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The trek from Fairyland to the Haunted Woods was unexpectedly more difficult than Sybella had expected, presumably because the weather turned colder while she prepared with Aethia before she embarked. She intended to leave earlier, but Aethia didn’t waste time in her training, so every extra additional lesson she stressed was for her own safety. All she had to do in the woods was to survey; it’d been years since any of the dark Faeries came out, outside of the ones that liked to make mischief. Aethia prepared warriors for the Battledome and to anyone who was willing, but she also had a pocket of knights that she dispatched around Neopia to be vigilant. Most of the other Faeries weren’t as vigilant as Aethia, but then, she was the Battle Fairy and it was in her nature to be aware and assess the state of their world constantly.
It’s hard to imagine the previous Battle Faerie when everyone knew the current Faeries were with them since the inception of their world; thinking of there being another one was a dark thought Sybella never liked to ponder. The good Faeries were a cornerstone of their world and thinking that they could pass was a chilling thought. No one spoke of Aethia’s predecessor, not even a mention in the archives in the city, but Aethia would. They spoke of the dead and the living in equal measure, and even the dark Faeries and other villains, but there was something subdued when Aethia looked at her swords and spoke of Valeane, the previous one before her. Still, she made sure that her knights were well aware of the history of Neopia and the Faeries. She said that half-truths made for bad history, and they needed to be clear-sighted when protecting this world. Everyone was capable for good and destruction.
She knew she entered the Haunted Woods when the air temperature went from chill to below freezing, a haze of fog rolling across her hooves. As soon as she walked in, it also feels like something was watching her. The light that had followed her from Fairieland stopped, the Haunted Woods trapped in an eternal dusk. There’s a low growl that she senses underneath the earth, the fog covering the tops of the trees and illuminating the trunks in a ghastly glow. Sybella’s eyes roam the area, and while it was more difficult when she was a calf, her sight is not as bad as it used to be. She can see the bright orange of the fairgrounds nearby, and she can just barely see into the deeper part of the forest, which she can tell because of the absence of light making it look like a void at the end of the forest with only orange glow. The forest is too quiet, and that in itself sets Sybella over the edge. There is no noise, like civilization around, but there are sounds that she cannot make out. The crackling of footsteps stepping on the fallen leaves surrounding her haunt her ears and she shakes herself into normalcy. Pull it together, Sybella.
The roots of the trees grow above ground and tangle with each other as she made her way towards the path that would lead into the city inside the Haunted Forest. A crunch to her side makes her head tilt, just barely catching sight of a bushy tail with a bright tuft of yellow diving behind a tree. The woods rattled in time with the creature, the soft hooting of whatever in there making note of it’s disturbance. The creature couldn’t be further than five meters from her, but between the unevenness of the tree roots messing up her walk, she can’t be sure. There was a shield attached to Sybella’s side that she could use if she needed. She undid the clasp keeping it around her and before it clattered, smacked it up with her hoof so that the strap behind it could be held between her teeth and rush towards her attacker.
“Hi stranger,” a pair of illuminated yellow eyes sprang up in front of Sybella just as she charged. The creatures bright eyes widened just as she put the force of her body behind it and Sybella realizes it’s a Xweetok standing in front of her. More importantly, that Xweetok is Nerisys, her friend who she hadn’t seen since she walked out of the Meridell schoolhouse in the middle of the night.
“Nerisys?” Sybella drops her shield
“Hi there,” the Xweetok looks coy at her, narrowly avoiding the shield from dropping on her paws.
“Where - how did you get here? Why are you here?” Her voice raises and then drops when she hears another hoot, and something scratch near the tops of the trees. Better to not wake the forest when she has the disadvantage, but she stares at the Xweetok that she once called a friend and had never heard from in years.
“I was just passing by here, the Esophagus wanted something to eat and I was on my way out.”
“How ...nice of you?”
“It’s very easy to get lost in the Haunted Woods, you’re about six kilometers from entering the boundaries.”
“Oh, thank you,” Sybella responds, feeling foolish for not even taking a guide with her.
“You need some help?” Nerisys asks, already going to her side. When they were younger at Meridell, Nerisys would climb onto her back and help her see since she couldn’t always tell if the puddle she was gonna step into was deeper.
“I’m…fine,” Sybella says but Nerisys gives her a look, and she climbs onto her back. Her furry limbs wrap around Sybella’s neck, as her hindquarters wrap around the part right by her abdomen and she’s transported back to their old days at the school. She holds on tight, and Sybella feels nostalgia of Nerisys’s fur around her and the Xweetok’s chin resting right behind her horns. It feels nice - she hadn't let anyone climb on top of her after she left school, the only person who ever wanted to was Nerisys anyway.
“Isn't it weird here?” She asks quietly to Nerisys. “You don't feel like you're being watched constantly?”
“Oh no, that's definitely what happens in the Haunted Wood,” Nerisys says. “You gotta embrace it, or you'll be jumping in your skin this whole time.” She makes a noise in the back of her throat, earning a chattering snort from Nerisys.
“You'll be fine, now that I'm here to guide you,” Nerisys leans into her ear, the motion tickling hers.
Nerisys was sent by Fiona to be on guard around the forest. She didn’t know how the dark Faerie had an uncanny ability to sense when newcomers would enter the Forest that she would have others mislead on their way and get lost deeper in the forest. She specifically told Nerisys that her visitor would be coming from a Faerie. She’d stopped by Faerie City when she passed Jhudora’s to look after Sybella. She missed her friend, but not anything to go through the motions to graduate after Meridell’s and Fyora forbid, enter the employment agency for day after day mundanities. She was restless, and she wasn’t in the mood to look for apprenticeships like the others would.
So, Nerisys did what she has always done for Fiona, and sends Sybella right where she knows Fiona wants her to be.