Sparrow Truman May 5th,20XX

I woke up with a curse and grabbed my phone off the side of the bed to check the time, ignoring large amounts of text messages and emails as I did so. On my current list of priorities, a stupid high school show in the human world was the least of my issues.

Almost 7 pm.

Jake hadn’t left until early morning today which meant I had been late for my meeting with Rubella, and she hadn’t taken that well. Offering a passive-aggressive retaliation in the form of intensifying my ‘training.’

It wasn’t even like she was the one that taught me everything but I still had to check in with her every day.

She had explained to me that the memory transfer had given me all the information I would have traditionally learned over my life if I hadn't been raised in the human world, but there was the risk of it burning my mind away or even worse, having the information become jumbled and push me to make a fatal mistake.

From broom sprints to blood magic and random pop quizzes with varying repercussions for failing, even the thought of movement was enough to make me cry.

The second I had got home, which was barely an hour ago, I passed out on my bed and hadn’t bothered to change back but that was reckless of me. I couldn’t risk being discovered with my modified appearance.

I didn’t even bother getting up as I retracted the tattoos back into my birthmark and felt around for the scissors I had taken to keeping close to my bed.

But such movement, as minor as it was, summoned a deep breath of angry words that I wasn’t exactly sure where I had picked up but satisfied the violent urges I was suddenly experiencing.

Why do I have to train so hard for a war that I wasn’t interested in anyway?

So what, my parents were killed in the previous war? They decided to join but what did that have to do with me?

As soon as I questioned it, unbidden memories surfaced in my mind and gave me a not-so-quiet reminder of why I had to be careful.

It had only been two days but each time I landed in the otherworld I found myself in the infirmary where I would have to see the witches that had been ambushed by the prince and had seen the numerous squads, sometimes missing a few members but always worse for wear as they headed back from the borders. It was clear that the Fairies were growing more and more aggressive as times passed, even going as far as to attack the border guards and would even attempt to kill them upon sight.

But somehow, even as I struggled with the unreasonably strong sense of justice I felt about people I had discovered less than a week ago logic still forced me to calm down.

From what I had learned, the prince didn’t hold that much power, even though he was the last remaining royal since the fairies were a completely matriarchal society. The one to worry about was the woman he would marry, a fairy named ‘Mei Ruan’ but I couldn’t imagine she had any grudge strong enough to wage genocide against the witches as we were preparing for.

It wasn’t even a marriage borne of love but was an arranged marriage.

I couldn’t imagine her or anyone really, launching their still-stabilizing land into war. Not so soon after losing their last Royal and especially not as an in-law. It wasn’t like they were like the ‘goblins’ who would be ready to die and avenge their monarch, even after death.

As I hacked off my hair that for some reason insisted on growing long every time I went over to the other world I heard a loud thudding sound from the bathroom and restrained but still obnoxious retching from my uninvited guest.

I pushed down the sudden aggression I felt and pushed up as natural a smile as I could while I grabbed a hat from the desk and headed out to the living room. I turned the laptop on and stuck a few more pins onto the mannequin to make it look like I was busier than I was.

It wasn’t like the fairy knew enough about me in my human life to notice any differences but I had also heard a strange rumour that the Prince had been lost in the human world for some time and it wasn’t like disguise magic was a difficult spell to use.

It wasn’t likely but if he happened to be someone that I knew in my day to day life then I didn’t want to take any risks.

The Prince stumbled out of the bathroom with a panicked expression on his face that only calmed down once he identified me and that confirmed I was safe. It was only then that I remembered the spell I had found on myself the other day.

I couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed as I thought I had found a way to disable it but I didn’t let it show and only made a mental note to take another stab at it. If he did end up being a villain then it could prove to be a very useful tool.

“Spar! - I mean Ms. Sparrow, are you okay?”

The concern on his face was so clear that it was almost heartwarming, but I couldn’t let myself be swayed by a pretty face, too many things were up in the air right now. And somehow, although I did find him to be good looking, I couldn’t help but feel a faint sense of disgust as he so casually entered and left the human world to play around even though he had caused the deaths and injuries of so many witches.

I pulled up a confused expression and kicked the bag of discarded hair under the desk to be donated at a later time.

“Should I not be?”

He looked me over a few more times before seeming to calm down, although his wings still quivered and showed his worry.

“huh? No, no, of course, you should be okay. It is very important to me that you are okay.”

Even If I wanted to be flattered by the potentially romantic words he casually threw out, the lack of any emotion but genuine concern in his eyes, even as I was only wearing a thin shirt and shorts, made the implied ‘friend-ness’ of the phrase clear.

My safety was very important to him as a friend.

Once again the wedding invitation I had been shown, or at least read, flashed across my mind as I pulled out a chair for him to sit in.

I wasn’t particularly expecting him to stay considering how much of a rush he seemed to be in but I was quickly proven wrong. Gracefully as ever, he glided over to the chair and began to snack on the cookies I already had out from Jake’s visit yesterday.

I took a seat across him and shoved the juice box closer to him, worried that he would choke at the speed that he ate.

“Can I ask a few questions? I feel like I’ve known you for a while but I don’t know anything about you… It’s kind of weird.”

The fairy who I knew was a fairy prince, whose singular life was worth that of a thousand others absentmindedly nodded in response but I could see his guard go up.

I decided to start with a simple question about why he always came here after returning from the other world as well as why he came to the human world so often. Was there some sort of secret base here that I didn’t know about? Or was he clinging on to the identity that he’d carried before he was found by the fairies?

“Where do you live? Like is it close to here?”

He slowly finished the last bite of the previously half-full carton as he formulated a ‘human safe’ answer to the issue.

“Ah, I do live around here. My transporter isn’t all that specific so I always seem to end up here when I try coming home.”

He finished with a sheepish grin towards me, as an unofficial apology for constantly inconveniencing me but also making it difficult to lead the conversation towards the otherworld that I wasn’t supposed to know about.

“Ah, then do all fairies live around here? Are there more fairies?”

He frowned a bit at my pushy question but still answered, although it was in a much less friendly manner than the last time.

“They live somewhere else.”

And so the conversation died once again as he quietly sipped at his drink, keeping a close eye on the clock but otherwise not showing any intentions of leaving.

I chose my next question carefully, not wanting to scare him off or let on that I knew any more than I should.

“Ah, sorry if this is pushy but I’ve just always been super interested in fantasy! - not to say that you aren’t real, I mean you’re very real, you’re sitting right in front of me and-“

He cut me off just a step too late but I was grateful, nonetheless. It really wasn’t like me to word barf out of embarrassment but it was necessary in this case.

“Its okay Ms. Sparrow. You can ask whatever you want and I’ll answer as honestly as I can.”

He spoke rather condescendingly and even gave a soft smile to calm me down, it was annoying but I swallowed my irritation and took a deep breath, keeping the embarrassed expression up.

“Then this is the last one. Really! Are there other creatures too? Like dragons, goblins and witches?”

“I’ve yet to come across a dragon, but Goblins and witches do exist.”

He trailed off and put up a complex expression as he debated his next line.

“I don’t know a lot about them. The different Races pretty much keep to themselves,”

It was a clear signal to end the conversation, but I couldn’t let the trail go. Right now, I could have him dismiss it as an idle curiosity but if I brought it up again even after he was clearly uninterested in answering I would only be making myself look suspicious.

“But there must have been some form of interaction right? Are the Witches and fairies not on good terms? You seem to not want to talk about them.”

He flinched in response to my ‘guess’ and sent me a wary expression, but I focused on looking as harmless as possible. I knew I had probably gone too far, but I needed an answer.

“Its nothing you have to worry about Ms. Sparrow. It won’t ever involve you.”

He then took a look at the clock and stood up with a jolt, fishing a sparkling blue and gold envelope from his inner pocket and tossing it onto the table.

“I didn’t just drop by to chat Ms. Sparrow I came to give you this.”

I picked it up and briefly wondered if he was giving me a wedding invitation, even though humans couldn’t go to the other world.

I mean, they could but they would need constant monitoring and a lot of equipment. It wouldn’t be unlike sending one to space. I opened the envelope and barely held back a gasp as magic flooded the room. If I were a human, I probably wouldn't feel it at all but as I was I could barely hold back from trying to absorb as much of it as I could handle.

I was already having a hard time coping with the sudden influx of magic that he had brought along and continuously produced, even as he just sat there, but the insides of the envelope nearly pushed me over the edge.

Right as I was about to lose reason and expose myself Cai began to speak and pulled me back to reality. I hurriedly closed the envelope and slightly pushed it away from me to avoid temptation.

“That is a Wish.”

“A wish? Like in the fairytales? Is it the type that'll make me spew frogs out of my mouth whenever I lie?”

He chuckled at the forced joke and my now somewhat genuine word barfing as I tried accepting the fact that he would be willing to spend a whole wish on a human.

Of course, I knew he wouldn’t use the fairy royalty’s special ability to grant a minor request of a human’s but the sentiment was almost enough to make me waver in my determination to not be biased as I figured out the truth.

“Well, I guess I should say its more of a summon. I won’t be as unreasonable as to demand you make a wish right now but when you decide on what you want just rip that up and say it out loud. I’ll be able to hear it and if it’s something I can do then I’ll be able to grant it immediately.”

He then made toward the window but turned around at the last moment,

"If you are ever in danger make sure you rip it up as well, I won't count saving you as a wish."

He jumped out the window like he usually did and didn't even give me a shot to talk to him about it.

This …made things difficult.