[~*Lonely Wanderer*~]: 264.Everlest

It was never fair to her. Everyone saw her, everyone knew she was there, they just let her slip away into where she went and now she is just there. The last one of her kind: gone. She was so lost to everyone and everything and she just slipped away because no one cared. Every night and everyday all alone must have been so hard for her, but I got the opportune chance to spend a night with her, in a place that she loved. Her name was Everlest and she was the last of her kind. She was a fairy.

I was on my way home from working on that stuff we call “home work.” Yeah, except I was on the bus and I did it and then I was dropped off at my stop, like usual. But today was a different day for me. Something out of the ordinary happened. I met her. It was dark and the lights where turning on. I felt a cold wisp of wind climb up my spine as I walked along. I shivered and let my feet guide me home but something made them stop. Maybe it was the leaves spinning in the air and a voice in the wind telling me to look.

For some reason I listened. I looked to my right and then my left down an alley and that’s when I saw her. She was the only person that was ever in this alley. She just sat there next to a rotting dumpster and never moved. No one except the neighborhood knew about her, yet no one would do anything about her, as far as I remember they haven’t. I stretched my neck to see if the wind was playing tricks on me or there was actually something important down this alley.

I heard a moan, and the body moved. It was so scary that I was frozen in the spot. She leaned forward into her legs and lay like that screaming in agonizing pain. There were holes in the back of her deep purple shirt, almost black. Moments later, her back erupted with long spindle branches and they extended maybe four five feet in the air and to her side. Soon then, sticky and gooey filament spread between the branches. They shook themselves and I realized that they were wings. I was amazed at something like this, terrified like anyone else would have been, but I felt comforted by her somehow, saddened too. I felt a strong presence of sorrow coming from her and I realized that the wind was telling me to go to her.

I took a small step into the alley and she didn’t move; another….and another step into the alley where no one dared to enter. When I was maybe four feet away her wings flutter nervously and they folded behind her back. When I was so close to them I saw they were black and purple, like her shirt and her black dirty ripped jeans. She was skinny to the bone and must have been never able to quench her thirst in a state like this. It was so sad.

I stared down at her in disbelief. Suddenly, I was beside her and I was bent down next to her. I had reached out to her, as if to somehow help her. When I almost touched her shoulder, she sat up abruptly and looked at me. Her eyes were the oddest color. They were a bright purple, lavender like. She pushed her lips out and whistled. Her eyes slid shut as her wings opened and made her flutter out of her spot. Her body was limp as they fluttered only a few inches off of the ground. She was spun around and she was remade into something that she belonged to be.

Her hair was now a straight and sleek beauty that reached her waist and her face was cleaned and her fingers were trimmed and she looked wonderful, but her pants and her shirt were still the same. She paid a price for this as she opened her eyes and a wind caught her wings. She fell abruptly to the ground in a heap of flesh and bones. Her wings fluttered madly and tried to pull her up. I looked closer at them now, there were huge ripped holes in them and the pain emitted in a rainbow from my heart. I went over to her and helped her up.

“Thank you for your kindness.” Her voice was silken. It felt like if it could be placed into a jar and you let out a little of it later, it could weave you a lullaby to sleep. She reached over and tapped my forehead with her index and middle finger together once, then twice. I suddenly felt calm and whole. I let my eyes drift close as she sang a lullaby to me. I felt an enormous power wrap around me, surrounding me in a way I never knew of. When I opened my eyes she took my hand and moved herself from the alley and the lamp post with me in tow.

She perched her lips out and a stream of solid cold air flew from her lips. She created a circle that stuck to the post and turned into a mirror. She stood back with me and pointed and I looked. I was amazed. She had transformed me into one of her kind. I was now a fairy. I looked closely at myself. I had butterfly wings like hers, but minus the holes. I also had two antennae’s sticking out from my head that bobbed a little when I moved. They were black and my wings were a dark blue and black, a pattern just like hers. But my eyes were not their normal big brown; they were baby blue and stood out from everything else. My shirt was deep blue and my pants were black bell bottoms. I had ribbons or sashes on my feet as shoes. I looked like a character from an animation movie almost. I looked at her and smiled. She gave a weak smile back and began to sway back and forth. She almost collapsed again but I caught her. She nodded to me and then to a tree up ahead. I looked at her and wondered if she was joking. She wanted me to fly both of us up there.

‘You can do it,’ she breathed. ‘Just concentrate.’ So I did. I thought about where I was going, braced myself, and I just, to say, took off. My wings opened up and I was off of the ground, holding onto her and going to the tree. We landed and I set her down. She smiled at me. ‘I was the last one of my kind. But you can help me. I was torn down by the earth and all of its corruptness inside. But if you can go and make a new generation of fairies, it will help my soul rest in peace for once.’

I looked at her, somewhat confused and somewhat scared. I didn’t quite grasp what she was saying, but I knew what I had to do. “How do I gather more people into fairies?” I paused. “And why is your name Everlest?” She looked at me with wide shock in her purple eyes. “How did you know my name?’ I looked down at my feet and clapped them together. “Well, everyone knows that your body just lay there, but no one ever did anything about it. I think they made an attempt once but they couldn’t go down through the alley. There was something said about that; they said that every time someone went down they disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. It was scary and so, no one ever tried to go down there again. They tried to get your body one day when a woman recognized you as a girl named “Everlest”; is that your name?” She looked away and smiled. ‘Yes that is my name. I am called Everlest of the elements. I was a master of all the elements: earth, fire, wind, water, and spirit.”

She looked at me and smirked. “But your name is still unknown to me.” “Oh!” I said. “I’m Ashley.” “Ashley. I believe in fairy it translates into Ataria, which is under the house of wind.” She looked at me. “That should be about right, don’t you think?” I thought about it. I had never been interested in the wind before this, but come to think of it, the wind is what told me to go down the alley in the first place. “Yeah, it is. The wind is what told me to go down the alley and I met you because of it.” She smiled and nodded her head. “I believe you asked about the gathering of the other fairies. All you have to do is what I did. Think only the purest thoughts and about the person and what they will become through your magic.” “Magic?” I asked and quirked and eyebrow at her. She smiled. “Yes, all of us fairies posses some sort of magic.” Her eye lids slid shut and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as her head slumped into the tree and on contact she became alert again.

‘I’m sorry. My powers and such are weakening again. I really need to rest.” Her eyes rolled shut and I thought about what I wanted to do. I flew over to her and picked her up and brought her back down to the alley and laid her back down where she usually is. She looked at me with sad eyes. “Ataria, I can not go on. Remember what I told you. Please do it for me. Here.” She tapped my forehead once and held her two fingers there. “Take my powers and allow them to help you.” She closed her eyes and memories, strength, courage, and other raw emotions and information flooded through me. Of course being dramatic, I passed out.

But this was real. I seriously passed out. I woke up from lying on the alley floor for what seemed like a few minutes. I looked around for Everlest but she wasn’t there. Then a horrible thought crossed my mind- did she really? Did she really cross over to the other side? My mind raced with question that seemed unable to be answered. I knew someone was there when I felt a shift in the wind pass me. I looked quickly to my side and my heart skipped a beat when I saw a boy around my age standing to my side looking at me. I looked at myself and I was still a fairy.

“Ataria?” He called. I was so scared. I wondered if he would tell people I was a freak and a lab would chop me up into little pieces and run tests on- hey! I realized he called me Ataria, not Ashley. I looked at him. I’ve never met him before. “How did you know my name?” Now he was the one who seemed scared. He took a step back, and then came down and sat beside me. He started to tell me about how people got worried about you and never found you for the past year and how he had just spotted my body lying there and my name crossed his mind. He asked me if it was my name. I smiled and looked away. I thought of why Everlest smiled when I told her the same thing. It was my turn now.

“Yeah, my name is Ataria of the wind. I am a fairy under the house of, well, air, and I’m a special of wind.” I studied him. He could be another one like me. So I took a calming breathe and thought of Everlest and him. I closed my eyes and tapped my fingers, just like her, onto his forehead. I waited and then rushed him out to the same pole and created a mirror. He looked at himself and wondered about it all. He was amazing, with rippling muscles and loose flimsy pants and a loose poets tee; off white cream tee and a dark hue blue shade on his pants, like his wings. He didn’t have antennae’s like me but his eyes were still the same color, brown along with his mop of hair on his head. Wonderfully beautiful is the only way to describe him. I felt faint but he reached out with a simple reflex and grabbed me by my waist. I nodded at the tree where Everlest had taken me and told him the same thing she had told me to do. He performed this task with ease.

      He asked me everything that I had asked her. It was like history was repeating itself. I looked over at him every once in a while. I had seen him before but where? ‘You know, your name still remains a mystery to me.’ ‘Oh! I’m so sorry. How rude of my, I’m Michael.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Michael!? Michael from Groveland high Michael!?!?!?!?’ He looked over at me a bit surprised to say none the less. He smiled and then laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m from there why?’ I had officially begun to squeal. ‘Oh my god! I went to the in town school Jordan High and I had the biggest crush on you!’ I just slapped myself and felt like disappearing. He smiled and reached over to my hand.

      ‘Don’t worry about it. I mean, now that I’m a fairy and such, were’ basically the only two of our kind right?’ I blushed. ‘Yeah….’ He scooted a little closer to me and our hands bumped each other. My heart skipped a few beats. I closed my eyes and let fate take its course

**Many years later**

I don’t know how I did but I’m standing on the balcony as the queen of the fairies and Michael is the king and at my side. We have gathered over a million recruits and we’re home now. Life is peaceful and I know I have allowed Everlest’s soul to rest in piece. I don’t think a lot about her but now she keeps coming to my mind more often. Maybe it’s because fate led me to her and this was my true destiny. Maybe I do believe in predestination? Maybe….but who knows?