A Fairy Out of Her Tale - Dear Neno - 4. 03 - Curiosity Nearly Killed the Fairy (and everyone else)

My hands are shaking as I type now. I don’t like to remember what came next. One moment, Unn is sick, and the next thing I know I’m being mind-controlled and made to walk straight into a trap. If it wasn’t for your mother I would’ve lost my mind long before Hereweald got to me.

The actual event that led to our kidnapping was caused by Unn, but it’s wrong to blame her for it. Nobody realised what the demons were planning, so there is no point in blaming anyone but Zhofie and Hereweald for being selfish people with violent ambitions.

It all started when Unn ate a whole tub of ice cream. She got so sick from it that her endless vomiting also flushed out the spell that kept her from being sea-sick. Lóránt tried everything they could to put back the spell, but angelic power is not meant to work on demonic magic. Unn kept getting worse, and Lóránt ran out of options. Out of desperation, they called on the help of Zhofie, a demon who had been given power-limiters for breaking Daisenian law.

I’m sure you can guess why this went wrong.

Lóránt didn’t trust Zhofie. We didn’t trust Zhofie. But I didn’t know what to expect beyond dealing with a demon who cannot be trusted. I hadn’t been told to expect a mind-controlling spell, or warned about what it felt like to fall under one.

Unn asked for me to be in the room when Zhofie cast that spell. She was scared things would go wrong or that the demon would do something bad, and she wanted a friendly presence next to her for reassurance. Of course, me being there didn’t prevent any of those things from happening, but the fact that Unn asked for me to be there, that she let me in on her fears and vulnerability, showed that she did consider me a friend. It was the first time I got this feeling from her, and I think that was what convinced me to face my own fears and watch the spell-casting session.

Lóránt and Unn were already in the living room when I arrived. The fluffy rug between the TV and the couch was rolled up in the corner, and the exposed floorboards were covered in unfamiliar glowing purple letters.

‘Nessa, this is Zhofie. She will bee helping Unn today.’

I was so drawn to the strange markings on the floor that I didn’t notice Zhofie was there too. She came forward when Lóránt introduced her and took my hands. Her wrists had matching bronze-coloured bracelets with the Daisenian letter for “control” in it. I couldn’t read Daisenian at the time, so I didn’t realise those bracelets were the power-limiters she had been forced to wear.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Nessa.’ She smiled at me, showing all her pointy teeth. I understood her words as if they were Fadalesh, but her voice sounded like she was just saying a bunch of consonants mashed together. She looked at me straight in the eyes, her pupils dilated, and her bracelets glowed.

It was that easy to fall under her spell. So easy and so quick not even Lóránt noticed.

‘We are ready to start.’ Lóránt’s voice made me look away from Zhofie. I’m not sure how long I would’ve kept staring otherwise.

(And she wasn’t even pretty to look at. You mother is gorgeous and I would stare at him for hours on end if it didn’t make him self-conscious. But Zhofie was just ugly. Her horns were huge, golden with a red tinge. Her skin was completely white, like all colour had deserted her, and her eyes had the same red glow as her horns. Her nose was pointy, her lips were marked by tiny scars, like they had been sown shut at some point. And her breath smelled like a compost pile.)

‘Of course. Please get in position.’

Under Zhofie’s orders, Unn moved her tank to the middle of the strange markings on the floor. Zhofie lifted her arms up and recited another long stream of consonants that in Fadalesh translated as “I call forth the powers of the universe and bind them to my command. Do as I wish, and you will be free again”. Now I know this is just the generic introduction to any demonic spell of that kind, but back then I thought Zhofie was about to bring the end of the world. She hadn’t willed me to understand her words, so all I saw was her pleading in a foreign tongue, her bracelets glowing even more, and the strange letters detaching themselves from the floor and fixating on Unn’s skin instead. Unn’s body glowed the same purple as the letters. I couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t scream, so it hopefully wasn’t as horrible a feeling as it looked.

Zhofie shouted at her magic again, this time something along the lines of “restore the balance that has been lost in this being” and Unn’s body (still glowing) floated out of her tank, upwards until she was about to bang her head on the ceiling. The whole room turned purple. All the light concentrated around Unn’s body, then exploded in millions of pretty particles. Lóránt caught Unn before her fall could damage her tank or cause her injury.

I knew Unn was ok when she protested at Lóránt’s attempt to put her back on the tank. ‘I’m fine! I’m fine! I can do that on my own!’

I thought it was the end. I was relieved, relaxed, ready to ran towards Unn and celebrate the success of this scary ordeal when Kris opened the door.

He wasn’t meant to be there.

Kris’s eyes went immediately to Zhofie, and she smiled with all her pointy teeth and sounded like the New Year’s festivities had come early. ‘Hello, Kris, long time no seen. I’m sure your parents would’ve sent their greetings if they knew where you are.‘

Your mother froze on the spot. Fear took over his entire body. He looked at Lóránt with Unn still in their arms (Unn’s voice died when Kris came in), at me in my mid-celebration dance, and somehow that made him able to move again. Kris ran out of the room as quickly as he came in.

And I made the mistake of asking the obvious. Not to Lóránt, the adult I trusted, but to Zhofie, the stranger with the glowing powers.

‘Do you know Kris?'

‘Since he was a little adorable horned baby. He looks awful now without his horns.'

That was when I found out your mother was a demon. I had until then been under the (self-imposed) illusion that Kris was a shape-shifter because of his lack of horns. This revelations planted all sorts of question in my mind: how was this possible? Why didn’t Kris have horns? What was he doing being protected by an angel? Was he evil like most other demons in the world?

‘Go to your room, Nessa. Stay there until I let you out.’

Lóránt tried to protect me, but it was too late. My curiosity had already been picked, and because I was under Zhofie’s spell I became convinced she was the only one able to answer all my questions and tell me the truth about Kris. So I did as Lóránt told me, but only because I was planning something else. I wrote about it in my diary. I had to see Zhofie again no matter what.

My last memory is that of sneaking out of Lóránt’s safe house and being glad I wasn’t caught. Zhofie awaited me at the next corner. I rushed to meet her. To see that pointy smile again. To get the answers I knew she had.

‘Are you really going to tell me everything?’ I asked her.

‘I’ll do much more than that.’ She smiled, running her tongue over her pointy teeth, and my mind went blank.

Thanks for reading!
The chapter is a bit later today because I spent the whole day away at work. I actually left the office in Edinburgh at 4pm, but by the time I arrived at the train station it was already at rush hour, which meant my cheap day ticket wouldn't be valid again until 18:30. So I stayed at the train station for nearly 2 hours writing more FOHT, then took the train back to Glasgow, which was 10 min late... only to find out that the next train I needed to get to actually be home had been cancelled due to signal problems... and so had the next one... 
I got home at 9pm. Making a trip that usually takes less than 2 hours. 
On the plus side, got another 2.5 chapters of FOHT written!  
And the lateness and tiredness is the reason I only have the time and energy to remind people that my Patreon exists before I call it a day and go to bed. 
So there, my Patreon exists. You have been reminded.
Until next week, then!