Cai Finley Aies Hall May 3rd, 20XX

“Finley.exe has crashed. Please reboot and try again”

I bit back a curse as Aies’s sarcastic voice alerted me to something I already knew and in my frustration, I couldn't even specify who the curse was directed towards. There were just too many targets.

Was it to Theodulus for letting Finn make me into a secondary personality? Esmeralda for breaking Finn? or Finn himself for taking the spot of the main personality with such a glass mentality that seemed to break every five seconds.

It wasn’t like I didn’t understand the source of trauma though. The thought of staying young for an eternity and eventually outliving the friends that he had only recently found must have been traumatizing to him.

But at the same time, it wasn’t like he didn’t know that fairies lived forever, Goblins had extremely long lifespans as well. It was hard to pin how he hadn't put it together that his lifespan would be much longer than the average human.

Finn still separated the three of us into separate people and races and at some level still saw himself as a human. So, as much as it came from the wrong source hearing this could help break some of the walls he had put in place.

I could already feel it, that slowly and surely that I was losing my independence more and more and becoming closer to Finn.

But for now, I had to deal with the old lady that forgot her position.

Even if Finn was wrong and the bond was still in place it didn’t change the fact that she had no right to speak to me in such a manner.

I slammed my hands on the table and stood, startling Esmeralda with the noise.

“Watch your tone! As you are, a mere lower noble, you dare condescend me?! I said that I wasn’t staying here full time and I meant it. I don’t recall ever putting it up for contention.”

She slammed her hands on the table as well and stood, attempting to glare me down but that didn’t change the fact that I was right.

“Your highness! I do this for your good! As your mother Queen Bel-”

All of a sudden, I didn’t want her to even say my mother’s name. The mere thought that she had been parading around and using it as a shield without actually fulfilling any of the responsibilities she had been entrusted with was nothing short of nauseating.

“Keep her name out of your filthy mouth Esmeralda. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed something was wrong with your bond and don’t think that your actions until now have gone unawares. You will be brought to justice for whatever you have done. Until then I would advise you to avoid making me any angrier than you already have. Keep your head down and your wings in and you just may be able to keep them.”

And with that, I stormed out, vaguely wondering if I had gone too far but also having meant every word that I said.

I started to fly out of the castle but quickly banked back towards the stables where Galen was held. While I wasn’t planning on going that far I figured it was a good opportunity to bond with the giant beast a bit more.

A few stable maids made to help me strap him into the saddle, but I waved them off, already seeing the irritation grow in the beast’s eyes the more they brushed against him.

None of the fairies were any lower than a high noble in terms of rank but because of his lineage, Galen was irritated by the impure magic that naturally surrounded them.

As I strapped him in and flew into the saddle, I made sure to purify the magic around him so he could calm down.

The Flutter-moth went lax again and his lids hovered between open and closed as he ascended into the air. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the heavy-lidded eyes were a sign of contentment and happiness, not drowsiness.

In the time I hadn’t seen him Galen had grown to the size of a small city bus. He could even use a saddle a size up and could support both me and another full-sized fairy.

I stuck to the same position as before, sitting cross-legged on the stiff saddle as Galen hoisted himself into the skies.

I got bored of flying safely pretty quickly and decided to teach Galen a few of the tricks that Mei had shown me before.

I first flew off the saddle and hovered in the air as I thought of how to motivate my overly pampered Fluttermoth.

Mei had mentioned that flutter-moths tended to be rather lazy and needed to be used to exercise before trying to teach them any tricks, but it couldn’t be helped in Galen’s case.

Although I tried to take him out whenever I could I rarely had enough time to do it as much as he needed and he was too stubborn to let anyone else lead him out of the stables except me, never mind letting anyone take him out for a flight.

At first, I tried to get him to do a barrel roll by casting a small illusion in front of him and had the figure complete one. Sadly, illusions weren't my area of specialty so it ended up looking like a giant mammoth with wings doing a sort of half-hearted flip in the air.

Galen attempted once or twice thinking that it would be fun, but it was clear that he was having a hard time getting a grasp of it. In fact, after those initial first attempts, he just glared down the opposing animal and grew more and more aggressive. Eventually, he even attempted to charge at the illusionary beast.

I dispelled it and sent a few streams of purified magic at Galen in an attempt to calm him down.

Since I had bunched them together rather than just gradually purifying them, they materialized into small beams and shot themselves at him.

At first, I had thought that he would ignore them as they 'phased' into him, but Galen surprised me by opening his mouth and attempted to eat them.

However, since they weren't solidified, he just ended up eating nothing. A displeased expression materialized on his face and he began to sulk as he thought he had been tricked.

That gave me an idea.

First, I gathered some magic from around me and then solidified them into small balls, using a similar technique as the one I had used to form the protective spheres during the attack earlier.

I constructed about ten of them and then filled them to the brim with purified magic until they felt as real to the touch as their rubber counterparts.

At first, Galen only looked on as I played around with the magic, but his attention was soon caught as the first few were formed and he began to sniff around me. He fluttered his giant wings like a puppy’s tail as he enthusiastically circled me.

I had to do some maneuvering as he was now the size of a small bus and getting ‘nudged’ by the fuzzy beast would feel like getting ‘nudged’ by a fully operational bus.

I fed him a few at first but then got the bright idea to use them as treats and incentive to teach him those tricks.

Instead of pulling out the illusion that had triggered such hostility from the usually docile Galen I attempted to lead by example and tried the barrel roll myself.

It didn't take long to realize just how difficult it was to perform a roll with wings bigger than one’s self. Especially when those wings were so thin and flexible.

I changed the method and flew upwards intending to dive myself into a barrel roll. I took a deep breath and then pushed off towards the ground that seemed a lot closer than I knew it was, tucking my wings tightly against myself and twisting clockwise as quickly as I could.

This time it worked but it made me so disoriented that I couldn’t catch myself and could only watch as the ground approached me. Thankfully I never reached it, but where I landed wasn’t much better.

Galen had dived after me and in an amazing feat of agility swerved under me and I crashed into the stiff saddle.

The Flutter-moth continued the descent to the ground while I untangled myself from my wings and chastised myself for being so dumb.

Once we were securely on the ground, I tumbled off Galen’s back and laid on the ground, not even bothering to try to move until my now-raging case of acrophobia refused to die down.

Galen settled beside me and let me use his broad fuzzy side like a resting place.

“Good boy. Very, Very good boy.”

Once I gathered my breath and my senses, I started to make some magic spheres that were almost as large as myself and let Galen munch on them.

I couldn’t give him too many because beasts couldn’t actively cast magic. If I ended up overfeeding him and he held all that magic within himself, he ran the risk of exploding and that would really... suck.

A few curious beasts eventually drifted over to us and started to nibble at the solidified spheres.

At first, Galen attempted to growl them away but after conquering the first ball and realizing that he was almost at his limit he begrudgingly ignored the other beasts.

I watched in amazement as the different types of animals gathered around me in unnatural harmony.

A wolf-like animal with silver fur and eight legs and eyes calmly ate beside a fawn that had mirror-like flecks across its fur and gold gilded tears formed at the edges of its large eyes.

Even what I thought was a small tree shifted closer and extended its branches to break off a small piece of the sphere.

I should have brought Finn to the forefront so he could experience these amazing creatures firsthand and truly recognize the differences between this world and earth but I couldn't bring myself to do so.

It was selfish I knew, but I wanted to take this moment for myself as myself and not through Finn's mind.

The notion of assimilating into Finn wasn't quite as terrifying as it was before but it was still unpleasant to think about.

I sank into the moment and let myself dream of everything and nothing, fully assimilating into the peace. As I lay there, I couldn't help but wish that the moment would last forever but I should have known not to tempt fate as openly as that.

I opened my eyes a crack to see what was probably the most irritating thing since the day I had awoken to Esmeralda's sour face after a certain midday summon when I was catching a nap.

Three scantily clad figures riding brooms like surfboards hovered right above me and the magic in the air began to scramble as they prepared.

I... was under attack