Sons of Nature

1 The First Cherry Blossom of Spring

Author's Note: I love, love, love the Sons of Nature collection. Of course, I like all my stories or I wouldn't write them in the first place but this collection is one of my favorite projects among everything I've done so far. So I am stoked to finally share this with you! 🥰

SoN has four stories that correspond to the four seasons, the stages of life, and also to different phases of relationships. Each of the stories has its own couple and there is no direct overlap, although all of them are set in the same world and races you meet in one might be mentioned in another.

I'll give you a super short intro as to what you can expect from each of the stories:

1 The First Cherry Blossom of Spring: Two young fairies falling in love for the first time. This is the sweet and rather short introduction to the collection. It only has one chapter but with 7k words, it is comparatively longer than those of my regular projects.

2 Where Sun and Rain Meet: A story about a pair of gods who have shared many years together and have much good to look back on. This stable relationship makes up 5 chapters of the story and is roughly twice as long as the spring story.

3 The Witch's Dance: In this favorite of mine, a haunted human seeks the help of a cynical (male) witch ... and tries to seduce him. At 12 chapters with over 30k words, this story about a budding relationship that might be doomed from the beginning is the longest story of the bunch.

4 The Last Rose of Winter: The curtain call of the collection comes with the love story of a human and a plant spirit. But be careful: This 13-chapter story marks not just the end of the collection but also the end of a couple's fate. As such, it is a full-blown tragedy that might not be suitable for the faint-hearted.

Now, without further ado, let's start with The First Cherry Blossom of Spring!

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The door to the market garden opened, making the bell hanging behind it chime while letting in the hubbub from outside. The noise there had multiplied now that spring had arrived and it was slowly getting warmer, luring the people back out of their houses and onto the streets.

Ying Tao raised his head, looking past the plants to the person that had come in. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see save for a pair of cargo pants at the bottom and a big hat on top. He pursed his lips and turned to the side, swaying up and down. "Big sister Ping Guo! What do you think that person wants?"

Ping Guo who was lying on one of the branches of the tree next to Ying Tao with her arms and legs hanging down on both sides only tiredly glanced at the person that had come in. "Probably some of the flowers." Then, she closed her eyes again and continued to lie on the branch.

Ying Tao gave a hum and continued to look. The bells would ring out regularly in the market garden, and each time, he would curiously watch everything that happened, wondering what the people coming in might want. In any case, he hadn't been here for long, just a few days, so everything was new. Save for big sister Ping Guo he didn't know the others well yet and he didn't have anything to do either so there was nothing else he could amuse himself with.

The man that had just entered the garden market talked with the clerk at the front who waved at one of the other workers further in the back of the store. The woman rushed forward and then nodded at the customer with a bright smile, motioning for him to follow her.

Ying Tao curiously watched the two of them come closer to his section. He fluttered his wings a few times, lifting off the leaf where he had been sitting, and craned his neck to get a better look at the two people. He had already seen all the humans that were working in the market garden but the customers would look different each time. It was more interesting to observe them.