Amaranta - Rival of Fairies' Queen

White Rainbow

The morning brought strange sensations. She wanted to visit Angus, but he is now with Luellin. The golden copy, as usual, masterfully pretend to be her, Countess Amaranta. If the second Amaranta suddenly goes into the room of the count, then what alarm will then rise! His valet and servants are always near Angus. In general, the witnesses are even too many. The scandal will not be avoided.

Why did this pull it to Angus? The unreasonable memories of how fun they were entertained in Aluar, as it was pleasant to flirt with him and dance in front of the jealous old king.

“And a young count is handsome!” whispered someone in the ear, as if the flame was sought.

And she herself did not know that Angus was very pretty! Only here she recently liked someone else. Her immediately hit a fire pain.

“Forget! Forget! Forget!” whispered the flame.

The flame burned nearby. Right in her ears! How to remove these earrings? Maybe plunge into the garden pond? Only not now! There are too many people in the garden. But the earrings burn ears now. The flame does not want to wait.

She had to, as usual, slip out from the castle through the garden gate. Behind the meadow was the stream. She needs to rush there. Somewhere not far from the forest she noticed the lake. Amaranta was confident that if they plunge into a reservoir with a head, then the fire earrings simply melt. She could be mistaken, but it was worth to try it. Anyway there is no alternative. From magic you will not be treated by a doctor, although he is in the castle.

Some beggar was standing near an aspen at the edge of the meadow and played on his fife. Amaranta wanted to give him money, as suddenly noticed that under the wretched torn cape, he had a coat decorated with golden leaves and chains.

“The king of the elves sent you a message!” happily whispered, disguised as a beggar elf. “He will not be able to visit you the whole day, but barely finishes the state’s affairs in Seven hills, arrives to you. He also asked to make music for some poems for you.”

Elf climbed into his pocket and accidentally rang up the full wallet of gold coins. Or were it not coins, but golden leaves? In the form of a coin, the leaves are very much reminded from the aspen, which the elf folded into the wallet and drew in gold. And she thought to send him to the castle’s cuisine to fed him there. Not all begging should be believed. Ripped cloth can be chosen on the road and make cape from it. And under it, the wings, expensive jewelry and soft green velvet. He is not a beggar, there is full of gold in his wallet! And everything that he touches, turns into gold, for example, the leaves on the tree became gold coins, as soon as he was touched them.

“I found it!” The elf pulled out a scroll with verses.

Before that, he played on his fife. Now it hung in the air and itself began to publish trills. The elf turned the scroll and wanted to read or sing what is written there, but Amaranta quickly moved away from him. The pain in the ears became unbearable.

“Sorry, but I can't hear you now! I hurry!”

The elf was surprised. He obviously did not expect this. And it seems, her flaming earrings also caused his suspicion. Probably, it was necessary to ask him to remove them, but she was ashamed. It is one thing to ask for such a service of mischievous boys and another business of the statutory winged young man.

In vain she was ashamed.  There is nobody to ask for help. The mention of the king of elves painfully cut the hearing. Why's that?

“Go home to Angus!” Such a feeling that Spark whispered in her ears. Amaranta even looked back. Spark did not fly after her. Nothing amazing. The fire elf lives so well in the castle, he does not want to leave it. It is strange that she hears the Spark’s voice everywhere. Probably all because of the earrings. Amaranta tried to pull them out of their ears and burned.

Amaranta wandered in search of a lake. Her last hope was in it. If the earrings will not disappear after that, she do not get rid of them.

Instead of lake Amaranta came to the ravine. Something like a rainbow bridge hovered above it. Near the bridge it turned out that the rainbow is entirely white and flickering. If only this is a rainbow. In any case, the bridge is the same ether as the one on which they danced with Dagda. One edge of the bridge rested in the ravine, the other was lost behind the meadows and forests. It is stupid to step on it, if you do not know where it leads, but as if someone called Amaranta.

The black bird circled over the bridge. Amaranta has already seen this bird before. It has a large red stone burned in the forehead, as if the third eye. The bird's glance was unkind. It seems she intended to attack, but the white bridge scared it with something. It's good. And the beak of the bird was sharp, as if scissors.

The white rainbow rose over meadows, heather waste and picturesque hollows. It was nice to go through it. As if you are in heaven, and not go. The walk in heaven this time quickly approached the end. The edge of the bridge rested in a rocky precipice. There was an old hut near the precipice. And next to the hut, a slim young woman was working hard, collecting herbs and meadow flowers. The woman was dressed in a simple blouse and skirt, like a peasant, but on her forehead was a precious hoop and on the neck were many amulets.

As soon as Amaranta descended from the bridge, the stranger broke away from her work. Some small evil creatures, who helped her pick herbs, immediately scattered in different directions, hissing on the road:

“The captive of the elves came!”

"Only do not set up a network for her," the collector of herbs warned, "she is not with threats.”

What threats? Amaranta frowned. The house looked like a dream. It seemed that the filament clouds concern its roof.

“After all, are you not with an ultimatum?: said the stranger.

“What kind of ultimatum?”

“The ultimatum for Belladonna.”

Obviously, it was her name.

“Everyone is tired of my work here. I help people, elves and fairies. I help check the traces of everything in a row, but no one is grateful to me, so I have a triple fee with all. This is true, since all three clan do not appreciate me. Let everyone who came, pays at once for everyone.”

"But I was not going to pay you."

“But you need help?”

Amaranta reluctantly nodded.

“Can you remove it?”

Belladonna has enough one glance to assess the situation.

“It is very hot, right?”

“As if the oven was burned right next to the ears.”

“A love speech. Yes, and conspiracies for eternal loyalty. Everyone is worse than the fire.”

“I'm sorry, what?”

Belladonna, on a moment, burned down and suddenly began to look like an ancient old woman.

“Oh, sorry!” She almost immediately straightened and gained a young look. “It's all because of the former owner of the hut. She was called old Helga and considered a witch, but in fact she was a healer. When she died, I ranked her housing, but for it put on me a tribute. Sometimes I have to pretend to be her before the inhabitants of the nearest villages. They have already begun to consider the old woman as immortal. About my deal with her spirit they do not know.”

“Are you something like an elf or a fairy?” Amaranta noted that Belladonna has rainbow eyes. It seems that she removed all the colors from the rainbow and sharpened them inside her eyes. Its pupils and proteins have become multicolored, and the rainbow over the cliff became white.

"You know, except for the elves and fairies, in the fields and the meadows are still full of a wide variety of spirits of nature," Belladonna smiled.

“If I did not come here from Aluar, I didn't hear about everything. Or maybe not,” Amaranta frowned from burning in the ears.

Belladonna thoughtfully picked it up on her arm and led inside the hut.

"In secret, I believe that from the sea, people brings not only the ship, but fate itself," she whispered. “If someone has been put on such a long journey, then without the intervention of the highest strength it did not cost. You called here!”

It was almost romantically sounded, as if she was born from the very beginning to become the queen of local elves.

A witch doctor can still be trusted. They treat herbs and tinctures. But Belladonna was in a hurry to take the role of a prophet. Amaranta was used to not believe the fortune tellers. Already too often they gave false predictions in Aluar only to get a reward for them and snatch up as the deception opens. There was next to Belladonna an amazing calm, as if you find someone who understands and shares all your feelings.

Belladonna touched her belly.

"The knights dream of having great sons who will win in any battle, but ..." Her nails scratched a corset slightly, she listened that she had already heard the beat of the second heart. “You will have a great daughter.”

“Do not kidding ME!”

“Or maybe not! Sometimes it is better when children from people and elves are not at all appear.”

“Why?”

“Love is a wonderful thing, but sometimes she gives life to monsters.”

"You say like a bird in a cage in the castle of Angus," Amaranta stopped. That bird also considered itself a prophet.

There were many things inside the hut in which even an inexperienced girl could guess the attributes of witchcraft.

“What are you doing here?”

Belladonna kept silence. But the big boiler on fire whispered something. Whispering came from green brews.

“Came!”

“Wow!”

“She herself found the road!”

“And it's too early!”

“She has a flat stomach and I do not know the monster inside it!”

Someone whispers or she just seems? Where Amaranth did not look, and everywhere she saw the bunches of herbs and empty eyes stuffed, made not from ordinary animals, but from some terrible creatures. If used from the monstrous birds caught by Angus, they made stuffed, they would like it. That is, frightening.

“Who hides and chatting on all the frets?”

Votes were a whole whispering choir. Belladonna missed the question by ears.

“Sit down!”

There was no chairs. Only the bed shown by the skin of unusual animals. There have never seen such beasts of Amaranta. And not bears, and not lions, and not leopard.

“Manticor's skins and Lamiya,” dispelled her doubts the mistress of the hut. “They wandered here from the kingdom of Medea Shai. But she herself never regards me, and you know why?”

“Because she does not need to be treated from anything, and therefore she will cost without herbal tinctures?”

"Because she loves to generate monsters into the light."

“In portable or literally?”

Belladonna did not answer again. She decided to play silence?

"I try to prevent the appearance of monsters to the light," she said suddenly.

"Very commendable," Amaranta nodded, although she didn't understand her.

The earrings burned ears with fire.

"They need to be removed," The witch doctor stated. “Otherwise you will not meet your love.”

“But I have already met.”

Belladonna shook her head with knowledge.

"You will not meet more the king of elves if you wear them," she said.

Like the fire elf giggles right above the ear in tact of her words.

“Spark is such a prankster.”

“Do you know him?” Amaranta was surprised.

“I know, even the fact that your wedding ring is actually a gift from the king of elves, although you are officially married to the count.

Who would think? And it was necessary to immediately guess. The ring in the form of a golden rose could produce only Dagda. Golden roses - his symbol. Obviously, they are in the elf’s emblem.

“What are you in fact?” Amaranta looked into the eyes, which seemed elderly wise, although they were young. There are no wrinkles on her face.

Belladonna chose from all the bunches of the collected herbs alone. The grass in it alternated with small flower. This is not dill, and not parsley, and not cleanly. Something average between all this.

"This is algae from the Gulf of Mermaids," Belladonna explained.

“And it looks like terrestrial grass.”

“You are mistaken! They had to dive to the depth to get them.”

Belladonna divided a beam into two equal parts and pressed herb to the ears of Amaranta. The earrings have sought, like a hot iron that was watering with water. Somewhere far away, the swears of Spark were heard, even though he was not there. Looks like removing the earrings, Belladonna hurt and him. After her manipulations with the fire earrings, one mold and pond scum remained. It was easily removed from the ears. On the ear lobs there were dirty traces of ash. Belladonna found a bunch of flowers, took out two flower from it and went to ash pins in the lines. Flowers instantly cleaned the skin and sprouted tightly in the ear lobs, wrapped all the ear shell with patterned stems.

“Will they not be faded in the evening?” Amaranta felt flowers as part of the body.

“It is instead of earrings. Metal is not for gentle ears.  The fairies, for example, carry earrings only from flowers or drops of dew. Or two butterflies, she showed their own ears, in which two butterflies cracked red. Well, beauty!”

“What about the mountain fairies? They wear a crystal in the ears. And mermaids pearls,” said a certain horned creature inside the oval mirror on the wall. Amaranta was even afraid. The creature with the crossed moss and rings in the nostrils instead of reflection would be afraid of any lady. Fortunately, she realized that the reflection was not her. Otherwise, she would have decided that she was enchanted and turned into a beast.

“Oh, a girlfriend from the Territory near the Green Hills! Hello to you!” The reflection winked to Amaranta.

“Disappear, mischief-maker!” exclaimed Belladonna, apparently, also shocked by the behavior of her mirror.

“Hi and you, Green Spirit!” Suddenly Amaranta nodded.

Did really greet  the mirror, like a living being? It was alive. The mirror’s frame was a continuation of its horns. It winked Amaranta.

"Do not chat with them, as with your friends," the mistress of the hut advised when the mirror disappeared. “They sleep, then wake up. On the surface they are kind, but they hid anger.

“Why?”

“Medea Shai put them here. She likes to mock everyone who will be touched under a hot hand. She sent her dragon to drop the old Helga from the cliff.”

“The place of which you took?”

“After all, she can not destroy me.”

“And why did the old witch not please her?”

“Remember, I already said to you. The queen of fairies likes to produce monsters, and we, witch doctors, try to prevent their appearance into the world. And we help to correct the  people’s and fairies’ mistakes.

“Who climbs on the roof?” Amaranta heard a knock at the top.

“These are my sisters Heather and Tamsin. They worship the hut with flowers so that no one seen it while the magic is going on inside.”

"Witchcraft," the Amaranta corrected.

"Well, you got help," Belladonna said irritably, "no matter: witchcraft or magical. If you have no complaints, then you can go.”

“Not paying?”

“Dagda will pay for you if the need arises.”

"I'm not his kept woman," Amaranta was offended. She heard in Aluar, as such a phrase spoke the dressmakers and jewelers to the King’s favorites.

“Right! You are his prisoner.”

“Not! Did not guess!”

“No, I did!” Belladonna moved the bunches of black herbs and dried frogs. "You yourself walk on the will, as you think, but your heart is in captivity of the elf’s king. And he does not want to let it go. And you do not want to be free. Prisoners of the magical kingdom are voluntary too.”

“Prisoners of the Magic Kingdom! How mysteriously sounds? These are people who elves and fairies have kidnapped.”

“And those who loved them. Such people may even die from the longing, if the magic beloved once will leave them at all.”

Dagda will not do so! Although it is not possible to be confident in this. After all, somewhere lives the seductive queen of fairies.

Someone just flew over the hut. Black shadow closed the daylight. What is the tremendous creature, which is thrown off! It feels like a hurricane. All the circle trembled and shook.

It seems that the bridge from the white rainbow is giant. In fact, the black dragon flew across the sky.

"It is from the Queen fairies' scaly vassals," Belladonna explained. “She has a lot of them, but the favorites are three: one black, one ash color with silver curves of wings and crest, and another purple. In the castle she still has three gray. One emerald rebelled against her, and it disappeared. Who will understand their internal distribution? All lovers of Medea Shai in the end become her worst enemies.

“Dragons - her lovers? I do not believe!”

“You do not know what they can contact. Rather, to whom.”

Amaranta was afraid. Belladonna realized that in revelations he gave a stick and quickly changed the topic.

“Before Medea Shai and Dagda here ruled the Goddess Danu. The king of the elves took her place, but the rules set by her did not disappear. She did not want to give up her power to anyone, but her time was expired. She had to dissolve in the Wizard fog. They say she had a magic sword, which she could separate part of the soul of a magical creature. From here, they originate all the legends about mutual love and the search for the missing particle itself. There is a belief that each has its own ideal half. Only finding it, you can feel happy, and it doesn't matter who your chosen one is: the beggar blind or the king himself - the main thing is that you are just right next to him.”

“What if Dagda is my perfect half?”

“An elf is a half of the mortal?” Belladonna said. Never have heard about that.”

“But what if?”

“What if he plays around you?”

“What if the goddess Danu separated part of his soul once, and this part was embodied in me?”

A bold assumption! But it does not go into incision with the judgments of the Belladonna herself.

“Well, who knows?” Belladonna threw a few frogs in a boiling boiler. - She was his enemy. He, as obsessed, rushed to power. After bloodshed, though, he realized that he did it in vain. But a part of him had already taken away with the sword. You are similar to those heavenly spirits, from which he himself happened once, but let's close this topic, otherwise we approached the dangerous border.

“What are you cooking?”

“A decoction.”

“From what kind of diseases? From gout? From colic? From cold?”

“This is for the girls who were confused with evil spirits, and then ...”

“What then?”

“Their relationship broke out, and the black fruit already originated as a demon within the human body.”

“I do not understand you!” said Amaranta.

“Better you do not understand further, but if you understand one day, come to me. I will help you for gratis. Neither a drop of blood will not take, nor your tears dial into the flask.”

“And is it a regular fee?”

“Sometimes it is still more difficult. And there is a terrible price at once for two: the elf and the girl, with which he was together.”

Belladonna sniffed to the air.

"From you go Duga's spells, as if he himself stands next to you."

The king of the elves was not exactly nearby.

"You'd better go befor sunset, otherwise the bridge from the rainbow will disappear."

“This is the same bridge from the rainbow, which to disperse a labyrinth over the sea.”

“No, this is my own bridge. I created it from a piece of rainbow, which arose after the rain. They can take advantage of my clients exclusively.”

“Why is the rainbow white?”

"Because my life has become a monophonic since I had to settle here." But do not worry, I have enough of this segment of the rainbow, I do not pretend to a multicolor maze of heavenly bridges, just try to point the way to my house to everyone who fell into trouble from contacts with elves.”

Amaranta involuntarily giggled.

- If all doctors were the same responsive as you. Other even leave the pointer to theirs houses.

“And do it right! At the crossroads there are many fairies. Do you hear legends about the stray fairies settled at the intersections?”

 “No, and I do not want to hear. Magical secrets are enough for me today.”

Only she said it, as in the locked drawer of the chest, hung as knitting garlic, something desperately screamed.

“Did you lock a cat there? Or a rat?” Amaranta was in horror. “This is the top of cruelty.”

“Do not condemn, until you dispersed, what's the matter! And I ask you, go faster. With a sunset, the rainbow will begin to disappear. Then you will not get to the castle and for a week.”

The hostess herself was not happy that a creature woke up in the dresser. It has already hacked with sharp claws a wooden box and climbed through the breakdowns outside.

“It learned you! Probably found her ...”

“Captive?”

“Mother,” the witch doctor corrected in a whisper.

Amaranta hesitated. A tiny monster got out of the box, very similar to those birds, which was languishing in the poultry house of the count. A creepy miracle! You will not call it a bird nor a beast. Rather a cobald. Only there are several heads and tails. A spell, which whispered the witch doctor, did not stop it.

“You do not want to make something similar, do not fall more with elves!”

The instructions sounded like a threat, and a creature had already crawled to her. It almost clung with the claws in her hem. Amaranta jumped out the door, not even saying goodbye. The sunset was already seen in the distance, but the bridge from the rainbow still did not disappear. She barely had time to reach it back until the onset of twilight. The white rainbow disappeared, barely around it became dark.

The path from the ravine to the castle Amaranta found with difficulty.

When she returned to the usual way through the garden, there was fire on the night pond. It turned out that Spark and Stream were fighting. Water argues with fire, and the fire with water. Spark noted Amaranta, but the fight did not stop. Drops and sparks fly away in all directions. The water is still nothing, but the sparks are so burning! Amaranta regretted that she slapped a secret gate too loudly and attracted the attention of the fighting. She ran quickly by the pond and went into the castle.