I’m actually flying!
For now, I’m moving pretty slow, but I bet I can go faster.
Just flap a little harder, and then I’ll be able to do amazing turns and spins like those other fairies.
I can do this!

“Wo-waa-aaaah-oof!”

The ground is still as hard as ever.

Well that was embarrassing.
Why did I do that!?
I told myself just a moment ago that I needed to take it slow!
If I can’t even listen to myself, I’m liable to have another moonlight incident!
Why did I get so cocky just because I could flap a few times in the air?

Wait!
Moonlight?
Following my trail of thought, my gaze wanders to my wings.
They’re almost entirely cyan!
I’ve been absorbing wind essence!
This must be why I wanted to rush through the air as fast as possible!
Even now, I can feel this small urge to get up again and do it better, faster.
And why not!?
I got this far with only a little practice, just one more try and I’ll be the best-
STOP!!!

Shit!
This energy is messing with my mind!
I need to counter this, quickly!
But how!?

I look down at the ground while I think it over.
Oh.
Duh!
I’m literally standing on the answer!

I need some earth energy.
That should be the opposite of the air, right?
I close my eyes, concentrate on the ground below me, and soon feel something moving.
Or rather, not moving.
This energy has some kind of steady, unmovable feeling to it and won’t come to me until I start pulling it in.
Okay, now I don’t have to fight the urge to jump back into the air and go zooming across the sky anymore.

I’m not even sure why I was trying so hard.
There’s no hurry, no reason to go fast.
It’s a beautiful sky today, I should appreciate it.
There are white, fluffy clouds drifting through the air, and the warm sun is shining on my face.
This weather is so nice.
*Yawn*
I think I’ll just lay here and enjoy the view.
Yeah, sure, you can join me Nibi…

AAAAAHHHHH!
Stupid Akari, wake up!
This elemental essence thing is really taking its toll on me.
I need to get this earth stuff out, so I should quickly move on to another type.
Well, there are plenty of flowers around.
That fairy said nature was, rather basic.
I’ll try that.
Eventually…
…
Maybe one will come to me…

NOOO!
Plants don’t conveniently move just because you wish it!
Akari, get your butt off the ground and go hug a flower!

I give my cheeks a light smack, and before my desire to do anything at all fades once again, I heave myself up and trudge all the way over to the nearest flower stem.
Ugh, it takes six whole steps.
This had better be worth the effort.
Immediately, I start pulling in the new essence.
Yet, something I didn’t expect happens.

Starting from where I touched the stem, the plant begins turning black.
This color rapidly spreads, and in seconds, encompasses the entire plant.
Then the whole thing turns into a pile of dust.
I just killed a flower!

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but I’ve never accidently killed something by absorbing its essence before.
I’m not going to start randomly killing things around me, am I!?
No, that can’t be the case.
If fairies did that, this whole glade would be dead.
So why’d this happen?

I think I have it!
Yeah, sure, flowers have essence in them, but it’s not unlimited.
One flower only has so much.
If a fairy can make ten of them with no trouble, it only makes sense that each individual flower will contain far less essence than what was used to produce the entire group.
So I literally sucked it dry of all essence and it died.
I’ll need to be careful in the future regarding how much I gather from any single thing.
As I said before, I really don’t want to go around causing destruction.
And certainly not death!

I did get some energy from this though and feel much more alive.
Not nearly as sluggish.
This must be nature essence, or maybe life essence?
As far as I can tell, it’s not really affecting my thoughts in any strange ways.
Maybe because both plants and humans are, naturally, alive?
This essence must just define the state of living.
If this is the energy I had in me while I was human, it makes sense that I would already be accustomed to it.
I shudder when I realize this means fairies might be able to just pull all the energy out of people, possibly causing what I just did to this flower!
Another thing to add to my list of stuff to never do.

When the shudder ran through my wings, they flashed into my view and caught my eye.
They’re now primarily exhibiting three different colors.
The white is almost completely gone, having been overpowered by all the others, I suppose, and only occasionally appears as thin barriers between the major colors.
Green is the smallest, then cyan, and a significant part of them is brown.
The colors aren’t just randomly blended together either, but like actual butterfly wings, they form, if I have to be honest, beautiful patterns across my wings.
This means, I took in all this energy!
I wonder how my wings look while I’m pulling energy in…

Uh.
I freeze in place.
There are hundreds of fairies all around staring at me!
Oh no!
Did I kill someone’s flower!?
Again!?

“Wh-what’s going on?”

A proactive wind fairy replies to me.

“You’re-funny.”

“Excuse me!?”

She looks at me as if I’m a little dense, then slowly explains.

“The way you played with the different essences! It’s hilarious to watch your reactions to each one.”

They’re enjoying my struggles, are they!?
It wasn’t enough for them to turn me into this, they all wish to laugh at my ignorance as well!?
Bastards!!!

Fed up with these stupid fairies, I begin walking away before my temper causes me to do something I may regret.
Punching a creature that has a swarm of friends powerful enough to obliterate me would not be the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Especially, when I’m uncertain I’d manage to land the blow to begin with, being as unfamiliar with this body as I am.
Naturally, Nibi accompanies me, but the others don’t seem intent on following me.
After taking some time to cool my head, I turn to her.

“Can you show me where some water is?”

It’s the only one left on my list to try.

“Miep?”

Yet, she just tilts her head.
I repeat the question along with making gestures, but she still struggles to comprehend what I’m trying to tell her.
Only after I spit on the ground and point at the fluid does she seem to figure out what I want.
Speaking of which, I honestly have no idea how this was created in my mouth!
My mouth doesn’t feel dry, but neither was there any liquid until I attempted to expel it, at which point there was suddenly plenty.
For all I know, instead of saliva, I may now magically produce infused spring water that’s worth a fortune.

Nibi takes off and gestures for me to follow.
Using my rudimentary flight skills, I do my best to wobble along in the sky while being careful not to pull in too much essence.
Slowly for her, Nibi guides me to a portion of the glade partially hidden under the enormous flowers.
Along with tiny streams, I find several small, rock-enclosed springs, some of which have other blue fairies splashing about in them.
The pools look unnatural with how the water just bubbles up in the middle, then goes calm near the edge.
However, we’re talking about magical beings here.
Anything is possible.

Gratefully, there is a spring with no fairies currently in it, so I step to its edge and peer into the still, clear water.
There, I see something I really didn’t want to.
I look totally bizarre!
Yeah, sure, that my hair and nails are showing three different colors of the rainbow was somewhat expected, as I’ve seen them in full detail on my wings already.
But my eyes are a completely different matter!

The same type of fully colored eyes as I saw with the fairies stares back at me from the water.
There’s a black pinprick in the center, and then they’re colored from it all the way to the edge of my eye.
No matter which way I look, the white of my eyes is nowhere to be seen.
Furthermore, unlike my wings, the colors are not calm, nor do they match my current set.
Every color I’ve taken in till now is shifting and churning within my eye.
Sparkling gold and the deepest violet, swirling around silver and green, with brown, cyan, and blue easily identifiable in the mix as well.
Like a deep pool with colorful eddies constantly flowing about, yet never fully mixing.
My eyes again drive the point home that I’m no longer human.
They’re utterly unnatural!

At least this view has given me one thing positive.
Despite my face being completely dispersed, my newly assembled one seems to match how I remember it.
The general features, at least, and not, you know, everything else.

But enough of that.
I came here for a reason and I want to pursue it.
Upon repeating the essence absorption, I instantly feel calmer.
Not the lazy calm of earth, but closer to the tranquil determination of when you want to do one particular thing and only focus on that.
Like reading something or sewing clothes.
Now I can understand why water fairies are loners.
It would be incredibly frustrating to have someone interrupt what is important to you.

Yet, Nibi is obviously a water fairy, and she constantly clings to me.
She’s by no means a loner.
Quite the opposite, she seems to get annoyed whenever I move away from her, especially if I interrupt her sleeping time.
It seems like she wants to stay close to me.
I would think, as a water fairy, she would want to return to her focus.

Oh no!
It can’t be that I’m her focus!?
After incorporating only a small portion of water essence, my thoughts are now more centered, allowing me to concentrate on this matter more effectively.
If she has chosen to literally embody this feeling, with me at the center of it, how am I ever supposed to get her to leave me alone!?
Perhaps I could talk her into changing colors and she’ll lose interest in me?
But she can’t speak and hardly understands what I say.
Well, if I can simply leave this place, I won’t have to worry about her.

To distract myself from such matters, I try to think about the elemental energies.
For now, nature seems to fit me the most, but I don’t want to have to feed entirely on living things.
The better approach would probably be to keep a mixture going like I have here.
I seem to feel fine at the moment.
Despite all the different energies, there’s none that appears to have the upper hand.
It would seem that I’ve balanced them out.
As far as I can tell, my thoughts do not feel strange or unnatural, but familiar.
Finally, my mind feels like my own again.
Balance is what I need from now on.

I may be starting to get the gist of being a fairy.
Flying a little bit and drawing in magic is a good start.
Hmm.
There’s just one more “fairy basics” I ought to try.
If there is anything that fairies are known for, it’s their magic.
According to mum’s stories, it may be fickle but powerful.
So, as long as I’m careful, I ought to be able to use this essence I absorbed.
The energy in my wings, especially, feels ready to use, and when I focus on it, I somehow know I merely need to tell it what to do.

To confirm this, I concentrate on the earth, as this essence is my largest portion.
Similar to all the times before, I attempt to sense the energy, but this time, within myself.
I then focus on my intent and begin trying to press my will into the magic.
Earth energy floods from my wings, but a lesser amount also emanates from every part of my body.
It gathers in a ball of brown light between my hands, which I’ve naturally raised to hold it, although it doesn’t touch them.
But a strange feeling tells me it’s not yet ready.
Picturing exactly what I desire, I follow this guiding sensation and begin using my hands to subtly shift the incorrect portions of the globe till it more clearly aligns with my intention.
A slight touch here, a twist there.
After a moment of tinkering, the orb of magic somehow feels correct.
Trusting this curious feeling within me, I release the sphere.

The magic rushes forth and enters the ground where I focused.
Promptly, an earthen pillar rises, many times my own height, exactly where and how I envisioned it.
I’ve successfully used magic!

“Woohoo!”

I don’t know if it is just joy at being able to use magic, or the decrease in earth essence, but I close my wings, jump high into the air, and do a somersault.
Which becomes several flips before I open my wings and clumsily glide down to land, falling to my hands and knees when my feet touch the ground.
But never mind that, who doesn’t dream of being able to use magic!
This is absolutely incredible!
I’m sure I’ll be amazing at it once I try a bit more!

…Yeah, sure, rather positive it was the decrease.

Okay, I think I have everything together now.
At least, as together as I can be in such a short period of time.
And after exploding.
Tonight, I will go back home or rather, fly home, to be more precise.
My family must be worried sick, and I have no intention of leaving them like that.
I love them dearly and desperately wish to be back home.
The biggest difficulty will be to explain why I’m now the littlest family member.
Or far more importantly, how to demonstrate that I am me!
I’m sure it will be tough, but that’s a question for another day.