Project Starfae

~ Chapter 12 ~

Third Person, Following Elora

"Councillor Kenric? What do you want now?" Shaylie blurted out, a scowl immediately settling on her face when she spotted the red-haired Councillor at the front door.

"Hello, Shaylie," he replied in a good-natured tone, ignoring her blatant rudeness. "I just wanted to visit and I hoped you would show me around your starfae sanctuary?"

Her scowl turned into a suspicious one, "Why? What's the catch? Are there goblins waiting to knock me out so you can drag me away to Exile and call it an 'unfortunate accident'?"

"Shaylie, as your leaders we would ne—"

"No. Don't give me that nonsense please and thank you."

Kenric sighed heavily as he took his circlet off of his head, "We've realised that we've failed your trust in us, Shaylie."

When his sincerity and guilt smacked her in the face, she opened the door a little bit wider.

"When you ran off after having accidentally revealed to the whole Council about your extremely rare and seventh new ability—"

"Did you even bother to look at my file before you came?" Shaylie scoffed. "I had five abilities before this new one. Not six."

"I apologise. My point is, we failed to gain your trust in us as your leaders. Instead of feeling like you could confide in us and the systems we have in place, you felt as if you had to hide them," he said softly, a gentle smile spreading on his lips. "I came to try and amend that problem. Clearly, none of us Councillors are doing that great, huh? I mean, look at me! I don't even know all your abilities despite your very remarkable file in our archives." He glanced at her purposefully, motioning her to tell him.

She stared at her feet as she mumbled, "I'm a polyglot, phaser, conjurer, empath and telepath—and apparently also an enhancer now."

Kenric's eyes twinkled, "That's quite a collection you've garnered. May I ask you for a tour of your sanctuary? If my memories serve me correctly, I remember barging in here and demanding you to do something as a favour to the Council, but I didn't even bother to learn more about you and the hobby that made us ask you to help Sophie rehabilitate Silveny."

Shaylie bit her lip. Should she? What good would it do her? Clearly, the Councillors—or at least Kenric—were trying to fix things. But what if... Eh, it's not like they could do much more to break the nonexistent trust.

"Sure, I guess," she muttered, opening the door a little more and stepping to the side to let the Councillor in.

Kenric beamed as he stepped inside, "I always forget just how magnificent Solreef is."

Shaylie rolled her eyes, walking down the hall to lead him towards the back door that led to the gardens. She yanked the door open and marched through, leaving him to rush over and catch up.

"So...Starfaes, an interesting choice for pets," he started hesitantly, unsure as to how to start a conversation.

"They're not my pets," she scoffed in response to his failing conversation attempt. "They needed help, so I helped, and in response, they stayed."

"Ah." Councillor Kenric nodded his head like he understood the full context. "So you didn't choose them?"

Shaylie sighed, they were really doing this, "It was either help them or let them die. Councillor, if you think I am so heartless, why are you here?"

"Of course I don't think you're heartless, I apologise for insinuating such things. Would you tell me more about them? There isn't much information about them, but I have a feeling you'd say otherwise."