A Battle of Pride and Desire

Chapter Ten

Brigette and Taran were sitting for their lesson a few hours later than planned and had gone through Erinea's history, maths problems, literature, and spelling. They had not addressed the whole Juno leaving a message thing. He had also not let Brigette go outside to see what She had done. The queen ordered for the clean up and regrowing of the flowers that had been destroyed. The petal was stored away somewhere where Brigette was never going to find. Brigette appreciated the queen doing her best to be transparent with Brigette by asking to speak last night. While Brigette had no idea what was going on, she was quite confident the queen and Taran didn't know much more than she did. However, they were natives to Magmella. Brigette wasn't well versed in magic and things of that nature. The queen had yet to reveal what her gift was, Brigette was pretty sure she would still be shocked upon learning. This world was one she could never get used to. Taran was droning on and on about how she was mixing up her vowels but Brigette had tuned him out. She hadn't forgotten his little episode on the courtyard the previous day. While he was farther away from her than usual, he was in better form now, bad omens or no.

"Brigette, are you listening to me?"

"Yes," she said, not registering what he was saying. She didn't really care. These lessons were a ridiculous idea, bigger things were at play.

"What did I just say?"

"Hm?" she sang.

He rolled his eyes and closed the book, "Spell fascinating."

She deliberated for a moment, "F-a-s-e-n-a-t-e-e-n-g?"

He sighed, "Ettie, come on, we've been at this for half an hour."

"Stop calling me that."

"Why not?" he smirked.

That smirk was beginning to get on her nerves, it was just another one of his million masks he had in his repertoire. Nothing about him was real, nothing about this entire place was real.

"Tell me what happens to humans who come here," she demanded.

"Oh? No more spelling?" he teased.

She wasn't going to dignify that with a response.

"There haven't been many of you," he began, but Brigette already had another question brewing.

"I was reading yesterday-" A sound of disbelief came out of Taran's mouth that Brigette decided to ignore. "There were a lot of images associated with birth and rebirth. What do they mean?"

"If you would let me finish, I was getting to that," he chastised. "When humans come into our world they do become 'born again' if you will. You are immortal right now, and you will stay looking like you do now for a long time. But if you returned to Erinea in 50 years and touched Erinean soil; you would look your age once more."

Brigette mulled this over, "So if I stayed here forever, I would be like you?"

"Pretty much. The humans who crossed over into our world were normally well esteemed warriors, people who had already achieved much with their life. They never felt the need to return to Erinea."

"It was them who rid us of that famine 500 years ago wasn't it?" Brigette realised.

"There used to be a group of them who lived right in that town centre outside," Taran nodded. "I never knew them but my grandfather says they were good people."

Brigette expected no less from Erinea's best. So it was true, The Good Folk had saved them, just not in the way she thought, "Was it your people who planted the crops; the daoine sídhe?"

"It was," Taran said. "It was your people who made us aware of what was happening though."

"Why wouldn't people like me if the humans that came before me were good?"