The Dark Fairy

Chapter Six

A cold breeze swirled through the remains of the Great Oak Tree. It made the golden skirts of Heartha's gown dance with graceful, undulating movements. The coolness of the air bit at Alina's bare arms and caused goose bumps to raise upon her skin. However, she didn't care. She didn't care whether she'll ever be warm again! For she couldn't imagine this to be possible now that her Mama was gone.

Gone and never coming back.

Alina's breath caught in her throat and she couldn't bring herself to look up from her shaking hands.

"Murderer," the Mother of Fairies uttered in a dangerous whisper. "Carabosse, you creature of darkness. Created from destruction. You have shown your true self. The side I've always known to be there, the side you tried to hide. You may have managed to fool my poor sister. But I know. I've always known. You are evil."

Alina didn't dare to look at her mother's face. Neither did she dare to argue. For she could no longer see how she could possibly contradict those words. Not after what just happened.

"You have no place amongst the light, amongst my children." Disdain dripped from Heartha's lips. "Carabosse, you are banished. I never want to see you within my forest again!" The Mother of Fairies' voice echoed unnaturally as she spoke. A spell was then cast and sparkling lilac magic surrounded Alina's crouching form.

The magic scratched at her legs, arms and face and she felt an aggressive force pull at her. The trees of the Enchanted Forest disappeared into a thick fog.

When Alina blinked her eyes open, she found herself in a place that she had never seen before. It was a dark and lonely place. It perfectly reflected the state of her grieving mind.

Everywhere she turned, she saw death. The grass underneath her had turned yellow, brown and grey. The ground was dry and hard. The tree that stood behind her was black and it twisted in a way that looked eerie and strange. The sky that stretched over her, scorched a blood-red.

Alina drank in the destruction that she saw, not one part of her felt like she didn't belong there.

"Mother is right," she whispered to herself. "I am a murderer. I don't deserve anything but death."

She lay upon the hardened earth and brought her trembling knees to her heaving chest.

"Mama, Mama?" She couldn't stop herself from crying out into the still, silent air. "Where are you, Mama?" Her lips quivered and hot, black tears streamed down her face. They dripped from her cheek upon the dusty, dry ground.

A shiver made its way down her spine and over her arms. She instinctively covered herself - using one of her large black wings as a makeshift canopy to shelter her from the unforgiving cold.

"Mama, you are nowhere," she answered her own question. "I have destroyed you. My one and only friend. Oh Mama... I am sorry... I..." Alina's grief took a tight grip upon her throat making her choke upon her desperate rasping breaths. "You were wrong about me, Mama, you were wrong." Her voice shook as she shivered uncontrollably with overwhelming sadness. "I am not your light. I am nobody's light. I am not Alina. My name is Carabosse. It was always meant to be, and so it shall be, forevermore."

In that moment, lying beneath her raven wing. Carabosse fully embraced her birth name. A name she now saw as the perfect reflection of who she truly was. Not a light in the darkness, but the darkness itself, incarnate.

With that last thought crushing deep inside her mind, Carabosse cried herself to sleep. She cried black tears that eliminated the last ember of light that her Mama managed to ignite inside of her. This felt like such a long time ago, even though she knew that she embraced her Mama happily that very morning.