Dragon Fey - Mara DragonClaw (best free ebook reader .txt) 📗

she had them set out on the windowsill and pulled her tangled black hair into a loose foxtail. She then went over to her dresser and searched the top of it for her squirrel bone comb. “Blast it! I know that thing must be around here somewhere…” She pushed aside a wilted violet, “Ha! There you are! Oh, rats.” In her hands she held a broken comb of squirrel bone.

“What happened to you, I wonder?”  The comb was split into two equal parts as if someone had gotten mad at it and broke it in half. It was also missing a majority of its teeth, which, on further examination, Aria found laying around where she had originally found the comb. Aria looked at the comb carefully, as if she was searching for something specific. “Ha!” she declared, “Festus you naughty thing! Where are you hiding?”

Festus was the name of Aria’s overly enthusiastic fey-windle. A fey-windle is a much smaller variation of the windle, which is an incredibly cute furball reminiscent of a long haired pill bug that comes in pale shades of green, blue, and purple.

Of course, Aria knew where Festus was hiding: he was under the pillow next to the one she actually put her head on, like he always was when he got out. “Hmm, I wonder where he could be?” Said Aria, stroking her chin in mock-deep though and turning around the room, letting her eyes settle on Festus’s usual hiding place. Sure enough, poking out from under the corner of the pillow was the unmistakable rear end of a pale blue fey-windle.

Keeping up her ridiculous detective-like look, Aria walked over to the pillow and placed her hand on it. When she did, the fury backside disappeared underneath it. “Aha!” cried Aria in a fake detective voice as she lifted the pillow up dramatically to reveal a cowering fey-windle.

“Naughty, naughty, Festus. You know we don’t chew on things,” she said, scooping up the fey-windle in her hands and showing it the broken comb. Festus cowered further, but Aria continued, “Would you like to tell me how you keep getting out of your pen? If you do, the squirrel and I may forgive you.”

Fairies have the belief that when animals die, they pass on their essence to their bones and that bones are something to be respected. Of course, things could be made from bone if it was done in the right way, or she wouldn’t have a squirrel bone comb in the first place. Aria treated this practice very skeptically, another thing that made her different. While she got that you should respect the remains of a once living being, she didn't think that a phantom squirrel was going to come and punish Festus for chewing on a comb. Of course, Festus didn’t know that.

He uncurled slowly, as if testing for any hostilities before rolling out to his full length. Festus was around 7/12 of an inch long, about the size of Aria’s hand.  He was one of the biggest fey-windles Aria had ever seen, most of them were only 5/12 of an inch. Aria thought that it might be because she had raised him from a pup and her gift of animal caring had helped him along.

He went over to the edge of Aria’s hand, their signal for “Put me down please”. She lowered her hand so that it was parallel to the bed. Festus crawled off of her hand and onto the bed, tickling Aria’s fingers with his long, pale blue fur. He then crawled off the bed using a dead petunia as a ramp and went over the the other side of the room.

Aria walked over to where he was huddled in the corner, curious as to what he was doing. When she got over to the corner, she crouched down beside Festus only to have him vanish. She jerked back, startled at Festus’s sudden disappearance before she shook of her startlement and searched around the corner for where he had gone.

“All right Festus, I give up. Where are you?” Aria finally said. Not too long after that, Festus’s furry little head popped out from what appeared to be solid wall. Again, Aria jerked back a little, startled at Festus’s revelation before she saw what it was. “Hey! That’s not fair! You know I can’t open those without magic, and you also know that I have been forbidden to use my magic because of the effect it would have on the balance of the Hollow - or something like that.”

Aria was very ticked that the elders had forbidden her from using her magic. Something that, when found in normal fairies, is worshiped as the greatest blessing the gods can give. But when they discovered that she had it, things did not go down well. The elders saw it as a cursed being stealing from the wealth of the gods, and when she had pointed out that if the gods didn’t want her to have it then they would have smited her already… Well it didn’t go down well.

Fustus gave what Aria assumed was an apologetic squeak before coming all the way out of his magical tunnel. Aria picked Festus up and held him at eye level, “I still don’t know how you manage to do that,” she said. Aria sighed before setting him down again, Maybe it’s because of me. She shook off this thought, Festus couldn't possibly have learned magic from her; She wasn’t even allowed to use it.

“I better find a way to patch that hole up,” Aria said, standing and looking at where she knew the hole was. Festus went over to the edge of her hand and Aria put him down. He then scurried over to the hole in the wall and waved his eight legs over it in a weird pattern. He then turned to Aria and gave a weird half-bow that consisted of him scrunching up his body and then relaxing it again. Aria took this as “Ta da!”. She looked at Festus curiously, not seeing any change in the wall. Festus gave a squeak of what Aria thought might be exasperation before running headfirst into the wall. Nothing happened. Well, Festus stumbled dizzily away from the wall with a dent in his blue fur, but nothing abnormal happened.

“Thank you Festus,” said Aria, stifling a laugh as her small friend stumbled around like a bird that had eaten some overripe berries. “Oh dear,” she said after Festus had succeeded in knocking over several flower pots and a small, green, decorative vase, “Let me help you,” she picked Festus up and set him down gently on the bed.

“What is taking you so long?” Calea called through the floor. All of a sudden Aria realized that she had been up in her room far too long and still hadn’t combed her hair. To make things worse, she also realized that soon everyone would be out in the forest for the daily berry picking and if she didn’t go out soon she would be put into a group to do it instead of going alone.

“Sorry! I’m coming down in a minute!” she called before running her hand through her hair and gently picking up Festus. Aria then ran downstairs, the now open door flapping about behind her in her hurry.

She blew past Calea, who was standing in the kitchen with Aria’s breakfast; leaving her with a shocked expression and empty hands. “By love you gotta go bye!” Aria said in one quick breath as she flew past Calea, turning around when she reached the door to blow her a kiss before launching off into a mostly steady flight pattern.

“Bye,” said Calea weakly as she watched her adopted daughter fly out the door, I wonder what’s gotten into her? Was the only thought that she thought before going back to preparing her own breakfast.

Aria’s wings glinted in the greenish light that filtered in through the leaves of the Great Willow that protected her Hollow, the blues and greens and coppers and golds all tinted pale green with the early morning light.

There were a few other fairies flitting about doing their morning business, but they all either ignored Aria or made a point to make an exaggeratedly large circle around her in avoidance. She passed by Jacob’s house, which was built into the hollowed out branch of the Great Willow, like most fairy houses where. But his was much larger seeing that his status was higher and his parents mostly piggy-backed off of that; not in a bad way though, they really just took advantage of circumstances. I mean, who wouldn’t?

Jacob was out on the front steps of the house working with some of the more difficult seedlings. Jacob looked up, as if sensing her presence. They started to smile and wave to each other, but then some of the neighbor fairies gave Aria a nasty look and the two of them turned away from each other, both of them turning a certain shade of red commonly associated with embarrassment.

Jacob continued on with the plants and Aria continued on her way to where she needed to sign out to go collect berries early. The place was in the most convenient spot: the complete opposite side of the Hollow from where Aria lived.

After about five additional minutes of flying, Aria landed gracefully at the foot of the steps leading up to the front door of the “Berry Building”. It wasn’t technically named the Berry Building, everyone just called it that. It was really supposed to be called the SISOFEALBPC, or the Sign In Sign Out For Early And Late Berry Picking Center.

Aria walked up the five wooden steps, counting to see which one creaked; she had been meaning to tell them which one so they could fix it. It was the third one from the bottom. Aria made a mental note of this before going inside.

“Hello and welcome to the SISOFEALBPC! What can I help you wi- Oh, it’s you,” the female voice started out cheery and turned sour after it realised whom it was addressing. “What do you want?” It said rather impatiently.

Great, thought Aria, it’s Jamie’s shift. Jamie was probably one of the most liked fairies in the entire Hollow, bested only by Jacob. She was strikingly beautiful with glowing auburn hair and intricately crafted, peacock blue butterfly wings. She was always wearing something that went with them. Today, the matching item was one of those jackets that fey wear with fashion in mind and reason in- well, who knows where reason is when they wear those kinds of jackets.

Jamie disliked Aria. And that was an understatement. Relatively speaking, for the margin to remain consistent between the severity of how much everyone else disliked Aria, and the severity of how much Jamie disliked Aria, if Jamie only disliked Aria, then everyone else would lover her to bits.

“I would like to sign for early berry picking if that would be all right,” said Aria, trying to keep a cool head. Let’s just say that Aria didn’t particularly like Jamie either.

“Of course,” said Jamie, now putting on a false, sickly sweet smile, “just give me moment to get it, would you?” Jamie walked through a door in the back as if the sign in sheet wasn’t just behind the counter where Aria could see it plainly.

After what must have been four minutes, Jamie came back out with a puzzled expression on her face, “Oh dear,” she said, feigning puzzlement, “I seem to have misplaced it…” she looked around the room with a mock thoughtful expression on her face, though she looked straight over the sign in sheet several times.

“Um,” started Aria hesitantly, she didn’t want to set Jamie off, but she was in a real rush, “I think I see it over there,” she pointed to where the sign in sheet was on the other side of the counter.

“Oh! Thank you!” said Jamie, this time letting a little bit of sarcasm seep into her