Larkspur | ONC 2023

Chapter 9

"Oh!" She seemed surprised but didn't push the matter further. Instead, she powered on her computer and started scrolling through her library logs. "There's no evidence-based text or study on Fleurian fairies because as you might have noticed they don't exist." She raises her eyes meaningfully at the book in my hand.

"Yes ma'am." I nod.

"But you might find some folklore surrounding the flower-fae." I'm a little put out but I don't show it to her. "Third book, fifth shelf, second rack, fourth aisle."

I nod a thanks at her and make my way towards the rows of books. The whole shelf I realise is dedicated to fae myths and folklore. The shelves are stacked with books on all creatures ever mentioned in legends. Fleurians was easy to find because it is the tiniest book on the shelf—so much for information.

But my curious eyes travel downwards towards the 'N' shelf and I pluck out a thin book that looked out of place from the rest. 'Noires' the title reads. My heart is beating fast as I collect the books and make my way to the farthest corner of the reading room. It was nearing dinner time so a lot of students are leaving. They'll have food, chat with friends, roam on campus and maybe party all night while here I am, twenty-one and young and I don't have a personal life. Rather I don't have a life. My life is there's, all of my actions from childhood are controlled by them.

As tempting as it is to open the Book of Noires, I decide to open Fleurians instead. It is scary when you want to know what's inside a book and yet you know you'll never be the same again after this. The book is written by someone called C Fogfeather. 

Fleurians come from an area towards the far South of the Lumerian kingdom, beyond the forests, a little place called Lunar Creek where the moonflowers grow in abundance. Fairies in civilized societies marry within their closed circles where the powers are declared and matched beforehand to maintain the 'purity' of the race. The fairies in the wild don't bother about class and creed while marrying. Most often they don't officially harness their powers because they work in fields and grow crops and flowers for survival. They don't need magic lessons or use magic in their daily life. So fairies with different magical abilities come together to make fairies who have a little of both traits. They're called duolings and trilings if one of their parents was at duoling. 

So if a triling falls in love with another triling, they can end up making a baby who has all six elements in him/her. The only problem is that whatever the genetic constitution a child has, once they grow up, they can manifest only one magic—at most two, the others are dormant. But if the child is born on a night of the lunar eclipse, the power of the moon might bring the eclipsed powers to the surface and make them extremely powerful

—or so Miss Fogfeather says. 

My thoughts drift back to my mother. My sweet, soft-spoken mother with her soft golden curls framing her face. I don't remember if I've seen her practice magic but I always remember her being able to communicate with the birds and the bees, who gave her locations of exotic flowers which she then scoured and gathered for her potions. So earth powers and air powers were very dominant in her trait. Who knew if she was a lunar fairy too? If yes, then my nonexistent father whom I have never seen might have been the child of a solar fairy from some generation. For centuries, the solar fairies have always been associated with royal and noble bloodlines. So what does that mean?

But my thoughts are interrupted by a little note at the extreme bottom of the page, so tiny that it's almost difficult to read.

Anyone with six dominant powers can't control so much magical energy and every time they use this power, they burn themselves from the inside. So there is no chance that a Fleurian fairy will live to be an adult because as a child, experimenting with their magic is enough to incinerate them from the inside out if they harness the full potential.

Fuck, dude!

My hands are shaking. My mouth feels like sandpaper. "It's all a myth, Lark! There's no guarantee that this Fogfeather woman is right or if you really are a Fleurian." I say to myself. " Maybe you're just an ordinary Lunar fairy. They're so rare that nobody knows what they can do."

The self-soothing words don't work though. I've never thought about how I would die. But knowing that my magic, the essence of who I am can kill me, is definitely something unexpected. But who is this Fogfeather?

I whip out my phone and log into the fae-web, punching in her name in the search bar, and crossing my fingers. Maybe she's just a writer who cooks up her own theories. Maybe there are some articles on the web disproving all of her claims and exposing her as a fraud. But the internet is empty of scandals. C Fogfeather is definitely a historian with loads of fancy degrees to her name. Many of her other predictions and legends have been scientifically proven true after people refused to believe her. But there is no address mentioned for this person.

The only option of contact is an email. I open the link to her email and start typing in a message but I realise I don't know what to ask or what I want to know. There are so many things and yet there's nothing.

"I'm closing the place down, honey." The librarian is at my desk. "Oh yeah," I say absent-mindedly, trash the email to my drafts and get up. My feet are heavy as I trudge to my dorms and flop on my bed. Sleep grabs me by the neck and pulls me in deep.

Author's Note:- What do you think about Fleurian fairies? Do you like the world building so far?