Crown of Faeries

20 | Fury

Welsh's room was not like I expected. The man must have been extremely humble for his room was laid out in the most simplest form. A small cot of a bed pressed against the wall, a single chair placed in the far corner of the room, and a low table adjacent to the bed that adorned an uncovered lap. The exposed light bulb flickered like a dying flame as the darkness seemed to ooze in and out of the housings. That's how we knew it was night now, or at least, that's how I figured out to tell if it was night.

I sighed, letting my tense shoulders drop. My eyes felt heavy as my head pounded. I'd been so worried about everyone and everything these days, that only now--when I'm fully alone--did I realize I needed some time to myself.

But I knew I was never alone. The Crown was always watching and would always be watching.

I slumped over to the cot and leaned on it carefully. The mattress whined in protest at first but acquiesced to my weight after a moment or two. I reached up and undid the knot down at the tip of my side braid. Letting loose of my soft curls, I shook out my hair and then rested my elbows onto my knees. Placing my head in my hands, I stared down at my booted feet.

I actually missed the feeling of a dress, especially my old blue dress. But that was gone now and so was the old me.

Picking my head up, I tapped my hands on my knees before pushing myself back up and off the cot. And that's when I felt the temperature in the room drop.

My nerves tensed and my muscles screamed for me to move, but my heart and soul remained where they stood. I watched with wide, frightened, eyes as my closed bedroom door started to glow a vivid blue around the edges.

My eyes then narrowed as the blue light reached and scratched through the opened edges of the door around the rim of the rectangular block. It seemed to shake a bit and I couldn't help but to think: what the hell?

In pop and hiss of air, my door swung open in a spray of blue dust and tickling flames. Bringing my arms up to block my face, I turned my back slight away from the soft explosion just as the small frame of the blue boy stepped into my room.

His glimmering skin looked iridescent in the warm setting of light in my room as the door closed softly behind him--returning to its natural state of mundaneness.

His milky eyes looked at me with a profound brightness as his silver speckled face parted into a smile. "Caelia Emerson." The small boy said with a husky, young, whisper.

"Who--who are you?" My body appeared to be paralyzed as I couldn't take my eyes off the small boy. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I haven't done anything." His smile fades softly, his face resting in an odd normality. His body was purely bare, but his intimate parts seemed to be covered by an outer layer of skin that blurred what laid beneath. He was an odd creature and every time I saw him, he reminded me of the Seer.

"Are you a Seer?" I asked suddenly. My question just slipped from my tongue and out to the room.

The boy chuckled a sweet laugh as he shook his head. His hand landed on his slightly rounded tummy as he blinked through those long, silver wire, eyelashes. "No," he cooed. "I'm your Whisp. Your protector."

"Protector?" I choked out. I gave the small frame of the boy a look over. "I'm sorry, but I don't see you being much of a protector."

"I take the form of what I once was, of when life was simplest for me. The simplest things can give you much power, Caelia Emerson." His milky eyes swirled and changed to small disks of ringing silver and gold coins.

"You prefer to protect me as a child?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing or seeing.

The small boy stepped forward and as he did so, he seemed to grow several inches with each slow and deliberate step. "In times of need, I turn into what I wish. But my protecting is more of a guidance. My light will one day help you decide the biggest decision of your life. And when that time comes, and you see my light, you must choose. There will be a cost, a life, for my light and its freedom."