The Faery Rings

A Stranger

It has been about 400 years, 400 years of fighting between the humans and the good neighbors in the land of Arkandia. It started at The Sun Festival, where both humans and Faeries celebrated, the Faery Empress and Mortal King decided to celebrate it together, to unite the faeries and humans so that the tension between the two species would end the talk about war and we could be good allies.

During the festival something went wrong, two servants began to fight because they had bumped into one another making them spill ale on each other. They began blaming each other and started fighting, which caused others to join in the fight and soon The Empress and The King began to argue and the festival was over before it even started.

Ever since, the Faeries and humans have been at each other's throats, even though all they have to do is swallow their pride and apologize to each other.

My name is Oliver, I'm human, I'm 18 years old, I live in a small town called, ́ Phoenix's Nest ́, it is near the border of the Faery and human territory line, but we have never been ambushed or attacked, we are hidden in a secluded part of the forest. In this town, we raise Phoenix ́s to be messengers in battle. We are small so we don't have to send a lot of birds, but lately we've had to send more and more birds because they've been going missing, people have guesses that Faeries have been shooting them down before they can get to the frontlines.

In fact, my older sister Mercedes, is fighting in the war, she's been out there for a few months. She's actually been doing very well, she says it's hard out there, watching soldiers kill, getting killed everyday.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard from Mercedes in two weeks and I ́ve been very worried, usually when I send a letter it would return in two days or three, but I have not gotten anything back and it's been about a week.

Today, I was going to the breeding grounds, where a mother Phoenix, we called Scarlet, was expected to have babies soon.

The breeding grounds was a giant Orchid filled with maple trees, each tree had at least two nests with a mother inside sitting on her eggs. I walked down the long row of trees and stopped at the very last to see Scarlet fast asleep, her arms were wrapped around her eggs protectively, while she rested her head on top of them making sure they were nice and hot. I quietly dropped some dried up apples and maggots into her dish bowl, then filled her water bowl up with nice cool water.

We keep the water cold, to cool them off, if they got too hot they could burst into flames too early and accidently die. It's rare for them to die when they combust into flames, but we don't like taking chances. Usually we wait till the babies are born and learn how to fly before we stop giving the mother water so she can burst into flames and get her new coat of feathers, it's just their way of molting.

As I began walking out of the breeding grounds I heard my name being shouted, I turned around to see the twins, Marcy and Derrick. They both had short brown hair, almond shaped eyes, and they always wore blue headbands that had rubies decorating the rims. The twins were 16 and they were in charge of alerting breeders if a Phoenix egg was hatching, when an egg starts to hatch it glows very brightly.

"Oliver what are you doing here?" Marcy asked me.

"Uhhh... I work here?" I said scratching my neck.

"But you should be home getting ready for the Winter Festival!" Derrick said excitedly.

"What about you guys? Are you two going to the party?¨ The Winter Festival is a festival celebrating the first day of winter, we stay up till dawn partying. I know it may seem a little silly, but during dark times like these, we need something to cheer us up and forget about the war.