The Fairy Self

Chapter 6

"Guess this is goodbye then," Nemar sighed. "I hope you find your sisters and save Azalea's husband. Maybe we'll meet again one day, who knows."

"Maybe. Look after the child. Remember–"

"Yes, I know, apply the paste onto his throat every day and make sure he doesn't do anything that may have a chance of harming his throat." Nemar sighed. 

"Yes, well, goodbye then." I awkwardly replied. Nemar smiled, and leaped away nimbly, vanishing in the dim morning light.

"C'mon, Ammolite, we need to get going before the witch-hordes come..." Azalea reminded me gently. I nodded and climbed onto Swiftmane with her. We began galloping west once more, returning to our arduous journey. We stop at lunchtime to eat, with our packs now full of the food we bought from the warehouse. 

"There's not much longer to Veliantas now. We should be able to get to Veliantas in just a week."

Azalea nodded. "How're your hands?"

I looked down at them, then gave Azalea a confused look. "Why would anything be wrong with my hands?"

"They're completely fine? Strange..." Azalea pondered emotionlessly, not sounding surprised at all, then took a look at my melancholy demeanour. "Are you still worrying about being Fey? The chances of that are very small. The Fey are immortal and henceforth infertile. Only every seven hundred years can they reproduce, so children are valued. The Fey, contrary to human belief, would never give off their precious children to humans."

"Yes, that would make sense." I sighed. "But fears don't make sense, do they? Not often."

"I personally find using reasoning really helps with dealing with fears. It puts my mind at ease to think that the chances are low." Azalea persisted.

"I know, that's why therapists always use that to help with fears," I retorted. 

"And anyway, does it matter that much if you're Fey? You're still you, it doesn't change who you are."

"I suppose it doesn't really. But it makes my life a lie, it means I'm a traitor to the Fey, as well as the humans."

"Why would not knowing that you're Fey make you a traitor to the humans? A traitor means that you betray something. Being Fey doesn't make you betray the humans. You've been on their side all along. They should be thanking you!"

"I don't know. Like Nemar said about the Acere Twins, when they were duplicated, they lost their identity with them. Me being Fey seems to make me lose a part of my identity, my humanity, like a loss of a part of my characteristics."

"I suppose that makes sense, that your loyalty is a part of you." Azalea sighed. "But even so, it isn't likely that you're Fey. If you were, then your magic would already have begun to manifest."

A horrible feeling filled me as I remember what the Fey chasing me had said. "Her magic's beginning to manifest already!", and the shield that had protected me from the darts of black that had shot towards me and my sister. 

"And besides, the Fey don't have a princess. There are two sides of Fey, Unseelie, and Seelie. Unseelie is ruled by King Oberon and Seelie by Queen Titania. The rest of their family has long since been confirmed to be dead, and both of them are single and childless. It's rumoured that Oberon and Titania were once lovers when they were in their twenties, but that was for an extremely short time and the last fertile season was years ago when the two were just born. They've been ruling for years now, and both of them are in their fifties. Not like you'd notice, they're eternally young after all." 

"But just because I'm not a princess doesn't mean that I'm not Fey," I uncertainly fretted.

"Fey don't leave their children with humans. They'd never trust humans with–"