Faerie Folly and Wizard Wands

Chapter Twenty-Five

It would take days to clean up the moor and keep it from the prying eyes of the Muggles.

Celebration was muted, since the losses were beyond expectation.

No one seemed to quite understand what had happened. There had been blood, and gushing wounds, and terrible stench. Horrible visages, snarling beasts, and evil permeating every crevice of the moors still reared in the memories of the torn, bleeding, and limping wizards dressed in royal, jewel colored robes of battle. Most still wandered about the moor, bewildered.

A few of the robust wizards, still young, and still alive, had commenced to drive the last of the evil beasts from the land. It would take them a while, and the wizards left behind turned into make-shift mediwizards and witches, or carried devastated comrades on stretchers to waiting tents.

The news had not yet reached the wizarding world. Voldemort had been killed.

No one seemed to quite understand how. One moment, there had been chaos, the next second, they were conquering their enemy with ease, as if they had lost all sense of direction the instant their leader was terminated.

The entire land, draped in early morning mist, displayed the terrors of battle. Witches and wizards were distorted with curses and hexes. Those still lucky enough to be alive struggled through the disgusting bodies and mangled remains. The scent of death hung on the air. It would not be long, however, when all of the moors would be cleaned and made fresh by several swipes of many different kinds of wands and spells.

Many refused to look at what was left of the army.

It had been reduced to a fourth of its original size.

And the land, the mists, and the very bit of watery sunlight were tinged with green.

A brilliant, unearthly, vibrant green.

* * * *

Saquoya sat on the edge of the battle field, several meters away from where she had ended the life force that had been Voldemort. The evil of his remains had seeped into the earth and polluted it beyond her aid, and now she sat on the wet and scarred ground to wait. The cold of the dirt soaked into her soiled white gown. It no longer had the quality of a flowing garment, but of a ripped piece of a toga. She had healed her leg with her pixie magic, but the pain still throbbed deep within her, and would for several months. Her hair in tatters, her face haunted and long, she watched the remains of the battle get picked apart by the remains of the army.

She saw the green tinge to the moor, and the plants and trees. It was what was left of a curse, a spell.

It was the remains of Voldemort.

When she had sensed the powers of Mother Earth surge through her body, she had released herself completely, just as she had warned herself not to. The darkness, in that moment, had rushed to her once again, blocking her knowledge of herself. She was lost in evil and darkness. Her body had remembered the cradle of cruelty that could be so powerful, and how her potency would be magnified if she only would let herself free, if she would sink to be human, and exist as nothing but a strength of the world. She would be manipulated by evil, but that, at least, would allow her to be power alone.

The persuasion had been almost too much.

But Voldemort had laughed again.

And it filled her head with refusal, and she threw off the impossible blanket of darkness, and had been instead filled again with Nature in Her full vitality and the power had been older and stronger and swifter.

Once again, Saquoya had let go, and this time, she had lost all sense of herself.

She was indeed a pawn in those moments. She had become a power source, nothing more.

Earth had poured from her being, her whole body had been transformed as an outlet for the release of the malevolent anger of Mother Nature against the evil that aggravated her soil and her children.

Avada Kedavra he had said.

And instead the curse had been nothing but a flash of green light. And it had exploded to nothing in the face of a power too strong to be acknowledged.

In this immense struggle, Voldemort had stood in shock, as Saquoya, in a trance-like state, raised her face and hands. She offered her body to him, as if she was pleading him for alms, her hands reaching to him.

Nothing more was needed, as the path was clear for Earth to strike at last, and strike She did.

All the power of time and land and air and fire rushed out of Saquoya's body and core. Blasting in another green light, this power splayed from her face and her hands, and struck Voldemort in his moment of silence, and burst into his soul and his spirit.

He had been finished. His essence was spread throughout the land, and would be quickly absorbed by the irate Mother Nature. He would be soaked into the trees and drifted away on the breezes.

He had become nothing.

And the world was lighter. Saquoya could feel it.

She sat with her chin on her knees, feeling lost and secluded. The sunlight burned into the mists of the moor, and the green light was soon lost to even her acute sight, and was never to return.

Saquoya had never been fatigued like she was now. There was no energy to her body, and she felt as if it was not hers any longer.

Now, there was very little left for her to do.

Her purpose in life had been completed.

She had played her role as the chess piece.

Exhaustion settled over her in a heaviness her faerie mind could not conquer, and Saquoya slipped away into shadow.