Chapter one

     I floated around listlessly in the outer perimeters of the enchanted forest.

     I didn't know if it had been years, decades or centuries. Time had no meaning to me.... Life had no meaning to me.

     My people had found refuge with the fay. The kingdom of fairy let them join with open arms and they lived among the glittering throng, not the worst of fates but that didn't absolve me of my sin. They said that they have forgiven me, that they didn't blame me to begin with but could I forgive myself? Could I stop blaming myself?

     And so here I was in a self imposed exile, floating around the edges of the enchanted forest, keeping myself in the border between the land of the humans and the forest of the fay.

     The sun would rise in the east only to fall in the west. The moon waxed and waned. The leaves on the trees turned brown and fell only to grow again as the seasons passed. I remained oblivious to everything. I would have ended my meaningless existence if only I knew how but I was immortal, suicide wasn't an option for me.

     Over time I became numb. Everyday was the same as the previous day but one day the monotony of my life was suddenly shattered by a little human girl.

     She couldn't have been any more that ten years old. She had large brown eyes and brown ringlets of hair wreathing her cute little face. 

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     When she first came crashing through the thicket of bushes, I was shocked. What was a little human girl doing in the no man's land between the fay's enchanted forest and the human kingdoms?

     I just froze there in the air. I hadn't interacted with anything for such a long time that I didn't know how to react. The little girl didn't seem to have the same problem as me, she giggled in pure glee when she saw me and tried to touch me with her adorable little hands but since I was just a disembodied ball of light, her hands just passed through me or that is what I thought would happen. Instead of passing through me, the moment her hands came into contact with me I felt resistance like I had somehow become solid again. A couple of seconds later, I found myself being bounced around while the little girl squealed in pure joy.

     What was happening? I was a being of pure mana, how can this girl touch me let alone play with me as if I was a normal ball or balloon? 

     Before I knew what was happening, the little girl tucked me under her armpit and skipped out of the forest while humming a cheery tune.