💾 Archived View for signals.pollux.casa › blips › 2021-05-30-The-Fairy.gmi captured on 2024-02-05 at 09:29:16. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-07-16)
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In my younger days, I knew a fairy. They had a lion’s face, with a golden mane and a broad nose. They wore black robes, with white along the hem. Their name was Arazakutus.
Before I had first noticed him, I thought they were just a statue among the others in the garden. I never noticed them shifting to and fro. Until one day, something about the glimmer in their eyes caused me to stare, and stare, and stare.
“I think you are interesting. I think you are beautiful.”
The days went by and they showed me their world. With patience, they taught me to fish. We sat by the brook after temple hours in the forest a little ways out. The temple folx always warned us not go to there, it was a junkyard for the goblins and slinkers, but I knew I was safe. I was with my fairy after all. As we sat waiting for the moment a fish sought to latch on to our hooks, to rise up and say hello, until, of course, we sent them back to the waters, Arazakutus showed me marvelous things. With a prick of their blood, they could change the course of nature. In the springtime, we played in the pollen snow. Whenever I reached out to touch them, they were always freezing. I asked them if it hurt, each prick, and each chill. But they just nodded away muttering, “Be happy while you can.”
At night they would tell me stories about the adventurers they’d met in their lifetime. Heroes, champions, villains, rulers, innocents—the words entranced me so I would no longer be struck by the horror terrors that passed through my mind. Until one day, I noticed something in myself had changed. I could no longer tell the day from night, the stories from the realities. I confronted Arazakutus but they remained silent.
When I awoke after the story from that night, I found myself unable to move. I could not see my hands. When I turned I could hear the sounds of paper shifting. I tried to cry out, but no one answered. Finally, I was shaken and light poured in. It was Arazakutus.
“Arazakutus, where am I? What has happened?” I pleaded. Arazakutus looked meek. The gold of their mane had faded, fur transferring to feathers. Patches coming apart from their face. Crust surrounded their eyes. “Arazakutus, what has happened to you?”
They growled. I was taken aback, never hearing such a sound come from them before. When they finally spoke, it was not an explanation, but a query, “Tell me the story of the woman and the basket.”
“Wh- what do you mean-?”
“Don’t play games with me!” They raised their voice. “I’ve told you before, if you remember me, then you will give to me these words!”
Suddenly, the story of the woman and the basket poured out from me. When finished, I felt an emptiness and a heavy cloud looming over me. Arazakutus seemed appeased. And with a turn, they shut me up and placed me back on a shelf. I could utter little else before I fell back to sleep.
Time and time again they returned to me. Turning my pages and demanding I answer them.
“Tell me about the soldier lost at sea.”
“Tell me when the best time to harvest will be if the stars cross the mourning stone.”
“Tell me how to charm a nephelian damsel.”
And so I told them these things, regardless of whether I even recalled them ever being spoken to me by Arazakutus before. One night before I drifted off, I asked them,
“Arazakutus, is it still too late for us to find happiness?”
By now, Arazakutus had grown a broad bronze beak. Their mane was replaced with black, blue, and purple feathers. Hands grew into talons.
“You will not speak that name again.”
After that, there was a long time of rest. I could not tell the progression of time well in this darkness, aside from when I saw Arazakutus and their new state. As I cradled myself inside the pages of that book, I dreamt about the pollen snow and hands too cold to touch. How I desired to experience that neverwinter again.
Suddenly, I felt a rumbling and a gust of wind around me. I hit the ground and saw the light again. I was looking not into Arazakutus and their study, but into the bright blue sky. I cried out for Arazakutus. I cried out to anyone who might hear me. And as I cried, I heard the pages flutter and slowly I felt the bend. They jutted in and out of themselves until I was covered in scales. I stretched out my wings and cried out once again now, and the roar that stretched from my jaw shook the forest that surrounded the hill I was on. There was no one around me now.
I leapt into the air now, soaring far up high, no longer crying out for anyone. I was free now. And I would find my own happiness.