The ground quaked. Again and again. Anastasia sighed and walked past Demadara and her companions. "Uninvited guests are just the worst." Her hand laid on the hilt of her sword.

Demadara gave Parsae and Timae a short look before following the woman. Swarms of fairies were flying in the other direction, screaming about a 'big bad thing'. They did not have to reach the outskirts of the city before seeing it.

The beast was titanic. It walked on six legs, it´s body as a sky ship. The front ended in a humanoid torso, covered in thick black fur much like it´s lower body. From the torso sprouted four arms, three carrying swords as long as grown trees, while the fourth held a wriggling mass of crying fairies.

The face was little more than a skull, bereft of all flesh, a burning fire glimmering in the empty sockets. Two horns grew from the sides of it´s head, each as long as a grown man, pointing forward like spears.

"Where are you, blasphemer?!" It´s call was thunder as it stared across the town that it likely could ruin simply by walking through it.

Demadara had stopped walking, her body coated in a cold sweat. Parsae was much the same, she was already rummaging through her bag for crystals. "Let's forget about this Dema, I rather sleep in the open and drown in a flash flood than stay near that thing!"

Demadara was about to agree, when she saw Timae calmly walking past them. Her two tails wagged behind her as she followed Anastasia out of the city. "Worry not, my lord. This thing has broken the first rule of the landsea." She looked back at Demadara with a wide smile. "You will not wish to miss this."

Against her better judgement, they followed her.

"You cannot hide from clan Herian forever!" The creature roared, now standing at the edge of the city. "Herian has come for you, human."

"Unlike you and your nomads I stay in one place, Herian." Anastasia called out to the beast, staring up at to it. "I'm not hiding anywhere." She took one step forward with her left foot. "Now let go of my girls and I'll let you leave with two legs and arm. Or two arms and a leg, I'll let you choose."

Under Herian´s laughter the skies above darkened. "You think your bluffing will save you here? I will leave with the gold you stole, and your little town in ashes." Black flames began to surge around it´s blades, the fairies crying out as his hand around them clenched. "Have you any last words, human?"

"What's my name?"

Demadara did not see Anastasia´s arm move. What she did see was the slashes. Two diagonal, one horizontal. They split the clouds behind the creature, and it.

For one last moment Herian stood there, the flames around it´s blades and head extinguished. Then his body fell into four pieces, hitting the ground with a loud thud. Anastasia, blade now in hand, slid the wooden blade back into her belt.

Demadara´s head slowly turned to Timae, who lowered her head. "This is why you do not touch a fairy."

With it´s death the fairies were free, they crawled out from the massive hand and ran towards Anastasia in tears. Most had smaller wounds or bruises, though their wings was where they suffered the most. Broken, torn or ripped, the girls looked unconsolable, clinging to their protector.

They could not see Anastasia´s face, but they did not need to. Timae and Parsae, almost hand in had, scurried away, hiding out of sight and waving for Demadara to follow them. But she didn't. Instead, she approached her, one hand on the Heart.

"That's close enough." Anastasia´s words stopped her dead in her tracks. "Your face is the last thing I want to see right now."

Demadara pulled her hood over her face. "Then don't. But at least let me help."

Anastasia turned her head towards her. "There is nothing that you can help me with using that thing."

"Look do you want those girls to be able to fly again or not?" Demadara took another step, ignoring the deadly gaze Anastasia was giving her. "You can cut me in as many pieces as you like later, but let me help them first."

She looked Anastasia in the eye, then took another step. She was still breathing, so she took another, and another, until she was by their side. The fairies looked at Demadara, then back at Anastasia, who gave them a nod. With trembling steps, the first of them stepped up to Demadara. "Please." She muttered, her face stained with tears.

Her wings had been of a brilliant vermilion once, now one was torn in half, while the other had been crushed and broken. Demadara nodded. "Just turn around please. What's your name?"

"Luna." The fairy muttered, doing as she was told. When her wing was touched she let out a yelp of pain, which quickly turned to a sigh. Under Demadara´s hands her wings regrew, returning to their normal state, even the bright colours returning. At the end they looked as good as new, and Demadara let out a laboured sigh of relief.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Luna beat her wings, taking to the air and spinning to the amazement of her sisters. Quickly they swarmed her, each eagre to be the next.

It was not as easy as Demadara had hoped. Their wings were different from any ad-hoc operations she had been making in her life, nor did they resemble any anatomy she had read about. And to complicate matters, each had a wing pattern that was completely different from the others.

It was already late at night when she had finished recovering the wings of the last fairy, barely able to mutter anything in reply to the girl thanking her. She now stood alone at the edge of town, alone with Anastasia.

"What do you want?" Anastasia kept looking out, past the pieces of Herian´s body, up to the clear skies. A crescent moon bathed them in light.

Demadara got back up on her feet and shook her head. "Nothing. If you can tell me the rough direction of the next city and how far it is that'd be nice, but that's all."

"Don't play games with me." Anastasia turned around and stared down Demadara. "I am thankful for what you've done, but that does not change what I see before me."

"Then how about you tell me what exactly that is." Demadara pulled her hood back down and ran a hand through her silver hair. "People only act this hostile after I betray them, not before."

Anastasia scoffed. "Fine." She took out a little bag from her belt and looked through it. "The Landsea is full of all kinds of people, and most of them are cowards, like the gluttons back east. Keitan and worse. So terrified of dying that they will do anything. I've seen many tricks in my time: Sealing their souls into objects or inanimate bodies, reducing their selves to spirits like thata friend of yours, devouring others to burn their selves to sustain themselves. People are terrified of dying, near everyone you can meet here has some kind of plan to avoid or run from it as much as they can."

She looked up from her bag and into Demadara´s eyes. "But you're not one of those, are you? Because you've already been through all that."

Demadara´s eyes shot open wide. Her blood turned to ice, she stumbled away from her.

"If you want to know then you need to tell me, Demadara. Tell me about the time you died."

She gripped her head, her nails digging into her scarred skin. The memories flooded over her, a cascade of white, she tried to close her eyes, but it only made the images stronger. She did not want to say. No. She did, but she had not dared to.

"I had stopped screaming. He didn't like that. He put me back into my cage, in the dark." She heard her voice, though she struggled to hear it as her own. "He hadn't cleaned my wounds, no food, nothing to drink. I felt so warm and weak, I lost track of time, of everything, all I felt was that stinging heat."

Her eyes had opened again, but she did not see the ground, only the bars of her cage. "I didn't move, I couldn't, I didn't want to anymore. I was the last one, nobody to talk to, to cry with. Then I heard it, a voice." Her sight turned to white, she was again in that place.

"Told me I could give up, or fight to live. Never heard of it before, but it rung in my head. I rattled my cage, whined with what I could, and then the door opened. They opened my cage, gave me water, and I looked up at that wide man with a beard."

She shook her head, clutching her chest. Her vision was turning to normal, Demadara stared up at Anastasia with gritted teeth. "I was dead all my life. That was the day I started to live."

Anastasia had pulled her hand out of the bag. In her palm laid pile of dust, glistening under the moonlight in all colours of the rainbow. "You can say it like that. You died, and came back. But not the same person as before, are you?"

She ran her thumb across the pile of dust. "You lived among the blind, so of course they cannot see unless they're told. But you will come across many who have true eyes out here, like me. Make no mistake. I know you are a monster. That is exactly why I do not want to live thinking I owe you for saving my girls. So I offer you a glimmer. Do you want a glimpse of how the world sees you?"

Demadara crossed her arms, eyeing the dust in her hand. "If that tells me why you want me dead so badly, then yes."

"It will." Anastasia clenched her hand. "Fairies are peculiar things. Much stronger than even they think they are, and older than most of us. And if they look closely, they get to see the world as it truly is."

She held the dust close to her mouth, and blew against it. Demadara was covered in a cloud of rainbow-coloured glitter, coughing a few times. "Just what on earth are you-"

Demadara stopped as she looked at her hands. The fine silver lines tracing across her skin. A bright light illuminated her surroundings, she looked back and saw two large silver wings of pure silver flame sprouting from her back. And yet, she felt no pain, no fear.

She looked back at Anastasia, into the grimace she showed Demadara. "I've not seen a manifestation this severe before. Fitting, given what you are carrying." She crossed her arms. "There is a name for your kind, but I wont utter it here, for both our sake."

The glimmer around Demadara grew lesser, and it caused the light on her body to disappear. She was breathing heavily, and scoffed. "So, you're telling me, that some god took pity on me and set me on this path?" She spat out her words, hands clenched to fists.

"Were that the case I wouldn't hate you. No." Anastasia turned away from her. "You can say that you caught the attention of an abominable thing, and it gave you one chance, and perhaps nudged things in your favour. You're free, that is why you will only find friends amongst the hopeless and the lunatic."

Anastasia stared up to the crescent moon. In her reflection, a shadowy figure sat at it´s edge, staring down at the world. At them. "Gods bring back people and fill them with strength. She brings people back and leaves them hollow. Tell me:

Have you ever felt satisfied?"