The Girl with an Owl

Chapter 36

The next morning she was woken up early in the morning by an overexcited Walnut. He was jumping around and yelling something, but as he was too loud and energetic while Rex was bobbing up and down around the room, infected by Walnut's excitement, it took her a moment to realize what he was saying.

"Wake up! Kieran is here! He is so awesome! He is a warrior, you know?" Walnut kept chattering on.

Ajana was appalled that Kieran would discuss his bloody past with the little guy, so she hurried to get ready so that he wouldn't have a chance to share even more with the child who was too young to learn about war and bloodshed.

As she made it to the front door, she could see Kieran standing there, impatience obvious in every muscle of his body. It annoyed her that he would be so impatient when he didn't even tell her he would be coming.

"Finally!" He said when he saw her.

"Well, excuse me if I wasn't ready for a visit I didn't expect." She said flippantly.

"You would have if you bothered to sign up for Pony Express because then you would have gotten the same message from Bob and I wouldn't have to drag you out of your house," Kieran said exasperated.

She had no idea what the Pony Express was, but she was so annoyed with Kieran that she refused to ask him thinking Wallace or anyone besides Kieran would explain later on. Instead, she decided that offense was the best defense.

"Talking about you being here, why would you fill a child's head with stories of war. That's cruel, don't you think? We need to do our best to preserve the children's innocence." She stated firmly.

His look of annoyance turned into one of poor anger and Ajana started thinking that she might have made a huge mistake in judging the situation. Anger that bloomed on his face told her that she might have misunderstood the whole situation and even before he spoke she felt ashamed.

Before she came to Mag she was never acting like that, but her fear and worries seemed to get the better of her since she was so overwhelmed by the novelty of it all.

"I will have you know that I might have grown up in a war-ridden world, but I am not an idiot. I would never beset a child with a burden that of knowing what it was truly like to fight for one's own life. But the boy isn't stupid he has heard the rumors and like every other boy of any species he was fascinated by what he thought of as a powerful warrior, me." Kieran said.

"I am far from that, I am just an elf trying to survive and save as much as of my family that I can but of course I didn't say that to him. That would entail too many questions about blood and gore and I would never do that to a child. It's too much even for adults." Kieran continued.

Ajana felt more ashamed of herself than she ever did before but there was no way for her to control the overprotectiveness of her friends that was getting stronger and stronger with each passing moment. She wasn't sure if that had something to do with the type of magic she possessed or simply the kind of person she was but right at that moment she wished she didn't worry that much.

By worrying about preserving Walnut's childhood she managed to hurt Kieran with her mistrust. It was as if she was unable to do anything without thinking about how it might affect others. She put that down on a long list in her head of questions to ask Wallace and focused on Kieran.

"I apologize. I am sorry that it even crossed my mind." She said sincerely.

"That's okay. You don't even know me, I guess it's normal you want to protect your host family." Kieran said.

She could see his anger evaporating and it made her happy that he wasn't the kind of person to hold a grudge. Otherwise, being punished together would have been awkward and Ajana had an immense dislike for awkward situations.

Although cleaning oceans, which they had to do partly by hand, partly using magic, wasn't easy it wasn't as difficult as Ajana thought it would be. Maybe it didn't feel strenuous to her because for a moment she was caught up in the enchantment and had a feeling like she was actually doing it, like she was making a difference in her homeworld.

Once they finished for the day the pointlessness of it all came crushing back to her, and she couldn't help but wonder why their punishment wasn't more productive. Why weren't they cleaning the actual oceans? That was the question that bothered Ajana the most.

Once they finished their duty for the day, they both went their separate ways with Ajana hurrying back to the fairy household to get ready for the Great Father Owl day and Kieran going off to do whatever he did in his free time.

Going back to the house, Ajana started realizing that it was truly one of the most important events in Mag just from the nervous energy and the excitement that filled the house to the brim. The reconnecting with nature and having a picnic afterward looked to Ajana as important for the people of Mag as Christmas was for her.

"Oh, dear, you need to get ready," Cassie said the moment she noticed her.

"Get ready?" Ajana asked confused.

"Well, you can't very well be connected with mother nature wearing that." She said.

Ajana started feeling like confusion was permanently etched on her face as she tried to figure out what Cassie was talking about. It felt like the more she learned the more there were things to learn.

"Our clothing should represent one of the miracles that we were blessed with, so some wear clothes made of plants, other clothes magically made to resemble some blessings given to us by nature," Cassie explained.

Odd as it sounded to Ajana, she didn't want to offend anyone by not participating, so she started frantically thinking about what she could wear. The clothes Cassie supplied her closet with were gorgeous, but she had no idea if any of them represented anything or were just gorgeous gowns.

"Not to worry, my dear. With a bit of magic, anything is possible." Cassie said.

"Let's go to your room and maybe I can make something for you using magic. I don't usually use magic for something like that but every rule has an exception." Cassie said as they hurried off to her room.

As Cassie used fairy dust to try out different outfits on Ajana, the human-witch couldn't help but feel like she was Cinderella and Cassie was her fairy godmother. It was the most exciting thing for her because somehow that being connected with her favorite fairy tale made it even more special.

Finally, they settled on the most amazing gown Ajana had ever seen. It was the color of a setting sun with all those magnificent shades of color that no human could recreate in a painting but a fairy could create it so perfectly. The upper part of the dress was covered in small leaves in different shades of green. The outfit also came with a transparent set of wings which shimmered green when the light caught them at a certain angle.

Cassie claimed that since Ajana was a member of a fairy house, for the time being, she wanted her to have the wings but next time she could come up with her own ideas. Whatever the case might be, Ajana loved it.

At first, she didn't feel comfortable going on a picnic in a dress but since both Cassie and Nectarine were going in dresses she realized that the picnics in Mag were probably very different from what she was used to. 

After fixing her hair, they set off to the picnic area where more wonders awaited them.