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Never before had he left Frenatae. In all fairness most Moth Fairies had never left their home dimension. There was little point in going to the realm of humans. It was a place without magic, and the resources within it were of little interest to the Moth Fairies. There was also the risk of encountering a banished member of their society.
The crimes that result in a Mothfolks banishment are no small things. Whether it be the casting of forbidden magic, the slaughtering of others, plots to kill the king and his family, or any of the other reasons to be banished. They all held the constant that they were dangerous acts, and those who would be willing to commit them were truly dangerous beings.
In spite of all this though, there were those who chose to explore the human realm. Spurred on by curiosity, adventure, or any other emotion these Fairies ventured into the realm of no magic.
As a child Fern remembered reading a few stories of those who had gone into the human realm. Most of these stories were incomplete and rarely ever caught Fern's interest but one thing about the stories had always stuck with them.
The feeling of entering into a different realm. These adventurers described it like having one's entire being disappearing in a singular moment, every single sense was gone for the briefest of moments before being replaced with the sense of falling. Then, everything returned at once to them as they entered into the human realm.
Fern didn't recall this experience ever being called a truly unpleasant one. More often it was compared to just a strange and slightly disorienting experience.
But none of these stories had been from those banished to the Realm of no magic. The process had hurt. Fern could remember the exact moment the mark of banishment had placed onto him. Before it was even finished he could feel its effects.
It was like the entirety of Frenatae shunned their very being. That the mere idea of them being allowed to continue to exist in its air was the greatest of taboos. This feeling… No, it was more than, it was a Fact of their existence. With the further completion of the Mark of Banishment this only grew. To the point that Fern thought they'd be crushed before ever even reaching the Human Realm.
Then all at once, Fern felt himself be ejected from the place he called home. From everything that he'd ever known. It felt as if he was falling at a million miles an hour. But his mind screamed at him that wasn't possible, because there was no Fern right now. The prince didn't have a body in this place between existences so how could there be any feeling.
This idea of falling was replaced with the rapid deceleration of Fern’s entire being, as senses returned to them and for a moment all that ran through their mind was the worry that they had fallen to their death and were nothing more than a splatter of red on the ground.
Oxygen filled Fern's lungs before he knew it, and the idea that he had died was gone. Physically, Fern understood that his body was completely fine. Even that first breath of air in the human realm wasn't one of gasping to fill empty lungs. It was more akin to the first breath inside a new building. The change from the air outside to the air inside.
At no point had Fern actually been falling, or lost any oxygen in their lungs, or been crushed by the place that had been their home. But their mind refused to accept that, it couldn't correlate everything that had just happened as feelings.
They stayed on the forest floor for a long time. Not taking in any of their surroundings as all their focus was on trying to calm themselves. To accept that they had not been falling or crushed moments ago.
Yet even after their mind accepted this fact they refused to move. Refused to accept what had just happened. How in a single act of childish desire they'd lost everything.
Fern couldn't tell if they were crying. If they were, then all the tears just mixed with the rain and became nothing more than another droplet of water. That rain is what finally caused them to move. Their entire body shivered as the cold seeped inside, and any remaining warmth was robbed from them.
As a crown prince, Fern had never learned much about how to survive in the wild. Maybe if he hadn't been sick for most of his childhood he'd have learned some skills but that wasn't what had happened.
He had been sick.
He had been useless.
Even after he gained some semblance of magic he could never do anything worthwhile with it.
The scream that tore out of their throat in that moment was louder than every single last scream in their past. Yet Fern couldn't actually hear it at all. All the noise he had made was drowned out by the rain and thunder. The only reason they knew that any sound had been made at all was the way their throat ached and stung now.
In this storm it didn't matter what he did. No matter how hard he cried or how loud he screamed, it'd been drowned out by the storm. This is what truly broke Fern. This world didn't care about their agony, and they knew that the one they'd just left didn't care either.
He'd felt loneliness before. It was far from a foreign feeling, but Fern thought that he'd conquered it long ago. But the loneliness that plagued him now was unlike any other.
Part of them wanted to give up right then and there. To let the storm consume them. Nobody cared about their plight, they'd truly lost everything, so what reason was there to continue anymore.
Spite. Such a simple and petty emotion. One that they'd been told was unbecoming of a crowned prince. Yet in that moment, spite is what pushed them to continue forward. They wouldn't let their father just banish them. To rid himself of the one he considered a failure of a son. No, they would prove him wrong.
This spite fueled them as they stood up and began their search for shelter. But for all the determination that they had, they still could feel their remaining hope draining.
It was so cold, and no amount of spite would warm them, nor would it help manifest a shelter for them to rest in. The rain fell even harder as if in defiance of their spite and determination. Still, Fern pushed on.
By the time Fern found the cave he was barely able to stand. He wasn't even sure if it was real or just an attempt at his mind to try and give him a false sense of hope.
Once he stumbled inside and felt the rain stop hitting him, confirming the reality of the shelter. He collapsed, breaching heavily as 1darkness pulled at the edges of his vision, and finally, now that he was out of the rain. His tears mattered. Finally distinct from the other droplets of water that fell from his body.
Alone and afraid, Fern cried himself to sleep. Wanting nothing more than to just be in his own bed in that moment.