Work Text:
(“I remember when you first arrived.”)
A tiny dot of orange splashes around a garden. It works everywhere, sporadically; a few daisies there, a stampede of citrus seeds here, and a pinch of vermillion dust all around for the lush of green to grow.
Time does not exist to the orange dot—time is when the sun kisses the moon goodbye, but not for its departure, rather a sickly-sweet promise for another tomorrow. The growth of land is not kept up at an even pace, it decides when an outside, vulnerable touch is needed. If so, the brush of a hand or the whispers of hymns may be allowed. May be.
Through the whistles of a blue crow, completing his vow in guardianship over rows of tangled jungles, his shadow towers above the orange dot—blurred, yet stark—as it works its way around the vines and hanging fruits of its yard. As wings flap lighter and ever-so slow down the train of wind and close to the tips of pined trees, the dot no longer becomes a single point, but rather an orange mess of legs and arms.
Even further down, the arms and legs were not attached to orange. They were attached to a small body: one adorned in delicate, peach lace—lace that travels to the knee of its legs, caught by a short breeze, and lace sewn for puffed sleeves on shoulders. The blue crow inches further, flutter by flutter, and the vision of orange now becomes a blend of curled ringlets overflowing that stitched lace atop ivory skin.
Caws! The blue crow. He shrieks a tune of welcome as the orange dot oddly, yet familiarly, resembles the working fae: a pixie.
She’s small. Far too small. Her wings, now revealed and flittering along the stream of wind passing by her fresh fruits and red-muted carnations, push her to care for the garden. She hums. A gentle, smooth-water tune. Her hands—long fingers and sharp nails—caress the stems of vegetation needing a little shove of sun and rain. The soprano tune in her voice reaches lengths all across her garden and into the forest over-beyond. A shrill of melodies follows behind hers; a slight measure less and a dissonant note ringing along, and though she has never heard of a thing before, she finds it could be the number of rose birds whistling her good morning. A wonderous and calming feeling washes over her, and so she continues her work diligently from motivation.
(“Your song had hurt me in all the best ways.”)
Bare feet, kicking and swaying to rhythm of her wings, graze past blades of grass and leave a whispering tickle. Though her dress, loose and ruffled and soft, does not do wonders for her sight. Rather, it’s the tangerine swiss of her hair.
What was once in a tight braid now eases loose on her shoulders—twinkling beneath a yellow star on her citrus loops and twirls.
Her humming comes to an end as she pats down the wet earth with seeds of luck and charm. Knees melded with dirt; she brings her hands to brush it off when getting up and hears a crack of a whip—almost a flick of water—from behind.
The pixie travels her wide eyes to the pond behind, where the fern bushes dip their hands ever-so slightly at the crispen top and the round boulders of cemented grey form a standing elevation from top to bottom in the pond. There’s an entrance of rushing blue entering and leaving on the right side of the body of water, but nothing to the small woman notes any difference.
She decides, with a curious glint in her kaleidoscope eyes, to check on the stream. Moving forward, wings pressed low behind her back and toes feeling the plush of mud and grass, she reaches the edge of her pond. A small ripple, with tiny bubbles surrounding the surface, fades away when her head tilts down to gaze at the sight.
The bottom is dark, murky, and blurred. Odd, she thinks. Her beautiful waters are always mimed in brightening ceruleans and tiny tadpoles of sage, but now, as the ripple finally dies to a ghost of circles, the water is no longer what it once was.
Her thick, brown brows furrow in annoyance. She scrunches her nose and huffs. She needs to fix this.
First her knees hit the ground; her puffed, white dress following suit like a thrush of blankets thrown. The pixie maneuvers forward, legs almost peering the edge of the ground while her hands bring themselves to grip it. Positioning her entire body over the cliff, so close to the water and button nose catching the sharp cold of the pond kissing her, she squints closely into the murky tides.
It’s silent. Air stopped and forest forever gone.
The pixie’s breathing becomes short and her eyes flitter past the bubbles of blue rising from below. There’s only a song of dirt moving around, masking whatever is beneath. Her hair strings forward as she bows further down—orange strands dipping into the water ever-so carefully—and she feels herself growing patient in how long she gazes.
Seconds grow thin, yet hours fly by. Her wings twitch at the suspense and she wills herself to keep them tucked away.
Waiting, looking, wondering…
SPLASH!
The pixie shrieks. The cold burn of pondwater drenches her face and dress at the sudden eruption, and her ,hands frantically rub and wipe away any excess of it.
She huffs angrily, spewing foreign curses into the air once she has gotten the last of the water from invading her vision any longer.
In her tangerine glory, she moves forwards absentmindedly once more to look at the water with her eyes finally wide open and she gasps.
Staring back, nose to nose, lips close to lips, is another creature: far too beautiful it is.
(“Far too beautiful you were.”)
The pixie, stunned and amazed, looks deep in the other’s eyes. She notices fire-lit embers of white and grey, swirling against—not with, against—one another in a haze of fight. How the two paintings mesh harshly to create a constant movement of far-away universe in those tiny irises. They are clothed, bordered, chained to the vast expanse of black that fills the rest of the creature’s pupil. So dark, the pixie worries what might have been lost in there.
Though her eyes move along from them and find the rest of the creature’s face to hold a similar pattern: there are violent shades of royalty blue and vivid violets and bottled greens welded with one another to establish a beautiful strain of far-away lands all over. It’s nose, flattened with two large triangular holes, sniffs furiously at the pixie’s face. Almost hesitant to take a full breath in it’s salted lungs due to the warmth shared between the two.
The pixie does not move from its actions, curious instead. However, the closer she is to the creature, the more she realizes that it’s skin is not the same as hers, but rather, scaley in a few places (it’s brow bone (where there appears to be no hair at all), the top of it’s forehead, it’s cheekbones, and few more littering under it’s jaw). It’s lips are quite thin, and she sees a tiny, sharp, jagged tooth, poke from behind it’s closed mouth.
The creature almost huffs and groans after scenting the other.
She sighs slightly and takes a moments last glance at the fish in her pond.
She moves back, taking a larger look. Everywhere is the same painting on the creature’s face, except instead of legs, there’s a tail darker than the rest of its body and instead of wings there are ridges of mountains propped along it’s boned spine. Hair is drenched in pondwater, snaking down the spine in black strands—long and thick. The pixie’s wide eyes go to meet the other’s—and it’s staring just as much, as if doing the same thing she were.
Without furthermore, the creature makes a shrill sound from the back of it’s throat. The pixie is taken back. The harmony is at first out of tune, far too flat and just out of range, but as the melody pushes on, the vocalization of smooth singing reappears. The same one from earlier.
In a hurried state, the pixie once again brings her face to the creature’s. She yells at it, making it stop it’s song.
In her language she asks, “Who are you?”
The creature blinks widely.
The air is silent between the two, as if the pixie had brought a sharp tool and cut through the blanket of serenity.
She repeats however, in a softer tone, “Who are you?”
The creature seems to understand what she wants and speaks back, in a slew of trills and clicks. It’s nothing tangible to the pixie, but the way it uses its webbed fingers and sharped bails to point at itself and its throat: she believes she knows. She knows exactly who it is.
A siren.
She knows because the song from earlier left her in a satiated state, as if nothing else were to matter but herself and her actions. How the wrapping of notes cinched tight around her head, her wrists, and her legs, leaving her to move like a machine; move as if the only thing that should be on her mind is the song and it’s power.
It must have been a low, slow song that collided with her own humming. As she not once stopped what she was doing, and when she looks at the siren, getting lost in it’s gaze and it’s violet skin, she knows it never meant to be used for overpowering but rather longing.
The pixie reaches out to lightly touch the siren’s skin. It hesitates in breathing, almost flinching from the sudden contact, but allows it when she traces the lines of scales and webbed skin. Fascinating it is—
“Beautiful you are.”
It comes out a whisper. An almost too light and feathered one, plush and cotton-like; because, if she were to speak any louder, she’s afraid the siren would not believe it.
“You…” her voice starts, losing the momentum from her earlier shouts. “You are welcomed in the forest. No need for you to hide.”