My First Second Chance

Chapter 7: Decadence Deserved from a Deceitful Declaration

As Pheo stared into the somber yet serious eyes of the fierce warrior before him, he had finally been overcome by the feeling of defeat. As hope nearly left him, the only positive thought left was, "maybe I can still get out..." However, he even wasn't sure if he believed in this himself. This bottomless despair was all too familiar... Yet, through the darkness of this grim situation, a voice called out "Wait! Stop!"

Pheo gazed up to find an elegant five-foot fairy in a beautiful red dress with long silver hair. She called out to the warrior fairy, who appeared to be both relieved and slightly annoyed.

The fairy in red floated gracefully towards them, appearing almost as an angel to Pheo:

"I had been following you all the way here, but I'm not that fast. My name is Aria. And as the number one friend of the princess and head of the Grevillia family, I request you hand the intruders to me and allow me to deal with them!"

The warrior fairy sighed, "I don't have a good feeling about this... However, I wish not to argue with the royal families." She glared at Pheo with a look of death "If you lay a hand on any fairy in this kingdom, I will behead you." With that, she immediately flew away.

Aria sighed and rushed to Pheo in an attempt to heal him, "Are you OK?!" She also confirmed his passed out teammates' heart beats with her other hand.

Fatigue had slowly gotten to Pheo and once adrenaline had left and he felt safe, exhaustion finally caught up to him, "Yeah, I'm fine, just gonna... take a nap..."

And with that, Pheo fell unconscious.

At this point it had become repetitive, yet not unwelcome, for Pheo to wake up in an unfamiliar bed after passing out from exhaustion. Despite the pleasantry, Pheo planned to make it his last time in this situation; it's hard to be a savior and a hero if you're always passing out.

He got up and looked around. It's a generally small room, just big enough to fit him. It seemed to be made of magical trees forming a house-like structure without physical cuts or signs of building. The bed was soft and heavenly and seemed like it was enchanted. Clearly it was the best bed he'd been in. However the room was barren.

Suddenly, he heard talks above him and left the tree house. He jumped back and his heart sped up a bit as he found himself high in the air on a giant tree. Pheo caught his breath and slowly walked out, seeing Aria and his allies chatting on the tree house's roof.

Pheo hopped a little to grab the branch and pulled himself up slowly, rolling onto it. He laid down and looked up at everyone with a jokey smile, "yo."

Everyone gave a small giggle and eye-roll in response. Liz patted his head with a sigh, "I suppose three times a charm?"

Pheo nodded as he sat up, "And no more, promise."

"You really are a delight, aren't you?", Aria smiled politely. "Well, now that you're awake I can properly greet you as well. My name is Aria, head of the mighty Grevillia family! One of the richest and most influential families throughout the fairy kingdom; but more importantly, I'm the princess' best friend!"

Pheo nodded with a grateful smile, "Yeah, I caught that, thanks for the help but... why did you help us?"

Aria sighed and shook her head with sad expression, "It has to do with this war. There's something... off. As head of the most influential family, I know that this war isn't necessary. At least it doesn't feel like it. The princess loves humans as much as I do and hates the war even more. Her highness clearly knows something I don't, but she refuses to tell me..."

She looked down, "But I can tell she's incredibly troubled, all this bloodshed... innocent people dying..."

As Pheo witnessed this fairy's incredible sadness and heard her words he was once again hit with the gut-wrenching realization: this was all true, these were real lives, and real losses.