5 : 268 : 02 : 59 : 23

My whole being has boiled down to moving one foot past the other. There’s no spare energy left for more elaborate thinking. It'd be the ideal mindset for a rewatch of Lost. I've no idea what time it is, but seeing as the woodland scenery’s growing visibly darker instead of lighter, I reckon nightfall must be getting close. Which means we’ve been trekking steadily from the crack of dawn. My step counter stats would be something to brag about, if I had one.

The bear and lancer don’t seem to mind marching.

Then again, what else do beasts do in the wild but trot along? That’s their whole life, only plodding on day in, day out. They’re practiced. How could they understand the feelings of advanced lifeforms like me, tasked by the gods with far loftier purposes, such as review-bombing Rian Johnson movies at Rotten Tomatoes? We couldn't ever see eye to eye.

But as hard as it is, I have to seek a common ground, if only to save my own neck.

“Hey,” I sneak closer and whisper to Dalek. “You haven’t introduced me to your friend. Is she your boss, or what?”

The chick’s acting very bossy, at least.

The bear doesn’t answer. I’ll take that as an affirmative.

“You told me you’ve never seen a human before, but she kind of strikingly looks like one. Were you pulling my leg when you said that? What the hell, bear?”

Dalek sighs. “Don’t waste your breath. Walk.”

“I’m walking, aren’t I? See my legs move? And if I’m going to be made into flank steaks tonight, don’t you think I deserve to know whose stomach I go?”

“Just walk.”

“Dude, don’t be such a wet blanket. You’ve saved my butt a bunch of times already, where’s the harm in telling? Who would I reveal this top secret information to? ‘Yeah, there are bears and butch chicks in the woods’! The world’s not ready for that one.”

Dalek groans. “Why would they send a fool like you to war?”

“There are advantages to being a fool,” I tell it. “Such as, I don’t have to pretend I'm terribly smart. Which means, I can ask dumb questions without worrying about what it does to my reputation. It's a pretty huge perk, if you ask me. Because, boy, do I have questions.”

“Never noticed.”

“Nice. Sarcasm. A sarcastic bear, the pinnacle of character design. You’re growing on me, big boy. Can I pet you?”

Dalek replies with an angry growl.

“Okay, no petting,” I retract my hand. “Going too far on the first date.”

Ahead of us, the flame-haired woman stops and turns back to scowl at me.

“One word more from you and I will skewer you where you stand.”

Are you kidding me? How can I not comment on that?

“Take a look around you,” she tells me and waves her hand. “What do you see? What do you hear? No, don’t speak! Be silent for once, and use your senses, if you have any.”

“...”

What?

What is she talking about?

I do as instructed and stand and look around, pricking my ears, feeling stupid. Wind rustles the canopies, producing an irregular, ever-present rustle and hum, not that different from seawaves. But past that…

“Yes,” the lancer says. “There is nothing. Do you understand? The forest fears you. Your foreign looks, your smell, your voice, your aura, everything about you instills a profound terror in those that live here. Every able being flees their nests, abandons their young ones, and interrupts their feeding at your approach. You do not belong here. Your very presence is poison to the wood. This is no place for the chaos of your culture. Respect it! Move in silence.”

The lance-toting woman continues on, the bear to follow.

“...”

I look down at the path, at the ants crawling by my boot. I never even noticed they were there before.

That’s funny.

I’m so used to being the smallest and weakest, afraid of everything else, it never occurred to me someone out there could be afraid of me. Not only those that are even smaller and weaker. Size alone isn’t necessarily a sign of bravery. It’s not only people who fear what they don’t understand and you don’t need to get violent to hurt others. Just by taking a step, lives could be lost.

But it’s not like you can stop walking either. To live is to always stay on the move. The only thing you can do is accept the reality, that despite all the good you do, or try to do, your road is built on bodies. Raise a hand, ye who’s without sin. Everything you gain is away from somebody else's table. When the time comes to clock out, and the good you did and the bad you did are tallied and deducted, what can you do but pray one pile is bigger than the other, if only by a grain?

That'll be the sum of your story there at the end.

Nature—heavy shit.

5 : 268 : 00 : 12 : 39

Daylight dies, but there’s no sign of Oz and still we walk on. I respect my native guides’ superstitious wishes and keep quiet.

Believe me, I can do it, if I have to.

I’ll just talk to myself instead, inside my own head. Like this.

Then, I start to go crazy for real. I see lights twinkle between the trees. Little sparkles in the peripheral view. As soon as I turn to look, they vanish. It’s like when you stand up too quickly and start seeing stars. But these stars are bigger and brighter than that, and they come in many colors. One is green like a can of 7-Up. Another one red like a Chinese lantern. I can’t get a clear look at them, when they keep slipping away in the dark, hiding behind the trunks, rocks, and bushes.

Oh lord. It’s those mushrooms I ate, isn’t it?

“Keep up,” the lancer calls back as I gawk at trees.

“Yeah, yeah. Geez… ”

I turn to follow after the bear trunk, but almost bump into a surprising obstacle in the way.

“——?”

“——!”

There’s a bizarre creature hovering right in front of my nose. I stop barely in time before hitting my face on it, and for a moment, we stare at each other under a stunned silence. Then my tired nerves give in.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHH—!” I yell in terror and tumble down on the road.

“HIYAAAAAAAAA—!” the floating thing shrieks in unison, startled by my yell.

It looks vaguely humanoid.

Like a skinny little girl child, but with semi-transparent fly wings growing on its back. It’s about as tall as the span of my arm from elbow to fingers, its pale green body wrapped in a dress made of dead leaves stitched together. It’s got long, slim goblin ears that are like feelers, and its almond eyes are stupidly huge, strangely wooden. The hair on its big, childish head grows upward and stiff like lichen. It’s kind of in the uncanny valley. Not disgustingly weird like Alita, but not sure I’d describe it as very pretty either. Takes some getting used to.

The creature’s body emits a faint, greenish glow.

“Gosh, you surprised me!” the pixie sighs aloud, touching its small chest, while bopping up and down in the air. “Don’t yell so loud!”

Yeah. It’s a pixie, all right. The genuine article.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Even I’ve heard about pixies before. Can’t talk about the Fey without mentioning these imps. They steal babies from cradles, pull tails off pigs, spoil cow milk with curses, lead travelers astray, lure wolves to attack badly protected camps, toss dead squirrels in wells, throw stones at lost kids, and are the number one reason why your Amazon package never comes home, despite being flagged as “out for delivery”. If you yawn without covering your mouth, they might fly in and snatch your tongue. Oh, the horror. Granny told me that, so it must be true.

“Stay back, she’s an enemy,” the lancer warns the pixie.

“Enemy?” the pixie echoes, eyeing me with great doubt. “She doesn’t look terribly dangerous. If anything, I’d say she’s scared of me. My, isn’t she cute! It’s the first time I see an elf this adorable!”

“I-I’m not cute,” I bashfully deny and look away, not flattered at all to be complimented by a pixie.

“Aww! Can I have her when you don’t need her anymore?” it asks. “I promise I’ll take super good care of her...to the end of her days.”

Getting strong yandere-vibes from this fly. Bet she’s the type that wants to check your Whatsapp log every time you come home from work.

“No,” the redhead answers. “Once she’s told us everything she knows, I will kill her.”

Yikes. Ever heard of this thing called suspense?

“Oh, what a waste!” the pixie laments, but doesn’t sound as opposed as I wish it were.

“You know,” I get up and tell my captor, “knowing I’m only in for a miserable end doesn’t make me very eager to talk. Shouldn’t you promise my safety in exchange for cooperation?”

“A painless death is all I promise to you,” the lancer replies and turns to carry on. “Either you talk, or your end will come that much slower and harder. The choice is your own.”

Great, more fun things to look forward to in my nearby future. Never a boring day.

We march on along the animal path. For some reason, the pixie stays with us, floating around me, examining me from every angle, sometimes unnecessarily closely. It’s not alone. The lights I saw before weren’t my hallucination, but other pixies, spying us from a distance. There must be dozens of them, like so many candles in the night, though most of them are not as brave as the green one and don't come close.

Please don’t steal my belly button. They may do that if you don’t keep your shirt down. Granny told me that one too.

“Are you really an elf?” the pixie asks me. “You’re a lot smaller than most of them. And I’ve never seen an elf with ears like these?”

It reaches up to touch the furred attachment on the side my head.

“Wah! Don’t touch my ears!” I shriek, feeling the little fingers. It tickles! “They’re my weak spot!”

“Ahahaha!” the pixie laughs brightly at me. “How cute!”

“Ughh…” I’m not used to flattery. It does weird things to my heart. “I’m not an elf, okay? I’m a human being.”

“Human?” it repeats in wonder. “Really? What’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of humans before?”

“No. I don’t think so. Are there many of you?”

“Uhh, kind of.”

“How weird!”

Noertia is called the human realm, because that’s where all the people live. Short visits aren’t forbidden, but we’re not allowed to settle elsewhere en masse. Amarno is an unreachable fantasy world for most people, so it stands to reason the locals wouldn’t know much about us either.

“Are there a lot of pixies then?” I ask.

“Not that many,” it answers. “Everyone I know is here.”

I look around again. I thought this was only a sample of the most curious ones, but if what I’m seeing is all—there really aren’t too many.

“What’s your name?” I ask the floating night lamp.

Its reaction is a little strange. It gasps sharply and floats quickly further away from me.

“Eeh, what are you thinking, asking my name all out of the blue! How bold of you! Do you ask that of every pixie you meet?”

“Huh?” I furrow my brow. “Why? A perfectly normal question, isn't it?”

Now that I think about it, everyone here has been super reluctant to tell me their names. What’s the deal?

“Why, she asks!” the pixie exclaims, pretending to be abhorred. “As if you don’t know! What a sly thing you are, human! Sly, sly!”

“It’s only basic manners, where I’m from,” I tell it. “You meet someone for the first time, you introduce yourself. The ABCs of human behavior. I mean, it's a little awkward to talk to someone without even knowing who they are.”

The pixie giggles and shudders. “You humans are weird! Is every one of you that careless?”

“Careless...?”

“Aw, geez! I can’t believe you! Though even how clueless you are is a little cute. Listen to me now, foolish human, so that you won’t be tricked! Names have great power. Whoever knows your name can use it to take control of your destiny! That’s why, we only give our names to our loved ones and dearest friends! To demand one to surrender her name is no different from asking for your fates to be bound, for eternity! A confession of true love! Ahahahaha!”

The pixie flies circles around me, laughing at my ignorance. Looking at it makes my head spin.

“That’s just superstition.”

A lot of people know my name and it hasn’t done much to my destiny, or whatever. If that were remotely true, what would become of all the Kings and Queens and pop idols, whose names everybody knows? They’d drop flies all the time. I mean, they kind of do, but maybe not because of that. I think.

“It’s true, it’s true,” the pixie insists. “Stupid human! Naive human! Without knowing its value, you would give away your most precious possession? The only thing that is truly your own? Ahahaha!”

“Okay then.”

I stop and strike a confident pose on the path, a smile of challenge on my face. Let’s do a little experiment.

I look at the pixie and tell her,

“My name is Zero. There. Feel free to take control of my destiny, if you can!”

Even if it somehow works, things really can’t get much worse than they already are.

The pixie stops. The smile on its little face vanishes as it stares back at me and for a time, it looks startled. Then it peers quickly left and right, as if to check no one else was within earshot. Making up its mind, it dives in closer and seizes my cheeks between its small palms.

“By thy name, I command thee——love me forever, Zero!”

I feel a strange, warm jolt in my chest. My senses stir, informing me that focused intent and a touch of mana are woven in the soundwaves, forming a primitive ritual structure. However, I get no urges one way or the other. The eidos is too vague to yield practical effects. Nature doesn’t have a predefined reference for the value of “love”. My vision soon turns off, judging the interference harmless.

“Why, I already do love you, sweetie,” I tell the pixie. “But, looking at your loli body, the author’s account is going to eat the axe, if we take things any further than this.”

The pixie’s face distorts in anger and it gives me a slap.

“It wasn’t your real name!” it cries, mortally insulted, and darts off into the night.

Damn, did I just mess up the first time anyone's confessed to me?

A real pity, but that size difference would take creativity in the bedroom.

We stride on and come to see houses between the elder trees. The strangest houses I’ve ever seen.

There’s a village in the heart of the woods, if not a city, spread out in the seemingly chaotic but eye-pleasing style of a coral reef. It may not be a very big city, but a city all the same, and one of the most beautiful I've seen.

There are round domes with walls like bubbles, glistening films of dew suspended between bent branches and saplings. Houses that weren’t made of wood, but more like, the trees themselves grew into shapes resembling houses to knowingly protect the creatures dwelling under them. I see pavilions assembled from the fossilized bones of giant monsters, decorated with ivies and fireflies in the night. Dead trees have been eaten hollow by bugs and their frames now house many little beasts, unnatural lights glowing through the termite holes.

Slim, phosphorescent mushrooms stand clustered between the huts and trees like streetlights, showing where the animal trails cross each other to form a network of tidy little roads. Nests built by birds big and small climb up along the tree sides to bewildering heights, almost every branch taken. Pearls of rain water dangle off of silky spider webs draped above the houses and paths in magnificent, glittering patterns.

There are a lot of pixies, but also other beings of the forest. Raccoons, beavers, squirrels, hares, bears, wild dogs, bobcats, panthers, and deer. And creatures I’ve only read about in books: treants, the fabled tree shepherds; leshies, a species of elk that came to embody the magic of Air; woodland ogres that endlessly build aimless walls out of the rocks they pick up; stubby gnomes wearing tall cone hats; even goblins. And things I’ve never seen or heard of, and couldn’t even imagine before. Surprisingly, I even spot a few emiri in the menagerie, dressed less fabulously than their Dominion kindred.

I look around in awe, spinning like a tourist.

“Hurry up,” Dalek barks.

My captors lead me down a large burrow with a floor of smooth bedrock. It’s less an animal nest and more like a hobbit house, unexpectedly clean and cozy. There’s a lot of life even underground, with a massive network of tunnels and dens for things that don’t appreciate daylight.

I’m led into a chamber dug under an enormous pine, without windows, and only one way out. The thick copper-red roots of the tree form a round cage along the sides of the room. They make it hard to dig my way out, even if I had a shovel in my back pocket, or the teeth of a beaver. But my nails are trimmed too.

“You will stay here,” the redhead informs me and knocks the rock floor with the heavy metal pole for emphasis.

“What? Not taking me to see your king?” I ask.

“There are no kings here,” Dalek tells me. “The things dear to elves, like order and hierarchy, are strange to most of us. We used to have elders to counsel us in times of need, and mighty arch spirits to show us the right way. But the long war has scattered us. Many have gone to hunt in Heaven, others have fled to the ends of the earth, and the spirits don't show themselves anymore. Those you see in this sanctuary are those, who have given up running, resigned to their end. This is as good a place to die as any.”

“You still have plenty of fight in you, by what I've seen.”

“For now,” the bear says, and the two turn to leave. “For today, we rest. Dream of no escape. We may not have doors or locks, but I know your smell already better than I'd like to. Come sunrise, we shall hear you out.”

I—I don't smell. That bad.

And they’re gone.

I don’t see a bed. Instead, there’s a batch of moss growing along the wall, a little less hard than the cold rock. Hoping it’s not anybody’s breakfast table, I lay down and make myself as comfortable as I can.

I may die tomorrow, but right now I’m too beat to worry about it.