Estrella: A Story About a Fairy

Chapter 4 - River and Alice

Back before he was kidnapped and brought out to the human-owned airship, River was a shy young boy who never had the same type of motivation like all of the other boys did. The typical hobbies of a young fairy boy included playing a variety of fairy sports, collecting insects, and doing physical activities involving strength. Those things were completely out of River's interest though. River was much more into the likes of reading, cooking, and studying his school academics. Because his hobbies fit into the categories of things that typical fairy girls liked to do for fun, a lot of young boys made fun of River for his hobbies and tame personality.

This was something that happened often in his school. All River did when reacting to all of this was just take what was said to him and feel bad about himself. When River was around the age of thirteen, he realized that he could not handle the bullying any longer. Since he still felt that he was too soft to stand up to the bullies, he decided that he would try to force himself to get into "boy-like hobbies" so he wouldn't stand out anymore. At home when nobody was around, he would try to find insects in his yard to practice collecting like all of the other boys did. Even though River was heavily disgusted by the thought of picking up insects, if it mean him not getting bullied ever again then it was worth it in his eyes.

After months of practice, he gathered up the boy-like activities with all of the other boys. The bullies who tended to bully River playfully doubted him at first but when they saw how good River was at collecting bugs specifically, they were impressed with how much he had changed and proceeded to accept River into playing with them. Even though River still had a soft personality and never enjoyed a single game he played with all of the other fairy boys, he was happy he would never need to deal with bullying any longer and could finally feel good about himself.

This was River's childhood until he became around the age of fifteen. This goes all the way back to the present when the humans have invaded all of the fairy's territory so they could kidnap every single fairy put them into a huge airship for reasons still left unknown. River, was, of course, one of the fairies that got kidnapped. After several minutes of being scared and confused about what was going on, he met two young girls named Estrella and Lavender. He could tell these two girls were not one of the most confident people in the world but they still made River feel so much safer.

Even though he was longing to keep having these two girls by his side, he could tell that deep down, both of them were hurting heavily and that he shouldn't burden them with another person to look after. At least for now. So instead of doing that, he left the two girls to go on their paths so they could figure themselves out. Thankfully, even after that, River was not alone still. He did find one girl named Alice who looked even more broken than he was. River wanted to help Alice. He knew if he left her alone he might make him regret it in the future so he wanted to work on making sure Alice was okay. In order to do that, first and foremost, he needed to get through to her.

Standing in the so-called factory, it was quiet and the only noticeable sounds that could be heard were the constant noises of the big and small cogs turning clockwise. River noticed that Alice was still standing on her own, looking completely lost on what to do next. River walked up to Alice so he could hopefully get her attention but she only continued to distance her eyes from him. Even when noticing this, River still proceeded to try to talk to Alice anyway. He wouldn't go back on his word. He wanted to make sure both he and Alice weren't alone on this.

With their interactions being much more awkward than River would've liked, he led Alice out of the factory with her still withdrawing from speaking to River. They ended up going to the same floor as Estrella and Lavender which was one floor below where all of the bedrooms were. He thought doing this would be the safest course of action since he didn't know what he would come across if he started entering even more rooms without knowing what was in any of them.