My hands tightened on the hilt of his sword, fully ready to slay him.

Daddy had told me all about the bad blood between humans and moths long ago. I rarely listened closely to him because I was a silly girl stuck in dreamland, but I was remembering his words in clarity now. 

“Mimi, humans are repulsive creatures. They worship one God instead of many and they repulse magic and magical creatures like us. They send pilgrims to our lands and those who they successfully convert are sold to nobility and kept as slaves. You see how different they are from us? They think keeping slaves is acceptable. What wretched beasts. Not to mention there are times they let their women fight in their wars and send their boys to work before they are even adults. If you come across a human, my dear. You must either fight or run.”

That was what he said.

And here I was.

My hand shook. I burst into tears.

But… but he had put his life down for me. When I looked into this man’s green eyes, they told me he meant me no harm. I got the sense that he liked me and cared whether I lived or died. He was not like the rest of the humans. I held out his sword to him.

He took it back and stood up. “Thank you, Princess. Will you come with me?”

I could not answer. I sank to my knees. I was hysterical. “They’re all dead!”

Caerwyn turned to Terry. “She needs a moment. Let’s stop here. We should make a fire. Night is falling, anyway. Go fetch some wood, please.”

Terry nodded and obeyed.

I couldn’t stop my wretched tears or my painful sobbing. Caerwyn reached out to me, wanting to comfort me, but withdrew his hand as usual.

_

I must take a break from writing coherently, my diary, and write of my feelings.

How does it feel to lose your whole species in one fell swoop? How does it feel to have to take refuge with the people who killed them? It’s indescribable.

It makes you nervous to the point where you don’t want to talk to anyone. It makes you shake with sadness when you think of all the people who showered you with love and kisses are gone, and all you have left of them are memories. It makes you burn with rage at the people who took them away. It makes you want to hurt them where you never would have had such violent feelings in the past.

More than any of that, however, there is a pervading sense of pointlessness and loneliness that you just can’t shake, and a never ending desire to join the ones you loved in the sky.

The thing about being a creature of intelligence, however, is that you always have a need to cling to life even when there’s nothing to live for.

_

“Tell me why you humans would do such a thing?” I demanded when I awoke in the middle of the night and saw Caerwyn gazing into the fire while Terry was fast asleep. “And how?”

Caerwyn met my gaze and told me, “it was a strange phenomenon, Princess. Four years ago, the king of Lowen decided he wanted to wage full-out war on the nearby moth kingdom of Gracet to the north. But…”

I waited for him to continue. “But what…?”

“He… He had black magic in his eyes. Nobody else could see it but me. He used that magic to bring a thunder bolt down from the sky and strike a mighty blow to Gracet. Half the moths died right then and there and there was no hope for them when the humans invaded. Human kings everywhere began getting the black eyes and reenacting the same horrors against moths until every moth kingdom was obliterated.”

I screwed my eyes shut with more tears springing to my eyes. I was filled with such loathing and hatred and bitterness. I sobbed hideously again.

Caerwyn knew I did not want to speak any more of it, so he went quiet. He just looked into the fire, and I was surprised to see tears spring to his own eyes.

He cared.

That meant a lot to me. At least someone did.

But I am exhausted and I will write again later, my diary.