“Understood.” Zephen bows again, knowing the conversation has ended and motions for me to follow him out.

I bow again to the Queen in haste before hurrying to follow Zephen.

The doors close behind me with a slow, drawn-out and muted creak before it bangs shut together.

“Where are we going now?” I ask as I struggle to follow his long strides, wasting no time as he winds through the hallways of the castle.

“Home.” He answers—he loves one-word answers, doesn’t he—as he leads me outside, the gleaming golden castle gates opening wide for me as I exit.

The Land of the Fay has a look to it.

I squint and blink when the sun meets me, the feeling warm and familiar in everything that’s happened. At least the sun will always be the same.

Shrubs, forests—though the human world has them too, the ones here are more green, more lively, as if everything was grown from pure magic.

Everything seems to have life, a mind of its own, down to the tiny pebbles on the ground. Everything is so bright it almost hurts to look at, like an over-saturated picture

Otherworldly.

Nature runs the place, any man-made structures I see in the distance seems to be built as a part of nature; doors and windows created from the winding of tree branches, stairs made of stumps.

It looks quite quirky, some of the architecture looks to be mathematically impossible, but it’s there right in front of my eyes.

“Halfling!” I blink, turning to my right where Zephen is looking at me with an impatient scowl, arms crossed and foot tapping. “Hurry up or I’ll leave you here.”

“Wha—Wait!” I run to catch up with him, panicking at the thought of being left alone in this strange world. I would lose my way immediately.

I’ve never been very good at directions in the first place—another reason why I didn’t want to live in the city. Zephen is really much too quick for me, his movements swift and calculated.

Zephen leads me into the forest that surrounds the castle, the tall trees shield the sun from me, enveloping the area in a cool shadow, rays of light dappling the ground through the dense leaves.

I watch the light shift along with the breeze as if alive, mesmerized. 

“It’ll take a while to walk there.” Zephen says, giving me a side-glance as if to make sure I’m still there. “I could teleport us there, but I suppose that might be too much for a first-timer to do twice in a row.”

The memory of feeling weightless and suffocated makes me feel like vomiting again.

No, I certainly would rather walk. I’d walk my feet off rather than feel that again.

Silence grows like weeds between the two of us. It’s hard to talk to Zephen, I realized this pretty much immediately, but it’s more potent now than ever as I watch him curiously from a few paces behind.

He’s stiff and cautious, looking at his surroundings often as if he’s expecting danger to jump out at any moment. He’s prepared, cold, but I suppose that’s what makes him dependable.

Still, someone I can’t even talk to makes it difficult for me to trust him. After all, no one trusts a stranger.

I didn’t even realize Zephen stopped walking as I lose myself to my thoughts.

I almost bump into him, catching myself just in time to put some space between us so the awkwardness doesn’t triple in size. Ah, too late.

“My house is up there.” Zephen gestures towards the top of a hill before us, the size of it daunting.

I am beginning to second-guess walking my feet off. “I suppose it would be difficult for you to walk your way up there.”

Oh thank goodness, that means we’re not actually walking up there, right?

His head tilts towards me, his eyes gleaming as his lips lift into a grin.

A grin looks good on him, I decide, if I wasn’t so terrified of what’s to come. “Would you like to ride the Wind?”

I have no idea what that means but if it means I won’t need to walk my way up there, I’m fine with anything. I shrug, “Sure…?”

I was not expecting him to put a hand at my waist, another at the back of my thighs to lift me up. I squeak—is this the legendary ‘bridal carry?’—but I’m too surprised to react.

A breeze begin to blow around me, growing in intensity and finally lifting the two of us up, gaining momentum as it soars us through the air to the top of the hill.

Sometimes I wonder what flying would feel like. As the wind whistles in my ear and runs through my hair, I suppose this is what flying feels like.

Free.

Zephen lands gracefully in the soft grass and he sets me down.

There’s a look of surprise on his face when he gets a better look at me, and I suppose it might be because my face is split in half with a grin.

Now that I’ve tried flying, that feeling is something I can get used to.

He puts me down slowly as we approach the top of the hill, his arms holding me up as my feet touch the soft grass.

“So the girl knows how to smile.” Zephen says, flicking his wrist and the door to his house clicks open.

I take a better look at the house. It’s large, much larger than mine, standing tall and proud on the hill.

The walls are white, and made with a material I can’t seem to decipher. Not wood, not bricks, but something like a mix of both—it looks light, somehow, but at least it seems sturdy.

I follow Zephen into the house, finding the inside equally white, the occasional tinges of green and blue mixed in so the walls don’t seem as blank. His house is large, but empty.

It doesn’t feel like home.

It doesn’t feel like the small house I’ve lived in all my life, filled with dad’s humming when he’s in his study or the kitchen, and the desks covered in scraps of paper—

“Hey,” I jump when I feel him touch my arm cautiously, a frown etched on his face as he looks at me in puzzlement. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t realize I was crying, but it becomes obvious when I feel my throat constricting, my eyes becoming hot.

A sob breaks through and now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop, doubling over from the intensity of my emotions.

The brunt of the situation has finally caught up with me, and I just feel so overwhelmed, so sad.

Everything I grew up knowing about myself, about my family, about the world has suddenly changed, shifting on its axis and now nothing seems certain.

I’m terrified.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Zephen pats the top of my head awkwardly, not knowing what to do. “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not.” I say through my sobs, hiccuping.

The world looks blurry through tears, and so does his face when I turn to look at him. “It’s not okay. Nothing is okay. My whole life has just turned upside down and it’s not okay.”

“I know.” He says, voice surprisingly soft. “But you are safe here, and that’s all that matters.”

Really? I continue sobbing, until I’m worn out and exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open. Is my safety really the only thing that matters? What about what I want?

What about graduating from college, getting a job I like, meeting someone I love and growing old together? Does that not matter?

The future I envisioned has crumbled before my eyes and I am powerless.

I feel myself being lifted, taken into a room and placed gently on a bed. My breathing slows, darkness slowly closing in on me as sleep takes over.

Footsteps fade and the click of the door leaves the room in silence. A thought echoes throughout my mind, something I’ve never thought about before.

Mom, are you really here?