Chapter Text
A wizard with eyes cast to the left and right once had held the reigns of her horse and told her to breathe steadily, as the beast could sense her fear was untamed. That, if she didn’t hold fast, the horse would decide for her, and beast and fear alike would trample her into the cold ground.
Trish rides hard now, strips of branches batting her shoulders and she puts up a hand to block one from her face, wiping her eyes after. Cursed saltwater still lay thick across her vision and heavy in her throat.
The Moon’s forest had always been perilous, something every child was tugged away from by their parent. The stories her mother told though––the way they had been weaved with enchanted lilac stems that sang and preened beside valorous heroes like swan feathers you could run your finger over and feel every bristle––she would rather be in that forest right now. If at least to feel closer to her mother’s ascended soul, and away from her damned father.
She sniffs and yanks her horse’s reigns to round a large outcropping of rock.
Though, as the horse begins to take the rubble along the outcropping’s edge, the rock wriggles loose and takes their shared weight poorly.
A horrible whine sounds from the horse as Trish feels the massive weight of the beast sink them both on the right side and she gasps to see the hind legs slipping.
“Myk! Myk–– It’s ok! It’s ok! You’ll do fine! Just––”
A harsh tilt up from Myk, and terror seizes Trish as their weight is no longer shared.
No amount of coaxing after that could convince poor Myk that death isn’t grasping at its hindlegs, and the beast rears high with a harsh bray, tossing Trish from the saddle.
The layers of her dress blind her as she falls backward, and for a moment all she sees is tule and silken fabric. The air stilled through it and some part of her wishes she would just land on her bed, be a child again with the other maids laughing at her childish play at being a windmill.
The ground rams her back and shoulder, then a terribly hard hit sounds through her knee as she rolls down the mess of rock and grassed dirt. She shuts her eyes and tries her best to keep her mouth shut, despite the outcries that knot her jaw tighter with each cycle, her tumble speeding faster only lending a deeper sense of hopelessness.
Maybe she deserved it for running off. Maybe it would help. If she returned home bruised, her father might then show an ounce of care for her pain and grief. Though, she would have to stop tumbling first.
Not a moment after the thought appears does a tree trunk appear with a hard thunk to her side, knocking the air from her lungs but at least taking the inertia with it.
Left on her stomach by the tree, she lies still, absorbed in the smell of wild ferns on her face.
No doubt Myk had scampered back to the stables as had been his bad habit. Meaning she would have to walk.
Though, she doesn’t want to go back. Returning means a birdcage built by her father. His kingdom’s poverty now suddenly her worry and ruin as she was to be sent off to her aunt’s abbey in the south, for a proper schooling in courting men––as apparently she had been chasing after boys, the like that her father would not tolerate. If it weren’t enough alone, the long hours of listening to her aunt drone on uncomfortably about her gender’s properties would be accompanied by boring topics like poetry and how to hold stupidly ornate tea cups. Her aunt had too many with eyeballs on them. Two is fine, but it becomes creepy after so many in one cabinet.
Trish pulls her head up to rest on her chin, blowing a curl from her forehead.
Going back means a thousand and one suitors vying for her hand, and it must be taken for her country to be saved. Going back means the end of her life as Trish Una, and the beginning of her life as her father’s daughter.
With a huff, she forces her hands under her, groaning at the protests her body gives her as she sits up, dusting off the dirt from her once beautiful porcelain pink dress.
While her country might need her, her father doesn’t deserve her loyalty. She barely knows him. Her mother had practically hidden her away. Why does she have to do anything for him? Especially when he didn’t so much as look interested at her mother’s funeral.
Her fists clench in the dirt, and she fights that damned knot above her chest. Her fingers find a rock and she throws it as hard as her hurt arm allows at the nearby pond.
With a crisp hit on the water, the rock sinks, raking circles over the once-glasslike surface. She lets her eyes follow the ripples to the shore where she sits, her dress’ layers crumpled beside the pebbles and wildflowers and...
Her brows furrow at it, even as she’s drawn to reach for it.
Among the smaller weeds and clovers, from the pondwater dirt grows an almost iridescent pink rose. The petals impossibly delicate to the touch, the stem hearty with life.
Without a further thought, she plucks it. Brings it to her nose to smell––
“What are you doing?”
Trish starts horribly before glancing behind her for the source of the voice––only to be struck frozen, unable to speak.
Not but a few strides from her stands a figure, clothing like gossamer and yet heavy with glimmering layers. Plooming about the neck are an array of tulip’s lips that remind her of the ruffs she’d seen in court, a massive overcoat hanging loose over broad shoulders at the top like a tree’s weight-bearing branches, the bulk of the coat hiding a slender but sturdy frame in a floral waistcoat and basic leather boots and breeches. Patterns of dandelions twined with thorned flowers trail down the front, leading her to a cascading of darkened gold flowing beneath the coat’s long tail–– whatever it was shimmers like summer’s last glance back in the setting sun.
His face, though, is terrifying.
A thousand eyes seem to watch her, none blinking, but all of them perch above his nose with a flair of color splayed out from the middle of his face in broad spanning wings. She recognizes some as butterfly wings with bright brandishes of pink and gold while the rest she couldn’t name.
She’d been quiet long enough to intrigue him, apparently, because he steps forward.
She pulls back, makes to pick up another rock.
“Wait!” The figure’s face-wings flair up in evident realization, “Wait, one moment, please.”
She waits nearly three to watch as the figure pushes back the wings like how she would push back the bangs of her hair, revealing the very normal face of a blond boy nearly her age... albeit of otherworldly complexion and with the layers of massive insect wings glittering throughout his hair.
“Forgive me,” he offers sincerely. “I too often forget to think of that part of my appearance as frightening.”
Realizing she’s still cowered back like a scared maid, she rights herself, straightens the folds of her dress out like she’d never made so much of a fool of herself as she had. “I wasn’t frightened. But you should certainly remember to put away––whatever that was–– for the next poor soul you approach.”
“Certainly. Now, may I ask, what is it that you’re doing in my woods?”
The possessive case puts her on a new edge. “Yours?”
He nods.
“Well, I-I'm trying to find my horse.”
“Ah, I meant before you tumbled down the slope.”
Heat flushes her face. “I did not tumble.”
In graceful strides he moves closer and leans in––she notices his pointed ears are pierced with impossibly clear sapphires––he plucks a sliver of leaf and branch from her curls. Not being so mean as to hold it in front of her and wait for a concession, instead tossing it to the ground, he says, “Well, seeing how the sun’s last light will be below the trees soon enough, you should be on your way back.”
“I...” The words leave her coldly. There was no good excuse for her staying in the woods. Even more so if she were, in truth, trespassing. But nonetheless, “Would you mind if I at least stayed until sunset? I-I can stay at the edge of the forest to make for my immediate leave when the darkness comes.” It would be preferrable to slip back into the walls and through the baker’s workstation into the castle and make for her room under cover of night. She’d been full of childish wistful hope earlier, when in reality, there was no reward in causing so much commotion only to earn that disapproving mask of indifference from his majesty.
An odd furrow enters the ethereal being’s face, subtly enough that it’s a small change as he stares at her, saying after a while, “The night here doesn’t bear outsiders well. Even if you were to try for the edge, it would be nightfall before you could even reach the silver trees.” With a last glance at the sun, he turns to her, offering his hand to help her up. “There’s too much darkness in this wood for a human to venture alone. I can offer you supplies and a ride at the least, as well as shelter for the night, if you wish it.”
She eyes his hand, weighing the offer.
Her mother’s stories blare warning in her head, that the mystical world no one understood was just that, unknown and not to be trifled with.
She asks, “You’re a fae, are you not?”
Her question is met with a polite, “That I am,” accompanied by a graceful smile, the warmest and most inviting she could have ever seen on any face.
Though, and she felt it within herself more than thought it, that... if she was to experience anything otherworldly in the coming night––in which she couldn’t hope to leave before sundown––let it be at the hands of a fae, and not a magical boar’s tusks goring her with the massiveness of four horses.
When she accepts his hand and he lifts her up, he moves as if her weight is nothing to him.
He asks, “Did your kind mother give you a name?”
She startles at the phrasing, settling herself to answer softly, “Trish,” though she clears her throat to say prouder, “My name is Trish.”
The fae smiles warmly again, and something hums to her she won’t regret trusting him. “Giorno is mine,” he tells her.
Then he leads her away from the place of her fall, along the unnaturally quiet pond’s edge deeper into the unknown wood.
Nearly the same time as she loses sight of the clearing where they had been with the pond at the bottom of the slope, the trees change shape. Crooked branches arch above with knuckles worn from unkind storms. A fallen one, massively a head taller than herself, blocks their way. In a light hop like over a puddle of sullied water, Giorno jumps with ease to the top, reaching down to lift Trish up on top of the old bark, another easy feat and then she’s carefully standing on the rough bark.
For a moment, they stand at arm’s length and he seems to be calculating the way down from the log. She coaxes the question out of herself like a carrot from ground, “So what were you doing?”
“What do you mean?” He asks.
“Earlier this eve, before you found me, why were you out walking?”
“Ah, well, I was searching.”
He jumps down from the massive tree’s roundness like it isn’t so much longer than the length of him to fall. Then, like it’s a small thing, he gestures for her to jump.
With a hurried sigh, she gathers up the pieces of her dress to make catching her legs easier to find within the layers. Then, without giving herself more than a couple thoughts of harsh landings on her already bruised arms, she grits her teeth and leaps.
He catches her easily of course, her legs over his right arm and her back on his left, and she has to tell her heart to calm for the sake of not letting him know how much fear the leap had summoned from her.
She asks with every intent of sounding disinterested but instead cringes at how shakily she says, “W-What were you searching for?”
And he doesn’t smile. In fact, that easy glint vanishes from his eyes and is replaced with a distantness that makes her regret asking.
He looks to the fallen tree, her gaze following to find a massive gash of death across its belly. She expected at least insects to be gnawing at it, life attacking death to survive and yet...
A sort of vacuum comes from the hole in the tree’s core. Not that death inhabited it, but that it was pure absence.
“How does that happen?” She asks with reverent quiet creeping through her words.
Gently, Giorno lowers her to stand on her own, answering, “It’s the wilt-death. We've suffered from this decay of our home for too many moons now, though there is scarce understanding about where it came from, and even less for how to end it. Tithing to the forest has done nothing but delay the spread, and our king has no plan other than succumb to this blight’s devouring with revelry and drunken song.”
Trish eyes him, “So you were out to find some sort of apothecary for a cure?”
The fae is quiet for a moment longer, gaze scrutinizing the ground before he remembers she’s present, turning to move on as he says, “You would think it silly. It’s only a tale for nymphs. Let’s continue on.”
She thinks to prod him, but decides against it in favor of moving away from the... almost growling life-barren tree.
Not nearly a half minute after they resume walking, the sun sets, plunging the two of them promptly into a thick darkness.
She could’ve sworn she would have at least had an hour longer of daylight before––
A root trips her, and she nearly falls over the weight of her dress catching on the knolled bark. Moreover, as she resettles her dress, it’s heavier than she remembered. Pushing past the odd thought, she focuses on the impending darkness, how her eyes begin blending forms.
Though, she can make out that the fae is gone.
“Giorno?” She calls, collecting her dress up and swearing to herself as she carries on walking in the lifeless dark, calling out his name again and again to no avail.
“Just my luck,” she mutters as she rounds another large shrub. “I trust a fae to lead me through an enchanted forest and what do I have now? A fae leading an overly trusting human to their––”
Now she truly falls, the practically invisible root she knocked into the height of her knee and twice as thick as the last. After swearing, she tries to stand, just to find her legs swimming in the layers of dress. Unable to find purchase on the ground, she slips repeatedly, her shoes worthless and she rolls onto her back and claws through the layers of dress to get a better look.
Her shoe falls off her foot, several sizes too large. The other, equally huge. Her stockings make hundreds of rolls up her legs, suddenly far too loose, the garters completely useless around her thighs.
Trish swears. She’s shrinking. It’s faerie magic and she’s shrinking to become as small as clover weed. Her hands are already too small for her gloves and she throws them off along with her rings.
Calm down, she tells herself. It’s not fatal. It’s only shrinking. Mother’s stories didn’t have people die by shrinking.
Though, as she hunches and tells herself this, a new problem presents itself when she realizes her corset no longer holds her tightly.
Hugging her front, her face heats as her undergarments become larger and looser and the delicate fabric that had once hung prettily about her shoulders now droops lower and lower down her back. She hugs the front of the dress tight to her as long as she can––shutting her eyes and willing the shrinking to stop––until finally the fabric is too heavy for her, and she admits defeat by letting it engulf her.
She isn’t sure when it stops, but when, under the hundreds of folds of fabric, the heaviness of the darkness takes on a new suffocating tone, she gets up. Her arms out as she tries to find the end of the maze that still held her warmth. An odd sensation that made her think of wombs.
Finally, she reaches the colder edges, the weight of the fabric becoming easier to push until the faintest light marks the opening.
Eagerly she shoves her arms through––the cold air immediately scoring goosebumps on her bare skin––before she sees who is waiting with a lantern.
With a yelp, she snatches the edges of the fabric still near and wraps herself in them, hunching and glaring at the fae, “How much did you––?! Nevermind it! Where have you been?!”
Plainly Giorno answers, “Fetching you some clothes.”
“You knew this would happen?!”
“It happens to all humans that enter the realm.”
“W-Why didn’t you warn me so I-I could’ve been more prepared to hide myself?!”
“It was unnecessary,” Giorno replies simply. “I reasoned that you needn’t worry about something that would be of no consequence.”
“Of no––?!” Trish huffs, but bites her tongue. The fae stands utterly without shame, speaking with a sincerity that makes her remember his lack of humanity, and she could possibly find grace for that. Possibly.
Trish sighs heavily, turning to the bundle of clothes he holds in his left. “What have you got for me to wear then?”
A new glint enters the fae’s eyes, an excitement that ordinarily would put Trish on edge, if it weren’t tinted with his now characteristic––and somewhat disarming––childlike innocence.
“A couple pieces!” He brandishes a selection from his arm, holding it out for her to judge, albeit with an undertone that said he’d hoped to get to the others soon. “This one I felt would be the most... visually comfortable, I suppose. So I wanted to show it to you first.”
Trish winces at the horribly thick bodice, the layers required to wear it no doubt would bulge all the way up her neck. The patterns and style evoking the smell of stuffy court dinners.
“Absolutely not. Next.”
The following is better, a sparkling silver gown with jewels like dewdrops on morning mist, but, “What is it made out of?” she asks.
“A lady’s web,” Giorno replies with a sort of jealous awe, “It's a treasured fabric for a fae tailor to work with as it’s some of the finest silk––”
“But a spider? It came out of a spider’s body?”
“Well, yes.”
“I won't touch it with ten-foot riding crop. What’s the other one?”
Patiently, he pulls the third from the bundle, and, as he holds it up and her eyes glide over it, a smile wells up on her face before the thought crosses her mind––
“It’s not made of caterpillar skin is it?”
A chuckle escapes Giorno, miraculously light and he shakes his head, “No, it’s fitted from summer leaves. June’s first blossoms. I believe these are from the rising sun redbud trees on the eastern border of the woods. Will they suffice?”
Trish nods, “They will more than suffice. Close your eyes.”
He squints at her in confusion.
“Just do it.”
Obediently, he closes his eyes. After a short moment, she drops her makeshift cover and takes the clothes.
As she starts dressing in the dim light, her eye catches on the lantern glowing from the dirt it sits on. The tails of his cloak brush against it, and she realizes then that the underside of his long cloak is separate, and she glances up to see she’s right–– the wings pushed from his face glitter with matching patterns.
Additionally, his face quieted as it is allows her to study him properly. Angular and equine, ears and nose pointed with skin like the most delicate porcelain. An odd taboo wells up at the invasiveness of what she is doing.
One eye opens.
“Not yet!” She cries.
“Sorry!” Giorno turns away quickly, hands up in apology. Though, she catches the glint of humor tugging at his face.
Trish huffs. She had half the mind to tell him the fae of her mother’s stories were far more gentlemanly than all that... before remembering how some of the characters had done much worse.
And, a slight chill threatening her at the thought, the same stories said those fae had led humans into traps or wells where they could be drained for the fae’s pleasure... or for their betterment. As though their souls were just some elixir for fae to drink and grow more powerful in their magic.
As Trish ties the last loop on the top of the bodice, she looks to see her fae guide facing away from her, the light of the lantern casting sharp shadows across his figure, his face hidden.
So why does she keep trusting Giorno to prove himself different?
As they walk further into the woods, silence pervades thickly with the night. Trish follows close a few steps behind Giorno, wary of losing sight of him again and being left in the unnaturally dark wood to stumble blindly until the crooked roots swallow her whole.
“Are you well?”
Trish nearly rams into the fae, his figure stopped and looking at her curiously.
“Yes,” She brushes a loose lock back behind her ear, then another, “Yes, of course I’m well.”
He gives her a last look that betrays her worrying thoughts as poorly hidden, before he turns back to walking, holding the lantern higher as he says, “It’s not much longer now. We've almost reached it.”
“Your home?” Trish asks. Although, she doesn’t need an answer from him as they crest the dirt mound they had been climbing. Awe silences her thoughts, enraptured by the display a few trees away from them.
Barren moonlight hisses cold from the tree canopy high above, but is forgotten against the warmth that breathes from the base of the large oak tree, hollowed of its core to allow for joyous light to pour from it, laughter and song the lifeblood throughout instead of sap.
Through holes like windows with shutters made of dazzling leaves embroidered with sparkling webs, she could make out figures dancing in groups and couples as far up as the top, where the natural windows numbered less, possibly for more private rooms.
“Who lives up there?” Trish gestures to the highest window of the tree, a balcony there and she thinks she sees a figure sweep away from it, a chill cast down her spine at the sight.
Abruptly, Giorno moves in front of her, face close to hers and lantern held closer beside them as he says with a sudden sternness, “Trish, tonight you are to do exactly as I say.”
Her brows furrow. “Why?”
“It is for your safety, with no other higher or lower reason.”
She studies him, the firm warning in his stare. “And if I, a lost human, at some point should deem it better to run away instead of trust you, a fae?”
A darkness steals over his eyes that sets her teeth on edge. He says low, “Trusting these woods will bring you a soul-death far worse than any release-pain granted to the dying. You can trust that above anything else, I assure you.”
Trish watches danger dance through his eyes like an odd fish, nonetheless with teeth.
It confirms her guess that this tree was more than just an inn for her night, and so Trish asks carefully, “Well, now that you’ve brought me back to your home, can I be shown where I’ll be spending the night?”
At this, the graveness leaves him, the light politeness gradually returning, “Of course, fair one.” He moves away to set the lantern down as he adds, “I’m sure you must be tired from the night already.”
Gifted the room to breathe again, Trish veils her relief by letting it escape through her nose with a glance away, agreeing that, “It would be nice to have a small drink.”
A blur of lace and sleeve flash around her, Giorno’s face manifesting a mere nose’s length from hers, causing her lungs to snag.
Giorno says softly, “This is the first rule you must obey: when we enter the tree, only sip the water offered to you. Never drink it in whole swallows.”
Her face pinches in confusion, just as she feels a cold touch on her breastbone. Looking down, she sees Giorno has placed a locket there, clasping the ends behind her neck for her.
The sleeves retreat with him, once again returning her space to her and she looks over the locket. An intricately carved knot of minuscule roots, the smallest of writing on each one, all of which drenched with some solid gold liquid. She makes out the whole shape as two wings wrapped around each other in a tight hold.
“It’s lovely,” Trish murmurs, then says clearer to him, “What is this?”
“Never lose it,” he tells her. “And never let it break. It’s sealed with thick magic that can’t be loosed without a cost.”
“What does it do?” Trish turns the wing locket over in her fingers before noticing Giorno’s gesture to look behind her.
Trish gasps, a horribly childish thing, but she can’t help it. Sprouting without touching her back are two magnificent glittering wings. Clear as crystal, with golden webbing through them that reminds her of a dragonfly’s. Embers seem to trickle from them like glimmering mist.
She does a twirl, entranced by the way they move with her and unable to stop from smiling as she asks, “Did you––? Are these mine?"
“So long as you wear the locket, yes, they’re yours.” Giorno wears a small smile, like he’s given a gift he wishes were better.
“They’re absolutely stunning,” Trish does another spin, some of the embers trailing to land on her face; she finds them oddly cool to the touch. Brushing them off, she reminds herself of her position and asks, “Why give these to me?”
His grin turns wry and somewhat tired, “It prevents you from being enchanted by a fae’s mind, as well as hides your identity a bit further. At least as long as no one touches them. Understand, here, humans are seen as playthings. I don’t want you to be harassed while in my care.”
Some learned polite part of her thinks to say thank you, but then she remembers his face a minute prior––how his expression had held danger for her, particularly how her refusal to follow him surely meant his loss based on how sternly he’d spoken––no, she doesn’t think of the wings as a gift, but as just part of her confirmed role as his tool.
This, along with his other behaviors so far, had already solidified her decision to continue following him.
When she was seven, her mother had gifted her a dove, and it was obvious fact that if the cage door were opened, the bird would escape. But when Trish opened the door out of curious wondering, the dove did not leave. So she left the door open overnight, enjoying the trust the kind bird had placed between them, only to find in the morning that the dove had not only escaped, but also had taken her favorite opal necklace with it.
This fae needs her to play a part in some hidden plan, and her plans of escape now rely less on how fast she can run, but instead how long the fae will trust taking his eyes off of her.
So, she would play along for now.
Giving a last twirl, Trish summons another pleased smile, though the question holds a genuine eagerness when she asks, “Can I fly? Or do I need an incantation or...?”
As soon as she’s finished her spin, she’s struck silent by the fae shrugging off the thick cloak he’d been wearing.
The ruffle collar of blooms fallen from his neck, Trish can make out the pattern lacing over his collarbone and up to his ears as an intricate living ivy. Underneath lays a plain white shirt with billowing sleeves, layered with a simple buttoned vest made elaborate with floral embroidery on the front half, accompanied by soft leather pants and high-boots laced far too intricately for their design. Jewelry accents various buttons, a couple bracelets and necklaces ornated with finely carved gold insects to match his many rings.
In the world she understood, all of this would speak to a person below court, maybe a pageboy with a sponsor kind enough to buy him flourishes for an otherwise common outfit.
Though, a glance to his side, and she understands why his clothing isn’t the main flair of his person.
Massive wings, much larger than hers, open behind him as he adjusts the jewelry on his sleeves.
The wings flourish in a gossamer gold that makes her wonder if they’re made of liquid, the way the lantern throws light on them casting various hues across their span like a the sun's brushstrokes on a waterfall. Swallowtail wings as they are, at the necks of the tails are accents of blue and red, and she recognizes them as the matching eyes to the ones on his head's wings that startled her when they first met. Part of her ponders how much he feels the long tails if he’s been dragging them on the ground like how he is.
Despite the glimmering side, the backs of the wings are a couple rays of that sun gold against pitch black––dark as the sun blotted by the moon’s crawl. She had only seen an illustration of a lunar eclipse, but she feels she won’t need to see it ever again now.
“With help, yes, you can fly,” Giorno confirms, his voice startling her back. After straightening his vest, he steps closer to offer, “Take hold of my arm.”
Within the wing’s span now, she thinks to ask why his don’t shed embers like hers, if it would drip on her instead, if he cared if she accidentally brushed against it— but she silences them all, telling herself to calm as she loops her arm through his. A last second thought appears about the heft of weightlessness and falling so she asks, “You’re not going to move fast, are you?”
A smile lifts Giorno’s eyes, genuine and impish––and certainly not calming to her heart-rate.
Before she can back out, he jumps off the ground.
Trish clings to his arm with a bursting cry, half-climbing onto him just to secure herself as the wind whips around them.
She thinks he chuckles before he tells her to look.
Trish shakes her face buried in his wind-filled sleeves. “Heights are not my strength.”
“Then don't think of your own strength,” Giorno coaxes, “Just open your eyes.”
Carefully, she eases her eyes open, and finds the forest floor moving fast under them.
She buries her face again in his shirt and begs, “Please don’t drop me.”
“I won’t,” he assures patiently, “Look, you’re missing the lights.”
When she looks this time, she’s met with the shore of a pond, which at this size looks near like a lake. On the far edge is a flurry of light, and she looks to see fireflies dancing in and out of a tree dunking its roots in the pond. The movements are synchronized and the fireflies somehow trail their light to make designs that hang in the air in an effortless spectacular glitter. Lily pads on the pond’s surface serve as tables for various small creatures taking tea and enjoying the show, a couple of tree frogs waving at them as they glide by.
Leaving the pond behind, he takes them higher, and although her first inclination is to hide it from view, she finds the change gradual––and the view of the fairy tree to be dazzling enough–– that she doesn’t mind it so much.
Then, when they’re near the canopy top, he twirls them around, and she blinks to find the stars staring back at her.
He flies them backwards, facing the sky, and she promptly becomes lost in the millions of lights strapped to the heavens. Belts of them and characters of old, some she can pick out from the illustrated constellations in her mother’s old books.
Wind whips through her hair, gently though, which she didn’t expect it to feel so gentle.
Every turn is gradual and swaying as he glides them high above the forest floor, but she’s too absorbed in the wind to grow drowsy. The stars are constant, and the canopy not obscuring so much as framing them.
His hold on her is careful, but firm. And slowly she becomes aware of his gaze on her.
Trish points to the sky, “Heracles is right there. And the swan. Sygnus.”
Giorno follows her gesture, asks, “Who taught you the old stories of the fae? And the stars?”
“My mother,” Trish says softly. “She practically lived at the library.”
Quiet blooms between them as Giorno no doubt reads her undertone, before he says, “I’m sorry.”
Trish nods thanks.
“Is that why you ran away?”
She looks to him curiously, “No, I… My father wants to send me away.”
“Is where he will send you terrible?” The fae asks.
Trish murmurs, “It won’t be where she is, and he cares not.”
Understanding comes easy to Giorno, apparently, as he allows her silence to be with her memories.
After about a minute more, the air slows around them, and she realizes that they’re returning to the forest floor.
Carefully, Giorno straightens them out a couple feet off the ground, holding her hands so she’s in front of him.
“Now, landing is the trickier part,” he says by her ear. “But I think you’ll do just fine.”
“Wait, how do I do it?”
“Walk as though air is land.”
Trish attempts walking on air and is sure it’s more for his entertainment than for a correct landing, seeing how poorly he stifles a giggle.
“Alright now, carefully...” He warns, and her feet brush the ground, but evidently she had the ‘walking’ off, seeing how she trips.
In an instant, Giorno hops in front of her, and she’s caught from falling by collapsing in his arms. He helps her stand with a tease, “A graceful landing, lady Una.”
“You’re the glittering oaf who told me to walk on air!” She bursts without thinking, blushing as she practically hears her aunt chiding at such rude manners.
Yet, it earns a laugh out of the fae. More, she didn’t realize he had been giving her masked laughs until this moment.
When Giorno settles, it’s into a smile, and he tells her, “Truly you are something! You’re the first human to catch me off guard like that.”
A sly grin sneaks onto her face at the thought, and she returns, “It won’t be the last time, either.”
With a smaller chuckle, Giorno says, “maybe so,” before beckoning her to follow. This massive trunk they stood by was the fairy tree, he explained. Additionally that, before she retires to her room, he certainly had to show her to his fellows and find her some food and drink.
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