Chapter 2: A new home

I had a weird dream. I had died, and a god sent me to another world as ‘compensation’. There's no way that would’ve happened, sent to an unknown world as ‘compensation.’. What an idiotic thing.

My bed was comfy. It was wayyy too soft.

‘Just five more minutes, and I'll head to university’…

Suddenly, it hit me: UNIVERSITY!!! My alarm didn’t wake me up! It was only the second day of school, and I couldn't be late already. I quickly sat up in bed and said, "Where the f*ck am I?" It wasn’t my room, for sure; the bed was spacious and luxurious, and the roof, walls, and floor were entwined with roots. The furnishings were carefully crafted, incorporating many details.

‘No way this wasn’t a dream’…

I had been reborn, but surprisingly, I didn't feel too sad about never seeing my world ever again ‘I might miss Midas and his childish character’, I confessed. On the other hand, the thought of me never seeing my university and classmates makes me rather happy honestly.

‘WAIT! What about music!?’ I would never be able to listen to music with my headphones again!!! I used them to remove myself from my mind. Being able to isolate myself with music was a small blessing to me. I guess there must still be music in this world.

While most people wouldn’t be able to handle losing everything they had built up, I didn’t have much to lose. No. I had nothing except for Midas. I should feel lucky; it would have been really depressing.

In front of my bed, there stood a huge mirror decorated with a golden vine ornament. I saw my reflection. It wasn’t my old body, for sure. I had black hair with the tips being red; it reached my upper back. My face was well-balanced, and my eyes shone a bright violet. Apparently, I had clothes on already: a black t-shirt, black leggings, and black boots.

But all that didn’t matter as much as what I just saw in my reflection. It was something wayyyy cooler than my hair, my clothes, or my eyes. I HAD WINGS!!! They were like butterfly wings; they shone in the light, they were close to transparent. They had every color, but the colors didn't follow a pattern. "F*ck, I love it." The word slipped out of my mouth.

I loved the silhouette my wings gave me. Even if I use all my modesty, I could only say one thing about my new body: "I'm really, really good-looking.". I also looked rather tall, a huge change from my old body, being small was a pain.

I got out of bed and approached the mirror. My new body had a different balance; it felt weird to walk and move with it. I tried to calm down as I thought, ‘Ok, I need to test it now. I need to test if I can fly.’ I focused on my wings and their feeling on my back. My wings slightly swayed, but I couldn’t control them at all or lift myself from the ground.

‘Dammit.’

I was completely focused on the fact that I had wings. It took me a while to notice the knocks on the door. Who was it? I didn’t really know if they would understand English, but I still responded, "Come in," and the door opened, revealing a familiar looking woman...

It was the woman who had taken my hands after I was reborn. She wore casual clothes. When she saw I was standing and looking at her, she gave me a childish smile. Before, she had looked mature and smart, but right now she looked like a child who had just found a puppy to take care of.

She started talking in an unknown tongue; it wasn’t the one from yesterday that had made my body shiver. Due to the look on my face, she quickly realized I didn't understand what she was saying. She stopped for a moment before she pointed to herself: "Seraphia, Marline." She was obviously giving her name. ‘She had two names?’. Well maybe. I didn’t know the custom for names here.

Then she pointed at me, and I understood, "You —- Alice, Seraphia." I didn’t really understand. It wasn’t my old name; was she giving me a name like a mother does? At my visible confusion, Seraphia said something in which I understood something: "mother". What? Is she asking who my mother was?

Again, she saw my visible confusion. It didn’t look like she was fed up with the fact that I didn’t understand much of what she was saying. She pointed at herself, said "mother" again, and then pointed at me.

I blanked for a second. ‘What?‘ After a moment, I realized that I, of course, had a new mother because I had been reborn. So…She was my mother. In my past life, I didn't have a close, or even an existing, relationship with my mother. She was paying for me to go to school and live, but there was no sense of affection between us.

‘Wait, my current body looks like it's 17 years old.‘ The first memory I had of this life was that of a weird red and black flower and people looking at me. I didn’t know how Fae were born; it was probably different.

After a moment she stretched out her arm, a ‘hole’ appeared in front of her hand and she passed her arm through it and took out a plate with a cake out of it and handed it to me.

I was bowled over. It was magic, literally. Of course there was magic here!!! I’m a Fae! No way there isn’t magic here, right!!! I was about to try to grab the "hole" but I remembered that... mother? Seraphia? ~I didn’t know how to call her~ Was waiting for me to grab the plate.

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I took it and bowed a bit in gratitude to my mom. ‘Mom?‘ I found myself quickly becoming oddly comfortable with her. It had never happened to me before to feel comfortable so quickly with someone. The person closest to me had always been Midas, and it took years of him forcing conversation with me every day. We had been in the same class almost every year since high school.

On the cake, there was a little spoon. I hesitated for a second because it appeared to be made out of gold, but I decided to still take it and eat the cake.

It was delicious—the best thing I had ever eaten. I had no special interest in foods or sweets, but with this cake, I could eat a whole mountain of it. It might've also been amplified by the fact that I had been feeling super hungry since I woke up.

After finishing the marvelous cake. I saw that my mom was watching me, which made me feel embarrassed because I had just been rude to her by eating ~devouring~ the cake without paying attention to her. She made a motion with her hand, and the empty plate vanished from my hands.

‘I want to use magic’ was the first thing I thought after seeing it. It was just so cool. It wasn't like a magician's magic trick from Earth; it was genuine magic, and I loved it already. Making things disappear with a small motion of your hand would be way more useful than it sounds.

Mother said something, from which I understood the words “you” "like" and "cakes". It was weird that I could suddenly understand some words. Well, I guess magic things are magical.

She pointed at the open door and said something. I believed she was inviting me to visit the rest of the house. I walked past her and past the door, which was overlooking a corridor. Same here; the wall, floor, and roof were made out of intertwined roots, and the furniture was all made of wooden planks; they seemed to love wood. Mother walked beside me and pointed at the door just in front of the room we'd just gotten out of.

"— - my room" she said. Afterward, she pointed at the door at the end of the corridor. "Bath." Damn, yes, a bath; I wouldn’t be able to live without a bath. The other side of the corridors led to a living room, and my mother walked towards it, so I followed.

The living room wasn’t that big, but everything looked expensive. Almost every item of furniture was decorated with golden ornaments. The only window made me realize that there was a really ~REALLY~ huge tree outside. I got closer, and I saw that we were in fact inside a tree ourselves.

I couldn’t see the top of the trees, but they were really huge. Around 20 meters in diameter or something around that. There were houses in and on the trees in the village, all linked by elevated bridges to another enormous tree in the middle. This tree had a huge platform which connected all the different trees; hugging the tree, a huge staircase spiraled around it to the bottom.

Seraphia called me "Alice" in a sweet tone, and I turned to face her. She handed me a black hair tie with a golden emblem on it. Taking my hand gently, she placed it in my palm.

Upon closer attention, I noticed that the emblem was a butterfly. It was really well made, with a lot of details. I tied my hair in a ponytail, and I definitely liked the result. I remembered that Mother had used the word "like" so I imitated it and said, "I like".

Seraphia seemed so overjoyed that she got a delighted smile. She said something, and although I didn't understand the whole sentence, I caught the words "glad," "you" and "like". Yeah, it felt really weird to learn a language so quickly.

She continued to the house’s front door, looking back at me and saying, "- want - take - walk —-." Do I want to take a stroll in a magical city full of Fae in a magical world? Who wouldn’t want to?

I nodded ~maybe with too much excitement~, and she opened the door. I took a step outside the house. A wooden bridge connected our house to other houses around the tree; everything was linked like a spider web. It didn’t seem like there was any vehicle here, but something still puzzled me. Why were all the Fae walking? None of them were flying. I mean, it’s much faster to fly, especially when you live at a height like that.

There weren't many Fae outside tho. I could see that it was lively inside most houses by looking at their windows. I walked to the edge of the bridge to see what was at the bottom, the staircase tree was apparently the only way to walk to the bottom of the tree. At the bottom, the first thing I saw was the flower I was reborn into.

The flower lacked a stem; it was just the bud. Still halfway open, its leaf concealed most of it, but we could catch a glimpse of the red and black petals. Mom walked up next to me. I still didn’t know how Fae were born, but it seemed a bit too complicated to receive a clear explanation with my current vocabulary.

I continued my walk, there was this smell; it was sweet, wistful, and unnatural. But smelling it made me feel lighter and happier. ‘THIS ISN'T DRUGS, IS IT?!‘ ... There is no way the cool and cute Fae would be hippies… right?

Shops were placed against the bases of the trees, and something ticked me off: everyone was picking things up without any shop owners in sight. ‘Is it all free?‘ I contemplated it before I decided that it was a question for a later time.

I started walking slowly toward the staircase tree with mom trailing behind me, still looking at me with a huge smile. I felt a bit embarrassed by how much she seemed to love my presence.

I wanted to jump off the bridge…NO NOT TO KILL MYSELF. I wanted to try to fly. I once again tried to move my wings. I tried to find a rhythm or make certain movements. All I managed to do was lift a few centimeters off the ground, leaving me both; exhausted and dead beat.

Mom hurriedly came up next to me and spoke in a rush. I could tell she was worried because I didn't know how to fly ~yet~ and could fall. ‘Wouldn’t she be able to catch me anyway?‘.

Too bad; I guess that's for another day. I noticed a Fae running toward us. She looked around my age, with bright blue hair and deep green eyes. She was way smaller than me in height, and honestly, she was kinda cute.

She stopped right in front of me and started talking so fast that I couldn’t understand a word. Feeling lost, I looked at my mother, who saw my uncertainty and started talking to the girl. It didn't take long for the girl to calm down and look me in the eyes, slowly speaking, "You, look, …, COOL!!!"

Without another word, she ran back from where she came and disappeared into a house. I was rather confused at what just happened, but mom let out a chuckle. I didn't really know if it was my reaction or the girl’s that made my mom laugh.

This world seemed weird; I didn’t know anything about it. Yet, I didn’t feel scared of it. On the contrary, I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to live and build a whole new life here, even if the place was still alien to me. I had a feeling that I wouldn't dislike this world or the life that was awaiting me.