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Waves lap onto the shore. A young woman was lying down in the grass with her eyes closed to everything. The world around her was drifting in and out of focus and it was so peaceful she could not bear to move. The wind picks up just a bit and she could feel her pulse tapping in time within her. She wasn’t sure what time it was, and she did not care, she was too worn-out. With the wind strengthening she heard the waves roll in with more urgency, which roused her just enough to open her eyes. The sun was setting and she had to squint to see through twilight’s haze. The clouds were drifting on a breeze that was much too high for it to affect her nearest surroundings but still moved the clouds. A distant crackle of thunder boomed in the sky. Lightning flashed miles away and with no rain to sooth the storm’s temper the grass around her was struck and she was lying in the flames. Trapped but not in fire herself, she could see a man just outside of the ring of unnatural fire. The moments stretched on as the flames grew, but didn’t get closer, and the man smirked in a calculated way and vanished. It all came back, flooding in; she had never forgotten it, it was just below the surface, and it made her cry in dawning realization as laughter, harsh and cruel came to her in waves like the previously calm sea all around her without a source to be seen.
The alarm on her nightstand sounded in her ears and the dream passed away. She remembered everything like she always was forced to and how the serenity of her inner self was being broken by his laughter. She knew she did not have time for these rambling thoughts, so she emptied her mind once again and crawled out of bed. Naiya knew he had a busy day planned for her that had no time for thoughts that were of her own creation.
The trial was about to start, and the judge walked in taking his seat.
Everyone returned to their seats, and she knew that this was it; soon she would have to tell them all what he had planned for her to say because they would never survive if she told them the truth.
She remembered the night he had had a plan for a new ‘game’ they could play. He had her buy an apartment for herself with his money and he created a life for her in the muggle world. She was to keep her name and he would feed her pieces of her muggle past so she could fit in.
That was five years ago, and he would disappear from her life for months on end and during those times she would fancy herself free from him. He would always come back and after that first time of trying to leave and hide from him she never did it again. Too many people had mysteriously died.
She had learned her lesson that day when she had seen the news report of the deaths of those children. So she went to work, lived in the same cottage, and visited the cliffs everyday just as he told her to.
She knew the muggles would only be hurt if she strayed from his instructions, but there had to be some sort of release from him, right?
He would get away with it, though she begged inside herself to be able to kill him before he did; when her thoughts turn like that she became more scared in those moments than during anything else he had done to her.
‘I’m a monster.’ She thought to herself.
She had been his prisoner for years but he would taunt and torment her in her mind where no one could see or help, not that they could fight him. He was changing her more than just physically and relishing every moment of it.
Opening statements were given and the trial started off without any surprises; not that there would be any. He knew what he was doing and had them all in hand even though they had no idea.
His new ‘game within a game’ had started a year ago.
He would go out and not come back for a few weeks and then stay for a few days and then do it again.
She would continue her muggle life as if she was there and never varying the life he made her lead.
A few months ago, he had come home bloodied with someone else’s blood and attacked her.
As he was attacing her he told her this was part of his new part of the game and that she was supposed to fight back and make sure to mark him.
He took her again she did as she was told, only because she was told to and not because she could fight back against him anymore. Then he told her that when he finished with her, she was to call the police and tell them exactly what happened but leaving out their connection. She did as she was told to the letter and covered herself waiting for the police to come.
She cleared her mind again because it had started to wander and Naiya felt a chill run up her spine as he looked at her. ‘Why is he looking at me? I’m doing what he told me! Oh goddess! He knows I’m thinking about it! He’s inside my head again!’ She worried to herself. By now she was forcing herself go numb for the sake of the muggles.
The judge had ruled that he was to be remanded to custody because he was a flight risk and she had just laughed inwardly at the irony of it. ‘Flight risk, ha! What do they know of him? If only they knew, they would have rid themselves of him for their own safety.’ She thought to herself. He was doing this for fun, he wanted it, and that thought crept its way into her mind as he looked at her again without breaking eye contact. ‘I can’t think this way,’ she screamed at herself, ‘I can’t! He hears me! He is using that power again!’
White hot fear sank in now and he smiled that cold calculated smile at what he was doing to her.
‘He knows!’ She felt the urge to run, yet thank all the gods above and below, this part was over and she knew that it was time to go home, if she could even call it that. Home was a word for a sanctuary; this horrible place could not be labeled as such.
A few days had past since the start of the trial, he was in the state’s custody for the duration and Naiya let herself think on this finally. ‘Where is he? How are those poor prisoners that cannot escape him? What tricks is he playing on them? When will he tire of this this time?’ Thinking this she knew she had to let go of it, it would draw him here, and that was not safe. She rose from the couch and went in the bathroom to take a shower. With the water running over her skin she felt a comfort, albeit a small one. All she wanted was to go back to the way things were before all this happened; to be happy with her family, carefree and innocent again.
Her thoughts strayed to her life before he invaded it with his soft words and seemingly innocent games.
Tall trees on all sides of their glade made up the protection from outsiders as well as the faerie ring of mushrooms that only the young mortals could cross. Bright, lush grass and soft mosses line the glade and glow with the light from natural magic. Unicorns, Centaurs, Acromantulas, Thestrals, and all the Werewolves that have come to change during the moon each month had all made pacts for peace with the earliest inhabitants of the forest. The ancient ones had also made peace with the four founders of the Wizarding School just off the boarders of their forest and it was renewed each time a headmaster was changed, up to the most recent, Albus Dumbledore. The treaties as well as the blood oaths have long stood firm. The evil wizard who came to the forest slaughtering unicorns was one of the first to truly break with the tradition of staying under the rule and guidance of the faeries.
Naiya had met with Dumbledore on numerous occasions when Wiz V (as she had playfully called him) had broached protocol as well as when students would be found in the forest. As for Hagrid, she had even offered to be admired by his students during one of their lessons. Pretty leaf and flower dresses as well as games and magic were all that she had focused on for any real length of time. That was until a young wizard boy found his way to the forest’s center and into the midst of the faeries. She had welcomed him herself, flitted through his tawny curls, and helped him to get over his fear of her forest home. After much work on her part his loud shrieking screams were a thing of the past, unless he had to come with other wizards. She had never understood the need to make them think he was afraid until it was much too late.
She missed her care-free days when she had thought the mind sharing was just a game.
Naiya just let the hot water run through her muggle brown hair and soothe away the past for a little while. Stepping out of the shower she prepared for bed and drifted off to a dreamless sleep that only exhaustion can bring to her.
The next morning after rising from her bed she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were hollow again. This place still scared her, all this cruelty, pain, and deceit. ‘How do they live like this, with no magic to light up their lives?’ She ponders to herself once more.
It seems to her that that is why they are so miserable.
It has been a few days since she was last in the courtroom, and she was uneasy about seeing him face to face again so soon. He kidnapped her from her home, used her nature against her. Used that nature to destroy her family and all those who ever met her. He took away her powers.
Then, if that were not enough, he had taken her innocence in every way he could.
Now he is using her to play games with muggles and their justice system.
Thinking about all that he put her through had her rocking back and fourth with confusion and misery. She had tears running down her checks from loneliness and inner turmoil. Yet most of all she felt guilt for the things she had had to do for that monster.
She went over all her recent changes as she investigated the mirro by her bedside table.
She had been short for her kind, but since he took her she had trouble coping with her dramatic new height. She has long dull brown hair where it was once the color of sun ripened berries in forest’s glade. Some had called her hair a mane which she has always let the wind ravage as she flew; now she ties it up like most muggles do. Her eyes are a dull grey where once it was the color of a new forming storm, and framed with thick dark lashes and years ago those eyes were always smiling.
Most of all, she missed the freedom she had before, her wings.
She knew she was powerless and had to stay or he would torture the muggles again.
This thought scared her as well; she had not been used to feeling hate or fear for anything darker before he came into her life.
Now, she could never be as before.
She screamed again at nothing and everything, she was no longer a faerie, she was a muggle even, and that made her hate him again; but she had more than that to hate him for now. She rose another time from the floor where she had fallen and dressed to return to the beach. She decided not to think on it, she can’t even recollect what she was forced to do without drawing his attention. So she pulls out some clothes and gets dressed for the beach like he told her to do.
After her bike ride to the cliffs she lay at the boundary and looks out toward the ocean. Closely she listens to the waves rush onto the beach below, while she sighs in guarded wonder of it.
The wind changes course and she can feel each blade of grass on her skin tickle her as it moves to the breeze now turned towards her.
Sitting up she removes her pants and sandals, so she is in her bathing suit as she climbs down the rope ladder to the water’s edge.
Something pushes her to the water as it calls to her. As she quickly put her things down she runs to the water and is pulled into a wave. Their voices are all there, just below muggle hearing range, they are dwelling, trapped beneath the waves.
The place beyond the veil, where they were sent, has vents to let them find loved ones or give them the illusion that they could escape, a false hope. She thinks to herself, ‘It’s all my fault!’ and she screams at them that she is sorry, with the tears streaming down her face.
She can feel them cowering in her presence.
The Fae are trapped beyond the veil, her friends and loved ones, they are supposed to be energetic and blithe but that had been taken from them. She took that away from them with her innocent act of trust and by her bond to the evil one.
She could feel him in her mind, and they could feel it as well.
They seem to call out as one in agony of the situation.
‘He is using me to hurt them. How to I reestablish the bond? Will we ever escape him?’ she asks herself. This was one thing she could never figure out, was that was why she could not save them?
She never thought that his connection through her could hurt them by her connection to them.
Now she understood what he has been doing but it is too late.
‘But how is he doing it?’ Naiya ponders. She could always feel what he was doing. ‘He is using my connection, as a gateway to get to the very heart of them, but how?! How can he access it and I can’t? I know he took away the ability for me to end my own life to save theirs long ago. What more can I do? Where is his power feeding from me to them?’ Naiya cries out to them in wails of grief and confusion just hoping for a respite for them. About half an hour after he entered her mind and began the daily torture she could feel him leave her. With a rush, like always, she collapses. Being in the ocean as she drops she feels the water come over her head; enveloping her before she can resist the pull.
The Blue-green clear water encompassing Naiya calls out to her, the voices of her wronged family and friends speak. Every syllable uttered by them cuts into her, dragging her down towards the bottom. With her head pounding from the tumult of voices and from the depth of the water around her, darkness was beginning to take root in her vision. When the edges of her sight gave way to the blackness trying the invade she thought only of her love for her family and friends long lost.
There was no fear or sorrow in her; only love for them, her love opened the veil. With her will to give herself if there was a way to free them she had opened the veil to them after nine years of hell. Then, she felt more than heard, their endless pain fade into the background and their self take root once more. Their bond with her was reestablished in the mortal plane. Her inner voice blended with theirs and she felt almost whole again.
Naiya could feel his anger through her connection with him. The monster’s connection was weakening. Not much, but enough so she could think clearly for the first time since she imprisoned her family. She could feel and hear their magic flow to her in their peaceful freeing music like before. The colors were brighter and she felt lighter than she had ever felt in her muggle form. Moving a bit she realizes she is still stuck in the mortal form yet with her family and friends free and helping her she makes it back to the shore gasping for air.
The faeries surround Naiya as she forces herself to stand on her shaky legs. Flitting around her in their non-corporeal forms they remind her that they love her and her mother comes to her and kisses the air right in front of her face.
With a swirling of lights, they are gone to be reborn.
She picked her things up from the sandy ground and placed them in the basket on her bicycle before riding home to do as she was told with the comfort that her family was free from the monster’s influence even if she wasn’t. She felt free.