I awoke coughing up water. I felt dizzy and sore all over. Slowly opening my eyes, I looked up to see two golden eyes staring back at me. Immediately instincts took over as I tackled the golden eyed creature. It groaned.

“Well, I am never helping you again Fer if you are going thank me like this. I just save your damn life. Aghhh… Did you seriously have to hit me there.”

I suddenly stopped fighting and properly looked at the creature. It was Ron, a fellow rival Punisher Fae. Okay so, he was really my best friend. A trickster who could hunt and kill monsters as well. Before I met Rosabella, Ron and I lived together in the Sol Court. We were both changelings that had lived in the same human village.

Ron’s parents died when he was a baby, so some humans brought him up as their son after they found him abandoned in their backyard. I meanwhile was abandoned by a mother who needed to get rid of a mistake. Don’t even ask about my father, nobody knows who he is. I lived in an orphanage with ten other children. Mother dearest had placed me there.

Anyway, one of the Furies discovered us, while doing some work in the village. She decided to take us in and train us to become Punisher Fae. We were around twelve years of age at the time. From then on, the two of us became close and sometimes worked together.

Ron is sometimes known as Puck in the Human realm, due the fact that he uses tricks as his form of punishment. It is also his Fae gift – the ability to create illusions and deceive anyone. It’s kind of ironic considering the fact that he cannot lie to anyone. It also makes his tricks interesting to watch as he has to work against our nature of not being able to tell lies to deceive someone.

But back to the story…

I sat down next to him and let him recover. As he sat up, combing his short, bright blue hair, I ask, “What are you doing here Ron? I thought you were meant to be in Sol.”

“Yeah, but I decided to come visit my favorite person. Although she seems to want to kill me. Imagine the horror. Anyway, is Princess still at your place? I hope she will welcome me better than you.”

I shook my head and turned away. I didn’t want to talk about Rosabella or Princess as Ron called her. I was still confused and feeling upset about what had happened. “I don’t want to talk about it, Ron.”

Ron realized something was wrong with me. “Fer, did something happen to Princess? Is that why you were trying to drown yourself in the river. Did you get into a fight with her?”

When I didn’t answer, Ron began to worry. I couldn’t think about her, I needed to leave. Go back to Sol with Ron and act like Rosabella never happened. She wanted a human life. One with love and I just could not give it to her. She was human anyway, so she was going to die soon. It was a mistake to give my heart to her.

“Fer, Princess left you didn’t she. For that pretty boy. Jackson.”

“Ron, I forced her to live a dangerous life in that forest. She wanted to live with the humans. She wanted to have love. And I just could not give her it. The king is now hunting for me in the forest. Her life would have been in constant danger. I would have needed to leave for my hunting trips.” I felt the tears dripping down my face and furiously began wiping them away. Fae didn’t cry. Not over humans. “I could not just leave her to fend for herself. So, I left. She can move on and marry Jason. Now, drop it okay. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you know that I watched her sometimes when you worked. She was never alone. Don’t lie to me by lying to yourself. I practically invented that trick, so don’t even try it on me. Tell me why you really did it. You are using the king as an excuse. The king is nothing to the nightmares in that forest. You owned that forest, and I know that you put her under your protection. Nothing is going to mess with that, Fer. Everyone knows what would happen.”

“She… was in love with him. I didn’t want to stop her from loving him. She was alone there. I know she had us, but I wanted to give her companionship. A normal human life. He would give it to her. You know I could never give her what she wanted. She wanted to be married and have children. I could never give her kids.”

Ron just looked at me and pulled me into an embrace. I needed to move on. We both knew this day would come, but I still was not prepared for it. It was still too early for this. Rosabella choosing a normal human life over me. When I finally stopped crying, Ron whispered in my ear, “Let’s go Fer. We need to get out of here. It’s getting dark and I need to get back to Sol alive. You also need to rest.”

I looked up and realized that it was getting dark. We needed to move before things worse than us came out. I needed to leave this place too. It had to many good memories for me.

I got up and began walking with Ron. We got to the forest’s clearing and took off into the night, flying to the Fae realm. I didn’t try look back once. I could not.