Ythra
Hello. If you did not already know, my name is Ythra Inkson. You know that mountain on the edge of the horizon that is covered in mist and disappears when you look at it? That's where I live.
The mountain's quite pretty actually, with the fact that all four seasons are happening at once. I live in the winter section, on the top of the mountain. It is by far the smallest section, whilst summer is the biggest at the bottom of the mountain, and spring and autumn split in between. Winter is also the most beautiful section, because it is almost always snowing, and the rose pink snowblooms are everywhere. Maybe I'm just biased though.
I am a shapeshifter, sprite, nymph, whatever you want to call me. I literally just look like a human; none of that pointy eared stuff, or that I'm smaller than "real humans." That is a pixie, not a fairy, mind you. Shapeshifters collect element favors; which is when you do a favor for the world around you, and that particular element grants you the ability to shapeshift into into a creature of that element. I only have a wind favor and a earth favor so far, but I'm working on my water one!
I have a friend in spring section who is also a sprite. Her name is Sakura, and Sara for short. She has both her water and growth favors already. She has waist length long black hair like mine, but has purple eyes compared to my green. Already fourteen decades old, she still acts 13 like me. She has a older brother as well, named Chickuma. He also has purple eyes, but they are a darker color than Sakura's. Chickuma is named after a river in Japan, and true to his name, has his water, wind, and earth favors already. He is 16, three decades older than Sakura.
For some reason, although the winter section is my favorite, the Spring Empress is, in my not so humble opinion is the best. She's so nice, and has like, 1 million guest rooms just for housing strangers. She's gotten me out of prison at least twice, once when I was 5, and once when I was 11. Unlike most of the Emperors, the spring Empress is a pixie. She's stuck at about 25 years old.
The thing I forgot to tell you about immortals, is that we can stop growing when ever. However, we can't make ourselves seem older than we already are. I'm still growing. There are loads of weird rules like that, such as all pixies start craving ambrosia during the full moon, or elves only come out during the day except during the full moon. There's a load of rules about the full moon actually.
I forgot to tell you what we can turn into! I can turn into a cat as my spirit animal, and then a gray mouse for earth and a sparrow for wind. Sara is a flower pixie like the Spring Empress as her spirit, a robin for growth, and an sea otter for water. As soon as I get my water favor I'm going to trade it for a coniunctio. That is latin for combination, and it means that the animal/creature is a combination of two elements. Sara already has one of those, her robin is a growth and wind. I'm hoping mine is a dragon for my wind and water.
Since she doesn't have her wind favor yet, but she has a wind growth animal, she won't get a animal for wind when she does got the favor. Instead she'll get a wind orb which lets her control the wind a little. That is another one of those weird rules I keep going on about. That means I get one animal more than her if we both get all our favors, because I get a wind and a coniunctio, but she only gets the combination.
A spirit is a shapeshifter's desire to stop being human. Sometimes, even if both your parents are shapeshifters, you'll turn out just like a regular human. That's because you like your own shape too much. The happens on the human side too. That's where all the rumors about humans giving birth to animals is from. The animals are actually sprites like us! We can usually find them and train them before they cause more than rumors though. Too many sightings can lead to real investigations. That's where a lot of the witch burnings came from, though if you were lucky enough to be able to turn into a phoenix, you were fire resistant. The summer empress can turn into a phoenix.
