Mei Ruan May 22th,20XX

“See, I just have a feeling there’s a better way to bring me along than this. Or you could have just left me at home.”

Milo’s energetic voice came from the net Heloise carried as we flew. His voice wobbled with every rise and every dip. Heloise gave a slight shake to the sack- no net, it was a net, and Milo let out a loud and obnoxious scream.

“Hey hey! Let's not play around with an old pal’s life huh?”

I kept as straight a face as I could and looked straight ahead, determined not to play an audience to the show behind me.

“I sensed similar magic to mine. It's unfamiliar but I’d make a solid guess at it being my grandson.”

Heloise suddenly spoke, her tone was a slight bit more tensioned than usual and her wings began to beat at a slightly faster rate than usual. She sped up.

I took the sack- net, I took the net that carried Milo off her hands and tried to follow after her, but the sudden drain of magic that the net demanded made it difficult to fly, never mind to fly fast enough to keep up with a royal.

I focused on the trail of magic she left behind and tried to keep up with her quickly retreating figure only to struggle to come to a full stop so I wouldn’t crash into her. I flew around her and saw what had triggered her senses.

A fuzzy Fluttermoth, with gold, green and blue wings flew very agitatedly in a single spot, moving its giant head from side to side. It was Galen, and he was hurt.

His wings were torn and he struggled to keep afloat. His fur was ratted in multiple patches and he had a cut on his left eye. The previously pampered and luxurious beast now looked even worse than its rare wild counterparts.

“Ah!”

A small scream escaped me as I flew up to the flutter beast and handed Milo back off to Heloise.

“Oh, Galen. Are you okay?”

I knew the Fluttermoth couldn’t respond but I was too flustered to care. Heloise flew to the Fluttermoth and looked it over with a slight frown on her face. It was the first non-smiling expression I'd seen on her beautiful face.

“So this is my grandson’s beast?”

Galen slightly calmed down once he registered Heloise’s magic and its eyes lulled until they were almost closed. The beast began to bob up and down in the air and it began a slow descent. We were still a day’s worth of flight by Fluttermoth away from where I had last seen Cai so the Fluttermoth must have flown very far by itself.

“Yes, it is. He received it earlier this year.”

Heloise ungracefully placed Milo in the already burdened beast’s saddle and began to stroke the beasts head, casually filtering her magic into it. He began to heal fast enough that it could be seen by the naked eye and his fur began to grow back in, more luscious and fluffy than it had been before.

Galen’s wings slowly perked back up and the colour began to drain out of its wings, the golden threads completely taking over the surface of the wing. The beast began to purr, showing its contentment, it also began to rub against Heloise’s palm, just like it used to do with Cai.

“They were attacked. You said you left my grandson in the witch lands?”

I had nothing to say in response and could only nod shamefully. Regardless of what was going on at home, it had been incredibly irresponsible to have left the prince with only two guard fairies and a human in a hostile land.

He’d told me he would wait for me to return but I should have known.

Heloise flew up to Galen’s saddle and grabbed a hold on the reins, turning him around. She turned her large golden eyes on me and looked at me, emotionless as usual.

“What are you waiting for? Get on.”

We flew in silence for a while and crossed the border without any fuss, this time it was because I had sent ahead to tell them not to bother us though and not because of their negligence. The awakening of the Queen had woken every doddering old fairy up from their cement-like boredom of existence.

I continued to sneak glances at Heloise as we flew. She handlined Galen’s reins as if the Fluttermoth had always been hers. She held that gentle and calm expression like she was looking at a lovely painting.

I was about to look away for the umpteenth time when her expression suddenly turned into a vicious frown and I felt Galen speed up. I looked at her face again but the vicious expression was gone like a ghost. She continued to increase Galen’s pace his pace until the poor Fluttermoth couldn’t withstand it anymore and let out a pitiful moan.

“Ai, that idiot.”

She suddenly threw the reins at me, and I caught a glimpse of the harshest expression on her face. Well, harsh may not have been the right word, worried or frustrated would have been more accurate. She violently got up and grabbed her bow from Milo, after half a moment of thought she grabbed a second bow as well, then a dagger, and a gauntlet.

“Hey! Hey!”

Milo raised a protest at her actions but one look at her face shut him up. His old face suddenly broke into a big smile and his eyebrows creased. He was… happy? He began to laugh.

“So you finally decided to get serious.”

She looked at him with a blank face, and suddenly her face blossomed back into that same gentle smile that Milo seemed to hate so much. She seemed to be seriously worried though as the smile began to crumble and her face settled on a stoic expression.

She rose into the air and turned around but Milo suddenly stopped her.

“Wai! Before you go…. I think I'll finally take you up on your offer for this curse… don’t look at me like that! Its… its been long enough.”

Heloise's expression hadn't changed once through that entire speech but I could see a slight grateful smile play out on her lips.

She brought out a wand, a lovely scaled piece with a golden thread running through it. If I didn’t know any better, I'd think that was her hair. But there was no way the queen would have to use her own hair to make her wand.

A bright light suddenly emitted from the tip of the wand and I had to close my eyes to avoid being blinded. It still burned through my eyelids and I felt myself raise my arms to block as much of it as I could.

The magic that she had been restraining exploded out of her and saturated the air, making it even more difficult to breathe.

On a level, I could recognize that she was being careful to pull back as much magic from me as possible, but the pressure was still a lot to bear.

The magic retreated just as explosively as it had come out and I could only rapidly blink as I tried to see again. I could only vaguely register her figure flying up out into the sky and dashing away like a bullet.

I blinked as fast as I could to clear my eyes and grabbed Galen’s reins then steered him after her. Unwilling to be left behind.

I couldn't even fathom how serious of a situation it must have been, to make the queen fly into a panic like that. All I knew was that Cai had better be okay. If he wasn't... not just I, but all fairies and witches would have hell to pay for it.