Chapter 14

“Someone shut that trap up!” Screamed out a mushroom man, garbed in gold fungi intricately grown out from his gills, which were the papery structures that hang vertically under the man’s shroom hat.

With that fungal command given, more mushroom soldiers rushed into the fog that was around the Knight Mecha. The mist had begun to slowly dissipate, and the impaired vision of the shrooms who were waiting to rush into the scene was cleared; they suddenly stopped to stare at the horrific visage before them.

It was the scene of mushroom men sinking with their shrooms plopping into the muck whilst a flying grass folk was singing in a shrieking voice, above them. They then pointed at the fae carrying him.

“The Faeyes! Are here! To support the grass folk!” One of them squawked.

Like a fungal infection facing fungicide, they panicked and retreated from the cure by running away from the battlefield; well, what remained of them. About three-fourths of the mushroom soldiers who attacked the grove were buried, with only a few of their shrooms touching the sunlight.

With the song in my lips finished, I directed a wide grin at the mushroom men’s retreat as Oona clutched me, hovering.

“I’m the king of the world!” I hollered at their retreating backs.

Then she dropped me.

I yelped at the loss of support that was holding me up in the air. Gravity taking me, I fell headfirst. I was about to faceplant into muddied soil, until Oona caught me, several centimeters above the soil. Granted, I could have survived the fall, it was only a 30-centimeter drop; but verdant bless her, she had caught me.

I grinned down at Oona upside-down with a toothy grin. She released me, again. So in the end, I did faceplant into the soil. My face covered in mud, I got up to wipe the wet grime off, then I dusted myself whilst giving an incorrigible glare at her smug smile.

The Fair Folk, watching the retreat of the Mushroom Kingdom’s troops, sallied forth out from their chokepoints and into the aftermath of the battlefield before them, which coincidentally Oona and I were in the center of.

“It’s Sink the Leviathan Slayer!” Teka hollered, spotting me and Oona in a plethora of half-buried shroom hats. The Grass Soldiers then Grass Singers along with their Grass Cultivators all crowded to reach me.

“Sink the Tink! Giant Slayer! Leviathan!” They all cheered as they crowded around us. One of them spotted Oona’s black fluttery wings.

“It’s a Fae!” She shouted, awe in her tone. A few of them began to kneel, whilst the rest were too busy in merriment to celebrate my victory.

Elandris then entered with her unsullied slippers into the center of the circle of cheers. She eyed me with trepidation at my newfound fame and a morsel of incredulity. Speaking of incorrigible people ruining the mood of others, her presence had brought silence down into the crowd around them.

She then dismissed me to eye Oona with an abase look of reverence in her pose. “Thank you, Lady Fae, for your timely assistance to our Grove.”

Flabbergasted, I looked at Elandris, then at Oona’s surprised expression, and then at Elandris’s conclusion of what had transpired.

“What?” My mouth dropped. I did all the heavy lifting, and the Fae is the one that gets praised?

I then saw the sad glimmer on the fair folks' eyes, at her conclusion. Witnessed to this, I shrugged at the slight.

“Pft,” Who needs Elandris praise anyways…

“Thank you for aiding us in our time of need, and rescuing this peculiar pod from his unnatural nature.”

Oona started at Elandris for a bit, then eyed me speculatively.

“You’re welcome?” She replied with feigning acceptance in her tone.

Elandris nodded at Oona’s acknowledgment, then stepped forward to give a bow. Witnessing this, I saw Elandris take another once over at Oona’s appearance and attire, Her attention stopped at her fair folk facial features. She then muttered an undecipherable curse in the old tongue that was audible to the ears of the crowd around them.

“Half-breed!” She accursed, stepping back, disgusted by Oona’s heritage. The whole crowd stepped back aghast from Elandris’s elicit reaction, and the word she just cussed.

Oona’s face suddenly went pale at the unmasking, then began to swell red with unbridled fury building inside of her.

“What do you have against half-breeds?” She snarled at Elandris.

Elandris, with her reverence gone for the half-cast, she scuffed at her question. “Pft, please... Everyone knows half-breeds are an abomination to the Nature of Races. An Insult to the Gods, The Unclassed.” She remarked icily.

I could not take it anymore, my slight, and then Oona’s insult, wasn’t Elandris a tiny bit grateful for what we had achieved?

“What does that have to do with your behavior to the folk who just risked their neck out to save the Grove?” I angrily retorted.

“Tsk, I always knew it, you Sink, of all folks.” Elandris, spitting out my name like an insult, continued, “-Would consort yourselves with the lowest forms of character, shaming this Grove evermore with your disgusting antics.” Elandris blustered, ranting her actual thoughts out in the open, where all the fair folk could her.

I stood shocked but unsurprised by her outburst. I knew she had a grudge for me, but being so open about it. I guess she doesn’t give a wallop in how her people viewed her anymore.

“You brought the Mushroom Kingdom in our grove by killing the Leviathan!” She ranted. “You brought this corruption of the natural order in our hallowed grove.” She pointed accusingly at Oona.

“You, Sink.” My name, a vitriol curse in her tongue. “-Is the scourge of our grove!”

Everyone around us was silent at this point, the Grass Soldiers had tilted their grass spears forward at Elandris words. Teka’s face was tight with conflict building within, whilst Sera glared at Elandris with newfound hostility.

“You green folks make me sick,” Oona muttered. “I should’ve known, back groves like this would breed such individuals. All alike.”

With a face swelled red with the common fury built in half a lifetime, she did what fairies do best, she tsk at everyone, and especially at Elandris. She then turned to me, giving me a sad smile, then flew away to the direction whence we came, my secret grove.

Like an afterimage of foliage moving, Oona blurred into the meadows, without giving a second glance at the grove, that she just helped defend. Looking at her back, I reflected on how she reacted towards me at first with a tinge of enmity. It was galling to know that this was the reason why she acted this way at first. She must have faced this sort of racism and intolerance throughout her whole life to become this way.

I turned my body back at Elandris, and the fair folk that was pathing behind her, with a few standing in their place. Elandris had a triumphant smirk on her face as she watched the half-cast fly away. “Good riddance.” She remarked.

Her glare turned to me, and the huge construct that was behind me. She then pointed. “What is that!?” With venom in her tone.

I was growing quite sick and tired of her attitude by now, I wanted to strike back, but I always, always, lose the moral high ground if I argued back to a woman. It was just, something of the opposite sex, that you don’t do. Call me passive, weak or immature, but when I argue back to a woman, I might as well add more fuel and kindle to burn myself alive. Especially to individuals such as her. If she was logical, passive in her nature, I could give an argument to why her intolerance doesn't serve anyone but her hatred burning within herself.

But, it was a moot point to her.

In the end, I answered her. “This is my latest contraption,” I grunted.

“The Knight Mecha Amelia.”

“A Knight Mecha…?” She repeated. “Human?” She slapped her palm, then glared at me again with utter vitriol.

“Sink,” she cursed. “Adding another catastrophe into the list of calamities you brought to your grove.”

I stood silent as she continued for I had no stomach to recourse someone so inept as she was.

“If the True Fae of the forest heard about the half-cast and how you brought human-made artifacts into the forest. Our Fair people will be exiled from our hallowed grove and the forest.” Elandris warned in her snarl.

I waited for her decision, for there was only one decision she had been waiting for since the very first time I had introduced one of my contraptions into the Grove. Elandris’s face looked eager, triumphant at her moment of victory, above mine winning the Grove.

“Sink of the Fair Folk, You are now exiled from the grass which bore you, from the grove which raised you, from the forest that shaped you. Sink, you’ll be forever named in these parts amongst your betters, Grassless.”

Everyone all stepped back at the judgment, aghast at the harsh conviction that was thrust upon me. I gritted my teeth, my eyes burning with the rage of injustice that had been appointed. For we are cursed by those who cannot comprehend progress with intolerance and hate, such as the dogma of all sentient life to deal with such ignorance.

Not giving her the satisfaction of witnessing my heartache and frustration, I nodded to her judgment, resolute against her scorn. For I am just, myself, and one can not command change on one another. Like a stone, or a pebble, smashed through the gravel, I stood solid against the deluge of despair. Giving Elandris and the folks behind her my solemn glare, I spun around to approach the colossal of which was named Amelia.

Wink had climbed down from after the victory, ready to celebrate with his peers and me, until he witnessed my stiff approach towards him. He gave me a sad wink, as I walked past him. A last typical wink to part by. I gave a cheerless smile, hiding the bitterness within the furrows deep within my mind; for I am just, myself.

Scrunching my shoulders, I climbed atop the chainmail. All the mushroom men who had latched on earlier, had left the scene after the battlefield had ended; leaving their ash after marks of their experience tarnishing the steel.

Climbing atop the steel pauldrons, I turned to glimpse back at my Grove. For this may be the last time I see the verdant green countenance of my home. The last time I see the green translucent tall grass who shines their green glare amongst the thick furrows and shrubs of the grove, the white Banyan tree, the glowing fireflies that roam the shade of twilight, and the fair folk with their odd grass hat protrusions on their wee heads.

A melancholy feeling spike throughout my whole body. I never thought I would miss this place, but I know now, I will. I deeply will. I turned and jumped into the opened visor of the helm. Peb was there, watching the Grove from above a sequestered viewpoint. He gave me a nod, and a stony silence, for what is Peb but a stone man, resolute in no words.

I slumped down on my chair, with the experience and ache of two days of constant fighting and building. I fought off the Leviathan, killed a human, buried a friend, and saved my people. For my name is Sink the Grassless, exile of the Grass Folk.

I scoffed at the notion.

I am Thomas Rendfield, a person from two peoples, hear me world...watch and tremble.