There is a mountain, far to the East, that has existed as long as the earth grew green and small creatures crept upon it. That was my birthplace and my home. I knew nothing else but those mountains for a very long time.

The first living thing I saw was neither animal nor vegetation, but my brother. He was like me, but also a little different from me. At the time, neither of us understood how we could be the same but not the same. In human speech, I am something like a female and he is something like a male. I am his sister, he is my brother. He is the sword, I am the shield.

But we are neither human, animal, nor vegetable. We are spirits, specifically of the mountains. For when the mountains formed, we existed. Everything that happens on those mountains we know about. Just the same as a human knows their own body.

We saw the first green things grow on those barren heights. And witnessed the bugs and birds arrive. Small animals, like rabbits and foxes, and then later the deer and the wolves… we were there for each arrival.

My brother loved the animals best. He loved the deer, to the point he poured his power into them and changed them. He did not realize what he was doing at first, so it surprised us both when the deer began to speak to us. Not in words, for we did not know the meaning of language, but with emotion and desire. They became, for lack of a better word, intelligent.

As for me, I focused on the plants. It’s not that I disliked the animals, but the beauty of a flower seemed to surpass the beauty of my brother’s deer. I poured my power into the plants. My favorite were the flowering trees, despite the fact that they were not initially well suited to most of the mountainous terrain.

I very carefully cultivated the flowering trees, until they blossomed blue flowers of a type unprecedented anywhere in the world. During the day, they made the mountain look like the ocean and at night they glowed as if they were thousands of tiny blue lanterns.

I don’t know how many years passed during this time. Spirits like my brother and I had no sense of time. We understood night and day and the seasons, but beyond that we paid very little attention to what that meant.

Things grew old. Things withered with age. But rather than attributing that to time, it was simply the nature of the things themselves. Those things that we poured our power into were divorced from the ravages of that silent killer, or so we thought. My blue flowering trees, my brother’s deer. We didn’t realize our meddling was unnatural, that we ourselves were strange.

Anyway.

Men came to the mountains.

They were hunters.

Naturally, they were astonished by my beautiful trees. And when they saw my brother’s deer, who had no fear of them, they couldn’t help trying to kill one.

You may think we would be angered at their behavior, but we were not. Wolves and mountain lions had tried to eat my brother’s deer too. It’s the nature of animals to eat the grass or each other, and neither of us questioned it.

And more importantly, they couldn’t be caught. This was a point of pride for my brother. His deer were uncatchable.

The hunters never could kill those deer. No matter how hard they tried. And the deer themselves took great joy in taunting those hunters for their wasted efforts.

Brother thought nothing of the humans. They were just another wolf, just another monkey. Beneath his interest, outside a glance.

But I was very interested. The sounds they made, the way they moved, that they wore skins of other animals, used weapons instead of teeth and claw… Oh yes, humans were ever so interesting. I kept a sharp eye on them, right up until they left.

For they did leave. The animals on the mountains were smarter by simply being under our care. They would not be captured by normal methods. If a human wanted to catch even a rabbit, he’d need more than a bow and arrow or a simple string trap.

I was sad when they left, and a little bored.

My plants, which I’d spent eons taking care of, suddenly lost their appeal. I wandered the mountains, restless, looking for something to do with myself.

Thinking of the humans, I began to fashion creatures after them. They were crude creatures at first, but after many iterations, I succeeded.

These beings of mine, later would be called fairies.

This caught my brother’s attention. He’d never seen anything at all like my little fairy children. They were me but not me. An extension of my very existence while being separate from my will.

Taking a break from his precious deer, he attempted to make some himself. I’m afraid he was not anywhere near as successful. He did not really understand what they were to begin with, as he had paid no mind to the humans nor noted their differences from the animals.

His fairies were tied to his will. If he desired something, they did too. They were living, but their souls were puppets. They could never desire anything for themselves, or take joy in a thing different than what he took joy in. They were… sad. I felt sorry for them.

In the end, I took a bit of his spirit and fashioned a fairy like mine from it. I gave this fairy to him as a gift. He liked it at first, because it was from me, until he realized it took no heed of his commands.

That was when I had my first inkling that my brother had a problem.

He did not understand why I thought fairy children with opinions and desires different than mine was a good thing. In his mind, they were simply an extension of our being, so they must obey. He viewed any differences as unnatural, dangerous, and ugly.

So the fairy I gifted him was neglected and despised, not just by my brother but by all his fairy children as well.

In the end, my fairy children brought him to me, begging me to take him in. My heart was broken. My gift had been rejected. Of course I took him in. Though he was crafted from my brother, I’d created him. I gave him special care and attention because I felt guilty for giving him existence in a family that would never appreciate him.

A great deal more time passed after that. My fairy children, plus the one from my brother, were my pride and joy. They helped me cultivate my trees, look after my gardens, and every day showed me the world through their fresh, young eyes.

I loved them.