The shackles rubbed against my bare skin, intensifying the everlasting pain that had become my existence. I sat there in a state of painful peace, compared to the torture that they had forced upon me earlier. Unfortunately, I had nothing else to do, but think back to what they had done to me.
The heavy iron shackles burn with heat to rival dragonflame, the energy seeping out of me through them. The metallic poison was weakening me, as the man poked and prodded my once proud and erect wings, their membrane once stiff now rested soft and flimsy. Each stab and poke brought a new surge of pain down my back and into my spine. “ENOUGH, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME HUMAN?” I spoke through the agony, forcing my voice to leave my lips, now crusted over with lack of water.
He chuckled and prodded me again, “I want your secrets, your people's secrets.” He stopped for a moment with his constant touch and I saw the gleam of metal on his fingers and then a burning in my back between my wings. “Iron hands my darling, that is the source of your discomfort. I can make it all go away, if only you would tell me a word!”
He pulled my blonde hair now darkened brown and crusted with mud and blood, I laugh through the pain allowing some bitter happiness to grow within. “Whatever you do to me, whatever you burn I will not betray my people to you mortals.”
Another damn laugh escapes his cursed mouth, “Oh but darling we mortals can bring you so much pain.”
“Then I shall do what I have always done, I shall outlive pain.” The metal glove pressed between my wings again and my back burns with fire of a thousand burning trees. I think about the forest I lived in as a child and of the fire the humans had started to drive us out of our homes, how many of us had perished in the flames. My thoughts continued to follow my capture of the horror had spread across my face as my daughter lay below the willow tree as she had done for the half century of her life, and I had done for the century of mine. I let myself drift in the sea of memories and the pain faded to a numb sleep.
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The path beneath my feet was rough and hard the grass sparse and fried into crispy blades. The fire had touched this clearing but it had not destroyed it, the blackened ash surrounded the circle of trees and had even claimed a few. The remaining leaves were all edged with dark burns and still stood with a purpose to serve, they all stood firm guarding the clearing. Even when the wind blew they moved with it, weak in the aftermath. The burned stumps and gnarled roots surrounded them a dead wasteland that had once been beautiful forests. “My sisters, I thank for your protection. Even if it was not enough.”
Each tree seems to hold on to traces of their personality, each of my sisters still shining through the bark. Each defending our home when it was all but abandoned, guarding the willow that stood in the center our mother. She like all the ones before had given herself unto nature, allowing herself to become a might willow that might pour out its wisdom among those who rested before it. She was however silent now as were my sisters, for they too had taken the form of glorious trees each a glorious sight as they stood encircling mother. All of the spirits within the trees were pained as I was, the strength I had used to run they had used to stand firm and repel the flame.
“So this is the place,” I heard laughter erupt from the man. He had been the one to torture me, but how had he found me here?
“Begone human, this is no place for your kind.” I stood my wings erect and wide hardened and strong. I watched as a wonder passed through his eyes, the sight of a fae in all her glory. He had only seen me when I was weak and broken, but now I am burning with a vengeance as hot as the fire he had set upon my home. “I’ll not say it again, LEAVE.”
The trees though resting did their part and tangled him in their roots, dragging him towards the spot where I stood. He slashed at them with his iron blades but to no avail, “In death they lost their weakness to iron. Foolish mortal you have come to the place of your greatest crime, and now your victims will have justice!” My lips curved into a wicked simile as the blades fell from his hand and restrained by the trees he inched closer. “”This is the spot, this is where you slew my daughter human. Her blood may have seeped into the earth but her spirit is here yet, waiting for justice.” I paused for mere moments before adding, “Waiting for you.” With my words I flung forward my hands and the flowers in the clearing shot upwards the blades of grass following suit until he was entwined in a cocoon of life and it strangled him. The plants brought him to his knees as they sunk back into the earth, and as his screams faded into the earth I heard a flutter of wings. “Daughter you are free!”