Finding the Wisest

Chapter Twenty Six

The two women stood at the door panting slightly.
Lily Ford - The Queen, shoved the door open, her hair flying all around as her eyes scanned the room.
Looking for her husband.
What she saw was Old Kita hitting the hand of a maid while scolding her lightly.
The maid scurried out of the room, face red and tripping slightly over her shoes.
"False alarm from this over excited maid ma'am, nothing to worry about" Old Kita explained.
The queen sighed a bit then looked to the bed in the corner. There lay the king of the kingdom... looking so frail and breakable.

"How is he?"
The Queen asked with sadness in her eyes.

Old Kita hummed " As you can see, he's still unconscious ma'am. But he will be alright, your majesty. No serious injury, we just need to get all this poison out of him. " She twisted the bracelet on her wrist.

The Queen nodded then shook her head.
"How could Faye do this to her own Father??" Her voice broke and Maya turned away slightly, she didn't know if she would be able comfort her own mother if she started to cry.

Her mother didn't cry. She merely cleared her throat and her voice strengthened again to its usual tone." Thank you so much for all your work for this kingdom Old Kita."
The old woman smiled, showing all her teeth " It was not me your highness, I only helped a little bit with the knowledge I had. Maya and her friends did most of the work."

They left the room, a melancholy air settling around them as they walked to the courtyard once again.
There they found Will, sitting alone with his head in his palms and Maya remembered what she had done.

She explained the issue to her mother and the woman laughed sadly. "Let me go explain to the little darling first and then you can have a go, okay Maya ?"
And the woman with the grey streaks made her way towards the blonde boy with the wooden sword.

"What did you do again, Maya ?"
A smooth voice questioned from behind her.
"Nebbia! Will you at least make some noise when you are coming towards me?"
Maya clutched at her chest "You scare me sometimes, Jeez. What is wrong with you people? "

Nebbia shrugged as if it was normal occurrence to go around frightening the daylights out of people. " It's not my fault you have dull hearing. How do you even live your life? You are very lucky the predators in your old home weren't many."

Maya sat down and after a few seconds, Nebbia joined her on the half broken ledge. It wasn't too high off the ground.
Nebbia leaned back, her hood down.
"I went to the dungeons to see where they put Faye."
Maya turned to look at her, not knowing exactly how to reply to this information
"Oh okay... Where is it?"
Nebbia looked confused at the question.
"What?"
Maya shrugged
"The dungeons, her cell. Whatever, you know."
Nebbia crossed her arms and sighed multiple times.
"It's directly below the throne rooms and even has a passageway from there. Her cell is the biggest at the far end. You can hear her making excessive noise as soon as you enter. It's maddening."

Maya nodded, shuddering slightly. She didn't think she ever wanted to see Faye ever again.
Just then a familiar face passed by.
Maya smiled so broadly she was sure it put the sun to shame. She hadn't seen this face in a while and owed so much to this very person.

"Hartley deserves my utmost gratitude" Nebbia whispered into the air.

"Mine as well" Maya added.
Truly, Hartley had helped Maya's family so much that if she wanted to thank her for individual things she didn't know where she would start from.

"I'm going to give her a big hug. I don't care what you say. " Maya stood up, straightening her t- shirt.
"So will I" Nebbia replied. She turned to face Maya. "Did you know that the room next to mine housed the king?"
Maya gasped loudly. "No way! The king was the person in that dark room. Wow!"
She didn't even know how to react about this new information. To think that she was so close to the two of them but had spent her time prancing around in the gardens and kitchens and library.
Sure she was ignorant then but it didn't stop her from feeling bad.
She guessed that Hartley must have helped the king too and to think that she had doubted the honorable woman many times.
For shame, Maya.

A silly realization came into Maya's head and if she was any other person, she would have kept it in her head. But she was not any other person.
She was Maya Ford.

Maya snapped loudly, startling the other girl.
"I now know who you remind me of! I've been thinking about it for so so long!
You remind me of Raven from teen titans!"
Maya shrieked those words as if they held some meaning for Nebbia .

She lifted an eyebrow as if to say ' I don't follow.'

"She's this girl in a show, well a cartoon . She has powers, wears all black and is usually seen in a cloak, her hair is short as well. "

Nebbia shrugged" So?"
"So you remind me of Raven. I just told you so."

Nebbia rolled her eyes "Are we going to hug the helpful maid or not? She's getting away."
Maya nodded eagerly and the two girls made their way to where Hartley stood. She looked up and saw Maya first, shock coloring her face.
Then she noticed Nebbia too and she let out an "Oh" sound and then the two girls were hugging her. Maya muttering thanks into her ears all the whole time.

Lily Ford, from where she was sitting watched with a smile as her two daughters embraced the woman who had helped them both so much. She was much shorter than both of them and so they had bent down, making sure to show their gratitude through their embrace.

X
"What will you do now, Nebbia?"
She sighed heavily. " I don't know, Maya. All this information is so new to me. Now I have a place in society. I'm at the top. It's a difficult thing to accept. So I'm not sure. I'll just stay here and wait." her sentences were clipped, straight to the point, abrupt.

Stay and wait.

She saw Kieran approaching and Nebbia cracked a sly small "I'll be back."
She got up and left the place, leaving Maya sitting on the dry grass by herself, her back against a wall.
As soon as her eyes moved to his face, the image of him with blue dust crawling up his arm flashed in her mind's eye.

"Mind if I sit by you, Maya?" He asked softly, looking her in the eyes for confirmation.
She nodded. "Why not?"
And so he sat down beside her and so they sat side by side, not really saying anything.

Kieran blurted out "Ash is going to be a guard again, for the Queen. "
Maya opened her eyes, she had closed them seconds ago, allowing the sunlight to bathe her. She was just a little bit sleepy. It had been a long day.

"Really? That's great. Good for him. He'll be closer to Will also."
She paused, mentally holding her tongue.
"And what about you Kieran, what are you going to do when everything is over?"
He leaned back, his hands behind his head.
"I'll go back to the FEDGE lands, even though everything seems fine here. I'll be a magician's assistant. Old Kita knows someone who can help me."
He finished with a smile that had Maya smiling back.
"And you Maya?"
She sighed.
"I'm going back Kieran, I'm going back to my world."
He picked up a stone. "Do you really have to go?"
"I don't really belong here Kieran. I'm so very used to the modern world. I've been raised there almost all my life. Staying here will be an uncertain next step for me, I at least know what I'm going to do if I go back to Winslette. "
He scratched an eyebrow.
"I'll miss you, Shouty"
She laughed. It sounded like shorty, but considering his height, she was definitely a shorty when she stood next to him.
"I'll miss you too Smirky and I'll definitely come visit you guys again"

It seemed that's what Kieran wanted to hear.
He didn't ask about her leaving again.
They just sat there, with their backs against the wall and hands nearly touching and they talked.
They just talked.