Infuriated Nursery Rhymes

{F i v e}

Song above- Yair Albeg // Chasing Inspiration

"Wait hold up," Ayla brought her hand up, signaling them a silent motion to 'shut up,' and shook her head. The revelation of her mom being the lady of the Sun and her dad being the man of the Moon was too much for her to take in at once. "What do you mean? They're my mom and my dad! We were a happy, normal family and now we're not because my dad's dead. My mom's away all the time doing only God knows what and I live on my own now. My normal, happy family has been broken! It's that simple. There's no man of the Moon or lady of the Sun, not in my family at least. Never has been and never will be!"

"But-" The knight started but Ayla cut him off.

"No buts! Now if you all would just please go back to your..." She trailed off, not entirely certain what to say. Do they even have homes? Are there more of them? If yes, then where would they go? Wait, are they even real?

"Oh my God, I got it!" Ayla exclaimed before she rushed to her bed and stood on it. "I'm going crazy!" She yelled, jumped thrice then laughed manically. She laughed and laughed while the creatures looked at her in pity. 

Recovering from her laughing fit, she put her hands to her head and sat down on her bed with her legs crossed. "It must be the pills," she whispered, her voice audible enough for only her to hear. "They're causing hallucinations."

But alas, the fairy heard her. "What pills?" She asked. crossing her arms over her chest. While she was saying this, Ayla was already searching for them in her drawer. 

"Where is it? Dammit!" She mumbled while rummaging through her drawer's contents. Notebook, brush, toothpick, notebook. When she grabbed the familiar bottle, she pulled it out and grinned at it evilly. 

"You're making me lose my mind!" She said in a sing song while opening the lid and turned the bottle upside down, all the pills falling out on her bed. "There has to be an ingredients section inside here somewhere," she muttered and peeked inside the bottle trying to find some words which would fulfill her curiosity.

"What is it, Gareth?" Ayla heard the fairy say. So, that's what the knight's name is.

"I've seen them before..." He said and picked up a pill. He brought it to his nose and sniffed it before he poked his tongue out and licked it. He looked deep in thought while the fairy was eyeing him curiously.

"Deterrents," he mumbled and the fairy's eyes widened. 

"You don't think so, do you?" She gulped visibly.

"Oh, I do," He said, his eyes were blazing with anger and his jaw clenched. He had been in a fun mood the whole time. What was it that Ayla didn't know?

"Helloooo?" Ayla waved her hands to draw attention to herself, which she succeeded in. "Mind telling me what the big deal is?"

"When was the last time you had one of these?" Gareth asked, walking up to her and placed the pill right in front of her face.

"I don't know. A month ago? They were supposed to cure my headaches, at least that's what my mum said to me. But, I dunno," She shrugged. "They didn't work so I shifted to Advil."

"Wow," Gareth scoffed. "So that explains a lot."

"What does it explain?" Ayla interrogated.

"We've been trying to contact your for about a year now. These deterrents you've been taking have been blocking our contact. Your headaches occurred because every time we tried to contact you, your mind would use most of its energy to put up a barrier between us," He explained angrily and ran a hand through his hair. 

So, my mind has a mind of its own.

"Why have you been trying to contact me, anyways?" She asked.

"Because," the fairy started this time. "We need your help."

"What do you need my help with? Who exactly are you guys?" 

"We," The fairy gestured between her and Gareth, the knight. "Well, my name is Faye and this is Gareth, I think you already know that," Faye murmured, and Ayla nodded. "We're umm, the characters of your nursery rhymes." 

Ayla blinked. My characters are real? 

"Ever since music and songs like pop and rap-" She said the words with so much disgust that Ayla shuddered. "-Were introduced, children payed more attention to them and started neglecting nursery rhymes. The others at the Rhymes service were pissed off and wanted revenge from the children but were unable to do so because the man of the Moon held them back. They didn't have enough power to go against Astennu so they complied. But when he died in his human form, his power started weakening, because of the lack of love and they started protesting again. Your mom, the lady of the Sun, took this as an opportunity to finally be able to bring forth what they call the 'Eternal Day' which, basically is just Afternoon like 24 hours a day. She joined forces with the characters at the Rhymes Service and are now planning to get revenge."

Ayla listened to all of this with an open mind. Strangely, a part of her understood how it felt to be neglected, but she didn't expect her mom to be so evil. And her dad...lack of love?

"Lack of love? What is that supposed to mean?" She asked, crossing her fingers and hoping it didn't mean what she think it meant.

"Well," Faye started again while Gareth took his time looking at the picture frames that were scattered across her room. "I don't want to make you feel bad and I'm not accusing you for anything but," She sighed. "When he asked you to talk to him via the Moon, he literally meant talk to him. Love is his biggest strength and you were his provider. When he was with you in the human world, he was stronger than any other force, even your mother. It was because of your love. He started getting weaker and weaker when you stopped talking to him, and he's so weak now that even the rhymes can overpower him."

Ayla suddenly felt guilty. She didn't know that she meant so much to him. Maybe if she knew about all of this before, it wouldn't have been like this today.

"Yeah, it's practically all your fault," Gareth shrugged and kicked the carpet laid out in her room.

"Gareth!" Faye hissed, noticing the way Ayla's shoulder slumped.

"Well," Ayla croaked out and cleared her throat. "If it's my fault, then it's my duty to fix it, too."

Both Gareth and Faye beamed in unison.

~*~