Berganashio - Chapter 24

Queen Finyellë yelled.

“Do not panic!”

It was too late. After the avalanche of rocks had enclosed the fairy villagers, the caverns of Mem echoed with wails of their hysteria.

One of the fairies bellowed out,

“How could you lead us to our doom?”

Another one in the crowd exclaimed,

“With no clean water! And our food rations will be out soon!”

“We’re all going to die here!”

“We were better off back where we lived before! Shielding ourselves from the arrows was better than being trapped here!”

“There’s no way out now!”

The noise of the fairies made Queen Finyellë want to scream. Instead of screaming, she commanded,

“Everyone! Quiet! Now!"

There was a hush in the crowd.

Queen Finyellë took on a more contained tone.

“We’re going to find a way out of here. Give me time to develop a plan with the commanders.”

Slowly, the fairies sat down, but they continued to look around uneasily. The only light in the caverns now was from the small fires that they had lit. There was also a small amount of light from the soft glow of the fireflies on the edges of the cavern icicle-shaped stalactites. Queen Finyellë and the commanders met but there was very few suggestions or feasible solutions for the situation at hand. All felt hopeless.

After the meeting concluded, Queen Finyellë laid down in exhaustion in her tent. After several hours, she finally dozed off. In her sleep, she started having a nightmare of the faces of merfaries again. In the nightmares, they were always threatening. In the nightmare, they mocked her.

“You thought you could escape the fiery arrows but now you’re stuck forever now… stuck forever… stuck forever!”

Suddenly, the nightmare shifted. There came a bursting of bright light that dissipated the evil threats of the merfaries. A different voice that Queen Finyellë had never heard before spoke slowly and powerfully.

“Your survival hinges on your willingness to forgive.”

The voice paused for a moment. It continued...

“You must choose now, before all is lost!”

Queen Finyellë woke up from the dream. Near her feet, the three hummingbird scouts hovered. Apparently, they’d flown into her tent as she rested. They were watching her, as if they were trying to anticipate what her next movement would be. She thought about the cautionary words in the dream. The words were on repeat in her mind now. Queen Finyellë spoke to the audience of the hummingbirds, as if they had seen and heard her dream somehow.

“Does my survival truly hinge on my willingness to forgive? How is this so? How could this be?”

She sighed and glanced back at the hummingbirds. They waited patiently. She could have sworn that they nodded in triune unison. With a genuine voice, she finally declared,

“I forgive my family of origin for rejecting me and for the pain that they caused me with their words.”

The simplistic statement were some of the most sincere words that she had ever uttered. Suddenly, it felt as if a wind was sucked from her lungs. A fresh wind flooded into her entire being. All the knots of tension and heavy weight in her shoulders disappeared. It was as if her soul levitated for a moment. Indeed, she felt lighter than she had ever felt in all her life. From outside, there was a loud call from one of the commanders.

“The stagnant water is flowing now!”

“How could this be?”

Another fairy asked in surprise. The commander bent down and took a drink from the flowing water that had been stirred up greatly now. It tasted sweet, instead of being bitter, as before.

“It’s good now. I feel fine!”

He yelled back to several others.

"It's a miracle!"

Many of the fairies kept repeating in amazement!

Tears of joy flooded down Queen Finyellë’s face. She emerged from her tent. Running to the edge of the water, with all the other fairies, she gladly lapped up mouthfuls of the precious water. The water truly had been transformed. She knew deep down inside, that the strong voice in her dream had told her the truth. With the taste of the fresh water, came fresh hope to her soul.

~~~~~

Jovie and the three totters had searched around the whole perimeter of the enclosed caverns. They thought that they might find even just a small opening if they kept looking. Papa totter had hoped that maybe they had somehow been able to fly out of the caves before the avalanche had occurred, but the fairies were nowhere in sight.

“They’ve got to still be in there.”

Jovie said, as a small bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face. The four small creatures tried to move just one boulder but it didn’t budge even an inch from its place.

“There’s got to be something we can do.” Jovie groaned.

“We need help!” Sister totter huffed in exasperation.

“But who could help now? We’re all alone here.”

Papa totter asked as he held his chest with his paw.

“I think we will need to travel back to the waterfall where we were.” Jovie announced.

Brother totter reminded them,

“But no one was there before.”

Jovie nodded.

“I know. But... we must survive ourselves out here. All we can do is hope for the rest of the fairies to escape somehow."

Papa totter agreed by shaking his head.

"What else could we do?”

It was a rhetorical question that seemed to seal the next plan of action. Brother totter hoped up first.

"Well, let's go then!"

They started their trek back to the gorgeous waterfall. As they walked, sister totter thought of an idea.

"If we named the waterfall, what should we name it?"

Before anyone could respond with a creative name for the waterfall, two large ferocious sea-wolfs lurched out of the bushes at them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note:

To read chapter 25, please follow the link below.