Finley Cai Aies Hall March 31st, 20XX

One would think that being summoned to another world would only happen once in a lifetime, if at all, but that concept or rule chose not to apply itself to me.

Maybe because I was half-asleep, or because I’d gotten used to waking up in unfamiliar places in the past two-three days, but I didn’t feel any sort of panic.

My mind was still on the dream I’d had earlier and I wanted nothing more than to return to sleep and chase it down, but I resisted and forced myself away. The sound of my hands hitting my face rebounded around the large room and echoed back into my ears.

My cheeks hurt as I felt the repercussions of slapping myself awake, but it was the quickest way I had to bring myself back to reality.

I was on a gigantic bed that compared with the one in the castle and a sea of thick blankets swam around me, barely protecting me from the biting cold that filled the room. I gathered them closer around myself and pulled a relatively light one around my face and ears as I looked around the room.

There wasn’t much of a point in trying to figure out where I was, but I could tell I was in the ‘other’ world.

As a contrast to my room in the castle which was mainly themed around golds and greens, someone had themed this room around silvers and reds.

It was a chamber fit for an emperor and had expensive-looking ornaments and clothes that were a single grade off from being garish. I let out a small and perhaps insane chuckle as I realized that everything in the room except for myself was silver, black or red. From the cubic gems on the chandeliers, down to the velvet wired rugs.

The portrait of a handsome, silver-haired and alternately red and black-eyed man in a mask glared down at me from the other end of the room and sent chills down my spine. While his face and the imposing nature of the painting were enough to take my attention, what really caught me was the horn that poked above the rim of the mask. It was a sharp conical structure, about the size of a finger, that imposingly stretched up at the ceiling.

The painting ensnared me, and a haunting feeling of familiarity made it difficult to look away. It took a harsh gust of icy wind to snap me out of it and bring me back to reality.

It took some effort, but I eventually dragged myself off the bed and shuffled around the room with the large blankets around me. It was difficult to walk with the blankets completely wrapped around my body and under my feet, but I didn’t have any shoes on, and I wasn’t willing to brave the stone floors with my bare feet.

I walked around the doorless room in a futile attempt to find an escape route and took my time admiring all the ornaments and decorations in the room. It was less garish and bright than the one with the fairies, but it still felt familiar.

Maybe it was because I still somewhat felt like this was a dream, or because of the painful feeling of longing that hit me like a wall, but I didn’t panic and try to escape like I had when I’d first met Cambridge and Esmeralda.

Well, even if I had, it wasn’t like I had anyone to take out my frustrations on. The bejewelled box emitted a soft heat in my hand as I gripped it tightly. Chances were that the box has something to do with this, but until I got someone to talk to, I wouldn’t know.

I didn’t have my wand, the transporter or the diary that my mother had given me. I still had my locket since I never took it off, but I couldn't use it to do anything except change into my fairy form. As of now, I was completely alone and helpless.

“Aies.”

A powerful voice bounced around the room and filtered into my ear, completely breaking the eerie silence.

I whipped around to identify the source of the voice but ended up falling back in shock. The painting on the wall had suddenly come to life and stood a few feet away from me.

He was every bit as handsome and imposing as he’d looked in the painting, but instead of the suffocating malice that the painting gave off, he just looked tired and ill-tempered.

“I asked you a question, Child, shouldn’t you answer?”

Calling out my middle name wasn’t a question, but arguing with a stranger that had a horn growing out of their head likely wasn’t a great idea.

I didn’t want to antagonize the scary man, but I also didn’t know what type of answer he wanted me to give.

“Aies? How do you know my middle name? Or rather, who are you?”

His already dull expression sank even further into a depressive one. He raised a palm to his face and scratched at his bare chin like he had a full beard.

His foot tapped at the floor and his other heel rocked like he was deciding whether to come at me. I put myself on guard, but I knew there was nothing I could have done if he attacked me.

“This is the first time we’re meeting, so I won’t hold it against you. My name is Theodulus.”

“Well Theodulus, where am I? And who are you?”

I ended up repeating the question even though I’d already gotten his name. The name sounded familiar, more than was comfortable, but I couldn’t make any connections. I tried my best to speak calmly so I wouldn’t irritate him anymore, but it didn’t look like my attempt worked.

In the blink of an eye, he’d come to a stand a few centimetres away from me and his horn slightly poked into my forehead.

The uncanny familiarity hit me again, and I unconsciously took a step back. I expected him to get angry since he’d looked unhappy that I hadn’t recognized him from the get-go, but his thin lips curled up into a slight smile.

“Yeah, you’re Aies. Who else could you be?”

He reached out an arm and patted me on the shoulder. I tried to flinch away from the touch, but he moved too quickly for me to even see. As soon as his palm connected with my shoulder, I felt like someone had dropped a full bag of bricks onto the single localized spot.

My legs gave out, and it hurt to move my shoulder. I hoped it wasn’t broken, but from the blinding pain I'd felt while trying to flex my fingers, something was.

“Great heavens!”

He let out such an old-fashioned saying and followed it up with a few more strange expletives.

I felt him pick me up more gently than I would have expected and felt my feet leave the ground as he lifted me off the floor like a child.

“Aren’t you still a baby? How can you be so fragile!”

Aside from the irritation I felt from being called a baby, I was confused. Even if he thought I was a baby, shouldn’t he have expected I would be fragile?

But no, I wasn’t fragile! He was just ridiculously strong!

He put me back onto the bed and rearranged the heap of blankets around me, effectively wrapping me in a cocoon of fabric.

“Stay still for this, it should hurt a bit, but you’ll feel better soon.”

Before I could ask what he was doing, I felt him take my broken arm in his grip and a rush of heat flooded the limb. It left as quickly as it had invaded and shocked my nerves, but I still ended up screaming in pain.

“Calm down and push through Aies! Tch, I should have known that pesky fairy side would get in the way.”

His words broke through the fog of pain he’d inflicted onto me, and things clicked into place.

The horn, the box, my middle name, his weird words.

“You’re a goblin.”

“Well, at least you aren’t stupid.”

His words were brusque and harsh, and so was his tone, but from how gently he handled me and made sure I wasn’t cold, I could tell that he wasn’t planning to hurt me.

I finally fought my head out of the three layers of thick cloth and looked at his masked face once more. He still looked painfully familiar, but the mask made it difficult to pin down.

Theodulus looked me over as well and gave off a slightly frustrated sigh.

“Well, I shouldn’t have expected much from a human-raised child. It just means I have more work to do.”

He kept talking over and around me but had barely said a full sentence to me.

“Why do you know so much about me? You still haven’t explained who you are to me? And can you let me go home?”

It was the dreamlike atmosphere that made me so calm and passive. Since I’d found out that he didn’t want to hurt me and wouldn’t on purpose, I felt slightly emboldened and asked whatever I wanted.

He still stared me down with that same odd expression and he still looked tired as death, but he still answered, although they were vague and didn’t give me much information.

“I knew your parents very well, and I’m afraid I can’t send you back yet. How old are you now?”

“I’ll be eighteen in a few months.”

He looked visibly taken aback and looked at the wall where a time-keeping device materialized.

“Already? How time flies.”

Theodulus’s gaze suddenly softened, and he placed a hand on top of my head. He moved much slower than he had earlier, and his actions were much softer than before as he ruffled my hair.

“Sorry for leaving you with those humans for so long.”

It was a very casual and off-handed apology, but it softened me up much more than all the things Cambridge had given me. It didn’t make what had happened okay, but at least I’d gotten someone acknowledging that I was a victim of it all.

His nose made a loud sound as he sniffed around me and a foul expression crossed his face.

“So those bugs got to you first. Sorry for that too then.”

“Where am I?”

I quickly asked my next question before I could relax too much and forget that I was, in fact, a victim of kidnapping.

“You’re in my personal realm, cost me a pretty penny, but you’re safe in here. You can think of it as the winter court though, or the Goblin lands if you want to find it on a map.”

A lot of his words fluctuated in my ears, and a few words didn’t sound real. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and I wondered why, but now wouldn’t be the best time to investigate.

Before I could ask anything else, he beat me to it and asked another question.

“How much do you know about your father?”

“That he was a Goblin and that he’s dead.”

The Scowl on his face hardened into a grimace, and he silently cursed under his breath again. They were still unfamiliar curse words, but they were colourful enough to give me a good impression of what they meant.

“Of course that’s all those (indiscernible word) told you. Why would they have to honor the memory of such a (indiscernible word) goblin? ”

The malice I’d felt off the portrait when I’d first woken up hit me like a wave and I shrank into the blankets like they would do anything to protect me. They were the same person after all, so it shouldn’t have shocked me so much, but considering he’d been so soft toward me, the explosion of aggression was unexpected and unwelcome.

I struggled to find the words to calm him down, but before I could say anything his neck whipped in my direction and he took stock of my expression.

His face suddenly lost its sharp edge and returned to its tired but soft visage that I’d gotten used to. His voice came out much softer than before, but I could tell he was still annoyed.

“It’s not your fault your mother was a member of such an infernal Race Child, don’t think I’m angry at you for it. I don’t suppose they told you what class he was?”

Almost afraid to set him off again, I delayed replying, but his glare sharpened and scared me into it.

“No, they didn’t tell me anything about him. Esmeralda only mentioned he wasn’t powerful enough to beat out my mom’s genes and make me a full goblin. The video I saw from my mom mentioned he was a Rumpelstiltskin.”

Once again he exploded, but this time he made a visible effort to hold back and turned away from me.

“What do those (indiscernible words) mean he wasn’t powerful enough? It’s the mother that was such a freak of nature! At least they had the decency to let you know what he was! Bare minimum, bottom barrel-scraping bugs of glass and pretension. Did they even explain what that meant?”

It took a while before I realized that he’s directed the last part at me, but before I had time to reply he assumed that his actions had scared me again and ran a harsh hand through his hair.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds and calmed down at an incredible and slightly scary speed. This time he pulled the upper corners of his lips into a kind smile and slightly narrowed his eyes like one would at a child. His ill-tempered aura still shone through, but it flattered me he would do so much to make me feel safe around him.

“Well, I suppose that’s as good as any place to start.”

Now it was my turn to frown as I recognized the familiar turn of events.

“Start what?”

“Put away that glare in your eyes before I return it. Right now you don’t even have enough power to knock down a chair, nevermind me.”

Although his tone was soft, the gentle threat was as heavy as his earlier grip on my shoulder and effectively strangled out any thought of resistance I had in me.

“I have to start your lessons. Can’t have the child of a long line of Rumplestiltskins running around with only Fairy influence.”

I scowled but tried my best to remove the hostility from my face because, as he’d said, I couldn’t even wrestle myself out of the swaddle of blankets he’d put me into.

I was the first to admit that my fitness wasn’t my strongest suit, but I hadn’t thought it would be this bad.

“Did you get anything from your dad? Like a ring or-?”

My first instinct was to deny I’d gotten anything, but the box in my hand suddenly got too hot to hold and slightly scalded my palm.

Theodulus noticed me struggling to pull the box out and quickly jumped to help. I noted how used I was getting to being manhandled by virtual strangers and mentally reminded myself to work on it, but in this case, I needed help.

Theodulus's eyes twinkled at the sight of the jewelled box as I finally pulled it out and he sighed nostalgically. His face became harder to read through the mask and his lips tightened with an unreadable emotion.

“So its this. Have you been able to open it?”

I shook my head and tried not to let my annoyance. I’d gotten the box back in January, but I still hadn’t been able to open it. It didn’t even have a lock I could try to pick, and I was reluctant to try breaking it since I didn’t know what was inside.

“Not yet, no”

He laughed at the annoyed tone that had slipped out and stretched his hand out.

“Give it here.”

I tossed it to him, only to feel a soft tug at my hair. Well, it wasn’t all that soft and hurt quite a bit. But it wasn’t anything compared to the disaster of earlier.

Theodulus hadn’t moved from his spot, and both of his hands seemed occupied by the box, but it was pretty obvious that it was him. I glared at him, but quickly fixed my expression when he stared back.

Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything back. A board suddenly materialized and a stocky line of text sprawled out onto its wide surface.

“Lesson one, never give a stranger anything that belongs to you. Ever. Magic can be done with something as small as a fingerprint just as easily as it can with a blood sacrifice Especially when you are weaker than the opponent and have no way of retrieving the object.”

He tossed the now opened box to me and watched as I took out the object. A ruby-coloured metal in the shape of a ring and an armband of the same colour that was connected by a thick silver chain.

“Try it on… It’s one of your inheritance from your dad. “