"What have you done with him?!" Jin shouted towards the man sitting elegantly on one of the chairs at the table. He was wearing a white shirt with jeans and was holding one of the books from the shelves.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about, sir." The man looked puzzled. He stood up and left the book on the table.
"Where is Irving?!" Jin flashed his beast's eyes.
"Sir, I am Irving." The man who called himself the uncle of Pari walked closer to the three. The twins moved to protect the girl behind them faced the man.
"Irving is a fae. You are a human." Rin spoke next.
The man even looked more troubled as people in front of him didn't believe him. As the brothers searched his face, they saw similarities between him and the fae. They had the same nose, lips, cheekbones and the same eye shape. But the eye colour was different. Irving's were turquoise, while the man standing in front of them was black. Although even the black seemed a little off.
"But I am." The man looked like a puppy in their eyes. He was smaller than them. Hence, they were talking to him from above. He looked tiny and prey-ish.
The twins even took a step back when he got closer.
"Didn't Pari tell you?" The man spoke.
"Of what?" Jin asked.
"We, fairies, can shift into humans."
"What?!"
"Yes. We can become like humans although we can't completely hide our true forms..." Irving had his head hang low.
"Are you really Irving?" Alek asked from behind her cousins.
"Yes. Allow me to show you." He spoke and, slowly, he was engulfed in a turquoise light. He became smaller by the second as wings, and his hair colour returned.
The three had their eyes locked in the transformation and did not move until Irving came flying to them, panicking. "Are you alright, sir? Miss?"
"Heh? Ah, yes." Castor shifted his attention towards the little creature in front of his face.
"Really, sir?" The fae flapped his wigs so furiously that the three, especially Jin, had a hard time keeping their eyes open.
"Really." Jin brought down the fae from his face so that the wind would not interfere with blinking. He and others blinked a couple of times when they were finally able to. "So you are Irving."
"Yes, sir." Irving looked up from his level. Water in his eyes reflected the light in the room and made him look like he was about cry.
"Okay, we believe you. Sorry for acting this way." Pollux came to apologise and, the fae looked visibly happy. His face was lit up and, the flapping of his wings went high. His wings were basically invisible.
"No, it's alright, sir." The fae flew up to him.
"Why did you shift?" Alek asked Irving, who was smiling.
"It's because some things are easier when we are shifted. We can change the size of ourselves but not others. Books here are left by supernaturals and, they are not small as us. So we shift into the size of them."
"How long can you be like that?" Jin asked next.
"As long as we want. But the longer, it's hard to get back to our true forms." Irving told them and flew away from them. Within three seconds, he shifted back into the human form. But this time, he was wearing a different type of clothes. This time, he was wearing a white shirt with simple patchwork and black pants.
"Can you make your own clothes when you shift?" Alek asked.
"Pretty much." Irving told her with a smile. His hair was now black as of his eyes. When the lights shone on them, it gave shades of turquoise, making him look magical. "But we can't do that to our true forms. When we are in our true forms, we have to change clothes to wear different clothes." He looked a little grumpy when he said that. It was sometimes too much work for him to do it.
"I see. That's fancy. I wish I could do that." Alek spoke to herself. Sometimes, she didn't understand the need to change clothes when she's staying at home the whole day.
Irving chuckled before gesturing them to sit. "I brought you here so that we could have a conversation private and, there some things written about air fairies in here."
"Thank you." Rin smiled at the human Irving. Irvin still looked young. In fact, younger than him.
"Do you want drink or anything?" He asked.
"No, thank you." The three replied but, Irving still summoned a maid and gave them glasses of water for each.
"Wait, what are you in this place." Alek asked. The way he summoned a person was like when she was in Kan'nazuki and watching Cora and Walter. Also, she remembered how Pari was being bowed by everyone she passed.
"I own this castle." Irving answered nonchalantly as he flipped a page in a book that he previously left on the table. "I am the head of this tribe." He then looked at her and smiled.
"Say what?" Jin choked on his water when he heard that. The way he and his niece acted was like a child's. They acted like age mates older than Lee and sometimes, for their age.
"I am the head of this tribe. I rule this place."
"Wow. We didn't know that." Rin scratched his head.
"Does that mean Pari is a royalty?" Alek had her finger at her chin.
"She is. Although she is many of my nieces. She is close to the last ones and, maybe that is the reason why she is a bit careless." Irving sighed. He heard from her how she was caught by a shifter boy named Lee a year back, and just a few hours ago, he heard the story of how she was found by the leading families.
"You do not have children of your own?" Jin asked. He was sitting on the right beside the fae, while his brother sat opposite him, on the left of the fae. Alek sat right beside Jin and, she was holding a book about fairies. It was the same book in Mutsuki's head's library.
"Unfortunately, no. Fairies have a destined mate. They are always fairies and, I haven't gotten time to look for her as I am always piled up in this place." Irving sighed deeply. He had been alive for a long time but, he still hadn't found his mate. Most of his nieces had their mates and, he was happy for them but, he felt empty when he was all alone.
"Oh. You have patience, unlike me." Alek spoke and received a chuckle from him.
"It took me a while to get used to it... Anyway, let me start explaining them. There are a lot of mysteries revolving around that tribe and, it is no difference even in the fae community." Irving began talking as he flipped to the page where it described different types of fairies with pictures. He handed the book to Alek, who seemed to know nothing. "There are only a few things we are certain about Himawari no Kaze. The leader is a male. His name is Niall. There isn't much about him but, we know that he is strong and old."
"Wow, earth-fairies really have wings made of the earth?!" Alek, who was examining the pictures, screamed. "That's so... unique."
"Those are old pictures. Nowadays, they mostly use plants or leaves as their wings. They are the most evolved of all elemental fairies in the world." Irving smiled at the girl fascinated by the book.
"Like this ones?" Alek suddenly brought a leaf out of nowhere and held it out.
"Yes... Where did you get that?" Irving replied.
"Oh, it was in the hood of this hoodie. I think it's from the forest in the underground place of Nagatsuki." She put the leaf back into the hoodie. The leaf was going to stay comfortable in the warm hood.
"Ahh... Well, allow me to continue." The fae wasn't used to Alek and, his mouth hanged low for a moment. She was weirder than him. "We are sure that they are the last of air fairies and, the number is unknown. When I was part of them, there were mixed fairies like air and water, air and fire or air and earth."
"What do you mean a part of them? Were you in the tribe of Himawari no Kaze?" Jin asked.
"You can call it that way. I went into the search of my mate decades ago and accidentally stumbled across their territory. They knew I was the head of this tribe so, when I told them why I was there, they had allowed me to look for her until I fund her. But I got an emergency call from one of my people and, I had to leave in just a few days of arrival." The fae told his story. "As you know, I didn't find my mate there and, since then, I haven't been allowed to leave the castle for a long time."
"You is not allowing you? I thought you rule this place?" Rin furrowed his eyebrows. He knew his grandfather always listened to his wife even though he was the head. He said there was nothing scarier than his wife when she was mad.
"My guard." Irving looked scared when he spoke. Right at the moment, the door of the library opened forcefully and splashed water everywhere.
"King?" A male singy voice spoke through the dripping room.
"He's here." Irving spoke before he popped back into his fairy form and hid behind the shifters.