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In a dark gloomy evergreen forest, there lives a little fairy with a mysterious tragic background all alone. It’s unclear whether she herself abandoned her society and her fairy sisters or did they cast her away because there was something wrong with her. Sometimes she thinks it’s a combination of both.
And now she lives in a little hut in the middle of nowhere, drinks water from the nearby river, and gets lost in the books she loves. Her magic has almost worn off, as she has no use for it. She’s perfectly content, she doesn’t need anyone.
She has a broken heart and scar that follows from the side to her lower back and no one is allowed to see it.
Up until one day when she hangs by the river and sees something floating by. It almost slips her view, but she catches it in the last moment. It’s big in size, long…it’s a body. A person. Oh god.
She hesitates. She looks around. Something clenches in her heart. She throws away her book and plunges herself in cold water. It takes time, but she manages to pull the body out.
They are unconscious, the body’s stone cold, but she can still feel the pulse right by the chin. It’s unsteady, almost undistinguishable, and she drags the body to the house.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” she mutters.
She doesn’t need another dead man on her conscious.
It’s a human woman, she notices, as she takes her wet armor off and fetches a towel to dry her hair. They are long and wavy and her hand lingers just a split second. The wound on the leg leaks blood and it takes all of her strength to close it properly. She puts the heaviest blanket over the body and flicks her fingers to start the fire.
The woman wake ups a few days later. She holds her down, as she struggles for her weapon to defend herself disoriented and falls right back to sleep almost immediately.
She grows patient.
She changes her routine. She tries to remember some healing spells. They don’t come easily, but when they do, they both sleep sound for the first time. In the evening when all is done, she reads to her. Sometimes she looks at her calm and beautiful face.
She knows not whether the woman is beautiful according to human beauty standards, but to her she’s the prettiest woman she’s ever seen. She hopes the fire that bounces off the walls can hide her blush.
“You’re staring,” she hears the raspy voice and closes her eyes.
“You need to rest,” she stands up.
“No,” the hand catches her wrist in a surprisingly strong grip, “stay. Read me some more.”
Her astonishment, so clear, makes her smile, and the woman adds, “I’m Val.”
She reads some more, she gives her water, she tends to her wound. They don’t talk much.
“Where did you find me?” Val asks one day.
“In the river.”
“Those bastards,” Val sighs.
She doesn’t ask anything, it’s not really her place, and Val looks away.
They share a bed the moment Val learns that she’s been sleeping on the floor this entire time. That way, she learns how Val smells in the morning, her strong hands gripping to the blanket, her forehead resting between her shoulder blades. She learns how the morning sun plays with her auburn curls highlighting the gold and how her smile half covered by the pillow can melt away her gloom.
They accidentally hold hands when Val tries to walk for the first time in weeks and falls. They laugh their ass off lying on the cold wet green floor of nature and she can still feel Val’s touch on her fingertips.
And then, Val’s gone.
She knew it was not forever, she’s not stupid, yet she still weeps into her pillow every night.
She wanders around the forest, avoiding the river, throws away all the books, as they are filled with flowers they left there to dry, she sleeps on the floor.
The magic is slowly slipping away through her fingers.
Val returns to her one cold morning, blade covered in a poorly wiped blood in one hand, a bouquet of fresh daisies in the other, as the word “forever” stains their lips red.