•Apple Forest•
[Ovelia’s POV]
A heavy silence settled inside the wagon, thick and expectant, broken only by the steady creak of the wheels and the rustle of leaves as we passed beneath the first gnarled boughs of the Apple Forest. We were all waiting, our attention fixed on Gale, who sat cross-legged in the center of the wagon floor, his small form unusually still.
As the dappled sunlight of the forest floor began to dance across our faces, Gale finally spoke, his voice flat. "Do you an the story about the werewolf male traveler and the female fairy?" he asked, not looking at any of us.
"Yes," Ann answered from the driver’s seat, her voice clear and direct.
I watched Gale’s face. His expression, usually set in a permanent scowl, shifted into sothing darker, sothing ancient and pained. The playful light in his eyes died, replaced by a deep, smoldering shadow.
"The story is true." The words were hollow, falling like stones into the quiet. He continued to look at the passing trees, their branches heavy with red fruit. "The apple fruit that this forest bears is different from the regular one. It helps a fairy replenish a low amount of mana. For other species, it’s just a fruit that makes them feel hydrated and full."
A mory surfaced. That’s why, I thought, the first ti I tasted it, the texture and taste were so unique, so perfectly balanced between crisp, juicy, and sweet. It was almost unnaturally perfect.
Suddenly, a foreign emotion slamd into my chest—a corrosive, bitter wave of pure hatred. It was so intense it stole my breath. My hand flew to my heart. Is this... his feeling? Are our emotions now connected?
"Why has your expression changed so drastically?" Ace asked, his sharp eyes missing nothing. He had been observing Gale with a warrior’s vigilance, and now he leaned forward, his posture tense.
"Huh?!" Gale snapped, his head whipping toward Ace, confusion and anger warring on his tiny features.
"That legend... it ends with a happy ending, right?" I ventured, my voice hesitant. The story I’d heard from Ace, Ray, and Ann was a charming fable of friendship and gratitude.
The mont I said "happy ending," the hatred in my chest flared, hot and acidic, making feel nauseous. It was so potent I had to clutch the wooden planks beneath .
Gale crossed his arms so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Happy ending? Are you serious?!" he bit out, the words strained, as if he were physically holding back a torrent of rage.
"If you’re getting this angry, it seems there are parts of the story that are missing," Ray comnted from the front, his tone calm but his grip on the reins visibly tightening. "Parts that only you know."
"The story ends when the fairy used her magic to plant an entire forest of apple trees as a thank you to the traveler," Ann recited, repeating the common, sanitized version.
"Ha!" Gale let out a sharp, mocking laugh that held no humor. "The werewolf becos the hero for ’saving’ the fairy, and is rewarded with this forest?!" He clutched the fabric of his trousers with both hands, his body trembling, a grim, painful smile stretched across his face. "Those mutts really know how to cut a story to make themselves look better."
"What do you an?" Ace asked, his curiosity now fully engaged. He propped his left elbow on his raised knee, his focus entirely on the fairy.
Gale inhaled a shaky breath and let it out slowly. I could feel the hatred still boiling within him, but it was now banked, controlled for the mont. "The ’ending’ you know is true, in a way," he began, his voice low and hollow. "The cut story is this: After the fairy grew an apple forest, she and the traveler traveled together. They talked. The fairy, trusting and naive, answered all his questions about what fairies could do, where they lived, the source of their magic. They beca... friends. When their journey was over, the fairy stayed in the traveler’s house. She absorbed a little of his aura, and in exchange, she used her magic to help him grow fruits and vegetables on his large plot of land."
"It still sounds like a happy story to ," Ann said, though her voice had lost so of its certainty.
"Ha! At first," Gale spat. "At first, it was. Because the traveler’s crops grew faster, were more abundant and perfect than any other farr’s, rchants from different kingdoms, cities, and towns flocked to him. His wealth grew faster than this apple trees."
"So he beca rich by using the fairy," I whispered, the pieces beginning to form a darker picture.
"That’s right," Gale agreed, nodding slowly, his eyes distant, seeing a past we could not. "And with the demand, the fairy was forced to work longer, to push her magic further. But the small amount of aura she absorbed from the traveler was not enough to replenish her spent mana. And absorbing more would have sickened him, could have killed him."
"I read in a children’s storybook that fairies can absorb mana from nature itself. Couldn’t she do that?" Ace asked, his tone not challenging, but genuinely seeking to understand.
Gale looked at Ace, a flicker of respect in his pained eyes. "The storybook has a point. We can draw aura from nature to replenish our mana, but it damages the life force of the plants and soil. It is a violation. We are one with nature; our sacred duty is to protect and nurture it, not to bleed it dry for our own gain."
So Lady Firera was right, I thought. Fairies only absorb aura to replenish their mana, but too much can destroy the host.
"Having this background on what fairies can and cannot do helps us understand better," Ray said, his voice a low rumble of acknowledgnt.
"The traveler’s greed consud him," Gale continued, the bitterness returning to his voice, and with it, the searing hatred in my own heart. "He began to ask new questions. ’What if a fairy were as large as a human?’ he would wonder aloud. ’Would she have unlimited mana? Could she work much faster?’"
A cold dread began to creep up my spine.
"Every night, the traveler would venture into the deep forests, searching for other fairies. When he found one, he would offer his aura, gain its trust, and then... he would clamp a mana-nullifying device on its body. He would take the trapped, helpless fairy to a witch he had hired, who would perform cruel experints, trying to force the fairy to grow to human size. It always failed. The fairies... they always died." Gale’s voice was trembling now, his small fists clenched so hard I feared his bones would break.
"That’s... cruel," I whispered, the words feeling utterly inadequate.
"Ha! That’s not all," Gale said, his voice cracking. "The traveler didn’t stop. He captured another, and another. The witch devised new spells, more painful, more invasive. They failed, again and again. So many fairies died in that witch’s hovel, their light extinguished forever." He looked at each of us, and I could see the shared horror reflected in their eyes.
"Then, one day," Gale pressed on, the story a poison he had to expel, "he went to the market with his fairy friend, the first one, who was still blissfully unaware of the atrocities he was committing."
"So the fairy friend still didn’t know what he had been doing." Ann said, her voice tight.
Gale gave a single, sharp nod. "There, in the market, he saw a human man providing... a seed donation... to a woman who wished to bear a child. And a new, monstrous idea took root in his mind. That night, after his friend was asleep, he captured yet another fairy. He took her to the witch, and this ti, they used his own seed in a twisted ritual. It failed. Undeterred, he tracked down the human man from the market by his scent, paid him a fortune for his contribution, and tried again. This ti... it was successful. The fairy beca pregnant. She gave birth. But the child was still small, still had pointed ears. It was not the human-sized battery he had dread of. He still didn’t give up. He repeated the process, the witch altering the spells each ti. Fairies were successfully impregnated, but their children were always... half-breeds. He was running out of fairies to capture. So, in the end, he used the only one he had left. He used his friend."
"That traveler is worse than a demon," Ray growled, his voice a low, dangerous thunder. "If I existed in that ti, I would have chopped his—"
"Ray, not now," Ace cut him off, his own face pale with anger.
Ray fell silent, but the tension in his broad shoulders was a testant to his fury.
"Once again, the ritual was successful, but the result was the sa—a half-fairy child. But this ti..." Gale’s voice dropped to a haunted whisper. "This ti, they were seen. Other fairies, hidden in the trees, accidentally witnessed the entire horrific scene. Rage, pure and righteous, consud them. They sward the hovel, capturing the traveler and the witch. They forced them to confess every unspeakable thing they had done. And then... the fairies executed them both. They freed the captured fairies who had survived. When the fairy queen knew about it, she forbade fairies from roaming in this world. I think that’s why many people don’t believe fairies really exist." He fell silent, with the clear hint that the story was over.
"I’m glad," Ace said, his jaw tight. "Because in the end, they got their justice."
"THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!" Gale shot to his feet, his whole body vibrating with a pain so deep it seed to shake the very air. "Killing them ended their suffering too quickly! They didn’t deserve such a clean, fast death! They deserved to feel a fraction of the agony they inflicted!" he scread, his voice raw.
The hatred pouring from him was suffocating. A sharp, sympathetic pain lanced through my own heart. I clutched at my chest, tears welling in my eyes. I wanted to reach for him, to pull him into an embrace and soothe this centuries-old wound, but I felt frozen, helpless in the face of such monuntal pain.
Then Gale’s blazing eyes found mine. "Don’t look at like that!" he snarled, his voice cracking. "I don’t deserve your pity!"
[Gale’s POV]
The way she was looking at , with those wide, red-rimd eyes filled with sorrow—it was unbearable. I was starting to hate that color.
"I understand the story is tragic, but why does this anger you so personally?" Ace demanded, his voice cutting through my rage.
"BECAUSE I AM THE SON OF THAT TRAVELER’S FAIRY FRIEND!" I shouted, the truth ripping itself from my throat after a hundred years of silence. "I am the half-human, half-fairy abomination that was his final experint! I was bullied and hated for years because of what I am! And soone... soone I cared for deeply... took her own life because of ! That is why the Queen exiled ! She blad for the tragedy that my very existence caused!"
The shock in the wagon was a physical force. Ace’s eyes widened. Ray stiffened. Ann’s breath hitched. Ovelia’s hand flew to her mouth.
"So that’s why you hate werewolves," Ace said, the pieces finally clicking into place.
I was drowning in hatred, but beneath it, a new, overwhelming emotion was surging—a profound, aching sadness that felt too large for my body. I had been feeling it for a while, and it was irritating, confusing. I looked at Ovelia’s eyes, glistening with unshed tears.
"I said don’t look at like that!" I yelled, the words tearing out of . "I don’t need your pity!"
She flinched as if I had struck her, her face crumbling.
"S-so..sorry.. I-" she stamred, her voice thick with tears, but Ace interrupted her.
"Are you seriously thinking that, Gale?" Ace’s voice was firm, but not unkind. He had uncrossed his arms, and I could see the effort it took for him not to pull Ovelia into a protective embrace. "She’s not pitying you. She’s feeling what you’re feeling right now. She’s sharing your burden."
Could he sll emotions? Was it that obvious?
I stared at Ovelia. This sadness, this hollowed-out pain... did our pact make our emotions connected?
"Ovelia," I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper, the anger draining away to be replaced by dawning horror. "Don’t tell ... when I began telling the story, you could feel my hatred?"
She nodded, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. She tried to force a smile, a brave, broken little thing. "Sorry," she whispered, and then the dam broke. She began to cry silently, her shoulders shaking, her face a mask of my own inner tornt.
"Gale, you made her cry!" Ace accused, his own composure fraying.
"Lady Ovelia!" Ann said, starting to rise from the driver’s seat.
A guilt more powerful than any I had ever known crashed over . It was my pain, my history, that was causing her this suffering. I couldn’t bear it.
Before any of them could reach her, I acted on a primal impulse. I focused, pouring a massive amount of my mana into the transformation. A flash of light filled the wagon, and where the small fairy had been, a young man with tousled hair and pointed ears now knelt. Without a word, I reached out, my human-sized hand gently closing around Ovelia’s wrist. I pulled her toward , and before she could react, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly against my chest.
"Stop crying," I murmured into her hair, my voice rough with my own unshed tears. "It’s my pain to carry, not yours. Just... stop." I held her, this human girl who gave a na, who shared my soul-deep wounds, and for the first ti in a century, I did not feel entirely alone.
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