Highfield Academy - Revenge of The Crows

Charli and Catherine had become the best of friends and Catherine had settled into her new home while enjoying the company of the Fay, she was, however, pleased to learn that she had special gifts and that with Charli’s help and through the queen’s instructions, she was to be trained and educated in the use of her magical abilities.

Her tuition started with Mother Harris teaching her the basics, and as she learnt so quickly that Catherine was later introduced the great Merlin who later took personal charge of her lessons.

Queen Le-Fay, had financed the start of a school under her tutorage, and had some of the finest Fay warriors of their time educating the pupils, and it was especially important for those human Fay who had been originally brought up unaware of their heritage, and of the latent skills, which in time they were to develop.

When Catherine was introduced to the school it had already been running for over three hundred years, and was known as Highfield Academy, and it had become the first of its kind to include the education of the human Fay born, alongside full blooded magical Fay.

Some of the most prestigious of the Fay born had paid vast sums of money to have their children educated by the Fay’s finest, and under a Royal patronage, but it was soon realised times were changing, and that their association with humans was not always desirable, as wars kept flaring from humans reacting to selected Fay Lording it over their kind; and enforcing their will on the lesser educated. Soon enslavement started and the humans Kings brought in the church and science to fight the then Fay rulers.

In time, human Fay-born were taken under the king’s realm and taught to defend humanity, so great wars evolved and the Fay Royalty under the guidance of the great Merlin, sought peace with the then Human King, known as Author.

The Merlin had become personal friends with the human king, and a much-trusted advisor, and it was through this union that the Fay came to agree to vacate the lands and live in a separate dimension, only the Fay children were to be educated aside human children in agreed upon church schools, to build unity, respect, integrity, empathy, trust, truth and justice between the two races.

However, a selection of a Fay tribe known as the Tebard’s had other ideas, and they also controlled the vast wealth of the Fay and were true blood, the very idea of intermingling humans with the Fay bloodline appalled them. To their mindset, humans were like cattle, and to be used with no rights of their own.

Wars broke out and over a period of one-hundred and fifty years’ thousands of lives were lost on both sides and hostility arose on a great scale, forcing the Royal Fay and Merlin to eventually destroy almost all the Tebard race, very few survived and those who did, went into hiding and peace was eventually secured.

The Highfield Academy was eventually set up in Woolavingdon in Somerset, where it quietly sat in some One Thousand Acres of land and overlooking the Somerset levels. The great Brent Hill and the Glastonbury Tor were main focal points projecting high above the levels and the school was entered via a gateway between dimensions located at Cossington Lane and where the land boarded the great Manor House by Manor Road Cossington Somerset.

This enabled the school to remain protected from human intervention and is to this day still a great institution offering the Fay and human Fay an education, and more importantly, where the chosen are taken to be educated and trained as Wardens policing the two races, and bringing to justice all who break the sacred rules, and infringe on the rights of both humans and Fay alike.

The news of the slave trading and the involvement of captured human Fay children had reached the ears of Lloydsung the 3rd who was the overseer of the Tebard delegation and in anger, he had sought out the two Tebard representatives who met in the Captains room, and there he had them tortured for failing their masters and eventually killed.

There Lloydsung the 3rd, who had already reported to the oversight committee and who had ordered the torture and death of those who failed him, explained his actions.

“We appear to have a serious problem, those incompetent fools who we entrusted to oversee our shipments have allowed nine human-Fay children and worst still three pureblood Fay children to be captured and sold into slavery.”

His words brought rage and fear to the committee.

“The fools, have we found the pureblood children yet, as for the human-Fay they are of no importance, and once traced they must be killed.?”

Shouted one of the delegates.

“As for the human-Fay we are having trouble in tracing them as once sold, their new masters can sell them onwards or work them to death in toxic gold mines, or in the quarries or mills, but we are still looking. As for the purebloods, no it is impossible as they have most likely escaped and already reported back to their overlords in the Fay kingdom, so you can be assured our involvement will already be an issue and retaliation will eventually reach us.”

The words spoken were compelling and delivered with force causing all in the room to fear, in understanding the consequences of their actions. Only it did not just end with them, as they in turn reported to their designated heads of families, and these were among the wealthiest individuals and most powerful of their kind, ranging from over a hundred individual families and it also involved their entire households.

A Tebard household started with the head of the family who was the most powerful of his kind in that family, well technically, one should call them a tribe, however, they had adapted to human society and looked the picture of respectability, yet held an estate usually in some vast country manor house, ranging with over a thousand family members who had filtered into the surrounding county and were controlling events and managing the humans in those areas like a well-groomed or organised zoo.

These, in turn, had human slaves to work the family business, and they were far from merciful, enforcing their rule, and will with an iron rod causing poverty and suffering on a massive scale. Such was their power that it extended into the heart of humanity, and entering the halls of power like the Parliament and House of Lords.

To attack one family meant war on all Tebard families and they had learnt to remain loyal as a collective unit operating like a single family under the rule of one Sarai’s Kennedy, Deputy Prime Minister to Julius McCarthy, who was the designated Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Incredibly Sarai’s had held this position for over two hundred years, simply by transforming his human image each new election, and using his magical abilities to ensure he was always nominated as the Deputy PM.

In tribal terms, he was basically the king of the collective tribes and by far the most powerful of his kind to have ever existed.

It was his unique gifting’s that had enabled him to unite the various factions and organise the families in such a way that in time they ruled humanity, and in turn became wealthier than their wildest of dreams, but build on the blood and suffering of humans and mostly children forced into slavery and to become forgotten by society who was too scared to fight back.

It was during what was called the Victorian order, that the Tebard’s rose to the full height of power and whose influence started spreading across the then known world. And as their wealth grew, so did demand for their goods, and this in turn, had increased the demand for more human slaves, which in time fed the greed of those seeking opportunities of earning extra income on the side, and the increased kidnapping of human-Fay and led to the incident with the pure-blooded Fay.

It was from this avenue that the great Merlin had become involved, as sadly only one Fay child had made it back to her kingdom having used her incredible skills to evade detection, until she found an entry point near Bala lake in North Wales, from there she eventually reported her plight to elder Fay, and who in turn cared for the child returning her to her family, and reporting this to their elders. It eventually reached the Royal Courts and brought the involvement of the great Merlin.

They had been aware of human slaves and the occasional accidental human-Fay been kidnapped, but the moment it had involved a pure-blooded Fay, and who was related to the Royal family had sealed their fate, and brought about a determined investigation to trace all involved and end this trading of souls into slavery, humans and Fay alike.