A cold breeze swirled through the remains of the Great Oak Tree. It made the golden skirts of Heartha's gown dance with graceful, undulating movements. The coolness of the air bit at Alina's bare arms and caused goose bumps to raise upon her skin. However, she didn't care. She didn't care whether she'll ever be warm again! For she couldn't imagine this to be possible now that her Mama was gone.

Gone and never coming back.

Alina's breath caught in her throat and she couldn't bring herself to look up from her shaking hands.

"Murderer," the Mother of Fairies uttered in a dangerous whisper. "Carabosse, you creature of darkness. Created from destruction. You have shown your true self. The side I've always known to be there, the side you tried to hide. You may have managed to fool my poor sister. But I know. I've always known. You are evil."

Alina didn't dare to look at her mother's face. Neither did she dare to argue. For she could no longer see how she could possibly contradict those words. Not after what just happened.

"You have no place amongst the light, amongst my children." Disdain dripped from Heartha's lips. "Carabosse, you are banished. I never want to see you within my forest again!" The Mother of Fairies' voice echoed unnaturally as she spoke. A spell was then cast and sparkling lilac magic surrounded Alina's crouching form.

The magic scratched at her legs, arms and face and she felt an aggressive force pull at her. The trees of the Enchanted Forest disappeared into a thick fog.

When Alina blinked her eyes open, she found herself in a place that she had never seen before. It was a dark and lonely place. It perfectly reflected the state of her grieving mind.

Everywhere she turned, she saw death. The grass underneath her had turned yellow, brown and grey. The ground was dry and hard. The tree that stood behind her was black and it twisted in a way that looked eerie and strange. The sky that stretched over her, scorched a blood-red.

Alina drank in the destruction that she saw, not one part of her felt like she didn't belong there.

"Mother is right," she whispered to herself. "I am a murderer. I don't deserve anything but death."

She lay upon the hardened earth and brought her trembling knees to her heaving chest.

"Mama, Mama?" She couldn't stop herself from crying out into the still, silent air. "Where are you, Mama?" Her lips quivered and hot, black tears streamed down her face. They dripped from her cheek upon the dusty, dry ground.

A shiver made its way down her spine and over her arms. She instinctively covered herself - using one of her large black wings as a makeshift canopy to shelter her from the unforgiving cold.

"Mama, you are nowhere," she answered her own question. "I have destroyed you. My one and only friend. Oh Mama... I am sorry... I..." Alina's grief took a tight grip upon her throat making her choke upon her desperate rasping breaths. "You were wrong about me, Mama, you were wrong." Her voice shook as she shivered uncontrollably with overwhelming sadness. "I am not your light. I am nobody's light. I am not Alina. My name is Carabosse. It was always meant to be, and so it shall be, forevermore."

In that moment, lying beneath her raven wing. Carabosse fully embraced her birth name. A name she now saw as the perfect reflection of who she truly was. Not a light in the darkness, but the darkness itself, incarnate.

With that last thought crushing deep inside her mind, Carabosse cried herself to sleep. She cried black tears that eliminated the last ember of light that her Mama managed to ignite inside of her. This felt like such a long time ago, even though she knew that she embraced her Mama happily that very morning.

"Good night, Mama," she whispered with a pitiful sob. "Good night, forever."

Blackness took over and Carabosse lost herself in a deep, dreamless sleep.

◇

Carabosse began to stir, she brushed her fingers across the ground that lay beneath her. But where she expected to feel the rough, dusty, hardened earth, she felt soft springy moss and smooth wooden twigs. She felt around further.

"Was that a... feather?" Carabosse asked nobody in particular. No longer sure where she was, she sat up abruptly. She looked about her. Nothing but darkness met her sleepy eyes. "W-where am I?"

"Use your night eyes, fairy friend," an unrecognisable voice answered. Carabosse nodded, then squeezed her eyes shut. She pictured a light orb clearly in her mind, then opened her eyes again. She saw that she was inside a tree, sitting cosily in a nest. Perched beside her was a majestic looking tawny owl. An owl that she instantly knew to be her distant friend, who she longed to fly with all her young life.

"It's you," Carabosse whispered in awe. "I have always wanted to meet you. To fly with you."

The tawny owl bowed and without moving its beak it spoke.

"Now you may always fly with me and my friends. For you are one of us. If you choose to be," it spoke with a deep, yet welcoming voice that echoed inside Carabosse's mind.

"I do, I do choose to be!" Carabosse answered excitedly. She could see the happiness within the owl's large eyes. She couldn't understand how. As a matter-of-fact she couldn't understand how they were communicating at all.

"Owl?"

"Call me, Ibis," the owl responded in its impossible voice.

"Sorry, Ibis," Carabosse corrected herself. "How is it we're talking right now?"

"Has no one told you of the magical bond that the great power has formed between fairies and animals?" Carabosse shook her head meekly and let her eyes fall to her bent knees. "Dear Fairy, once trust is established our minds are linked. You can hear my thoughts, and if you let me in your mind I'll be able to hear yours too."

"Wow, that's wonderful!" Carabosse said, excitement coloured her eyes and her beaming smile. But as she felt her mouth stretch in that way her mind was dragged to the last time she smiled like that. Her Mama was the only one who could make her smile before she was torn apart.

Carabosse's heart plummeted down to her stomach and a sob escaped her chest.

"Fairy?"

"I don't deserve this. I don't deserve anything," Carabosse lamented out loud. "Why didn't you leave me in that place? Why didn't you leave me to die? That's all I deserve."

"No, Fairy, no. You mustn't say that," Ibis responded, horrified by what he heard.

"I must, because it is true."

"No!"

"Ibis, I am nothing but a dark fairy, I am evil and ugly. I am Carabosse."

"That's not your true name, Fairy..."

"It is, and I will answer to nothing but Carabosse. That is what you must call me. That is what all should know me as!"

Carabosse could sense the majestic bird of prey's disappointment. She could feel it inside her mind. Not only could she hear the creatures thoughts, she could feel how he felt too. She shrugged her shoulders and brought her raven wings around her, as if to shield herself from the shame that threatened to wash over her. But of course her wings could not stop it, it didn't matter how big or how strong they were.

An awkward silence took over the enclosed nest. It drummed against Carabosse's mind, until she couldn't take it anymore.

"Say something, please," she whispered, shakily. She wanted reassurance and she cursed herself for having the gall to seek such a thing.

"Fairy, it is unfair," Ibis' deep voice echoed.

"Carabosse, please, call me Carabosse." Ibis bowed to show his agreement to her request and Carabosse nodded her head in return. "What do you mean? What is unfair?"

"We - me and my fellow large birds, watched you from afar. We saw how the others treated you, how you were cursed from the very start. Your birth place was not your choice, yet they treated you as though that was the case." That deep voice spoke so passionately that Carabosse couldn't bring herself to interrupt. "You were never given a chance. Like our young are not given a chance. Heartha cursed you like she has cursed us."

"But, why did she curse you? Why does she hate owls?"

"She hates us because our ancestors made a choice long ago. A choice that hurt her pride." Ibis' answer raised even more questions in Carabosse's mind.

"What choice was that?"

"They chose to trust and communicate with one not abiding within the Enchanted Forest. One that she does not trust herself. One that was created by the Great Power to serve and protect humans," Ibis explained.

"I was never told of another created. Who lives outwith the Enchanted Forest?" Carabosse pondered out loud. "Who is it? Could I find this one?"

"His name is Achlys, most recently known as "the Dark One". I think you could probably guess who gave him such a title. She seems to enjoy speaking such words over others," Ibis' voice communicated like a sneering hiss, showing his distaste towards the Mother of Fairies.

"Do you trust Achlys?"

"I have only heard of him, never met him," Ibis answered honestly. "But knowing how Heartha has treated you - a young fairy who is beautiful inside and out - I cannot help but have doubts within her claims about him. Also, I can't see how my ancestors could trust someone who is not worth trusting. Owls do not give their trust to just anybody." A sense of pride danced upon his telepathic speech.

Carabosse's eyes pulled wide, as she processed the information Ibis was giving her. Her mind wandered. She pictured a fairy that mirrored her. One that she could truly relate to. One that had been through what she has been through. A yearning pulled at her heart.

"I must meet him!" she announced within her thoughts. It was within these words that Ibis was made aware that Carabosse now fully trusted him, for he could hear her thoughts loud and clear inside his owl mind.

"I know someone who knows where to find him," Ibis responded, wanting to do his best to please the fairy that he truly admired.

"Great! Who?"

"My friend, the Great Grey. We call him Chasser. I shall speak to him and convince him to take us to Achlys. Tomorrow we shall fly together."

Ibis then left Carabosse in the tree that held his nest. He flew through the early twilight air in search for his owl friend, Chasser.