*
“I wanted to be there for him.”
Morning had come, and all Samira had done since she’d woken up, was sit inside the infirmary, waiting for Queen Eloine’s confirmation that she could continue healing him. Thomas had joined her after a while, unknowing whether or not she would lose it if she was left waiting too long.
“You are there for him, Samira,” Thomas said. “Like you always have been. He knows you are.”
“No, I wasn’t there for him to prevent him from getting hit,” Samira replied. “I... This curse was meant for me. I should be the one lying in this bed.” her voice started to falter, and she stopped talking to prevent the tears from streaming down her cheeks.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Thomas said. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. I caused the curse to get sent in another direction.” He paused for a second, but then was reminded of something. “And by the way, you know you would’ve died almost instantly if you would’ve been cursed, right?”
“Does it make a difference?” Samira said and looked at Thomas. She looked as if she was about to cry. “Now he’s dying.”
“He’s already looking better than last night. I think he’s recovering,” Thomas said. “I mean – the marks are already fading.”
“Thinking, assuming, it’s still no assurance that he’ll ever recover, Thom,” Samira sighed in desperation. “I- I just can’t accept that one of us won’t make it out of here alive! It’s not fair! Not towards him, not towards any of us! We never chose to be here! I- I want to go home! I want to forget all of this and pretend like it’s never happened!
I want to wake up from this terrible nightmare!”
To finally tell her troubles and speak from her heart was hard for Samira, because it made her finally realise that she was feeling just as scared as James had been in the past few days. It was hard for Samira to accept that she was scared, but it was the truth.
And – she wasn’t alone. Thomas admitted to her was more scared than he had ever been in his entire life. In barely a week, they had nearly been killed over four times – and now James was at the brink of death. But this was different – he was there on his own, with no one else to share the pain with.
And it was serious pain.
“Thomas, yesterday you said you trusted me. That I could do it. That I could succeed in healing him. You said you trusted Queen Eloine and Violina. So please trust me now when I say that you’re not the one to blame. James wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
Thomas looked at Samira, and Samira looked at Thomas.
“He wouldn’t want you to blame yourself, either,” Thomas simply said. “He would’ve done the same for you.”
“You’re... you’re right.” Samira smiled weakly. “Can you smile for me, Thomas?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Thomas replied, but did smile at her eventually.
He’s so gorgeous when he smiles, Samira suddenly thought. I never noticed before.
She didn’t have more time to think about Thomas’ smile though, because Queen Eloine and Violina walked into the room. They looked exactly the same as the day before, like they’d never gone to sleep at all.
“I understand the way you must be feeling about this,” Violina said, as she approached the duo.
“I understand that you’re fearing for the life of you and your friends,” Queen Eloine said, as she joined her sister.
“But both of you; keep holding on to faith. Keep holding on to hope and you’ll find out everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not, then it’s not the end,” Violina continued.
“If one of us dies, it’s the end, and then it’s not okay,” Thomas answered the Queen and the Princess – if she was one.
“Death doesn’t have to be the end of the line, Thomas,” Violina said. “What that means, you will learn on your journey.”
Thomas threw her an uncomprehending look for a few seconds, but then his attention went back to the Queen.
“I’m assuming you want to continue healing him?” he asked. Queen Eloine nodded.
“I know what you are trying to ask, Thomas. But no matter how bas you want to stay with him, to watch over him, you won’t help him by staying here and exhausting yourself by worrying and not sleeping. I want you to go take some rest.”
Thomas stared at Queen Eloine.
“I-” he mumbled. “I- All right.”
He stood up, and Samira joined him. But in order to do so, she had to let go of James’s hand. As soon as James had lost the touch of his sister’s hand, he started to wince.
Without opening his eyes, James attempted to lift up the hand Samira’s hand had just let go of, seeking to get her back.
“Samira... don’t go!” he wheezed, and at that exact moment, the marks on James’s hands and face that had once been fading, now turned pitch black and because dark as they had been before the first healing.
“Q-Queen Eloine? What’s going on? What’s happening to him?” Samira shouted in shock.
Thomas just covered his mouth with his hand in horror. What was happening? All Samira had done was remove her hand.
“Samira, Violina, we must act now. I need the both of you to assist me,” Queen Eloine said. There was a trace of panic in her eyes. “Somehow, James has caused the Flu to skip two stages. His situation is critical.”
“But what has caused this to happen?” Samira said , still horrified.
Queen Eloine glared at her. “You,” she said. “It happened when you let go of his hand. Fear has triggered this, Samira.” She paused for a second. “Fear of being alone.”
“So...” Thomas mumbled.
“Samira, while we attempt to heal him with the potion, you have to keep holding his hand. You need to tell him that you’re still there. You have to remind him he’s not alone,” Queen Eloine said. “That might be the only way to slow the Flu down and save him. And no matter what you do: don’t stop trying.”
Samira bit her lip and nodded. She sat back down on the bed, while the two fairies approached James from the head’s end of the bed, carrying the bowl with the golden liquid.
It was the last flower they had. It was James’s last hope. If this didn’t work, nothing would.
Samira grabbed James’s hand and started to talk desperately. “James, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay, James. I promise. You hear me?” she whispered.
“You’re going to be okay...” She stopped for a second and listened to the song the fixies were singing while healing him. It was some kind of Latin chant, but she couldn’t understand what they were singing.
But of course, Thomas could.
“Power of the Spirits, we hereby summon thee
To help us save this soul, to set the Magic inside it free
Help him, help him
Solve his damned fate
Reverse the clock, turn back time
Help him, help him,
It’s not too late”
Samira stopped listening to the singing fixies as soon as she saw James’s eyes moving behind his eyelids.
“Sam...ira...” the boy gasped weakly, barely audible due to the two fixies who were trying all they could to save his life.
“James, I’m so sorry I dragged you into this mess,” Samira cried. “I’m so sorry James...”
“Samira...” James gasped. “You... shouldn’t... be...”
The redhead teenager let out his breath and stopped moving, causing Samira’s heart to skip a beat. Or two. Or many.
“JAMES!” Samira screamed. “JAMES! HOLD ON! You’re going to be okay, you hear me? You can do this! You are strong enough! You’re going to be all right...” Her voice slowly faded out from powerful yelping to soft, heartbreaking throbs. “You’re going to be fine... James... Please... Wake up!”
Suddenly, something impossible happened. A bright, golden light quickly spread across the black marks, and caused James to float a few centimetres above the bed.
The now brightl
y glowing marks separated into tiny, golden energy bulbs with a flash before disappearing. James had been cured.
The light extinguished as the last energy bulbs disappeared, and James slowly sank down to the bed.
When Samira finally had gathered enough courage to look at James’s face, he noticed that all the marks had disappeared, revealing how pale the boy had been underneath them.
James’s chest raised and lowered slowly and steadily.
“James?” Samira whispered. Tears stung behind her eyes, but she managed to hold herself strong enough not to let them go. She heard Thomas behind her, approaching them carefully.
James’s eyes moved behind his eyelids again before he managed to open his eyes a little.
“Samira,” the sixteen-year-old uttered with a weak smile on his face.
“Oh, James,” Samira let out in a sigh of relief. “You’re-”
“Tired,” James interrupted him with a broad yawn. “Tired and weak, but alive.”
Thomas smiled at James. “We should let you rest a little,” he said.
“It seems like they’ve completely forgotten about us two still being here,” Violina said, but smiled when James heard her and smiled at her.
“Oh well. He’s back in the world of the living and that’s what matters,” Samira said; as she noticed James had managed to sit up, she laughed and hugged him tight. James laughed as well.
Two voices, loudly talking, were approaching the room. It wasn’t hard to identify the two voices as Bella and Antonio, arguing as usual. “But he wasn’t there all night, he must have-” Antonio replied to something Bella had said as they entered the room, but he was quickly interrupted by Bella.
“Look, Antonio! He’s back!”
“James! You’re all right!” Antonio grinned.
“Of course I am,” James said, slightly overconfident. He was recovering quickly, but it was unlikely that he would be allowed to run about by Samira straight away.
Nobody seemed to notice that something had been going down between Violina and her sister; they were arguing silently. “Fine,” Eloine said finally, to conclude the argument.
“We’ll leave you guys alone for a minute,” Violina said, as she chased her sister, who was stomping out of the room. “We’ll be right back.”
“So, James,” Bella said, as she sat down on the bed, on the other side of James. “How are you feeling now?”
“Much better, luckily,” James said; the colour had started to return to his face, leaving a lot more of a healthy impression than he’d done a few minutes ago. “So, Antonio, in case you want to fight me one of these days; I’m open for business!”
But to everyone’s surprise, Antonio wasn’t there. “Where’d he go?” Bella said.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said on an irritated tone. “But I’ll find him. You guys just wait a minute.”
Thomas checked everywhere; the bedroom, the main room; even the bathroom stall outside the temple. But Antonio was nowhere to be found.
As he entered the hallway on his way back to the infirmary, Thomas noticed a door that had been opened at a crack.
He heard Violina and Queen Eloine discussing at the other side of the door, and it sounded seriously.
Thomas wasn’t an eavesdropper by nature, but the way the discussion between the two sisters sounded caused him to get curious, so he decided to silently listen at the door for a while.
“Violina, I am begging you to come back.”
“No, Elly! I’m a threat to the entire Forest!”
“No one blames you for that incident.”
“Well, you might not, but I do! I feel bad for being responsible for the end of almost two Generations of the Bond of Light!”
“Violina, please! None of this is your fault!”
Thomas was so surprised to hear Antonio’s voice, that he nearly smacked his head against the door. Antonio gently pushed him aside, gesturing at him that he had to be silent, and walked into the room.
“Violina, please, listen to me. You are the best person I’ve met here so far.”
He gently grabbed one of the fixie’s hands as he guided her toward two chairs and made her sit down.
“From what you’ve told us, you have tried what you could; and here we are. You have saved us. Multiple times. It’s time for you to believe in yourself.”
Violina looked from Antonio to her sister, who was nodding in agreement.
“He’s right, Violina,” she said. “Please come back. Take your crown and title back. Please. I need you.
I want my little sister back...”
“Why don’t you ask Thomas what he thinks about it?” Violina said; she bent over to look through the doorway, showing the nineteen-year-old a smug face.
Thomas was startled. He just stood there, but no one seemed to mind. “I- I- sorry,” he mumbled. “I should leave. This is rude.”
He walked away quickly, blood rushing to his head in the process.
“I think I startled him,” Violina whispered and chuckled, but that didn’t last long.. She stared at her feet. “I...”
She sighed.
“Do you accept my offer, Violina?” Queen Eloine made an elegant gesture with her hands, and a crown similar to hers appeared in her hands. She held it out to Violina, who looked at it.
Volina stood up and touched the gem in the middle of the crown, stroking a finger across it’s smooth surface.
“All right,” she said, and took the crown.
As soon as it was back on Violina’s head, the place where it belonged, Violina’s dress got surrounded by light. It changed to a beautiful white and silver dress a princess would be jealous of. It looked a little bit like a Cinderella dress, but then with long, thin sleeves that were skin-tight, elegantly following the figure of her tiny arms.
Queen Eloine smiled. “Welcome back, Princess Violina, Princess of the Pixie Valley,” she said and spread out her arms. Violina hugged her sister.
“Thank you, Eloine,” she whispered.