I'm Actually Scared of Heights

     "I want to see you fly."

     She'd said that, a little quietly, holding a mug of hot chocolate and looking out across the lawn. He remembered that. Thinking it was strange that she could drink hot chocolate in this kind of weather, when he was just about ready to shave off all his fur and lay next to the Snowager to keep from sweating ever again. Thinking about how little he understood the world, how new he was to this place, how intense every new experience was.

     "I want to see you sprout wings and fly up and up and... and you'd never have to come down. That's what I want. I want you to have the choice to never come down, if that's what you want."

     She wasn't new to this world. She'd told him that when they'd first met, facing each other in that room where he was made. She had been here before, she knew how things worked, and she could answer his questions. He could have done worse when it came to owners.

     She told him she'd always wanted a Faerie pet, but it was hard to earn that kind of money, ya know? But she was working. Every day, she was working for him. Working for someone she had only just met. Working to chase that dream she had held onto since she was a child, and come back here to finally fulfill. It made him feel... ill, in a way. Like there was some responsibility he was supposed to take. He couldn't just sit idle while she worked, but... well, he couldn't do much else, either.

     Helplessness. Guilt. Uncertainty about his future in this vast and ever changing world. Wanting to change, to help in some way.

     Wanting to fly.

     It was too cold up at the top of the mountain, and for once Faelicor thought fondly back to the sticky heat of his home. He pulled his hat down a little further, but it didn't do much. His ears were too big to go inside, those giant, stupid Xweetok ears that stuck out on either side and kept getting colder and colder with every gust of wind.

     "Did we have to meet up here?"

     This was spoken to the Eyrie who perched at the edge of the cliff, shifting his great grey wings and adjusting his bandanna to just the right rakish angle.

     "Well, if 's flyin' yer after, ye gotta start high up." he said.

     "Laying the accent on a little thick today, aren't you, Syc?" Fae muttered. Syclikal threw a sheepish grin over his shoulder and shrugged. Fae remembered things. He remembered the little store, and the potion, and the little Blumaroo who became the big grinning Eyrie in a matter of seconds. He remembered jealousy, and wondering why if she wanted him to fly so badly she'd given the potion to someone younger than him, someone who had now convinced him to stand at the top of this freezing cliff and jump off.

     "It's a very big kite." said Syc, holding it up, "And you are a very small creature."

     "Okay. That's great, but hear me out: Gravity." Fae nestled his nose in the ruff of fur around his neck. The cold was worse than the heat. He didn't like the cold at all. He'd remember that too.

     "Gravity shmavity. There's wind. There's this kite. Wind catches kite, and whoosh! What could go wrong?"

     "And again: Gravity."

     "Look here, do you want to make the lady happy or what?"

     That hurt. A real low blow. Of course he wanted to make her happy. She took care of him. He valued her above everything else. It had something to do with loyalty, something to do with the first face he'd ever seen and the way she petted him between his ears and looked for jellybeans to feed him. It had something to do with the way she had said that she wanted to see him fly. She was just a little girl, really. She had the same dreams. He was supposed to fulfill them.

     "Alright. Let's go. Let's do this. Don't let your dreams just be dreams... or something." he took the kite and tied the rope around his waist, "You had better catch me if this goes wrong."

     And he jumped.

     And he was falling, and falling, and the wind wasn't catching him, and-

     He was sitting in a little glade, reapplying the bandages the faerie at the healing springs had given him. He was a bit bruised, but alright. Syc had such big, strong paws. Paws that were not made for gently catching people falling quickly. At least he had tried to be nice about it. And he'd apologized afterwards. That was something.

     "You want me to help you fly?"

     It was hard to get an audience with Illusen. She was busy handing out quests. She was, in fact, still handing out quests as they spoke. It was kind of amazing how she could split her focus like that. Must be a faerie thing.

     "Yeah. Use some kinda faerie magic or something. I dunno. You're the expert, not me."

     "And why should I- can you get me this card? It's really important. Thanks!- do anything like that for you? You've only done two quests for me."

     "Alright, okay, but... you didn't give me anything for that last one, and... I think you owe me?"

     "I don't give out, just a sec- Ah! Thank you! You're just in time, here, this is my novel, I signed it, see? Take a picture, it'll vanish after you read it- I don't give out prizes for the second quest. That's a known fact."

     "I didn't know that. I'm barely a week old, cut me some slack."

     Illusen paused, she tucked her hair behind her ear, and she looked at him. It was a piercing gaze. Faeries made him uncomfortable. They would look at you, and you would feel compelled to spend all your money getting them things. He had an idea that there was a comb she wanted for unknown reasons and that he should go get it. He broke eye contact.

     "Maybe I'll just ask Jhudora." he muttered, barely audible. Audible enough.

     "Oh. Oh! Oh will you now?! You'll go ask- Hello, dear, aren't you cute? You got a paintbrush? No? It was an accident? Well, hazard of the job, sorry, come back tomorrow!- you'll go ask HER? Well, well..." she looked around, then leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner , "Well, look- hang on a moment, can't you see I'm busy?!- look here, maybe I can't help you, but... if you could get an Air Faerie, well... I'll see if I can put in a good word." she leaned back, then flapped her hand at him, "Now shoo, I've got a line. Go on, get!" And he stood and turned and-

     He met her up in Shenkuu, directing the winds to favor the docking ships. She had a smile like a fresh breeze and a laugh like wind chimes, and she knew just where to scratch behind his left ear.

     "I've heard about you." she said, "You're very sweet aren't you? And brave, too! Why, when you jumped from that cliff, my sisters and I were rooting for you." She placed her chin on the back of her hand and studied him, and he thought about a yellow toothbrush and why would she ever need so many yellow toothbrushes?

     "I wanna fly, but I'm too broke to buy the potion or the paintbrush, and I'm not lucky enough to find it anywhere, so I was hoping that maybe... I mean, maybe just once, so she could see..." he pushed aside the toothbrush thoughts and pressed on.

     "I might be able to do a little something..." said the faerie slowly, "Forget a few rules, carelessly turn my back for a second, well... it would be out of my hands. But what would I get out of this?"

     "A yellow toothbrush?" he asked uncertainly, and she laughed at him and ruffled his ears and-

     "Well, what is it, what's the surprise?"

     He could hear Vinder giggling and Dal hushing her. He couldn't hear Walden but he suspected there was eye rolling going on.

     He was buried in one of the Air Faerie's little cloud racers, waiting until things settled. From down there, it would just look like another part of the bigger storm heads that were gathering. She was holding those back, just for a moment, turning her back just long enough.

     "Are you comfy? Got your snacks?" Dal again.

     "Yes, yes, alright, what am I looking at?"

     "Look up, ya see?"

     And-

     And for a terrifying moment he didn't think she'd done the spell, because he was tumbling through the air and he was scared he was going to hit the ground and he could hear the others cry out and-

     He stopped. He opened his eyes. He was upside down. That was no good. He flipped around, and patted the air around him. He understood how it all worked, ideas rushing around in his head faster than he could possibly remember all of them, but he didn't need to remember them to utilize them.

     He went up.

     He went up, way up, looping around as free as could be, spinning, losing his hat, catching it again, and she was laughing, down there on the ground, giggling like that little girl she had been in the past, and maybe it wasn't what she'd asked for exactly, but it was something, it was something for her.

     He realized then that he could leave. The spell wasn't meant to last very long, but it was long enough for him to go, if that's what he wanted. He could find someone who had more money, or was around more often. He could start his own home, go without an owner, plenty of people did.

     And-

     He came back down.

     He settled onto the grass, back into the stifling summer heat, the sticky weather, those others he called siblings, that girl who took care of him.

     He thought about the petpets she bought because they were cheap and she liked them. He thought about the other house she kept where Syclikal and Soarical played pirates together. He thought about her begging the Healing Spring faerie to help Walden because he'd caught UggUgg and she couldn't afford the medicine. He thought about the first face he'd seen. and the helplessness and the guilt and everything else that came with it.

     He hugged her, his owner, who wasn't rich or particularly good at taking care of all of them, who may have bitten off a little more than she could chew but was trying, who held on to the dreams she'd had as a little girl, because she believed that she could achieve those dreams some day, if she worked hard, because if she didn't have those dreams, she wouldn't have anything.

     "I'm gonna stick by you." he said, "And I'm gonna help. I'm gonna be the best pet you've ever had, and... and I'm gonna fly a lot more, once you finally make it. And when I do, I'm not gonna leave. I promise I'm not gonna leave."

     She patted his head, gently.

     "Thank you," she said, "Thank you."

     He remembered that moment. Feeling like he'd done something good. Something right. And-

     He pressed into the paper, smoothing out the last crease. A little paper air plane. He wasn't much of an artist, but he'd tried to draw himself on it. It wasn't quite the same as that moment when he had all the ideas in his head and had known what to do with them, but it was a close second. One good toss, and then the breeze caught it, possibly by chance, possibly because there was an Air Faerie who thought he was amusing and liked to help him out from time to time.

     The plane soared out over the trees, until it was a mere speck on the horizon. He didn't worry too much about it. It would come back eventually. He was certain of that.

The End.