Twice Burned

Quinn

Three Hours Earlier:

I was hostile when I got up off the floor, still recovering from the pain that had coursed through my veins. My hands shook, my body shivered, I couldn't keep still.

My father didn't die. He was killed.

I sat on the bed, almost like I was about to fall over. The dress I wore was torn at the hem from when I fell, but I didn't care. I brought my shaking hands up so I could see them, willing them to stop, but I couldn't. Finally, I gave up and put them to my face, feeling the heat radiating from my cheeks to my freezing fingers. Tears clouded in my hands, covering my face with the salty water.

As I heaved for breath, I could feel a heartbeat in my chest, only it didn't feel natural. I choked in a breath, like my lungs were trying to force my breath back to normal, and looked down towards my chest.

I just about screamed when I saw the red necklace around my throat pulsing light from beneath its jewel. My body jumped back by instinct, my wings coming out as a defense mechanism, but I forgot the necklace was connected to my body now, and it followed me as I continued to back away. Once I got to the backboard of the bed, I stopped moving and felt my wings retract into my body again. 

I watched my chest move up and down as the jewel pulsed with my heartbeat. But suddenly, I felt my lungs bring in more air and my heart rate fall to a normal beat.  When I had calmed down, the pulsing in the jewel stopped, leaving me completely at peace.

I didn't even want to know how the necklace was regulating my vitals. 

I hesitated, before I reached my hand to my chest, placing my fingertips gently to the smooth stone within my sternum. It felt cold, the metal bleeding into my skin around the red gem. Tears from my chin dripped onto the jewel as I grazed my fingers across it. It felt odd in my chest, and I didn't want it.

I grabbed the edges of the metal of the pendant and dug my fingernails underneath it, or at least tired to. I felt my fingernails rip through my skin, and I bit down hard to prevent a scream. But as soon as I ripped my skin, I felt a piercing, buzzing pain rip through my entire body, and I flinched back only a little, until I fought the pain back and continued to try to rip the necklace out of my chest. It only grew worse as I fought, and it wasn't until saliva collected in my mouth and I was sweating until I gave up and let go. The buzzing, lighting feeling in my body didn't go away for several seconds, and I leaned forward on my bed to try to ease the pain.

Tears fell into the sheets of my bed, my body finally relaxing. I felt the pendant slowly get to work, recovering my heart rate and breathing back to normal, faster than the immune system of a fairy could do. I rolled over onto my back and looked down to see my fingernail imprints heal a few seconds later, one thing my immune system would do by itself. I groaned and put my palm across my eyes.

The sheets around me were scattered everywhere, but I didn't care. After a while, the pendant stopped pulsing and went back to normal, and I laid on the bed like I had just had a wrestling match, and lost. How was I going to get this thing off of me?

Then I suddenly thought of what Robin said.  You will bring her to me, weather you like it or not.

I gritted my teeth at such a thought. Never.

Stabbing, burning strain bore through my body as soon as I thought of the word. I continued to scream it through my mind, the pain advancing worse and worse. At one point, I couldn't move my body from the pain, every nerve exploding from the ends, every fiber burning from my flesh. I closed my eyes, but they were forced open with such force they felt like they were nailed open.

Finally, I freed myself.

FINE.

All pain stopped instantly and I fell exhausted on the bed. I could feel something run down my lips, and I touched my hand to my face, finding blood coming from my nose. I sighed and threw my hand down, rolling my eyes.

I grabbed a corner of the sheets and pulled it over my head, holding it in my face. 

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After an hour of procrastinating, I got up from the bed and began to pace the floor in the dark. Nathan was still out of the room, probably helping my mother calm even after all this time. 

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't put my family in danger, I couldn't turn away from giving Zoe to Robin. But I also couldn't betray Zoe again. I couldn't put her through another round of pain for what I did to her in the past. 

Gideon already did enough to her. I already did enough to her. I couldn't let that happen again.

I felt a slight buzz in my chest and I quickly corrected myself.

I had to. No matter how bad it made me feel, no matter how guilty, I had to give Zoe to Robin. I had no choice.

I shook my head and felt my eyes glow as I fanned out my fingers, letting dust flow through my fingertips and to the rest of the castle. I felt each person as they fell asleep throughout the palace, letting them drop gently to the ground. I almost cried once again as I felt Nathan's mind finally dull and fall asleep, feeling like I was betraying everyone.

Once the last person fell asleep beneath the power of my magic, I dropped my hands and turned to my balcony. I didn't want to go, with every morsel of my body, but I held my arms as I headed for my closet, grabbing a jacket.

I reluctantly forced myself to take the steps over to my balcony, still holding my arms within fear. When I got to the edge, I put my hands on the handrail and looked down. It was higher than my old room, almost 100 feet above the ground. I looked away for a second, another grab towards my free will, but there was a shadow of the pain reverberating through my head. 

I quickly pulled myself closer to the balcony, hauled myself up on the handrail, and jumped.

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I had gotten through Mother Willow's portal to the human world within an hour, once I found the tree again, after so long, I could hardly remember where it was. But finally when I got there and changed into human size, I looked around to see Zoe's house and back yard from five years earlier, only, it was covered in two feet of snow.

I unfolded my wings and flew to the backyard patio so my feet didn't make a sound in the snow, and there, I opened the slider door, that for some reason was already unlocked.

Once I got inside, there were drastic changes, like there wasn't any video games near the TV, and there wasn't as many paintings on the walls as before. I decided to ignore all this and made my way upstairs into Zoe's room.

Only, there was nothing in her room. The walls were blank, the closets empty, and there was a white bed sheet covering the mattress on the bed frame. Zoe had moved out. 

Of course she did, if our lives matched up perfectly, she would be 25 years old, just like me now. I groaned quietly, realizing how idiotic I was being.

Then, my eyes glowed, and I searched the town like a map inside my head. Faces scattered across my vision, none of them looking like Zoe, like me. After a few minutes, I finally found her, and saw the house she lived in now. It was only a few blocks away from her mother's house, the one I was currently in.

Half an our later, I stopped in front of a dark blue and grey house, with a big yard and a tree next to the mailbox. I cursed myself as I flew up to the one of the windows to see where Zoe's bedroom was, and when I found her, I slid my hand underneath the windowsill and pulled it up to let me through.

I watched Zoe as I closed the window, making sure to try and keep her asleep. She looked almost in distress, like a bad dream was making her afraid. The covers were up to her chin and bound around her feet, holding her still. I was grateful for this as I knelt at the foot of her bed, getting ready to put her into a deeper, calmer sleep for the trip back to Fluttershy.

As soon as the dust came from my fingers, Zoe startled me by waking up, sitting straight up in the bed. She paused for a second, like she was processing the image of me at the end of her bed. But instead of freaking out like I thought she would have, she said one word.

"Quinn."

The dust from my fingertips went into her nose and her eyes fell as she passed out once again. I instantly stopped and looked at her, limp and laying across her pillows like she was dead. I put a hand over my mouth so I didn't cry aloud.

"I'm so sorry, Zoe." I said, making a mental note to deliver her to Robin the next day.