The Bad Fairy (girlxgirlxgirl)

53. Trying, failing and winning

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Chepi is starting to think that she's made a few mistakes.

That's usually when a person likes to look back and see where they went wrong, rather than being sensible and only looking forward. Chepi, like any insensible person, looks into the past. She sees herself, a girl born a mere twenty years before the blue moon, in the midst of a war between angels and demons, tensions between goblins and fairies. In the middle of it all, there was her, born into royalty and therefore at the centre of politics.

In truth she's always been a bit immature. It's hard not to be immature when you're under twenty. Rather than seeing the weight of her position and the turbulent life that she had been born into, she saw her own misery instead. She counted herself unlucky, not because she was born in the middle of war and chaos, but because she was born into a family that didn't love her. Her own personal war and chaos was more important, as is natural for a child, teen, young adult. An immature person.

Looking past the true political implications, Chepi decided she had to run away. In part because of her mother, but in general because of her father. And to fuel her own revenge she wanted to flee to the one place where she was not supposed to go, the goblins. Honestly it was probably the second most stupid thing she had ever done.

If Dieq's father had still been in good health, as he was months prior, she could've been taken hostage and sold back to her family for a ransom. Even Dieq could've done that. It was pure luck that he chose to keep her, and even better luck that he decided to treat her humanely, let alone like family. Really, it should've ended really badly for her. Chepi was born into turbulent times, when the crystal was only a few years away from appearing, all sides were at war and one death meant much to nothing.

She should've counted herself lucky to be alive at Dieq's court, but instead she pushed herself and Dieq to let her go on missions for him. To let her sneak into rebellions, taking them down from the inside. To let herself be captured and kidnapped time and time again, only to escape every time. And she thought herself to be a master escape artist, when really she was nothing more than a princess with way too much luck for her own good. That luck was bound to run out one day.

You know that moment when you finally grow up, and the world suddenly starts to look bleak and nothing but bleak? Yeah, that's what she is going through right now.

She was stupid enough to press Dieq into making her the one who would steal the crystal. Knowing how keen Dieq was on taking the crystal at the time, she managed to convince him. Chepi feels weak in her legs when she thinks about how easily she snuck inside that garden and swallowed that crystal, thinking only of her own revenge towards her parents and of her loyalty towards Dieq, and not of the implications.

What it would mean to her, to her family, to the entire kingdom and to the fate of the world. Most importantly of all, she didn't think that it would force her into politics so violently. The one thing she was far too immature to care about in the beginning, unless it was for her own personal gain, suddenly became her responsibility. By choosing who gets the crystal she chooses the future of the entire world, for the next three thousand years, or perhaps, for infinity.

In the beginning Dieq was the natural choice. She was doing it for Dieq. But now it looks like Dieq doesn't even want it. Even if he did want it, Chepi has managed to make amends with her brother, and no longer wants him to be at the mercy of Dieq when they both take the throne of their respective kingdoms.