Mei Ruan May 18th, 20xx

Ever since his return from the human world, Cai wandered around the campsite like a waif and clung to my side like another wing. Everywhere I went, so did he and he would look at me like a kicked puppy if I dared hint that he should go away.

It wasn’t so annoying that it made me angry, but it was concerning. What exactly happened in the human world.

Krion wandered around the campground as well, but with a purpose. He held the enchanted bat close to him and explored the site. Marvelling at each new creature he came across and each new plant he saw.

Cai finally laid down to sleep, still in his odd depressed state but made me stay with him until he fell asleep. I indulged him since it was rare that he would let me spoil him, rarer still that he would show me any vulnerability beyond when he tried to make me handle things he found troublesome. I was worried, but if it were anything I could help with, I was sure he would have already come to me for help.

Krion had by now settled in the campground and had found something for himself to eat. He huddled by the fire even though I’d controlled the temperature with magic and looked lost in his thoughts.

“Mind if I take a seat?”

He nodded as quickly as I’d asked, showing that he had heard me walk toward him. I settled in a few feet away and my eyes fell on the bat. I’d been there when Cai had made it but had been too preoccupied with wondering who was going to receive it to wonder about its usage.

Krion noticed my staring at the bat and inched it slightly closer to himself as if he feared I would steal it. It was clear that he valued it, and it wasn’t just because of the ‘coercion’ spell that had been cast on it.

“Umm... Mei?”

He carefully called my name in an attempt to draw my attention from the object but such minor tricks were below me.

“How do you use that thing? The- what do you call it, ‘bat’ ?”

As there was no such thing in this world I faced the uncomfortable feeling of twisting my vocal cords into the restrictive language of the human to pronounce the word. It came out a bit more melodic than how Krion pronounced it but it couldn’t be helped.

“Ah, this- you just, swing it around I guess. It's used in a sport called baseball.”

He spent a few more minutes describing the wonderful sport called ‘baseball’ and even got up to demonstrate a few swings in response to my response.

I wanted to try it.

“We can't play with only two people but we can just do some practise swings.”

It looked like he had loosened up quite a bit once he recognized that I was only curious about his bat and wasn’t trying to kill him.

I grabbed some grass from around the campground and ripped off a section of my already dirtied clothes to make a ball. It wasn’t a shirt I was particularly partial to so I didn't hesitate as I did so. Krion suddenly looked away and kept his eyes up to the sky as I did so and I suddenly remembered that the human world’s females were generally more modest than fairies were.

I pulled down my undershirt to make it clear that I wasn’t completely stripped down and used the longer section of my skirt to create three more balls. The evenly hemmed skirt must have looked ridiculous on me but there was no one around to judge me on it.

With the four balls in hand, I tossed them as Kiorn had described, aiming for the bat and watching them fly away from the impact. It was entirely useless as a battle instrument right now but with some enchanting… if only the goblins were still receiving requests.

We fairies could enchant instruments to a degree, but the leading figures in the field would forever be the goblins. For half a second my mind drifted to my half-goblin fiancé that laid fast asleep under Galen’s wing but I quickly dismissed the idea. He had enough to deal with as it was. I couldn’t add to his burdens by asking him to entertain a folly of mine.

Kiorn eventually tired of playing and laid down to sleep as well, leaving me on my lonesome. I enjoyed the feeling of the wind against my face and the soft but prickly feeling of grass on my hands. It took me back to the days of marching with my mother’s army. The old hag had made me start in the infantry and work my way up the ranks so for my first half a decade I’d roughed it with the rest of the infantry.

It wasn’t a time I would ever go back to, but it did inspire some strong feelings of nostalgia within me.

For old time sake, I picked up some longer grass leaves and began to weave out a small blanket, just to see if I still could. I was focused on the task but not so focused that I wouldn’t have noticed the intensified sound of someone approaching me.

“Mei?”

I quickly loosened my grip on the dagger I kept in my boot and turned around with a warm smile at Cai, who had at some point woken up and sought me out. He sat down beside me and stared off into the distance as I worked but since he didn’t say anything, I chose not to say anything either.

It was as my fingers worked that he suddenly lurched sideways and his head fell into my lap. I waited for him to rise from that position and stutter out a half-cocked explanation as to why but he just stayed there, drooped wings showing his exact mental state.

I was never the nurturing type but even someone much harsher than myself would have been unable to push him away. My hands abandoned their work and began to run through his fluffy hair, taking care to avoid the band he wrapped around his forehead. I had more than an idea of what exactly he wanted to hide, but as long as his forehead stayed covered then it would stay an idea.

We stayed like that for almost an hour, and the only sound either of us made was the sound of Cai’s rhythmic breathing, for a moment I wondered if he had fallen asleep and prepared to carry him back to Galen but he let out a small grunt when I tried to move.

“Cai…”

“Finley.”

He suddenly cut me off with a low voice, it was so low that if not for the anxious trembling of his hands I would have thought he was sleep talking.

The foreign name, or rather the overly familiar middle name of the previous queen rang in my ears.

“It’s Finley. The name I go by in the human world. Finley Cai Aies hall in full. It's not a common name.”

The sudden confession caught me so off guard that I was shocked into silence. A look at his face showed me that he knew exactly what it meant to give me his name in the human world, a way for me to locate him were he ever to flee from here but I couldn’t figure out why. If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed that he had officially given up the human world as a safe place, but that seemed ridiculous to even entertain. After all, it was the same place for which he had reduced a fairy to a human child. I wondered again what exactly had happened in the human world?

“Cai-“

He shook his head in my lap and his fluffy hair splayed out in all directions.

“I was told that instead of lying it would be better to keep my silence… please don’t make me lie to you.”

Like I had swallowed a wad of sweet potatoes, the curiosity burned in my heart and dried out my throat but I bore with the feeling. Just like he had told me his true name, I would trust that he would eventually tell me whatever he needed to tell me.

He fumbled around in his pockets and brought out a fancy box, lined with red and silver gems, it clashed against his current aesthetic of gold and green and emitted a bad feeling.

“I need you to help me pierce my ear. Could you help me out?”

He opened it with a complex pattern of movement, touching each independent gem in a pattern that was impossible for me to memorize and the box popped open to reveal a pure diamond earring. The bad feeling persisted but rather than feeling danger I just felt rejection.

It was probably a goblin artifact his father had prepared to keep the infant Cai safe.

I knew precious little about his father, which was more than others could say. All that had been released to the public was that he was a pretty high-ranking goblin and he had been the spearhead in forming the short-lived peace treaty between the fairies and the goblins.

I decided not to pry anymore and brought out a metal needle from my pouch taking care not to touch the ones that I had used to sew the cloth balls. It would have been a lot neater if I could have used a magic needle but there was no way I could use a weapon composed purely of magic to harm a royal’s body. Even as things were, I felt the magic in me go slightly rampant. There was a reason why most spells rebels used against royals tended to be in the defensive and capturing range.

Cai flinched as the sharp needle pierced his skin and a few drops of golden blood, that now carried a silver sheen to them dropped onto the floor of the forest. Cai didn’t see as he was too busy inserting the earring into the wound before it closed up but a few flowers, only as many as the drops that had birthed them, blossomed from the ground and began to sparkle like golden stars.

It was a phenomenon I’d only read about but had never seen. There were precious little chances to see the effects of a royal’s spilled blood.

I swiped them off the floor and stashed them into my pouch thinking that Cai would distress at such a constant reminder that he had bled.

The diamond earring, so pure that it was almost transparent, occasionally peeked through his long hair as he shook his head and got used to the weight on his ear. I could tell he was still upset at whatever had happened in the human world but until he told me all I could do was to help keep his mind off it.