Moon Dust

"We are to gather the moon." Arikyer whispered.

"Moon what?!" exclaimed Red.

"Moon dust. We must gather them to win this trial." Arikyer said.

Inside the room, figures started to move and four separate blue lights illuminated. She recalled it was the same with what Arikyer did back then. The blue circles were scattered at different areas of the hall. Inside each light she saw people in pairs. Some were small and childlike, some middle-aged and collosal she wondered how they could have stayed hidden.

At the bottom of the center stage, she caught sight of a very familiar built of a woman with short hair. Red squinted her eyes and the woman turned to meet her gaze. Cherry-red lips and doll-like coffee eyes met her and leered impishly. Noelle?

Red couldn't believe her eyes and she attempted to move closer to confirm what she saw, but Arikyer pulled her back.

"Stay low Red! You do not know yet if those candidates are friend or foe." He warned. In one big flash, all of the pairs had left the room.

"But I saw someone I knew!" she started to argue. "Stop ordering me around like I don't know better!"

"Even if one of them were someone you had known, it is not a guarantee that they won't want to harm you to win this trial." He admonished. "I can't protect you if you continue to be like this Red."

"So now what?" she challenged him. "You gonna leave me alone?"

Why were they arguing in the first place?

"No. But you are going to listen if you want to win this."

"Partio!"

Ari transported them to a different floor of the tower. He turned and faced Red, his eyes were dead serious.

"Listen Red, before you make any moves; please understand that these Trials are not jokes. Those candidates are out here to win the crown." He said as he ran his fingers through his clean-cut hair in frustration.

"You were the very last one to awake. I wasn't able to teach you any basic defense from magic." Whispering to himself, he sounded so upset. "You can't rush to meet your doom like that."

"Well sorry to burst your bubble mister pixie dust. I didn't ask to be chosen." She retorted.

"Pixies don't create magical dust." He sighed. "Look, let us focus on winning this trial for now and we'll argue more on the races of Faey and magic later."

Red crossed her arms to show her annoyance towards her so called 'warrior slash protector' who didn't even flinch. As quickly as he teleported them, he immediately started inspecting the area they were in.

" 'Celestial sphere of the fourth'. That meant the 4th full moon which is tonight." He mumbled.

He grabbed an object too fast for Red to register what it was.

"The second line: 'Trapped and consecrated, what was that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"It means that you will have to trap the moon inside a consecrated vessel."

"Come again?" Everything was going too fast for her to register anything. "How do I even do that?"

"Have you heard of the legend of trapping the moon by its reflection?" asked the Faey warrior.

From upstairs they heard sounds of glass breaking. From below, the same sounds came as well.

"To reflect is the easy part. The tricky part would now come to how you can keep its reflection inside no matter where you go."

He laid down a tiny piece of mirror on a desk that faced Red. He looked at her closely and as he brushed his sleeves, he noticed the burnt holes Red made when they were at the apartment rooftop.

"Don't look at me like that." Red blushed. "It was an accident which I couldn't control."

"Yes. You truly had no control over it." He agreed.

He didn't need to repeat the obvious and put salt on her wound! Red thought.

She will definitely remember that.

"You have awoken at a very disadvantageous moment Red. We didn't have time to teach you magic." How many times must he mention this?

She looked at him intently as if asking what she could do with that. She didn't even know fairies existed a couple of hours ago and now she was caught in the middle of something bigger than what she expected.

Maybe she had been wrong to follow Ari. What was she thinking?

The whole area was surrounded with tiny airborne blue light like wisps of the forest she used to imagine when grandmama told bedtime stories about fairies.

"However, you have been blessed with a strong type of magic." He continued. "Fire is a very powerful element. Your parents would have been very proud."

"How do you know my parents? You look as if you are just a few years older than me." She said.

"Faeys age differently Red. Both Charles and Lily Springfield were special. And by that, I shouldn't have been surprised."

Arikyer pushed a tiny mirror towards Red and said, "You have magic in you. You can become the Faey Queen. And you can consecrate a reflecting vessel with your fire."

If Red understood what he told her, is he trying to suggest she should set this mirror ablaze?