No Matter What

Chapter XII

The spears barred my entrance. The guards had come out of nowhere. It seemed like they had been invisible or incredibly well camouflaged with the trees. Wait. They were the trees. The two wallows I had walked by were no longer there. They took one of my arms each and blindfolded me.

When I was finally able to see again, I found myself in a cell. A damp, dark, moss covered cell I had no place being in. I had done nothing wrong!

"Hey!!" I yelled, I shook the metal bars as if trying to detach them, "Let me out!!"

A green guard came to me and communicated,

"In a minute you shall leave."

"Oh, thank God!"

"Then, your fate will be decided by the queen."

"Fate? What—I'm not a bandit, please. Let me out, please?"

The guard walked away, I kept screaming,

"Please, sir, please! I do not mean any harm towards anyone! Sir!"

My breath was loud and desperate. My fate will be decided by the queen. What did he mean by that? I had to find the Green Fairy. I needed the ingredients for my mom's potion. I paced in my cell, side to side. Waiting for the guard to return and take me to the queen.

I thought about Arthur's late father.

***

"James is dead?!" Mark asked. Inside, he knew it was true, yet he still could not believe it. His best friend was killed. Brutally murdered by his own partners of war.

"But... But..." he stuttered. The general continued telling the unfortunate news,

"He switched sides. We had to get rid of him. He was a traitor."

Tears accumulated in Mark's eyes. His and mine. His and my mother's. His and of everyone in that room—Arthur, Mark, Jane, my mom, and I. Of everyone but the general. My mother and I had received the news one day earlier from a young soldier, family is always informed first. We had gone to the Blacksmiths' house to be there for them when they were told the earth-shattering fact: our beloved James Crafter was no more.

Mark was a wise old blacksmith. He had been recruited for the war not as a soldier, but as one of the weapon manufacturers. He was lucky enough to not have to risk his life, that had been long and fulfilling up to that moment. He was successful and happy and hard-working. The loss of his closest friend broke him.

In the days after he knew of my father's death, he had visibly changed. Arthur and I talked for long hours about how different he was. He was angry. All the time. The smallest things would upset him.

I'll never forget the day Arthur accidentally spilled his milk on the floor. His father was furious. His face was bright red, Arthur told me, and he yelled about what a waste it was—a waste of the cow's life.

"He made no sense, but he was just about ready to kill someone," Arthur said. That comment stuck with me.

Mark had been acting so strange, so different from the calm person he used to be. He started being extremely absent. He was always working on something and, Arthur's mom said to mine, it was definitely not for a client. Jane said they were nearly out of money.

It was a cold autumn morning. The Blacksmiths woke up, but Mark had already done so. He was nowhere to be found. Jane did not know why, but there was a thick feeling of impending doom in the air.

It was the first time they had eaten without him. It would not be the last.

Not so far away, in the Village Center, where the general slept soundly in his comfortable bed, Mark went in to make sure his sleep would be an eternal slumber.

He went in impulsively, carrying the sword he had been working on for days. He had designed it to provoke the slowest, most painful death. He went in, trembling, but before he could complete his terrible task, he was stopped by the guards. He was in prison for one whole day, just waiting to hear what they would choose to do with his life. That is how he spent his last moments, right before the public execution.

We were all there for his death. Arthur would not stop screaming, my mother and I would not stop crying, the crowd would not stop staring. Jane stopped. She saw her husband die and stopped. She stopped screaming, she stopped crying, she stopped staring, she stopped breathing. She stopped living.

***

The guards came in and pulled me again. This time I was not blindfolded. We went up what seemed like a million steps. Finally, we were facing two huge doors that opened to a luxurious throne room.

A young woman sat at the throne. She was stunning. Ordinary wavy brunette hair cascaded down to her waistline. Beautiful locks that gave off a yellow luminosity that was indescribable. She had a bodacious crown. Golden flowers grew on it. Her eyes were empty emerald green and so was her long, voluminous velvet gown. Out of her back grew translucent green wings that also glowed intensely. She was the Green Fairy, the most powerful of them all.

"Guards," she said, firmly, "what do you bring me?"

Her wings shone brighter the louder she spoke.

One of the guards said as they bowed, "An intruder, my queen. We caught her before she could enter."

"An intruder, you say?" her wings glowed as she smiled.

"I do not wish to provoke chaos, Your Majesty, I just need one small thing, if you may be bothered to grant me it," I told her.

"And what would that be?"

"Well... I need half a bag of the powder from your wings."

The guards put their spears up, the sharp edges threatening to break through my neck's skin. Every living being in the throne room ceased all of their activities and I had all their eyes towards me. The queen put her hand up and the guards put their weapons down. She smiled, amused.

"What do you wish to offer me in exchange for such a precious possession?"

"I—I have not really thought about that yet. I... I have money?"

The Green Queen laughed. Everyone in the room followed. They all laughed at my proposal like it was the most absurd thing they had ever heard. The queen put up her hand and everyone forced a stop to their laughter. One of the guards was not able to hold it in.

I looked at the queen. Her stare was petrifying. Not only her wings, but her eyes also glowed now. She stared furiously at the laughing guard. She gripped on the arms of her chair and he was thrown off his feet by an invisible force. Her wings started flapping and she paused in the air, hovering over her throne.

"Do you not understand what this," she put her hand up, "means?"

He was terrified.

"You have been working at this castle for, what, six years and you have not learned such a simple gesture?!" he nodded his head, overcome by fear.

"Well, maybe your colleagues can learn from your mistakes," she said.

"No! Please! My partner needs me! Our seeds are growing and my lover cannot feed herself!" he implored.

The queen did not budge. With one squint of her emerald eyes and one scream of the guard that had disobeyed her orders, the poor victim had burst into a violent verdant fire and all that was left of him was a pile of dark green dust.

"Anyone else find anything funny?" the queen asked the room of loweredheads. Everybody gestured a "definitely not", including me.