BLUE

Once in the covers of the forest, I landed on my bare feet and stretched into a purr at the feeling of moist grass against skin. Night dew will always be the best balm to tired feet. 

Herman chuckled while ruffling my hair, completely messed up the braided bun I spent hours to conjure. Luckily for him it didn’t matter now that work hour was over. 

He tapped his locket twice and the enchanted pen found its way back into the safety of the metal. 

I twirled around once. The humongous blue gown on me morphed into a loose-fitting white dress of cotton that stopped a few inches above my feet. 

My hair pooled around my shoulders in wild, untamed curls while my wings merged themselves seamlessly with the skin of my back, leaving only a faint mark of slits that are invisible to mortals’ eyes. 

All hints of glittery fae mom extravaganza gone with the wind. 

“It feels so good to be rid of that glamour!” I yelled and pumped my fists in the air.

Herman laughed and shushed me, gesturing to the cottage we had just left. A dark brown carriage had just pulled in, pale in comparison to ours of glittering glass. 

Though the same couldn’t be said to the striking three green creatures that tumbled out, yelling at each other. Two of which were trying to tear one another’s dress apart.

“Is it wrong of me to wish I have a bowl of dried violets to snack on now? Seriously, look at them go.” I whistled in a low voice, watching their exchanges. Even Tink can’t go all out ballistic like that.

“You don’t sound like a lady at all,” Herman chided, stretching to a soft groan.

“Well, I am not,” I shrugged and the bones in my shoulders cracked to an even more unladylike tune. “I am a mother, remember?”

Herman’s dimples finally made their appearance. I joined him, rejoiced at the thought that off hours Herman was back in action just when he turned abruptly. His dark eyes focused intently on mine.

“Celastrina Blue.” 

Him using my full name never amounted to anything good. 

“What happened back there? Why aren’t you out before the first bell?”

I thought of all the things I could possibly kid him with but know that none would work on Herman the way they could with princes and princesses. 

Fidgeting like a child being chided for stepping on the carpets with soiled feet, I slumped my shoulders.

“Well?” he probed.

 “I was just distracted—”

“We both know you weren’t just distracted.” 

“Well, I was,” I protested but fell flat when he caught me by the shoulders and forced me to look at him in the eyes again. 

“Celastrina Blue.”

How do you even lie to those scrutinizing hazels? 

“Fine,” I sighed and pried off his hands as gently as I could. “I was thinking about what makes the Star choose them.”

“Blue, we’ve talked about this. You know—”

“I don’t know!” I raised my voice louder than I intended. Whether or not the stepfamily could hear me didn’t seem to matter all of a sudden. 

“Why are they special just because the Star chose them? They did nothing! We’re the ones working our asses off! We’re the ones doing their dirty jobs! But who remembers us? No one! They’re the ones getting their happily ever afters! What happened to ours? What happened to Pieris’s—!” 

I bit down on my lip and swallowed the words that nearly spilled. Instant guilt tasted bitter on my tongue and burnt my throat as his face fell.

Darn…I didn't mean to go that far.

“Sorry, Herman…I...I don’t know what’s wrong with me today…” I sighed and bowed my head. He didn’t do anything wrong. Herman wasn’t the one who had sent Pieris to that assignment. I knew. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself. 

Herman’s face melted into an apologetic one as he too remembered our pale haired friend. He reached out and patted me on the head, as if he was trying to pacify a frightened beast. 

“There’s nothing you could’ve done. She’s just…doing her job...” he whispered. It sounded more like a reminder to himself than to me. The quiver in his voice mirrored the tremble of my lips.

“I know,” I said quietly. “But I just—it’s unfair for her when Ariel got her happily ever after…but not her.”

“It’s a choice she’d made,” he said dryly and nearly choked on the words after that. 

“It wasn’t her choice! They are the ones who forced her! They—!” I gritted my teeth and turned away before I could lose myself again.

What was wrong with me?

I forced my feet to move one before another. The single blue star shining against millions tinier ones behind it seemed to mock us with its brilliance. 

Since the day we were released from FTAA and given our lockets, we knew how our lives would be. Dedicated to recording Tales and making sure the destined ones get their happily ever after. Everything was orchestrated by the Star and nothing could escape His clutches. 

We knew it all along.

But I only wished we were as ignorant as the Mains. 

“I just…” I whispered as I looked up into the brightest of stars, its light outshining all others that sprinkled the sky, sugar cubes spilled on dark silk. 

When they tell little kids like Pinocchio that wish upon the stars works, it was only because these kids were meant to be the Mains of their Tales and the ‘stars’ (us) were expected to grant it for them. 

‘Wish upon the stars’ was just something to make it all seem more romantic when the Star himself did nothing but make plans for us to carry out in the shadows. 

We were the ones doing His job yet all the world remember was the one high up in the sky. Not knowing they too were merely his scattered chess pieces. 

The only difference was that they were the centerpieces, protected behind an army of sidekicks and us, the soldiers splayed flat on the battered ground for them to wade over without staining their fine clothing. 

“I just wish we can have a chance for our own Tale, something we could write on our own, free from His will.”

Not that the Star would ever write a Tale for us but…something.

“Blue, you—”

A tree directly behind me crashed with a loud crackle. I jumped and nearly fell face-forward. The magpies nested in trees nearby shot out of their perch in a mess of disturbed chirps.

Have I caused a star to fall because I wished for the impossible?

“What in the world…?” Herman’s horrified voice echoed with the birds’ chaotic departure. 

I whirled around, an immediate gasp slipped out of my tongue. My feet wobbled as I tried to wrap my mind around the scene fresh before me.

A boy (elf?), dressed from head-to-toe in black rags stood perched on the fallen tree, staring straight at me with his startling pale green eyes wide enough to rival his parted jaws. Bright orangey-red curls wilder than Herman’s framed his face paled from surprise. 

“Are you even real?” the creature breathed, almost a whisper.

This is not real, I wanted to scream. Boys (or elves) do not fall from the sky and strike down trees like lightning…at least not without the Star’s guidance. I turned to Herman with the same question he had reflected in my eyes. 

What have I done?