Chapter Text
It had been a normal day. Really, the most boring, ordinary day. Nothing made it suspect the night would’ve been any different. But that's how everything ever starts.
The stars were already up in the dark sky, the cicadas finally leaving space to the crickets to sing. The village had long since stilled, the market stalls closed, the main square quiet while the families had finally gathered in their homes.
It surely was slightly too late for the library’s “Open” sign to be still hanging next to the entrance.
Apparently, ending the day like everyone else had wasn’t the librarian’s main concern, given that, rather than in the library itself, he was deeply lost in the realm of dreams.
It wasn’t so unusual for Aendir to get back from work late, and so was not falling asleep at his desk. Whatever extra, non urgent and even slightly unnecessary task that could preserve him from the tide of greetings and small talk that rolled down the streets during the regular closing hour, he indulged. He copied catalog numbers, re-shelved books already in order, and regularly surrendered to the pull of sleep, quill still in hand, cheek smudged with ink as it rested on the freshly written parchment.
It wasn’t that he hated people. No, he wasn’t the type of man who could be associated with the word hate. Aendir just wasn’t fond of crowded places, of the conversations — mainly forced by courtesy — with people he barely knew by sight. That, for sure, was his brother’s field.
Oh yes, Leyv thrived in sociality — he always had. No wonder why he ended up as a merchant. He was the persuasive, easy to talk with, way more charming older brother. Meanwhile, Aendir, ever the shy, wiry kid with his nose always buried in the pages of a book, found himself choosing that very habit as his profession.
Not that being a librarian was the most fun thing to do, but he surely wasn’t the type to dive into a socially exposing job like his brother, anyways.
He enjoyed his time alone — thank the Gods there weren't many customers — and he found the closest thing to inner peace in that little shelf lined sanctuary everyone called the local library.
That day hadn’t been particularly different from the usual. The early harvest season had just come to its end, leaving space to the warm embrace of summer. The village had already started bracing for the arrival of the festival season, joy and thrill already in the air. The summer festival in the island meant exchange, for which every village and city filled with travelers, nobles and commons alike. It was during these moments of general waiting for such events that Aendir most enjoyed his time alone, given the need for it. Cultural and literary exchanges were customary during the festival, and this would have meant quite a bit of extra work for the librarian. Above all, however, it would have involved a great deal of socialising, which would have required considerable… preparation from Aendir. More time to spend on his own, indeed.
Over the last few days, many of the organisers had already begun making requests on behalf of the festival. That afternoon, in fact, he had been asked to provide a series of new editions and reprints of books for one of the displays, and Aendir, ever committed to his job more by habit than by sheer discipline, had spent his day between catalogues and prints. It was extraordinary, his talent in losing track of time, even when the real task had been completed and he let himself have a break.
And so, there he was: slouched over his desk, oblivious to the world, his head buried in his arms. The old tome he took from the history section as his evening read turned into a not so comfortable pillow, its pages now crumpled under the weight of his resting arms.
Every now and then, his leg twitched in his sleep, his nose scrunching as if something was bothering him in his dreams. His knee hit the desk once, rattling the inkwell that rested dangerously close to the sleeve of his pearly white shirt. It toppled sideways, hitting the wooden surface with a soft thud. Fortunately, though, he stirred before the dark puddle spreading over the desk could make a victim of his clothes.
He blinked groggily, green eyes still bleary from sleep. He groaned as he straightened, muscles sore from the awkward position.
“Gods, did I fall asleep again..?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes to clear his fogged vision, “If I keep up with this I will get chronic back pain before turning twenty-two.”
As he tried to get up from his chair, his hand landed straight onto the spilled ink. The dark liquid spread on his skin, staining his fingertips.
“Oh, hell.”
Quickly, he put the inkwell back in place and reached for the nearest tissue. Still cursing under his breath, he dragged it across the desk in his best attempt to clean up the mess, then wrung it while trying to get the stain off his hand.
With a huff, Aendir leaned back, his shoulders resting against one of the shelves that cornered the librarian’s desk, and rolled up his sleeves.
His gaze drifted towards the window. The sight of the night sky served as a confirmation that he had, indeed, slept too much.
He shook his head and sighed.
With one hand, he reached for the book that lay open and long since abandoned on the desk, while the other raked furiously through his golden brown hair in an attempt to tame the mess it had become. Two locks had stuck out in an absurd position on top of his head, making him look like he had two very crooked antennae. He flattened it out as best as he could, trying to regain a somehow tidy appearance.
His cloak and satchel still hung from the chair. He grabbed both, putting on the first and sliding the second on one shoulder.
He walked to the door, crossing the threshold and finally stepping into the night air. He stretched his neck a little as he took a deep breath. The summer air was cool, but slightly humid. Aendir opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. A few clouds had gathered on the horizon.
“So it’s going to rain… huh,” the boy muttered as he pulled a metal key from his bag and turned to lock the library door. As if to confirm it, a faint, distant thunder rumbled in the distance. Aendir put the key back in his bag and set off. “Better not be late, then.”
The small cottage he lived in wasn’t too far. Instead of taking the main road that ran alongside the square and led to Innswood’s principal residential neighborhood, he took the narrow, cobblestone side street that led to the outskirts. That area was less populated, bordered by the forest, but much quieter. Aendir himself had decided to live there, in a small but cozy house that suited his needs, rather than in the now chaotic family home.
It took a few dozen minutes to walk there from the library, but he didn't really mind. It was almost pleasant to take a nice walk to round out the day, with nothing but the crickets chirping in the background. It was Aendir’s way to relax at the end of the day.
However, letting him relax wasn’t in that night’s plan.
As soon as he spotted the treeline, his walk now practically at its end, a loud noise cracked from the underbrush, shattering the quiet peace.
Aendir jumped in fright, nearly stumbling back.
“What in the Gods’ name..?” He murmured under his breath, his heart still pounding from the surprise. He froze, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the underbrush looking for any sign of movement.
For a moment, he considered getting closer, but cowarded too much to actually do so.
Whatever it was, it hadn’t been natural. He had never heard a sound like that before, especially coming from the forest. It had not been like an animal’s roar or as loud as the fall of a tree.
It was way more… controlled, firm— like a small thunderclap coming from the underbrush. Now that he thought of it, it sounded like something... metallic, almost.
He gulped, legends about how the forest was haunted, suddenly rushing back through his mind like a storm. Mischievous spirits, the wrath of the Gods, whatever the elders said to keep children from wandering in the old woods, especially after that one accident years ago.
Maybe it would have been better if he just got away, and didn’t dig his nose in that weird stuff. Yet, something was drawing him in. He couldn't explain it rationally, not really. He felt as if there was something strange in the air, and it tugged unpleasantly at his curiosity.
It hadn't seemed like anyone was there, but what if someone had gotten hurt? What if something had happened?
“Who’s there?” He called out, voice low as if too scared to actually get a response.
Silence.
Just the rustling of leaves and the crickets.
He made a small, imperceptible step closer, and tried again.
“Is anyone there? Is anybody in danger?”
Nothing, still nothing.
Even the echo of the sound had now completely dissolved into the silence of the night, leaving nothing but the impression of it still ringing in Aendir’s ears.
It was strange. Perhaps he should have interpreted it as a sign, or a warning of some kind. Maybe the elders weren't lying, maybe the Spirits really did exist in that forest. And if they did, they certainly wouldn't waste their time talking to a village boy. He tightened his grip around the satchel, giving a final glance towards the forest edge, and nodded. Whatever was happening there evidently wasn’t his business, and pushing his luck never went well for him. Especially when it meant entering that Godsdamned forest.
So, he resumed his walk, the lantern attached to his bag swinging slightly with each step. The path thinned out as he got closer to his house, and recognising the familiar wilderness of the outskirts approaching, he let out a sigh of relief.
The only thing he truly cared about at the moment was to kick off his boots, throw his cloak and shirt on the nearest chair, and sink into the bed until dawn.
Only a few steps ahead, though, he found himself stopping dead in his tracks.
The light from his lantern made him notice something on his path. A few dark stains splattered on the cobblestone, next to his boots. His eyes widened in surprise. Was that… blood?
Fresh blood?
The bigger stain he had almost stepped on was followed by a trail of tiny splotches along the path, reaching the treeline.
He felt a knot forming in his stomach. First that noise from the undergrowth, now blood. Something was wrong, and trying to pretend nothing was happening was starting to weigh heavily on his shoulders.
A wounded animal had been there, perhaps?
If unrelated to that strange thunder, the presence of bloodstains next to the woods could have several explanations. Wolves did not usually venture as far as the path. But it was not impossible. It was certainly more plausible than any strange divine act aimed at frightening him.
He glanced around, instinctively raising the lantern closer to his eyes — only to be blinded by both the light and the realisation that it wasn’t the brightest way to inspect the scene.
Still, something felt off. There were no signs of an animal. No pawprints, no crushed leaves, no sound of movement. And judging by how little blood there was, whatever it was had to be small. It shouldn’t have gone far, especially if wounded. To avoid escalating his fear, as was his habit, Aendir clung to rational assumptions. Probably the creature had really just fled, or it had been brought away by its predator.
He snorted. Those hypotheses didn’t make much sense, coming from him. He had never even been hunting, so how could he know how animals bled? He exhaled, half ready to give up on whatever this was and head home—
until his heart stuttered in his chest.
Not far from his boots lay a figure.
Small. Still.
He blinked.
A mouse?
No.
It was too… person shaped to be a mouse.
The lantern slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground beside him.
He crouched, and breath caught in his throat.
Yes, it was a person. A girl, by the looks of it, but impossibly small. Not taller than his index finger, probably. She was lying unconscious on the ground. He had to bring his face even closer to roughly make out her features.
The girl’s skin was pale and bruised in some points. A mop of copper-red hair was matted to her forehead, and although from his point of view her body seemed fragile, the girl was actually a little chubby. Her clothing, on the other hand, looked foreign to him. She was wearing a shirt… which wasn’t really a shirt. It was a puffy indument, made of dark, shiny fabric, that had rolled up slightly over her waist. A sort of thin metal strip connected the collar to the end. Underneath, she was wearing tight, very short black trousers that didn’t go past her thighs. Her knees were scraped, but the part that worried him most — as soon as he saw her — was her left leg.
A puddle of blood had spread beneath her limb, staining the cobblestone. It reconnected — he realised soon — with the trail of small spots he had just seen on the path. She was whatever had been injured.
Aendir remained frozen for around two minutes, jaw dropped as he stared at the tiny thing. His eyes stayed fixed on her, but his mind flew to what he’d read in the old tales’ books. Could she really be..?
No, it couldn’t. It was impossible.
Every book that mentioned them said humans, tiny people who once roamed the Island and lived beside the elven kind, were extinct, vanished from the Island for centuries. Some said they fled across the sea. Others insisted they’d never existed at all — just invented creatures in old clerics’ fables.
And yet, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him — and no, they were not — a real human was lying wounded before him.
He gawked, still incredulous. Was this still a dream? He couldn’t tell. Of all the people it could have happened to?
Him. Aendir. The awkward village librarian whose life had never been anything but ordinary.
So this was how the Gods played their jokes.
It was ironic, how he could barely hold a conversation with a client without stuttering, and now he had to manage something straight up from a folk legend.
He swallowed hard. No, he couldn’t leave her. He’d never been able to. Even as a child, when he found injured mice in his parents’ garden, he’d carry them home cupped in his palms, heart racing, whispering comfort as if they could understand. He enveloped them in soft linen tissues and restored them to help, always attentive to keep them away from Miura — the round, gray, and ever curious family cat.
This, however, was a radically different story. The injured creature on the ground was no mouse. It was a human, and it — no, she — was alive.
The thought made his chest tighten. He exhaled shakily and leaned down, his hand trembling as he reached out. The girl’s tiny chest rose and fell — barely, but enough.
His fingertip brushed her side.
The girl twitched. A small, sharp sound — half gasp, half whimper — broke from her lips.
Aendir jerked his hand back as if burned, heart leaping. The realization struck him so sharply that he froze again. One careless touch, one wrong movement, and he could harm her worse than whatever had already done this.
Another clap of thunder rumbled from the sky. Aendir looked up. The clouds had already partially obscured the moonlight, threatening rain.
He couldn’t leave the girl there. Not that he was an expert in medicine, let alone human one, but he was fairly certain that losing all that blood and staying out in the rain in her condition wouldn’t end well. Especially for someone so small. Oh gods, she could have died there. Guilt tightened in his throat. He couldn’t let something like that happen to her just because he was afraid of making the situation worse. He had to do something. Perhaps bandage her wound… although its rather small size would make that difficult.
“All right,” he muttered under his breath. “All right…"
He lowered his hand again. Hell, she looked so small beside it; her whole body perhaps as long as a finger, more or less. His eyes narrowed in concentration. Now, how could he lift her?
How could he manage to handle such a small, injured body without hurting it more?
He tried first to take her around the waist, thumb and forefinger poised with almost painful concentration, but stopped before he fully closed his grip. No. No, that felt wrong. Too much pressure in a too small place. He pulled back, heart hammering.
Then, slower still, he set his other hand palm-up beside her on the cobblestones. With the gentlest brush of his fingertips, he eased her onto it, supporting her shoulders first, then her hips, barely daring to let the pads of his fingers touch her at all.
“All right.” Aendir repeated once again, more to reassure himself than the unconscious human in his hands. The human, probably reacting to the sudden warmth, twitched slightly. Her tiny boot scraped lightly against his palm. Aendir held his breath for a moment, bracing for her to wake up. Only the gods knew how scared she would have been, poor thing. He couldn’t have imagined how terrifying the whole thing would have been from her point of view, especially whilst she was injured.
Still, the human didn’t wake up. She just let out a small whimper as Aendir lifted her, still kneeling on the cobblestone path, and got her closer to her chest with excruciating care. Warmth was the best he could provide her in that moment, and the thing she needed most, probably; then, he would’ve thought about mending her wound.
“All right, there you are,” he whispered, once again. “You’re safe now.”