‘Since the beginning of Yggdrasil, the fairies were brought into existence. We are manifestations of the tree's many energies, but as were are energy, we were never meant to have a physical body of our own. For just as fire or air cannot have a form they control, neither can a fairy.’

‘So through the eons, we frolicked and grew. At first, we were nothing more than a thought. We had no intelligence. But as we gathered energies and time, some of us began to grow consciousness. It was around this time that Yggdrasil decided to create the humans.’

‘At first, we were fascinated. Unlike normal beasts, humans had the ability to reason. They had a consciousness greater than the others, like ours. They were the physical manifestation to our magical one. The other side of our coin.’

‘We watched as they grew and Yggdrasil spread them from leaf to leaf. They lived and loved, fought, and destroyed. Sometimes whole leaves would fall to their mechanizations. But still, all we could do is watch.’

‘Do you know how frustrating it is, to not be able to physically interact with anything. Many of us began to be jealous of humans. If we were made to be equals, why were they able to interact and experience all that Yggdrasil had to offer, while we were left to just exist and watch?’

‘Then came the first spirit whisperer. A human who could see and talk to us fairies. We were all so excited! Finally, we could talk and interact with our other halves! But alas, we were too overzealous in our contact, and the poor lass was driven mad and jumped off a cliff.’

‘But now we knew, contact was possible. We spread out and searched among the leaves to find another. Someone we could communicate and interact with. Someone who could be our physical manifestation.’

‘If the first’s flaw was that they were weak-willed, the second’s was that he was too strong. He coaxed us and tempted us to use our powers. Through him, we found that we could manifest our energies into the leaves. We grew drunk on his influence, but that all ended when he was slain by his fellow brethren. To this day, those foul humans still call those four heroes.’

‘So again we waited. At this point, we had developed a sort of hierarchy among the fairies. Most of us were still just sentient energies, but many, like me, had grown the ability for complex thought. Much more sophisticated than those lousy humans and their terribly short life spans. My sister was the first, followed by Apocolyptia, then me…’

-

‘So, wait, I just realized that everyone seems to know A’s name, but no one says your name and then they just call the oldest fairy the Fairy Queen or whatever. So what are your names?’

The fairy was sitting on the table that had a map of the world drawn on it and looking at me with an annoyed expression, since I had just interrupted her story. She sighed and her wings fluttered.

‘I guess they wouldn’t, out of respect. Apocolyptia is a cursed name on this leaf. They blame her for the eradication of nearly all the Fairybond, and rightfully so. If she hadn’t interfered in our plans thirteen years ago, then…ah, I digress. My oldest sister has taken upon herself the title of Fairy Queen, but among us, she is known as Impiria. I’d tell you to respect her name, but I’ll be popping your heads off soon, so there is no point. Over the years, I have gone by many names, but for now, you can call me Rex.’

She gave a devious smile as if her name was supposed to mean something. I blinked for a few seconds to let the awkwardness set in and then asked my second question.

‘So why are you all girls? You don’t have physical bodies, so why genders?’

‘That is in honor of the first spirit whisperer. We learned quickly that we coexist with women, but are just tools to men. This was finally confirmed when Yggdrasil gifted us with the Godfairy Apparatus and it only worked on human females.’

‘Huh! That is the first I’ve heard of that. I’ll have to ask Iggy why she didn’t mention that to me, or that she gave you that machine.’

‘There is no telling why she is so secretive about things. It’s infuriating that so many problems would be solved if she would just impart her knowledge, but instead, she just grants power to tip the balances and sits back and watches.’

‘I know! I had to look so hard for the Hive Queen when she could have just told me how to get there and be done with it. Not to mention her giving me no hints on how being a Magus even worked.’

We were both nodding together as we reminisced about Iggy’s mysterious nature when I heard the King clear his throat from behind us.

‘I don’t mean to push my demise forward, but…’

The fairy clapped her hands and laughed.

‘Right, right! Then on to the story again. Where was I?’

-

‘So the three of us formed a sort of leadership of the fairies. Impiria shepherded the fairies, Apocolyptia searched for more truths to develop us and grow, and I sought out the spirit whisperers. That is when I came to this leaf.’

‘It was over a hundred years ago in this leaf’s timeline. We came across a bloodline that inherited the ability to see and manipulate fairies. The fairies they had come in contact with had all been just wisps of power, so they did not know of our intelligence. Before I arrived, the clever devils had found out how to bind lesser fairies to items and call upon them to shape the leaf however they wished.’

‘This leaf is where we discovered Fairyite. For some reason, this has been the only leaf that has produced the metal. With it, we could bind to objects and bring our wills into the world. But this wasn’t enough. No, we would not settle to be tools for the humans. So we looked for a way to bring ourselves deeper into the world.’

‘It was at this time that Apocolyptia discovered the Ley Lines. How had we missed that humans became energy like us when they died? And Yggdrasil was using this energy to fuel its growth. You humans were fertilizer for the World Tree! Ha! How do you feel about that!’

‘With this revelation, Yggdrasil gifted us the Godfairy Apparatus, with the promise that we would never interfere with the Lay Lines. The device let us resonate with a human, and bond with it. We could transition into the physical world through their feelings and emotions.’ 

‘But, there was a catch. The fairy could only resonate with one human. Once that human died, the fairy would be without physical form for the remainder of their eternal lives. Secondly, only those who were spirit whisperers could be bonded with fairies, and the device required Fairyite, so it could not be removed from this world. We were limited by the sheer number of humans who had this ability. We fairies are countless, easily able to bind with leaves upon leaves of humans. Who got to choose who got to bond and who didn’t?’

‘Then the Revenant came. We don’t know where from, or why. They were like a parasite that had burrowed into the side of the tree and were stealing Yggdrasil’s sweet nectar. We offered to help fight them for the price of a physical existence, but instead, she created you.’

‘Her prized human. Her champion. Your leaf had managed to figure out the one truth that had evaded us for years. Mana. The lifeblood of Yggdrasil and the food of the Revenant. By creating you on your home leaf, you had access to copious amounts of the energy that your people had selfishly leeched from her skin. And yet she awarded you with the ability to wield it and shape it.’

‘We were desperate, and then came Apocolyptia’s greatest revelation. If we used magic to create a body for a spirit that was becoming attached to the Ley Line, and then pulled it from its body into the new one, it would create a spirit whisperer.’

‘Apocolyptia and others were against it at first, but we decided to break our promise to Yggdrasil. So the Fairybond were created. At first, the Fairybond were reliant upon the people of this world to take care of them, but as they grew in number, they created the school to train and grow the new souls. They did our bidding, and we granted them power.’

‘Surprisingly, Yggdrasil never retaliated for our broken promise. Probably because the amount we took was so little. Then, we made another discovery. This time it wasn’t Apocolyptia. How could it have been? Only a bonded could know. When the first bonded killed the first Revenant, it absorbed the corrupted Mana that the beast had taken in. With that energy, the fairy grew.’

‘It wasn’t long before we began the hunt for the Revenant. We would find them and kill them and grow in strength. We found that we could gather the Aura, as it came to be called, and shape it. We even postulated that we could manifest physically with enough of it.’

‘But we were only one leaf, and so many other leaves began to fall to the power of the Revenant. The tree became sick, and the outcome of the Magus was…not looking good. We devised a plan to make our way to the Revenant Hive Queen and taking care of her ourselves, becoming the saviors of the World Tree.’ 

‘But then we got to thinking. What if we saved the Hive Queen. Even tamed it. We could start a little Aura farm. Sure, we would have to sacrifice a few leaves here and there, but the power gained would be tremendous.’

‘Apocolyptia, in rebellion to our plan, had to ruin everything and tell the humans. Two sides were formed. One side believed that preserving all human life was important and that the Hive Queen needed to fall, and no life was more important than the rest. Blah Blah Blah. The other side saw that the power gained would be worth it. That with it the fairies would one day be freed to walk with the humans as equals.’

‘And with that, the Great Fairybond War started. I was at the head of our side, while Apocolyptia was at the head of the other. Impiria remained impartial, but she was really on my side in the end. The fight was brutal. So many Fairybond died as they tried to push past the Revenant and fellow Fairybond to get to the Queen.’

‘As we dropped their last warrior, we were preparing to celebrate, when none other than Yggdrasill’s Magus strolled past us. We were too weak to fight you. All we could do was watch, after we had sacrificed so much, just to watch you stroll past and blow it all away. Where Apocolyptia had failed, you succeeded.’

‘But! Magus, in your slaughter of the Queen, you left us a little present. An egg. And that egg produced a special little girl. That Revenant absorbed a ton of the Aura from the death of its forefathers. And that little princess began to produce a certain special black spike. A spike that can turn a human into a Revenant.’

‘So we bottled up Apocolyptia for her little rebellion. We raised our little princess, and we began to deploy the Revenant in a controlled manner over Yggdrasil. We used the now fake war between the Fairybond and the Revenant to gather up Aura. It was all perfect.’

-

‘So, then why me? If everything was going so swimmingly, why was I pulled in to this mess?’

‘It was Victoria’s brilliant idea to pull you in as a Fairybond. She said that she could use her powers to strip you of your memories and make you the ultimate fighter against the Revenant. You would be our trump card if our little princess ever got out of control. She waited until your life force was weak, and then snatched you from your home. We all know how that worked out.’

‘But a whole year? Why not just kill me when I didn’t submit?’

‘Believe me, that was my idea, but both Impiria and that stubborn Victoria insisted on continuing to control you. She even left on that crazy crusade to find a way to bring you under control. They are convinced that we won’t be able to control our little princess eventually and we will need you to get rid of it. I’m not convinced, though. Especially after she gave me my little gift. He he he.’

‘Let me guess. She gave you a body.’

‘You can tell! Isn’t it wonderful! And it only took two or three leaves to build it!’

The room went slack-jawed at the revelation that three worlds had perished so that Rex could stand before us right now. She may have once been a fairy, but this revelation meant that she was something more now. A superior Revenant. A Revenant that was also a Fairybond.

‘So there you have it! By killing you, I get to continue to suck this tree dry. And by killing all the Fairybond, I can build a Revenant army for us to possess. I can bring a bunch of the fairies over to my side and start a new breed of Fairybond.’

‘Then you start a new breed of super Revenant under a new Queen and continue to bleed the tree of Mana until Yggdrasil dies.’

‘Exactly! Wait, no. That’s not right.’

At this point, Rex began muttering incoherently to herself, apparently trying to work out a conflicting thought in her head. I patiently waited for her to work out her mental kinks.

‘And…and…so…so I kill you now. Right? And all the Fairybond! Right! And then nothing is left to stop us! Right!’

‘Glad you could come back to join us.’

She flashed another wide grin at me. Her eyes went black, like a shark's.

‘Alright! Storytime is over. Time to die!’

‘Wow, that took twice as long as I needed. Thanks, really.’

‘What?’

‘You see, last time we met, you gave me an idea. You see, a Magus specializes in shaping Mana. Making it into a physical form. So I decided to take a crack at it, just like how you did. The results took a while to form, but you’ll like the results.’

‘But I don’t sense any Mana, other than what’s on you.’

‘Well, I wasn’t shaping it here. Anyway, without further delay, let’s get started.’

I stomped on the floor and a large blue magic symbol appeared, illuminating the area. A three-foot-tall girl with grey boots and a frilly grey dress rose up through the circle. She had long, wavy black hair and a blindfold with a crude painting of an eye on it. She had cute, cupid-like, metal wings that unfurled from her back as she held a miniature version of her greatsword in front of her.

I frowned at the incomplete form in front of me. I still had a ways to go. I brought forth my sword from my locket and smiled at the gobsmacked fairy.

‘I figured it’s time for a little reunion.’