The pixie flew straight into Luna’s face, grabbing at her cheeks while blabbering something about forming a “union” between them. She tried to swat at the little person, who was oblivious to the unwanted closeness. The sound of the fluttering dragonfly wings were barely heard through the pixie’s constant chatter.
“We can be best friends; I promise I won’t be a disturbance!” The pixie pleaded. She had an evenly pitched voice despite the tiny figure.
Luna, who had been slowly attempting to back away, tripped on her own two feet, falling on her butt. The pixie gasped as the human girl grunted, there was a moment of silence as Luna stared at the creature before her.
Pixies were a rare sight to see, especially during the day, they don’t look as magical then. But Luna had caught one stuck inside the kitchen cabinet. She heard the little cries for help from the inside and when she opened it, the little pixie hugged her face, thanking Luna before she started spouting.
“First, what were you doing here in the first place, inside a cabinet no less?” Luna asked, dumbfounded.
The pixie landed on her knee, wings folded and tidy behind her back, before bowing.
“I’m sorry! I’m Anise. I was outside on the dandelions when I saw your mother through the window, she left those cookies and berries all vulnerable.” She goes from a happy face at talking about food to a guilty flush. “She must have not seen me sleeping there and closed it.”
Luna stands, making Anise almost fall before catching herself. Sure enough, there’s nothing but cookie crumbs and an uneaten raspberry left inside. The human sighs, making the pixie blush even harder.
Before the spouting could start again, Luna held up her hand, putting the pieces of the pixie’s words together. “You want to form an illegal union with a human? The one fairies make where one owes favors to the other for life?” “Uh huh!” The little pixie confirmed, excited nonetheless.
Luna stood there with her hand still in the air. This Anise pixie must have committed other crimes to offer something like that, or was not afraid of the punishment, whatever it might be. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how she could take advantage of the situation. According to what she learned from the books at the local village library, a fairy who owns their serving life to another must never decline an offer. Whatever Anise’s intensions might be, Luna can’t see how agreeing to this might end up have her misguided by the pixie. Not when said pixie seemed so oblivious.
To do this, Anise explained, they must exchange something for the other to wear. Normally, this means a bracelet or earrings made from their own dust.
To Luna’s amusement, she watched as the tiny creature grabbed her own hair and twisted it like one would squeeze water out of a wet towel. But instead of water, the fairy dust spilled out of her hair. With it, Anise formed in her hands a tiny, round golden earing. Once placed on to the human’s hands, Luna realized that it was not completely round but instead, in a shape of a dandelion.
After staring down at it, she looked to the pixie to see that she had ripped a leaf from one of the flowers in her room and was wearing it like a cape over her shoulders.
“With your beautiful long hair, you can easily hide the earing from suspecting eyes!” Anise exclaimed. She went along with how humans and fairies alike would immediately recognize the fairy dust and start asking questions. Fairy dust was often used on dead flowers and growing crops, it would cause some raising eyebrows if people saw the earing made from it.
With the exchange made, Luna opens her mouth to speak when her mother comes back in the house, a fruit basket hanging on her arm. The girl remembers then that her mother was going to start baking an apple pie this afternoon. She can particularly imagine Anise drooling at the words. Her tiny hands clasp on to the back of the creamcolored dress, hiding from the mother’s sight.
Smiling at her daughter, she places one of the apples into her hand, wordlessly telling her to eat something before going outside for the day. With her back now turned, she walks out of the small house, saying goodbye while Anise flies ahead, straight out of the door.
Outside, Luna tears the apple in half with her hands, a trick her mother had taught her as a child so she wouldn’t have to use a knife and risk cutting herself. As she had guessed, Anise had no trouble eating the piece by herself, despite it being half her size.
The girl started to wonder about the pixies’ eating habits. From what she knows, fairies eat just as much as humans. Maybe pixies are not so different in that aspect.
“So, I can ask anything from you, right?” Luna began.
“Of course.” Alina responds, hands behind her back. In the sunlight, her wings look transparent instead of off white.
“Then I assume you could show me the forest?” There are forests everywhere, but few are both safe and allow humans to enter. They are homes to most creatures, which include the unicorns, the rarest of them. There are barely any sketches of them in books as it is, if Luna could see one even from far away...She speaks out her desire to the listening pixie.
Anise was not surprised that a human wanted to see those beautiful, almost extinct creatures, all of them do. That itself was not the problem, but rather it's that the reason unicorns are in danger of extinction is because of them. Humans hunted the beings, believing to cure sickness if eaten. Those beliefs were not put to the test, for they in turn were hunted by fairies and killed.
It was Luna who was surprised by how calmly and naturally the fairy had nodded, agreeing to show the human a part of her world despite the two of them having just met, in a silly way no less. What Luna didn’t know though, was that her little companion had often watched her outside the small house, playing on her own.
The girl was completely oblivious to the watching pixie, who always sat at a tree branch, imagining herself laying on the grass beside Luna, who was always reading.
“I was always told my name didn’t fit me as a pixie.” She said, sunbathing on Luna’s head. She smiled as she listened to her companion’s chatter, walking towards the direction of the forest, which was not far away from her own home.
The two girls, an introvert and an extrovert, a human and a pixie guiding the way, enter the forest near Luna’s house. Once they were inside, the day had flicked to night by the thick, tall trees that covered everything. It was more beautiful than the yearly lantern festival the village had. If she had laid on the grass or continued standing there for longer, Luna would have fallen into a cozy sleep.
The water in a small, nearby pound was so clear you could see through it, fireflies floated here and there in groups, not one alone out of place. There were birds of unnatural colors and patterns talking loudly amongst each other on the trees. On the ground, hopped two jackalopes, going inside a bush before Luna woke up from her awe state, following as Anise flew the rest of the way. Her wings and hair now seem to grown in beauty, but still somehow looking the same.
Anise went from talking about herself to pointing out the few creatures that were barely explained in books, like the unicorns. The jackalopes, common amongst small villages like Luna’s own, were of no awe to her, having come across many of them hopping amongst the grass. She remembered having chased after one of them some years ago and suddenly felt bad. There were more natural creatures to humans in the forest, some more common than others, but Luna was happy to see nonetheless.
Unknown to them, a real fairy this time instead of a pixie, watched them from a distance. Unlike Anise’s firefly wings, her butterfly ones made no sound despite being ten times bigger. As she got closer, leaning in, she saw the poppy leaf hanging on the pixie’s back and quickly flew away, seeing the danger the small creature had bought upon the forest.
No humans were allowed there, but worse than that, clumsy Anise gave the agreement away. Even if no one could see the tiny hidden earing behind Luna’s hair, the poppy leaves stood out. There were no poppies in forests.
Back when humans had been allowed in forests, they built little birdlike homes for the pixies. They hanged up high on tree branches like decorations, tiny towns, as they were called. That is where Copper, the fairy who had seen the human and poppy leaf on the pixie, headed to. She lightly tapped the window from one of a tiny town’s house.
Back with the two companions, they went past a shiny river. Luna put her hands in and was delightedly surprised at the warm water, wishing she could wash right there and then. She made a few stops as they went deeper and deeper into the forest to admire some things, catching her attention, for a little longer.
“Look” Pixie pointed, smiling at the trio of unicorns they had just encountered. Her companion looked down from the trees where a flock of blue magpies watched them.
Luna stared at them, mesmerized by the pure looking creatures, which looked back curiously at her, not having seen a human during their lifetime. She slowly approached them, holding her palm out. But before she could touch the creature’s nose, two gloved pixies flew past her head, the unexpected and quick movement scaring the trio away.
Everything else happened quickly for Luna to process. The two new pixies, each holding a spear, stabbed into Anise’s stomach, who gave her a sad smile before her body crumbled into pixie dust on to the forest floor. Her earing did the same as the leaf slowly fell, but before it did, the two gloved pixies wrapped it in a sack.
When Luna got home after being kicked out of the forest, she dragged herself to her bedroom and crumbled the poppies that had grown in a pot at her window sill. She crumbles and teared at them with her hands. Her books did not tell her poppies slowly killed fairies at the touch of their skin. It was only then she remembered how quiet and slower Anise had gotten during their journey.
The two pixies that had informed her couldn't tell why Anise had wrapped the poison around herself, but shrugged and claimed it must have just been her being reckless. When Luna laid on her bed, her mother’s yell for dinner nor the smell of the apple pie snapped her out of her thoughts. Eventually, she did her trick of stopping herself from thinking anything at all and fell asleep for another day to repeat itself.
END
