Mackenzie

Testing, 123. I hope this works! Well here it is, chapter 3 just like I promised :) unfortunately this will be the last upload for a few days (probably Thursday so keep an eye out). I have a few more chapters but I want to make sure I have a nice stockpile before then. I hope you enjoy

After Mum dragged me through the section of the Fairy village we lived in by my ear, she put me to work collecting some fruit for our dinner tonight, making sure I collected enough for Rose as well. There was no way of knowing what time she’d be home, but I collected some of her favourites like glow fruits and papples, they’d be fine if she got home sometime tonight. If she doesn't, I’ll just have to help her finish them. I’m a good sister like that. 

When I had finished collecting the fruits into the basket made from leaves from a particular tree that thankfully grows prolifically since we use it for almost everything. 

I stealthily looked around to make sure no one was looking at me. Thankfully there wasn’t anyone nearby. Concentrating, I couldn’t even see any magic around, only the normal ambient mana levels. If there was anyone nearby using magic to hide themselves from me, they’d have to be very high level in order to pull it off. [Superior Vision] and the benefits from [Manaborne] work together to make it so that people hiding from a fairy with magic is much more difficult for them. 

Satisfied that I had done what I could with what I had available, I picked up a glow fruit and focused on it like I do when interacting with the systems UI. 

Ripe Glow Fruit x1 

A very common and very sweet fruit in Fairy, only grows in Fairy. 

“Okay so now how do I place it into my inventory?” I quietly mutter to myself, “it couldn’t be that simple could it?” I ask myself when I get an idea to try. I bring up my inventory, again looking around to make sure no one was nearby or even paying any attention to me before pushing the fruit sitting on my palm into the window displaying my storage. There was an odd sensation like the fruit was dropping from my hand upwards before it vanished with a few light sparkles that looked almost digital. Glancing at my UI, I could see that it now had a little image of a glow fruit next to the bear fang. Having an opportunity now, I made sure to check out the interface properly this time. I could see that it now showed 18/20 down the bottom underneath the grid. On the right hand side it had a little display showing 18s 23c. The S with a silver colour and the C was a copper colour. It wasn’t hard to imagine what that meant. 

I needed to experiment with this new ability. How much do items stack? Is there a weight limit? Will food keep while stored inside and if so will they be perfectly fine when taken out? So many different things to test and while having to make sure I’m not found out by anyone else will make it more difficult, it also made it a little more exciting too. 

“Super Secret Agent Azalea reporting for duty ma’am!” I saluted the hopefully female fruit tree in front of me, I didn’t want to misgender it after all. I got enough of that in my old life to be sensitive to other people's feelings over it. I left that fruit tree alone for now, I’ll bring back a report once I have discovered more and get hungry for some delicious glow fruits. That sounded like a picture perfect win win to me. 

I picked up a papple next. It wasn’t actually called that but it looked like a cross between a peach and an apple, so it’s what I called it. It looked like the fruit a certain bandicoot is always collecting, now I know why after I tasted it for myself. It wasn’t as yummy as glow fruit, but that’s because I was a sucker for sweet foods and glow fruit was a lot sweeter than papples. Papples were similar in size to normal apples, which meant the thing was like a large pumpkin to me. It went into my inventory just as easily as everything else had. Also only taking up one slot. I wonder if something really big takes up more slots? If so, how was it determined? Size or weight? Or both? So many questions to answer. I shrugged my shoulders, oh well, hopefully I’ll find out the answers eventually. 

Glancing at my inventory again, I saw it said 17/20 now. Still no mention of weight which was interesting. I moved on to my next objective which was to collect random items and see if I can put them into my inventory as well. It worked! Everything I picked up went into my storage with no problem. Sticks, rocks, leaves, rotting fruit, cups of water. Which didn’t stack for some reason. Things that didn’t go inside included anything living such as bugs and any animals I could touch and was okay to risk placing inside a possible death trap as well as items that were much bigger than me, such as the boulder I had been trying to move earlier. I was envisioning flying over enemies and dropping large boulders onto their unsuspecting heads from my inventory. Sadly that wouldn’t be the case. 

It was during these experiments that I discovered that I didn’t need to be so obvious with placing items in or out of my inventory. I could just focus on it like I was inspecting it and think about placing or removing it from my storage. A small window pops up asking how many items I wanted moved and suddenly the item or items were added or removed. It was great! Made me extra sneaky now. 

Seeing the sun starting to sink below the horizon, I realised I had been experimenting for perhaps a little too long and rushed home, activating magic flight to increase my pace. My entire body began emitting a purple light before that light itself seemed to engulf me completely and I became a semi non-corporeal purple ball of light. In this form, which I liked to call my wisp form, we could pass through solid matter but only if it wasn’t too thick. It made carrying things like the basket difficult but somehow not impossible. My speed drastically increased at the cost of a constant draw of my mana. With my increased speed I got home in no time. Although using the word home is probably a bit of a misnomer, at least for people who live in a house. Fairies live in nests. The nests were similar to bird nests, although the massive leaves of the absolutely giant Arnkora trees we lived in provided plenty of protection from most weather phenomena that we experience in Fairy, which is to say very little. The weather in Fairy is almost always bright and sunny, with the occasional light drizzle to water everything. 

The trees were so massive and Fairies were so small compared to them that hundreds of Fairies could and do live on a single branch. I passed many families, everyone of them greeting me on my way up to my family's section of the ancient tree. I placed the basket down on the ground next to our nest and turned off my wisp form. The nest itself wasn’t much more than a bed made from small branches and leaves from a Ksora tree with a leaf from the Arnkora tree branch above us positioned to provide maximum protection. Nothing else really needed. Fairies weren’t materialistic like humans were in my old world and we only needed one set of clothes, so didn’t have any closets or containers. Anything else was held in pockets on the edges of the nest. Fairies had a large communal bath that every Fairy used. 

I couldn’t help but sigh with relief and rub my aching arms a little. In order to carry the basket as a wisp I had to hold on a lot tighter than I would normally have to. Despite the fact I didn’t technically even have arms while I was a ball of light. I looked around at all the other Fairies occupying the same branch as I was. It wasn’t hard to see most of them, it had gotten a lot darker now and so I could see all the Fairies glowing like glow flies. The ancient trees all around me had started glowing slightly from all the Fairies settling in for the night. It made me think of Christmas Trees all decorated with lights, because of our natural bodily glow, we had no need for artificial nor natural lights, not to mention our [Superior Vision] skill. It was a sight that I always appreciated, even though I wished we had more privacy sometimes. As I stood there waiting for my family, I pondered Fairy culture. Fairies were by and large very communal, or should it be Fairy communal, yet at the same time we grouped up together as family units. I couldn’t help but giggle at my silly pun. 

We worked and played together with very little issue or thought put into who our current work or playmate was at the time. Not that Fairies did much in the way of work. It was mostly harvesting resources to create the items we needed to live comfortably and even then it was only when it was absolutely necessary. 

Surprisingly most of what Fairies harvested regularly came from the same source. The Ksora Tree. From baskets to our beds, even our clothes were made from the resilient leaves from the tree. The branches were used in conjunction with the leaves for the baskets and our beds were basically just bigger versions of the baskets without the handle on the top. The sap was useful as a medicinal component as well, it could be mixed into certain health potions, eaten on its own to promote health or simply rubbed into wounds to aid in healing. 

I’ll definitely have to take extra sap with me when I leave. I opened up my interface to the notes section and started writing a short list of tasks I needed to accomplish and items to collect before I go. I had just started note taking when my sister and mother arrived together. It looked like they had been arguing and the sullen look that Mother gave me made me think I had been the source. Sighing, then smiling brightly at my small family, I offered them the basket of our dinner and since there should be enough, our breakfast as well. I only picked one papple since one will be enough for the three of us for dinner and should be for breakfast too. That and I couldn’t carry anymore than one at a time. The glow fruits were for dessert mostly. Fun Fairy Fact: Fairies seemed to be fruitarians, our diet consisted of mostly only fruits with the occasional different nuts for some variety. I’d kill for some meat or even some type of cheese. I haven’t had a yummy burger or steak in over 50 years. 

“Why is your mana low again?” Mother asked me angrily. I sighed, exasperated by her mothering. “I was practicing my wisp form.” I answered, it was mostly, okay, partially the truth. 

“Hmph.”

“Why do you call it that for?” Rose asked curiously then nodded her thanks as I passed her the papple. She made a gesture and the fruit fell apart into six equal pieces, sliced neatly and cleaning through with her wind magic. Rose handed a slice first to Mother, who took it with a small nod of thanks. She crossed her legs and ‘sat’ hovering just above the branch in the air, placing the fruit on her lap to pull it apart easily. Rose handed me my fruit before taking the last piece. I sat like Mother did but Rose lay down on her side, hovering like we were but used her wind magic to move her piece of fruit to stay within easy reach for her. 

“Thanks!” I said as I took my dinner. I then shrugged my shoulders at my sister in response to her question. “I think it just sounds cuter than magic flight form, don’t you think?” I answered her with my mouth full. That would’ve been something my previous mother disliked me doing and would scold me if I ever did it. I held back my bittersweet smile as those memories surfaced abruptly. She had been a great mother while she had been alive, in many ways I was glad she hadn’t been there to see me waste away myself but I do also regret that she hadn’t been there at the end to help support the family I had left behind. 

I had been a little distracted to hear what her response had been but she had apparently moved on and I listened to Rose tell us an amusing anecdote about one of her fellow [Guardian Fairies] who was apparently incredibly clumsy and was particularly disaster prone. We all had a good giggle at some of the disasters that he had caused. It wasn’t until after Rose fell silent that I remembered that she and Thornwood had gone to track down where the bear had gotten in. I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible when I asked. Mother didn’t seem to notice anything thankfully but Rose narrowed her eyes at me slightly, whether she was suspicious or not I wasn’t quite sure but she didn’t mention it so neither did I. 

“Yeah we found a spot where it pushed through a smaller and thinner section of trees. It was quite easy to follow it’s path thankfully.” 

“Hmm, that’s interesting, I wonder where it came from?” I asked no one in particular. 

“And that’s enough about the damn monster. I don’t want to hear anymore!” Mother growled angrily. 

Rose and I both wisely fell silent about it, and eventually the awkward silence turned into companionable silence after we started sharing the glow fruits between us. The glow fruits themselves were almost the size of blueberries for humans which made them roughly hand sized for us, they also glowed. That last was probably a given based on the name. They also tasted amazingly sweet. For a sweet tooth like me that’s all that matters. 

We quietly and quickly wrapped the last of the papple in some Ksora leaves to help keep it relatively fresh for our breakfast before we hung our clothes over the sides of the nest and climbed in our underwear. It was big enough that we had our own spots and warm enough that we didn’t need to snuggle to keep from freezing. Saying our goodnights, we all got comfortable before falling asleep. I definitely needed my sleep. I had a big day tomorrow, it wasn’t every day you run away from home after all