Caroline

Chapter Four

I froze. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, knocking all the breath out of me. I gazed at Quinn in shock, feeling my mouth hanging open.

“How...what…”

“I know this is confusing,” Quinn began. “But my family and I figured you deserved to know.”

I bit my lip.

“Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

“That is an excellent idea.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Can we invite Brook, Alex, and my parents into this conversation?”

“Sure. Let’s make it a group chat.”

She made her cute concentrating face again- damn it, Caroline, focus- and suddenly I felt myself connected with the rest of her family.

“Are you guys all Fey?” I asked.

“Yup,” little Alex replied. I exhaled.

"Wow. Okay, then.”

Quinn cleared her throat (how do you even clear your throat telepathically? To this day, I still don’t understand it). And then she began her story.

"The Faiolry have been around since the dawn of Earth. We were the stone that formed from the magma of our infant planet. We were the clouds that raged down, cooling the molten rock. We were the water that filled the first seas. And eventually, slowly, we became the first life on the planet. We were able to switch between our forms as living creatures and stone or water, and eventually plant life. Fast forward a few billion years, and we became both the dinosaurs and the plants we ate and used to build our nests. It was strange, but it worked.

"When the meteor hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, a huge amount of our population was destroyed. But those who had been in their inanimate form survived and repopulated. We found that, as more kinds of life were made, there were different types of Fai- different plants and different stones, though most water creatures were, well, one type of water. In our second forms, we were different animals. Those who were the water became the fish, and those who were the trees became the birds.

"Eventually, humans were formed. Some of us took a liking to this new form. More and more half-humans, half-elementals were being born. But eventually, after millions of years of peace, all of our most skilled prophets worldwide warned us that all who were not half-human would die from a terrible plague. Many were terrified and found a way to switch to half human, but some decided that the prophets were wrong and chose to keep their forms.

“The plague came, how we don’t know. From some morally-gray place in the universe, I imagine. It spread like wildfire, and in months those without human forms were dead. We grieved, but found a way to keep our race surviving.

“Many years later, we found that less and less half-elements were being born. It simply did not work anymore. In the past, we managed to survive without eating our vegetation families, or been okay with it, but now we were all half humans who had evolved far enough to need the greens. When humans were formed and we all began to feel the effects of emotions, we realized that creatures who were fully animal were being created, and found that we could eat them without suffering an overly large amount of guilt. They were still our brethren, but at the same time, not. And we had to eat something. Nowadays, many Fai are vegetarians or vegans, but some just avoid meat as much as possible and only eat it when necessary.

“Anyways, fewer half-elementals were birthed until there were none remaining, and we ate greens safely. While they were indeed living, they did not suffer if we ate them.”