These Little Women ✔️

Fairy Guest

Tara coughed violently as she flew through the burning forest. How had it come to this? What had caused this to happen?! It had just been a normal day... A normal and fun day with the other fairies. She had been at her little mushroom home with her brother and his wife, playing around and having fun...

Then the fire. No one knew where it came from or how it started. But it had been absolutely wild, burning down everything in the blazes' path. Including their entire village.

She had lost sight of her brother and her friends. She was alone, terribly frightened, and hopeless lost among the thick black smoke and bright fires. Her wings were starting to fail her as she grew weaker and weaker from the harsh smoke, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks as a feeling of hopelessness washed over her.

"Arthur!" she called out in between coughs. "Ar-Arthur!"

But her brother never responded. She didn't know where he was... or if he had even made it out of the fire. For all she knew, he and everyone else she knew were gone. She was alone.

Her wing finally died out. With a startled scream, she crashed into the grass and landed on her hands in knees. The air didn't seem as thick down here, surprisingly, but she could see the fires catching up to her. Throwing her hands over her mouth, Tara ran through the forest as fast as her legs would carry her, hoping to find a safe haven somewhere.

But there was nothing but more and more burning plants and trees, animals and bugs and birds fleeing for their lives. She was running out of breath, her legs were starting to feel heavy, and it was getting hard to see. But she forced herself to keep running, to get out of the forest.

She didn't make it very far, tripping over her own two feet. She shrieked as she landed face first into mud, groaning out in pain as she looked up. Mud... the lake? Was she near the lake? She forced herself to crawl, trying to get as far away from the smoke as possible. She had to get to the water... She would be safe by the water...

But her body wouldn't move. She turned over on her back, tired and weak and out of breath. It hurt so much to breathe... She could still hear the fire destroying the forest, the creatures screaming for help, running for their lives... How did this happen? How could it have happened?

Her eyes finally shut, unable to keep them open anymore. It was over... Everything was over.

XXX

"Come on, men – just a few more flames and we can go home."

Benjamin quickly hurried along with the rest of the villagers to put out the rest of the fires. With the initial adrenaline rush long gone, he was starting to feel tired and drained. Well, it wasn't too surprising; they had been at this all night long. Damn arsonists... They always set fire to everything! At least this time the bastards had been caught. Well, their burned corpses had been found anyway.

Good. They had gotten what they deserved.

Still, it wasn't enough. Half of the forest was practically dead now, destroyed by the flames. They had been lucky to not have lost any villagers to the fire, but he couldn't say the same for any woodland creature. God only knew how many of them were burned alive...

But at least most of the fire had been put out. There were just a few small flames left by the lake area and since he and few other men were the closest to it, they were the ones who had to put them out. They were just getting the last few flames around the area. Most of the others had already gone home.

He put out the last flame, letting out a soft groan in relief. Finally, it was over... At least until the next idiot arsonist came along and decided to set the land on fire. Damn bastards... Sometimes he just wished they would set themselves on fire and leave everyone else alone. It would make things a hell of a lot easier for people.