"I love you, Nyx."
"Yvress, hasn't it been enough?" I ask as we pick flowers. Her Undine wings flutter under the moonshine. "Be serious for a bit."
"Oh I am always serious," she chuckles and continues playing with the lovely blue petals.
"Stop toying with them, I need these for tea." I don't even believe in that stupid Lapis-cure-recipe, but I still drink that horrible tea every day, hoping, praying. Maybe I've even fooled myself into thinking I feel better from it.
"Where I come from, there are no flowers like these. But there are deeper blues." She drops the flowers into my lap.
"Oh blah blah, sea, we've all heard of it."
I don't like the sea. Skholka sea, as it's named. It's too… wet. Like all the seas, actually. I don't fancy the idea of drowning in any of them. Fae usually don't like the seas either - you cannot fly with wet wings. It's the cruel domain of the Undine where pirates reign supreme under the unofficial blessing of the Court of Pearls and Tides. Sure, they keep promising to get rid of the pirate problem every year at the Villarian Council, but they never do. Bastards.
Undine sure are slithery ones. I respect them. If they wanna rob the land-dwellers, who am I to stop them? And I sure don't plan to face them off on the open seas where they have the upper hand.
The motto of their court is "Now our enemies rest."
How grim, isn't it? Where do they rest, you ask?
They rest at the bottom of the sea.
"I never understood why the hell you even left that sea of yours if it's so precious to you," I groan.
"You cannot see the stars and moons from the depths." Yvress points to the night sky.
Her body is that of an Undine, her wings are as well - but her eyes and blue skin with tint of purple give away her Lunarian heritage. A mixed-breed. I can't imagine she was well accepted in either of the Courts. I met her while she was wandering around, as gentle and mysterious as ever, uncaring for stupid Villarian things like 'food' and 'shelter' and so on. I don't know why I took pity on her and helped her out. I just felt like I had to.
"And I can't breathe that well underwater," she adds with a laugh.
"You kinda suck for an Undine."
"Well, I am not one, am I?"
"Then you suck as a Lunaria too, considering your magic is atrocious."
"I am not a Lunaria either."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm Yvress," she laughs. "Isn't that enough?"
She acts like she doesn't mind it but I know she does. Neither of us have a place in this world. I am a changeling, an outcast, she is a halfbreed, unwanted, abandoned by both of the kin. Her parents loved each other but well - their love didn't work out. Mostly because of the society. Her Lunarian father was…
I'm not sure what happened to him.
It's a mystery to everyone, including Yvress. Her mother had turned into a banshee due to all the grief that she had experienced.
Yvress had to fend for herself. Her mother, having been a fae of high status, had a huge network of support, and even after her lover's death there were nannies and aunts and other high ladies to take care of Yvress. None of them liked it and they all felt pity for the poor baby that was neither this nor that. And they felt sorrowful for her mother too, like Yvress was some kind of curse laid upon that woman.
She sings to herself as she looks at the stars.
"That there is your constellation, Nyx."
"You don't even know when I was born."
"Lunarian instinct."
They all think they're sooo smart because they can - what - guess someone's damned horoscope sign? And what do they think that tells them about me? I know they all believe in some grand plan for the Universe or whatever, but I find it stupid and cowardly. We are all the creators of our own destinies. The Gods do not sharpen my blades, I do - with stones and hits until the metal molds under my fingers the way I like it. Not the way some God, or a Seelie, or whatever, like it.
None of them wield my blades. I wield them myself.
These days, whenever I brandish them, I think of Yvress.
***
I finally decide to visit the library. I am an awful reader. On Earth they called it 'dyslexia'. I have no idea if they called it anyhow in Vilaria nor do I care. They probably have some stupid made up name for that which translates to 'cursed disease for bad people' or something. Yet I managed to learn the common fae language, so, who's really in the wrong?
The script took me years though. I still struggle with it. It looks nothing like the latin script I learned at home. Conquering Lapis or the alphabet seemed like a feat of equal proportions. I try not to think about those damned books that await me, always filled with medical jargon and complicated archaic words.
I walk up the stairs to the library, the stone silent under my feet that have learnt how to stay silent. I mull things over in my head - the dungeons, Vatra, the Prince… There is something going on and I'm not sure what. I hum to myself as I walk. Who is working with whom? What kind of deal were they mentioning? Could it have something to do with the Seelies?
Even worse, could it have something to do with the Unseelie folk?
I honestly don't know which idea aggravates me more - they are both just different sides of the same coin. The Seelie, the Pure ones, aren't that pure I think. They are regarded as our creators, as the light - but alas, stare at the light for too long and you will go blind. The Unseelie are the banished ones, branded to forever lurk in the shadows of their realm.
I bear their curse.
All changelings do. That's why we prefer darkness, that's why we have these little devilish horns in our hair. They are a clear warning to all other fae - stay away.
Stories about the Unseelie folk are numerous, each more ridiculous than the previous one. I am sure of their existence, for I am one. But most of the stories are concerned with them drinking fey blood and apparently kidnapping fae and humans to keep as blood slave as they dance a macabre dance of death in their shadow-filled castle where the Spade Queen resides. Seriously, who believes those things?
Turns out that many do.