The Fairy Queen

Prologue

Midnight was a fortunate period for a fairy to be born. It was said that when the two moons shone on a newborn fairy, their future would be bright.

However, from when the fairy princess was born, the walls of the palace were dyed red. Unknown assailants, decked in black stormed the palace, their aim - the inner chamber of the queen.

Fairy Queen Tulip glanced warily at the child in her arms. She was like a newly ignited flame, taking her time to burn in this cruel world that would do anything to snuff her out. She clenched the child tighter to her chest.

“Your Majesty,” Lestia, a doll fairy and queen’s attendant, called out warily.

“Your Majesty, please let us leave at once!” Dani, an earth fairy and captain of the guards, rushed in. He was covered in blood, having fought his way through.

“Where shall I go?” Queen Tulip asked, her eyes becoming dim.

“We can flee through the gateway! Please your majesty, we must go! At this rate, her highness -”

“Yes... my child.” Queen Tulip looked at the child in her hands. A single tear streaked down her face as she kissed the child’s forehead. “The world is cruel, not even allowing me to hold you for a second more,” she said while handing the child to Lestia.

“Your majesty, don’t do this,” Lestia cried.

“I’m sorry child, this is your mother’s fault. If only I had been a better Queen, maybe... just maybe so many children wouldn’t have to die like this.”

“Your majesty!”

“Mother is going to right her wrong. Mother only wishes you grow up strong and healthy, hopefully solving this problem. I’m sorry to place such a burden on you but I just know deep in my heart that you would become a great Queen.”

“Your majesty, please, you have to come with us. If you die -”

“Lestia, Dani, protect your princess. That is your duty. I will stand here and fulfill my duty to the end.”

“... Yes, your highness,” Dani gave in, bowing one last time to his queen while Lestia whimpered and carried the child with trembling hands. They took one last look at their queen. They had never seen her look so weak and helpless. Tearing their eyes away from their queen, they ran towards the gateway.

Fairy Queen Tulip sighed deeply when they were out of sight. Approaching her were dozens of assassins, armed to the teeth with deadly magic and weapons. Each readied their attack and their resolve to give their lives to bring the fairy queen down. She was, after all, the most powerful fairy in the kingdom.

“Imagine my fate, having to fall here, despite dreaming of leaving this world at the bottom of a well and my child, she has become an orphan. Aren’t you all being too cruel?” she announced before time stopped and she began to transform.

From a weak looking woman in a white nightdress stained with blood, she went to the true form of a fairy queen. A silver crown rested on her long black hair, golden armour covered every inch of her body, a mithril sword in her hands, long thin wings covered with golden plating with a wingspan of seven feet.

Around the palace, 20 huge halos appeared, belonging to the fairy queen. Each charged up with a different magic spell, ready for release at her command. The fairy queen lifted her sword and slashed it back down, releasing a volley of spells. When time started to run again, every enemy of the queen had already been blown to pieces.

Using all 20 halos in her weakened condition consumed too much of her magic. She stumbled backwards and vomited a lot of blood but she still had enough strength to lift her sword and block an attack from behind.

“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” the attacker mocked her while swinging his sword around, preparing to attack again. His violet eyes portrayed his love for violence.

“Right back at you,” Queen Tulip retorted, smirking with her bloody lips.

Her opponent was a tall dark fairy powerful enough to be on par with her. He was the dark fairy duke and the leader of the traitors that ordered the attack on the queen. A high born fairy that had looked forward to destroying the queen and taking her throne for himself.

Their swords collided, destroying more parts of the already destroyed palace ravaged by Queen Tulip’s spell. Queen Tulip was masterful in her sword wielding, countering all of the strikes aimed at her vital points. Her opponent wasn’t letting up, putting more magic and strength into his strikes.

They continued to fight and go at each other until they were at the tail end of the palace. Queen Tulip secretly heaved a sigh of relief, happy they were far from where Lestia and Dani were heading.

In doing so, however, she let her guard down and one of her opponent’s strikes got through, piercing her chest. She staggered backwards and could only watch as she bled out. She quickly directed her magic to heal the wound but it was no use as she was weak and the poison from the most powerful dark fairy wasn’t a joke.

If she couldn’t survive the fight, then she was going to make sure she brought him down with her. She launched at him again, her strikes more ferocious, and she succeeded in creating cracks in his armour. Eventually, he was overpowered by her and she stabbed her sword through his chest, piercing his heart. He fell to the ground and the force with which he fell created a crater.

“You don’t… You don’t know how happy -” He cut himself off and made a wheezing noise while his life force faded. “How happy I am to die at your hands… Your Majesty.”

His eyes closed and his mouth set in a hard line, his life force completely depleted. Queen Tulip shook her head and sat beside him. She placed her hand on the floor and sent her magic through the earth to see where Lestia and Dani had gotten to. When she saw they had gone through the gateway, she sighed in relief and collapsed to the ground.

“I’m sorry I have to leave you my child. I wish you nothing but a happy life.”

Queen Tulips’s entire body was now covered in dark veins, the dark magic having corrupted her wings. Her eyes closed in eternal slumber, her mouth in a peaceful smile, and all the fairies could feel it. The queen had passed away.

Lestia choked on a sob, unable to control the tears that streamed down her face while Dani’s hands trembled on his sword, unable to believe the queen was dead.

The child in Lestia's hands was sleeping peacefully, almost too peacefully, as if she too were dead. They knew she was like that because of a seal the Fairy Queen had placed on her, one that would seal her magic and presence till she came of age and her magic was strong enough to break it.

They soon caught a glimpse of the dark fairies that pursued them and they looked at each other, bid themselves a silent farewell, before Dani ran out to distract the fairies. Lestia waited till he was gone and went in the other direction.

Using one of Dani’s spells, Lestia slipped away unnoticed while their attention was on Dani. They continued to pursue him until they cornered him in an abandoned warehouse. He brandished his sword and prepared to fight to his last breath, protecting the princess.

He took out a lot of fairies until he eventually ran out of magic and was subdued. They snatched the bundle strapped to him and raised a knife to stab it. Instead of the princess, there was a growing mass of unstable mana, a sort of bomb, inside the bundle.

“I’ll never give the princess to the likes of you. Die, traitors!”

The warehouse exploded into pieces, taking both Dani and the dark fairies out with it. Lestia soon noticed the spell’s magic weakening and knew Dani was dead. She cried even more, looking for a safe place to keep the princess before an arrow suddenly tore through the night and pierced her back. She was thrown to the ground with the sheer force that accompanied the arrow.

She used her body to cushion the impact on the princess and made sure not even a scratch was on her body. However, she was not left unharmed. At the tip of the arrow, there was potent poison only dark fairies could produce. It would kill her in mere seconds.

Doll fairies were made from the bark of Yggdrasil so at any point in time, they were seeds that could easily become trees. Once they did, they could never go back to being fairies or having a consciousness of their own.

Lestia sank into the ground and took the princess with her. She spread her roots and slowly became an oak tree. By the time the dark fairies got there, the trace they were following was no more there, there was no sign of magic, the princess or the servant that carried her. They had no other choice but to return.

The next morning, a couple on their hike heard the cry of a baby coming from deep inside the forest. They searched for hours and finally saw the baby in a natural enclave of a tree, wrapped in a blue velvet bundle.

They took the child back to the city and searched for her parents. When they searched for a few months and nothing came out of it, they decided to adopt the child and move to a town where they would spend the rest of their lives.

The child they adopted was named Meryl Rosetta Adams-Gallen and she grew up to have eighteen years of a mundane everyday life. She was expecting more from her life but she was definitely not expecting the changes that happened when the clock struck midnight on her birthday.