F i g h t
O r
F l i g h t
I felt a draft of air on my back as the thief’s hand swept right behind me. He would have knocked me senseless against the window there and then, had he aimed right. I cussed; I was spraying night lily pollen hoping to mess with their senses and it scattered enough in the room to lose its effect.
“Hold on Minna, I got her!”
But the tall guy didn’t get me. His two gloved hands clapped right under my feet when I jumped on the bed and I ran across the thin bedsheets, flapping wings to give myself a bit of a boost. Anything to be just a little faster. At that point I was afraid to fly, in case they’d throw another coat at me. It was safer to remain grounded even if it slowed me down. I just needed somewhere to hide, and for that night lily pollen to do its thing. If I could only find a hole or a large enough crack in the wall, they would have to give up. Sadly I knew I would definitely be too slow to crawl under the door. It would have been the best option had the gap been just a little higher.
They caught me when I leaped to reach the nightstand’s handle. In midair, like you catch a falling berry. This time they made sure their skin was far enough from my teeth that I wouldn’t be able to bite them.
“How much is a fairy’s wings worth again?” The third man asked Minna, the boss, in a matter of fact sort of way. It was the first time that one spoke and although he was dressed like a male, he was soft spoken and almost sounded female. His eyes however were as cold as ice. One of them was nearly all white, I guess he was half blind. There was a pretty earring on his left ear. I noticed because the sun was making it shine.
I didn’t want them to rip my wings off my back. I use them to fly, if I didn’t have them I’d be grounded and I’d never be able to go home so I dropped the act… though I still looked them like they were a bunch of idiots, which they were.
“My kind’s not the one with magic wings, it’s the others who are. Learn the difference, thick brains!”
“Just pin it to the nightstand I’ll get the book.” The soft spoken thief said nonchalantly.
I thought they would pin my clothes to the wooden nightstand, you know. So I was relieved by the idea of not being squeezed in a warm, smelly glove any longer. Then, I thought, I’d only need to slip out of my clothes and run naked to safety. They would be lucky enough to see that I have a nice looking butt. Except rather than putting me down, the pointy man pinched my wings and carried me around the room like a stained handkerchief, putting back in his pockets the things I picked out of them earlier.
Swayed in all directions by his quick movements I watched the floor zoom in and out many times. It’s not the most comfortable position I’ve been in. Even the time I spent at sea, with the salt making my skin dry as burnt bark, seemed better in comparison.
“They worth our weight in gold, if they’re any use. Each of ‘em, even.” He finally read on one of the crumbled papers with the numbers on them.
What would they even do with my wings if they held any magic anyways? Grow a garden? They would still need a green thumb. The best use they could make of my spells would have been the night lily, and even then, I couldn’t produce enough pollen to knock them out all at once so it wouldn’t help them much either.
“Can’t you just pin that thing to the table Hayne? If you drop it we’ll have to catch it again.”
I was hoping he would drop me, because the window was about to be unlocked by a creeping vine I had started back when I tried to open it the first time. Maybe I can’t do powerful magic, but I have enough to go by. I’m not completely defenceless despite the size. I helped the man a little: since he wasn’t paying much attention to me I figured it was a good time to give him a taste of some dragon tears. Surely he would hate the feeling.
But I made it grow too fast and a bulb on the stem exploded, splashing the both of us in clean, odorless spit. He dropped me alright, but my wings were also covered in juice and it burned too much to fly. Grounded again, I rushed under the beds.
It was a good thing, come to think of it, that Jibby made me walk so much. I had pretty strong legs by then.
The floor shook as soon as I made it under the bed. Something banged against the opposite wall and I was quickly pulled behind. Desperate, I grabbed the sheets. They slipped through my hands, heavy and warm as I was taken away. I never thought humans would dive under beds. I thought they only did that in the water.
The one called Minna pinned me against the nightstand this time.
And they covered my screams under a white, perfumed glove.
I remember it smelled like lilac and somehow the smell made the whole picture even darker. To think… right before the first dagger hit, digging into both top wings together, I could see it: the window was open. If I hadn’t splashed myself with dragon tears in my hurry, I could have escaped. So close, and now unattainable. No one can fly with pierced wings. I didn’t think I would even be able to walk with pierced wings.
“Minna, they’re worthless… it’s the Kings’ we’d want.”
“I told you!” I screamed in rage.
The chained flashes of ice cold pain made it difficult to breathe but I was enraged and embracing that rage made the pain easier to bear.
“I told you! I am useless to you, now let me go, you big, stupid, braindead droppings!”
“Oh well, someone might still want an exotic pet, might as well bring it along.”
I think it was Minna’s idea. I’m not sure. I was still screaming in pain, trying to push the daggers out of the cherry wood, and I couldn’t see anything.
“Ya kidding, boss? Look at’ that thing did to my arm!”
“Ya! That’s dragon tears for you! Enjoy!”
The dagger still wouldn’t move, no matter how hard I pushed it. My strengths were depleting fast.
“That shite gonna burn for a week, I heard. Hey Minna, maybe Hayne’s got the right idea there.”
“Unless we trap it in a jar or sum’thin’, with minimum holes for air, I don’t think we can carry a fairy around. Tricky monsters, they are.”
“So you say we let it go.”
“I say we get rid of it.”
That last one was the pointy thief. Hearing him, I stopped pushing against the dagger, fear caught in my throat. He said it so easily.
They took the glove off my face and for a moment I saw nothing but white, like looking right at the sun. Then, three sadistic smiles, like you’ve never seen before.
“Alright then, let’s kill it. Slowly.”
I thought Jack was exaggerating when he said humans were particularly dangerous to our kind. But now I know: humans are horrible. They should never be approached.
The man called Minna picked me up without taking the daggers out of the wood. I heard my wings rip as much as I felt it. A big, noisy rip. Like a leaf being torn apart and my whole body went numb, the pain striking through every limb like a storm. It made my ears ring and black stars formed before my eyes. They ripped my wings, bit by bit and I let them. They didn’t even have to hold me.
I still remember their laughs. They were so happy.
What was there left to do? What can you do when your limbs are pulled apart? They didn’t mind what dragon tears was left on them they just kept digging in with their nails and the noise made me sick.
Then it was over. They stopped as suddenly as they had started and I dropped on the nightstand like an old, wet twig. I laid there breathless, head spinning, trying to get myself together. When I finally managed to roll over, in one last attempt to get away, I found myself in the remains of my own wings, scattered like snow on the cherry wood. I crawled, slowly. There was a ruckus in the room. Things were falling down, the thieves were agitated and angry. I made it to the wall, what was left of my wings dragging lifeless against me. I pulled myself up by digging my nails into the wax of a candle, shaking and my stomach all turned up.
One of the thieves bumped against the nightstand which shook violently, throwing me off. I landed on the floor, in the dust, with a choked “Oof”. The candle dropped right beside me and a dark silhouette perched over it. It picked me up by the sash, put me back on my feet and I toppled weakly against a body of warm, soft feathers. It was Jibby. She had heard me. She had flown right in through the opened window to help me. With what little strength I had left, I climbed up on her back, shaking and biting my lips not to scream. Blinding light hit us as the thieves lifted the nightstand and Jibby flew up and out the window.
