Finley Cai Aies Regalis-Olcay May 23rd,20XX

Rubella sat, deflated, in the sphere that I’d created around her and held an apathetic look on her face. Her glamour spell had long worn off her face and her clothes were ragged and torn from the earlier battle.

She had completely given up by now but even if she didn't, what could she do?

Ion and now that I noticed, Sparrow had done a number on her and her forces, so it wouldn’t be difficult to finish them off.

The only decision I had to make was how.

I could drain all the magic from the spheres and leave them to suffocate, or inversely I could flood the spheres with magic and make them explode from the inside out.

Rubella’s face crinkled as I brought her up to my eye level. She looked like she wanted to spit in my face but there was no way I would allow that. Still, there was a surprising lack of hatred on her face as she looked at me. The emotion wasn’t absent, but it wasn’t as potent as I wanted it to be.

“What do I do with you Rubella? Or rather, what would you have done if our positions had been reversed?”

She didn’t respond. Of course, she didn’t. It was annoying.

“What, suddenly gone quiet now that your escape plan failed? I’m disappointed Rubella; head of the witches! For someone that managed to trick and even capture a fairy royal, you’re awfully pathetic. How am I supposed to justify being defeated by you now?”

I raised the bubble slightly higher than myself and then let it free fall, wanting to get some sort of reaction out of her. Any sort of reaction.

It wasn’t right.

She couldn’t just play dead now that she had been defeated. Not after all she had done to me or my friends. And to those fairies that had followed after me. I hadn’t seen them yet and could only assume the worst had happened to them.

I didn’t want an apology or for her to repent in any way; I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t this.

I stopped the bubble’s free fall and brought it back up to see Rubella’s startled expression.

Startle.

What a weak, unsatisfying emotion.

It wasn’t enough.

“Say something! Don’t just look at me Like a brain-dead corpse!!”

My voice cracked as I yelled, and my throat began to hurt but I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t fair.

Having Sparrow kidnapped and brainwashed, being kidnapped myself and tortured for a plan that would never have worked, having Jake almost die in a world he didn’t need to know about, Mei having to put her family second to whatever was going on in my life, Ion’s graduation project being ruined, Theodulus and Heloise having to come out of their ‘Rest’ and even my parent’s deaths.

All of that because of me.

Rubella was just one of the many stains in my life. I could get rid of Rubella now, but then what would happen. It wouldn’t stop. There would be more people like Rubella and Esmeralda and others that would keep messing with me and the people around me.

“What am I supposed to do Rubella? Even after I get rid of you, there will be more of you won’t there? Was it that difficult Rubella? Was it that impossible to leave me alone? To leave my friends alone? The witches are fine, aren’t they? WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAD TO DO ALL THIS?”

“Cai.”

Mei softly said my name from her place on the ground. I could barely hear her even with my hearing but registered her tone well enough. She sounded cautious and worried but didn’t say anything but my name.

I didn’t look back because I knew that she would try and calm me down. I didn’t want to be calmed down.

I wanted an answer, even though I knew that Rubella couldn’t give me one.

Rubella looked at me through the sheer layer of magic that kept her trapped and suddenly smirked. Her painted red lips that had faded through the tussle of battle but remained bright enough to contrast her artificially white teeth slightly parted and began to speak.

“You’ve gone mad your royal highness, I guess I should be flattered that it’s because of me. I can tell you the reason all of this happened but I’m sure you won't like it.”

Her voice slithered around me and I was aware of the minor charm spell she infused into it, but it was too weak for me to bother dispelling. At this point, she used the spell to soothe her pointless ego, or to complete whatever objective she had.

It was a pathetic showing, like a fire’s last roar before it died out.

“The reason for all this, my actions toward you, the reason everyone won't ‘leave you alone’ as you so quaintly put it is that you’re. An. Abomination. Your very existence inspires rejection from others, and I dare say that no one here, even those who know you personally would shed a single tear if you had lost this battle and died. Your presence inspires annoyance, and your existence brings misery to all that have the misfortune to be around yo-”

Before I could even react, not that I knew how I would have reacted; a bright golden light erupted in front of me and made me instinctively close my eyes. By the time I opened them Rubella had been engulfed in the golden light and a long silver sword hung out of her chest, having taken advantage of the golden explosion to pierce through the remains of my broken bubble. A dull bronze spear pierced her head and a silver dagger hung from her stomach, both bound by a vine that wrapped around her throat and bound her limbs together. Her skin was charred into a mass of red welts and the already putrid magic that came off her began to run rampant within her.

Her corpse, which still hung in the air carried a gruesome smile, and her eyes remained open like she had forgotten to close them before her sudden death.

“Well, That’s enough of that.”

“Viper mouthed hag, difficult to believe she lived as long as she did.”

“She dared!”

“Tch. I was late.”

A chorus of voices, all of different pitches and intensities, starting from my grandmother’s high-pitched and gentle voice to my great grandfather's deep and aggressive tone. Mei’s strong voice and Ion’s melodic voice joined the mess and managed to bring me back to the moment. Sparrow didn’t say anything but the angry look on her face spoke volumes.

“You-“

I was silenced before I could speak by Heloise’s voice. She floated over to me and gathered my face in her hands, forcing my line of vision to connect with hers. Her voice remained steady and she released each word from her lips slowly and carefully, making sure I heard each one.

“Cai, I have to say I’m quite disappointed in you.”

Although I couldn’t look around, I could see the other’s faces from my peripheral vision and noticed that they all nodded in agreement, each looking angrier than the next.

“How could you let such an inferior creature talk to you like that? I wouldn’t have let you go if I thought you would do that.”

Theodulus steered his flying beast closer and I recognized it as one of the creatures I'd seen running wild in the forest earlier. It looked like a giant lizard but had a furry beard and a large gem in the middle of its chest.

“What possessed you to let her spew out so much garbage? Damn uncomfortable to listen to.”

He picked at his ear with an uncomfortable expression while Mei chimed in with an equally disproving look.

“I thought you would repeat what you did to Esmeralda, so I didn’t interfere but… Cai. Are you okay?”

“Hey! You can't tell me you listened to anything she said, did you?”

Ion said with a disbelieving tone. He stood comfortably on the back of Sparrow's broom like he was on solid land, and Sparrow in return made sure to keep the broom steady. I vaguely wondered when they had gotten close enough to work so well together but couldn’t be bothered to reason anything out.

I also couldn’t say that nothing he had said had gotten to me. I knew that she was only saying what she did to hurt me, but there was some truth in it. If I wasn’t around, none of this would have happened-

“Ahh!”

I suddenly felt my hair being pulled from behind and involuntarily screamed.

“Stop being an idiot, Finn.”

The familiar voice and the name she used helped me place who had attacked me.

“Sparrow?”

She had been super quiet since she arrived and hadn’t participated as they all took turns verbally scolding me, so I’d assumed she was intimidated by the others. I hadn’t been expecting her to take initiative in physically scolding me.

“I might not remember everything from the human world, but I remember enough to realize how selfish you’re being. Before all the overprotective monsters around you incinerate me for daring to lay a hand on your precious hair, I want you to look around and realize how many people care enough about you to do that. There are too many people that like you and want to protect you against the villains in your life! It's too selfish of you to agree that you aren’t worth it! What does that make me then? Or any of the others that put their lives at risk to deal with Rubella and raze the capital to the ground?”

Well, I doubted that Heloise or Theodulus had risked their lives in the slightest, but Mei, Ion and Sparrow had gone above and beyond on my behalf. I understood what she was saying but I needed her to let go of my hair.

Mei finally interfered and grabbed Sparrow by the wrist, shooting her a vicious glare over the top of my head.

“That will be enough Miss Sparrow. I’m sure he gets the point.”

Sparrow did but she still carried an annoyed expression on her face that matched her tone.

“My apologies for losing my patience but seeing him blame himself for something that he has no control over is annoying. Again, I don’t remember everything from the human world, but I know that even over there he has too many people that care about him for him to be getting down on himself like this. Out of all the people around you, the one you decided to listen to is the one whose sole aim was to hurt you?”

Once again before I could respond Rubella’s body began to convulse and crack began to blossom on her burnt and patched skin. Dark iron coloured magic began to pour out of these cracks and her body showed its limits as a chaotic magic container.

Ion was the first to react and jumped off the back of Sparrow’s broom. He rotated in the air and used that force to kick Rubella up and out into the air and away from us.

His kick sent her much further than her slight body should have allowed, and the air cracked as her corpse exploded. A dark cloud of magic showed where the explosion had occurred and a bright golden sphere, much richer in colour than mine suddenly covered me.

“Don’t breathe this in child, it won’t do you any good. As for my granddaughter-in-law and the witch. Both of you should get out of here, although it won't be a potent to you as it is to Cai it’s still not good for you two.”

Theodulus sent me one more look, a mixture of worry, annoyance, and frustration before looking at Heloise.

“Bring him to my lair, Heloise, the amount of magic in the fairy palace won't do him any good right now.”

She looked at him like she wanted to disagree but couldn’t.

“Fine. Lead the way then.”

He frowned in response to her answer even though she didn’t disagree with him.

“What made you think this offer extended to you?”

“Then can you send the human back with him to the human world or were you planning on winging it?”

“And where is the equipment you’re planning to use from Heloise? Of course, I have a way to deal with the human.”

As they bickered around me, I found myself feeling extremely tired.

I was still angry and still hurt but despite all that, I felt the safest I’d ever been in between Theodulus and Heloise. I stopped flying and rested within the sphere Heloise had created, then sat back and closed my eyes. The two contrasting voices floated into my ears and pulled me into a calm that I forced into sleep.

There was nothing I could currently do about how I felt, and as Sparrow said, Rubella was just saying whatever she could to hurt me. I needed to listen to the people that cared about me, not a dead person.

Mei, Sparrow, Heloise, Theodulus, Ion, Will, Milo and Jake who had arrived a while ago on Galen’s back. Those were the people I should listen to.