Titania trembled for a moment before sighing.
At the back of her mind she had always known that her timely interruption of the rebellion 12 years ago would possibly lead to a possibly bad future, especially when the loyal Elves that she had saved began to over rely on her for the protection of the Kingdom and began focusing more on the advancement of Elven culture. They were filled with blind trust, always thinking that as long as their Queen was alive, they would always be protected.
Titania clenched her fists with frustration.
Now, to learn a painful but valuable lesson, they were dying by the minute. Elves and Fae alike were slaughtering each other, and although it was actually the Elves who were overwhelming the Fae, Titania didn’t want to see them die either.
After all, they were technically Elves too.
…
It all began 40 years ago when the World abruptly changed and became multiple times greater than before. The Elves called this event [The Second Heavenly Shift] because apparently, the Queen had seen something similar to this when she was the only Elf in existence.
After The Second Heavenly Shift, the Trees had grown bigger and radiated more Wood Elemental Essence into the air, the ambient Magical Energy (which had become flavoured with Wood, Water and Life after the Queen, Tree of Life and Ciera converted the territory into a Sacred Land) greatly increased in quality, everyone had passively grown stronger and it was like a gift from the Heavens.
But there was one more thing.
When everyone had woken up and saw their peers still alive, they were jubilant with joy. They hugged each other and cried, promising each other to cherish their lives and make the most of it. However, there was suddenly a scream of shock that caught the attention of everyone in the vicinity, and what they found was nothing short of a miracle.
In the Palaces front garden, people were surrounding a boy of 15 or so years who had stepped out of a bush. Obviously, he had been unlucky enough to be standing near it when the World had gone crazy and had fallen into it when he had lost consciousness, but the strange thing was that… he had wings!
Huge butterfly-like wings erected from his back in beautiful colours of green and gold, casually released green-gold sparkles that faded into the air like fireflies, and glowed like a pair of magical treasures that could not be blemished.
The boy himself had bright green eyes and blonde hair, the norm for an Elf, but the people who were surrounding him and obviously knew him noticed that other than the spectacular wings, the boy had experienced a few other chances that caused him to look different from before. Not only was he quite a bit taller than before and also a lot more handsome, his muscles had also swelled in size despite not doing anything. How bizarre!
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They knew this boy because he was the most talented youth in his generation and was also born from the Tree of Life. Because of this, he had been allowed free access to the Palace and often frequented the place.
It didn’t take long for people to find out that he was a dragon amongst men and extremely skilled in leadership. The boy had even formed his own organisation called [Faerie] who tasked themselves with upholding the Elven noble heart, maintaining justice, protecting the weak, indulging in cultural arts and more.
The organisation had obviously started off small, but it had swiftly become a force to be reckoned with when even Core Refinement (3rd Realm) cultivators began joining, despite the fact that their leader was a 15 year old boy with no cultivation.
It was not that he was untalented or anything, but a rule had passed a few decades ago that youths were only allowed to cultivate when they became 16 years old, so that they could take all the time before then to plan out their future path. It was a rule that had taken place when the Grand Elders had realised that there were too many people being pushed into being warriors, and not enough people to advance other things like building, clothing and entertainment, and the Queen had approved.
Who knew that despite having no cultivation that the boy who was named Zalucard would experience such a shocking transformation?
Everybody congratulated him and said it must have been a gift from the Heavens for creating the Faerie, the organisation which had improved the livelihood of many Elves and taught them the importance of being more ‘Just’, ‘Elegant’ and ‘Refined’.
The reason why they thought it was a gift instead of a curse was because everybody knew of the boy's obsession with Butterflies– something about them being the embodiment of beauty and elegance or something like that– and thought that the Heavens decided to gift him with Butterfly wings.
Later on, they found out that every single member of Faerie had gained the same boons as Zalucard and had wings of their own! Naturally, it caused quite the scene and there were many people who joined the organisation in hopes that they could gain the same blessing, including a few Grand Elders. But alas, there were no more transformations after the first batch and people who joined solely for that purpose began to leave.
But not everybody did! A few of the Grand Elders that had joined were able to experience first-hand the benefits of the Faerie organisation to their race as a whole and actually decided to stay so that they could advance it, hoping that their race would experience better improvements.
Obviously, such a thing attracted more people to join and the Faerie organisation experienced a booming rise.
As for the original people who had transformed and gained wings, they were named as the first subrace of the Elves called the [Fae], obviously named after their organisation, and received lavish gifts from the Queen herself.
{𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: The Elven Grand Elders are the Elves that were born in the Queens batch. The other 199 of the first 200 Elves that the Tree of Life produces once a month. Regular Elven Elders are just those that are powerful enough to be called so.}