunity to flee, to leave Drakara’s grasp once more, but she finds she can not move. Until she feels something move across her shoulder. A shadow? She turns around. Someone stands there with the halo of the sun over their shoulder. “Who?” she whispers.

The figure steps forward. A little Kyrii, looking almost exactly the same as the first time they met like this, but with a familiar smile as she extends her hand out.

Tavi grabs Baelia's hand before anything else registers and pulls her back toward their friends. Fyora's magic dwindles as the two of them reach the group, and they all form a barrier around Baelia, as if protecting her from her former captor. And yet, even though she is safe amongst them, she can still feel the pull of Drakara’s gaze.

“Saying one final goodbye, are we?” Drakara chuckles. Baelia’s friends pull in closer around her, but the Dark Faerie seems unperturbed by their presence. Her glare cuts right through them to get to her. “We can go back and forth on this as many times as you’d like, but deep down you know we are the same.”

Drakara reaches out her hand, slowly, methodically. “You know I am your only option.”

Before she can even stop herself, Baelia takes a step forward, but her friends are all there in front of her.

“It’s okay, B. We’re here,” Tavi says, looking back at her over her shoulder as she stands ready with her climbing hooks out.

“Ya, don’t listen to her, Baelia. She doesn’t know anything about you,” Nyx says as Juni gives a supportive “Yip yip!” next to her. Both are poised to fight, their void essence shimmering as they ready themselves for an attack.

“Come now, Baelia.” Drakara’s cold tone snatches Baelia’s very breath from her once more, and she takes another step. Drakara is still her only option… her only path to be useful again. Her lungs burn as she goes for another step. Without Drakara, she is still nothing after all; she is still useless. She can’t trust her; she knows this… her heart pounds in her chest. But she is still just Baelia, the grey faerie.

“Just breathe,” Luxinia’s hand softly squeezes her own. “Focus on what you can in the moment. Focus on what’s right for you.” Luxinia then lightly cups Baelia’s face in her hands, and she’s finally able to take heaving breaths as tears flow down her cheeks. Baelia had felt hands on her like this just moments ago and almost instantly accepted that she’d never escape them. But this feels different; she doesn’t want to leave these hands, but knowing she can if she chooses to–

She gently grasps Luxinia’s hands from her face and takes them in hers. No push back, no hesitation. Luxinia has nothing but concern and care in her eyes as Baelia turns back to face Drakara’s glare.

Drakara sighs. “How disappointing. I’d hoped to do this the easy way, but no matter. The hard way is just as easy. For me at least.”

Even as blasts of dark magic whizz by them, a sense of calm falls over Iridesia. For the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever, they feel completely weightless. It was as if something celestial had been unlocked, as if they could finally see the world in colour. All those ordinary parts of life that seemed so daunting before, things like walking past the mirror, meeting someone new, and hearing their name out loud, suddenly weren’t so scary anymore.

The sinister spells hurtling towards them, and even Drakara herself, feel less intimidating by the second. Iridesia ducks through the first volley of dark magic before they bat aside another blast with their rainbow multi-tool. Through the tempestuous ripples of clashing magics, Iridesia can see the fear in their former tormenter’s eyes. It’s a familiar fear, one Iridesia had seen in their own reflection in the past as Baelia many times. Fear of life, fear of the world around them, fear of themselves. Perhaps Drakara was right. They did have something in common.

“How long did it take you?” Iridesia calls out as they swat away another spell with their staff. The first few swings they had taken with it were ungraceful and reactionary, but now, the staff seems lighter.

“What was that? You’ll have to speak up, dear!” Drakara cackles back.

“How many years did you spend trying to find your new name?” Iridesia’s question is earnest. Genuine. The dark magic erupting from Drakara suddenly wanes.

“How many years?” Drakara tilted her head, her gaze quizzical.

“Did you even try? Or did you lose yourself wallowing and brooding, like I did?” Iridesia continues, locking eyes with their former captor.

“You don’t find a name, fool, you are given one. It simply took me some time to find someone worthy of granting me a new name. She and I may have started off on the wrong foot, but over time, I proved my value and earned the name Jennumara, as well as my place by her side.”

Iridesia, still in a defensive pose, slowly lowers their staff. “Was that place where you wanted to be, or where you felt you had to be to survive?”

“Just who do you think you are?” Drakara snarls back.

“Iridesia. I’m certain of that now.” Iridesia plants their staff firmly on the ground, surprising themself with their newfound confidence. “But who are you?”

“Wha- Who?” Drakara’s eyes go wide, faltering in a way Iridesia had never seen before.

“Am I speaking with Jennumara, or Drakara? Do you even know?”

For a moment, Drakara, or perhaps Jennumara, is silent.

“Well, I…” She trails off, seemingly unsure of the difference herself. Iridesia carries on, taking advantage of her hesitation.

“You called yourself Jennumara when you took my wings, yet you’re going by Drakara now. Why is that? Why don’t you go by the name gifted to you? The one that transformed you?” Iridesia does their best to keep their voice calm and level as they speak, as if trying to soothe a frightened Uni. “Even with your new name, you still can't move forward, can you? No matter what changes, you still see Drakara in the mirror.” Their voice carries across the air, reaching a set of grey ears stranded far away atop Vocivus. The chains confining him clank together as Ozzy shifts his attention to Iridesia’s voice. “That must be why you still have feathers.”

“You don’t understand anything!” Drakara spits back, her eyes burning with anger.

“I understand more than most. I spent years wallowing, certain I would never find a new name. Then I met people who wanted to help me find it. Find me. We were set on the same road, but didn’t go down the same path. You never took the time to find out who you are for yourself. You let someone else decide for you.”

“Enough! I know who I am, the greatest artificer Faerieland has ever seen. And you will all bear witness to the height of my talents today!”

From the confines of her cloak, Drakara withdraws a small Hissi statue. While it is primarily of stone, a familiar purple gem is affixed to the sculpture, and it begins to gleam brightly. The glow illuminates the malice in Drakara’s eyes as she calls forth a massive serpentine shade before them. The beast spirals out from the statue, expelling noxious fumes from its nostrils with a rasping sound.

A familiar shadow, one that once loomed over Bogshot swamp, circles above Iridesia. Without warning, the shade tucks in its tattered wings and dives down. Before they have a chance to react, Iridesia finds themself shielding their eyes as a beam of blinding light pierces the beast.

“We’ve got this, Iridesia!”

A sense of warmth comes over Iridesia at the sound of that voice. They’d recognise it anywhere. It’s Luxinia! She’s fluttering around the angrily blinking shade, and she’s not alone. Juni lets out a scathing triple “yip” before latching onto the tip of the creature's tail with the nastiest chomp his little jaws can muster.

“Don’t stop!” Luxinia yells over her shoulder. She launches an orb of light magic that bursts in a shower of sparkles upon the shade’s snout.

“Thanks, Lux!” Iridesia turns their attention back to Drakara, whispering to themself. “I won’t let you down. Any of you.”

“It seems you have your puppets, too! Our similarities never seem to cease. Very well, then. This shall be a contest of our talents.” Drakara grinds her teeth as her eyes fixate on the shifting staff in Iridesia’s hands. The fallen Faerieland Artificer readies her lance in one hand and Vira’s dagger in the other, inviting contest.

But Iridesia doesn’t want to fight. They never have.

“You keep boasting about your talents, but all I’ve seen you do is torment and destroy. You could craft wonders for others, for yourself,” Iridesia pleads. They need to try, just one more time. For the faerie they could have become without someone like Tavi in their life.

“My weapons are wonders! They are works of art for me and my allies to wield alone. Testimonies to our might! To our right to rule!” Drakara snaps back. Her face twists into a ferocious scowl, but her eyes betray her, darting to Fyora.

“Is that really why you started crafting?” Iridesia watches carefully. They note every grimace, eyebrow twitch, and finger fidget the other faerie makes.

“What are you prattling on about?” Drakara’s eyes snap back up.

“Are you sure it wasn’t to impress someone else? Maybe another faerie you looked up to…?”

Drakara's jaw clenches so tightly she can't even open it to stammer out a retort. Iridesia has clearly touched a nerve.

“Why I started crafting?” Drakara’s glower softens briefly as her gaze looks past Iridesia, past everything around her, far back into a time no one but her can see. “That is of little consequence, now. My scars have festered for decades. I’ve hungered for revenge for so long, gone too far down this road, made choices I cannot take back. How this all started makes no difference.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Iridesia starts softly and slowly, building up momentum as they speak. “I think how you got here makes a world of difference. What went wrong? Why did Fyora feel as though she had to take away your magic?” Despite Iridesia’s best attempts to ease Drakara slowly into the heavy topic, the latter dives in headfirst. Years of pent-up rage pour out of her as she launches into a diatribe.

“She was too naive! I was the only one truly looking out for her, the only one being realistic. I knew she would change Neopia for the better after we took the throne together, but she had too much misplaced faith. In her pursuit of peace, she kowtowed to those spineless sycophants pleading that I cease weapon development, citing potential dangers. Seems she forgot the only reason she sat upon that throne was thanks to my enchanted armaments!”

Iridesia lets her seethe for a few moments. After a brief pause, silent save for Drakara’s laboured breaths, Iridesia speaks.

“So, did you stop?”

“I did.” Drakara starts strong, but quickly loses steam. “Out of respect for the queen, I paused my operations. Well, for a time…”

“For a time?” Iridesia asks.

“Then I did what had to be done.” Drakara’s ranting ramps right back up to top speed and ferocity, full steam ahead. “I knew taking the throne was only the beginning - that Fyora would need to drive back enemies of Faerieland, face challenges to the throne, and protect all of Neopia. New threats were appearing every day, some that would soon rival her power if left unchecked!”

“So, you didn’t stop?”

“I tried! I tried to stop, but my nightmares were relentless,” Drakara blurts out. She paces frantically as she speaks, skulking back and forth like a Kougra in a cage. “Every night, my worst fears would rattle around inside my skull. The land I loved torn asunder, the faeries I cared for, lost forever… all because I stopped following my true calling.” Drakara takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly before continuing. “So when a new, untapped power fell into my lap, I couldn’t stop myself. No matter the dangers it posed, the volatile nature it exhibited, or even the fact that Fyora had decreed it too unsafe to practice and forbade all use… I had to experiment on the Void. To find a way to harness it for Faerieland. To guarantee that Faerieland would remain sovereign, unmatched and unreachable, towering high above the rest.”

She turns away before she continues, now speaking in hushed tones. “I never intended to use the weapons I created with it. I planned to lock them away, a dark secret I would take with me to the grave—if we were fortunate enough to never need them. I wasn’t so hopeful, no, I was certain the day would come when playing that trump card would be the only way to guarantee our survival—”

“So… you didn’t-”

“I could never stop!” Drakara whirls around as she cuts Iridesia off, hands shaking as she fumes. “Haven’t you been listening? I was born to craft weapons! It was all I knew, all I was. You might as well ask a Shoryu to stop flying.”

“Crafting weapons during a time of peace was truly all you could do? Surely there were other things you could have crafted — other needs that you could have fulfilled—”

“Craft something different? Nonsense!” Drakara sneers back. “I craft divine weapons, masterpieces of magic, to bestow supreme power upon those I deem fit to rule.” She looms over Iridesia now, roaring. “That is why I craft. Why I exist. That is my supreme purpose!”

Iridesia looks her dead in the eyes and calmly exhales before they begin to speak.

“I used to craft for myself. For the joy it brought me. Then, I saw the joy it brought others around me, and that pushed me further. Being recognised by a master like Delina was an honour I never could have expected.” Drakara’s eyes narrow at the mention of Delina, but Iridesia tries to push through before Drakara gathers herself. “Her insights and teachings elevated my craft in a way I could never have accomplished alone. And whether or not you were a grey or a dark faerie, I still would have appreciated your guidance, too.”

A softness creeps into Drakara’s eyes, transforming them into deep, bottomless pits of despair. Iridesia can’t let up now.

“I am sorry you lost your name, your friends, your place in Faerieland. It was wrong to take that all away from you, no matter what you did. But none of that gives you the right to take that away from others, from me.” Iridesia slowly steps closer to Drakara, lowering their staff as they speak. “It’s not too late. You can still find your own name, your own path–”

Drakara blinks. The despair is gone from her eyes now. All that remains is hate and fear. “It’s far too late. For me, for her… and for you!” Drakara blasts at Iridesia without warning, knocking them down to one knee. Iridesia quickly reforms their rainbow multi-tool into a shield once more, just in time to block another blast of dark magic.

Drakara withdraws the Acrimonious Brush from her cloak to add a torrent of Grey Paint into the mix. “Too much is riding on this for me to be swayed with honeyed words. I cannot afford to fail here today, and I shall not be stopped by the likes of you weak-willed fools!”

“Nooo!” Ozzy shouts, but the roar of the wind takes his voice. He screams and screams louder than ever before, so loud his throat feels as though it’s tearing from the strain, but he can’t stop. Vocivus’s grip on him is so tight it feels as though his ribs may crack under the pressure, and being this close to the otherworldly beast is terrifying, almost beyond what his mind can comprehend. But that isn’t why he’s screaming. Nyx, she’s–she’s fighting this thing… for him. And she’s gotten hurt… for him. But even worse than that is what is growing up her arm. He recognises it, slightly at least, his patron– Drakara, showed him cases of it on Petpets. Showed him how they writhed as it overcame their bodies. It turned his stomach even then, but Vira swore it didn’t hurt. Yet, he always felt the creatures seemed different after becoming fully transformed. If that’s what is happening to her, if she is losing herself… for him…

“Please!! Please, stop! I’m not worth this!” He screams, his voice torn and broken as he reaches helplessly for Nyx, for his sister.

His whole body tenses as he’s flung through the air, but he keeps his eye on Nyx. The spot where she first hit Vocivus has already healed, or at least scabbed over with some sort of purple ooze. The beast’s attacks are fast, and even with her new energy boost, she is barely able to dodge them, let alone attack. No, that’s not it… While it’s hard to see around him with how much he’s being swept around, Ozzy’s still seen her line up shot after shot. But she rarely fires. It’s him; she’s holding back because he’s here. She won’t risk hitting him.

It’s hard to keep conscious from the mix of pain and nausea, but Ozzy fights back the spots in his vision as he desperately tries to look around for something, anything to help. He instinctively thinks of using the Acrimonious Brush, but even if he still had it on him, he knows it isn’t the right choice. It was one of her tools, just like he had been… Yet, he’d had the brush for what felt like ages, and without it now he feels powerless… back to just the lonely, grey Yurble he was before.

He almost passes out once more as Vocivus swings him toward the ground. Ozzy wants to scream as the earth quickly closes in on him, but nothing comes out before he’s yanked back as Vocivus’s claw comes to a sudden stop right before impact. Ozzy strains his neck to see Nyx as tendrils of her own spread from her arms. They’re wrapped around the claw he’s imprisoned in, and Nyx seems to be pulling with all her strength. It’s astounding to him that she’s able to match Vocivus’s strength even a little, but his awe is cut short as another of the Void Beast’s acidic attacks comes right for the both of them.

“Nyx!” Ozzy begins to yell out for her to get out of the way, to run, to save herself, but a shining beam of purple and pink evaporates the acid midair, and Vocivus yanks him away, tearing off Nyx’s grasp. Ozzy catches a glimpse of who nullified the acid attack while the beast flails him about as it roars in pain from the continued barrage of magenta attacks.

It’s Queen Fyora, he’d heard a lot about her from his patr–from Drakara, as well as Vira. Drakara brought her up a lot, even though they never seemed to have nice things to say about her. They never seemed to have nice things to say about anything, now that he thinks about it. Guilt mixes with the nausea in his gut as he sees the grey growing around her. She has to know that using her magic is only weakening her, giving it the opportunity to fully overtake her, and yet her attacks emanate energy he’s never felt before. She’s not holding back, even a little; she’s risking everything to save those around her… To maybe even save him.

He’s sure Nyx's friends are fighting too. He can’t see much now to truly confirm it, but before this, he’d seen how they were together, seen how they’d cared for his sister. So, he knows they are here, risking themselves alongside her. The spots in his vision grow as more tears well up. He doesn’t want this; he never wanted any of this to happen. He’d just wanted to stop feeling so angry, so sad, so alone…

He wants to yell for Nyx again, yell that she doesn’t have to do this for him. Yell that he’s sorry for everything he’s done, everything he’s said. Yell that he just wants her to save herself. But even if she could hear him, he knows she wouldn’t leave him… that she never really left him.

Looking at her now, it’s so strange that she truly is the same age as when she left. So strange that she’s younger than he is now. She was right before. He may have been just a kid back then, but so was she–even more so when they lost their parents. He’d never realised how much she had to grow up for him… How much she must have missed out on to care for him. And yet even now she fights for him, even though all he had done was push her away. He'd pushed everyone away. Even Styx.

His heart aches as he thinks about Styx. Besides Nyx and Vi– Styx was the only other friend he’d ever had. In all the commotion, Styx had run off… ran away after what Ozzy had done to him. He’ll never forgive himself for condemning his best friend to the same fate he’s endured. Ozzy can’t blame him for leaving… Styx will be better off without him. He just hopes he’s safe, and that maybe one day Styx will forgive him.