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The second the sun first twinkled over the horizon, Florimal gathered her belongings and made her way to the creek. Her pale, bare feet stumbled over the jagged stones flanking the river’s edge. Florimal used to sneak out of the house as a teenager to meet up with her brother and dwindling friend circles at conventions and concerts. That was before she ended up here in the Other World. Even the icy temperatures of the river and the air could not stop her mind from replaying the day that her life changed forever.
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Florimal was sitting up on the roof of their family home when Simpson returned home from his shift at the local post office. Florimal was listening to her favourite band so loudly that she almost fell off the roof when someone tapped her on the shoulder.132Please respect copyright.PENANAaEA5IL6GET
“Oh it’s just you.” She grumbled as her older brother sat beside her.132Please respect copyright.PENANAmnjAXN0Vut
He pulled out her earbuds by the wire between them.132Please respect copyright.PENANA40FFfxBEU3
“I got a present for you.” He grinned, handing her a parcel of brown paper.132Please respect copyright.PENANAmLK2CtWvbv
The parcel wasn’t as up to code as her brother’s usual wrapping. A large shipping sticker covered the entire top of the parcel as if it was the only thing holding the entire disaster together.132Please respect copyright.PENANAtOqUKQ4ZG1
Quirking a brow, she hesitantly tore into the paper with her black and purple nails.132Please respect copyright.PENANAA1SPuFcXMf
“A pair of fairy wings?” She scoffed, turning over the pair of purple and black butterfly shaped wings. “I’m not three. I’m almost an adult. Mum’ll kill you for all of this glitter.”132Please respect copyright.PENANAhUyOGtBCJs
“You haven’t seen the best part.” Simpson laughed as if he knew something she didn’t.132Please respect copyright.PENANALw0HZvTgIX
“Put them on.”132Please respect copyright.PENANANJI8wjYqWR
“Do they scream fuck or something?” She had to admit the wings didn’t look cheaply made unlike most online purchases as she let him fix them to the back of her clothes like he was smoothing a stamp onto an envelope. No elastic straps or glue. She felt the wings grow from the size of her palm to half her height as she stood up on the roof shingles. However they still felt as light as a sheet of cardboard.132Please respect copyright.PENANAAPqGgfhtqC
“Pretty cool right? That’s not the best part. Jump.” Her brother urged.132Please respect copyright.PENANAcp4erqIV7l
There was a trampoline down on the lawn that she often jumped down onto whenever her mother stuck her head out of the window or the backdoor and screamed for her to get down off the roof before she hurt herself or one of the nosy neighbours complained. Florimal closed her eyes and somersaulted, expecting the wings to break, but she didn’t feel the embrace of the trampoline material. In fact it felt like one of those dreams where she was floating. She felt the rush of wind and the beating of wings filled her ears. She cracked her eyes open and then turned to look at her brother who clapped his hands.132Please respect copyright.PENANAv4krA9pf3x
“I didn’t get to test them out at work, but they’re cool aren’t they?”132Please respect copyright.PENANAdoBLOwOu4W
Her teenage self squealed with excitement as she moved from side to side, trying to figure out how to control the wings. Soon she was soaring around the backyard with very little risk of crashing into someone's hedges, fences or pools. The euphoria didn’t last for long. She noticed two people appear. She assumed they were people, but they could have been elves. Their bodies clad in white armour and their faces hidden by white masks. Her brother seemed to notice them too because he waved to her to return to his side. Immediately. Florimal flew towards him faster than she had ever ran with her own legs, but something blew past her ear and put a hole in the corner of the brick wall supporting the roof her brother stood on. It sounded like a beam of magic from a fantasy movie. She noticed what she assumed to be a wand (what she later learned to be a Magi) in one of the figure’s hands that was pointed at her. Florimal couldn’t let them hurt her brother. She pivoted mid dive and flew off across the neighbourhood she grew up in.
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No matter how many twists and turns she made the masked figures were close behind. That was until she hid behind a billboard on the top of a petrol station. While leaning back against the billboard, trying to catch her breath, Florimal fell backwards through the billboard and into the Otherworld. A pile of snow covering a hunter’s trap. Her ankle snagged in the rope. She was catapulted up to hang from the branch of a leafless tree. She dangled by her ankle, shivering in her graphic tee, face of alternate makeup, mini skort, thigh-high striped socks and sneakers. By the time the blood rushed to her head, the hunter arrived in his trench coat. The hunter looked more out of place in the snow than she did. He was a fishman with long tangles of green hair, fins where his ears should have been, a long paddle like tail dragging behind him and webbed hands.
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He pulled out what looked like a rusty key and cut the rope, sending her face first into the snow. He threw his trench coat over her and gestured for her to shut up and stay put. She heard the hunter crunching away in the snow. The teenager did as she was told until she felt hot breath sneaking in under the trench coat. She lifted the trench coat to see what looked like a white horse, but it had eyes with no pupils, sclera or iris. It was all one colour that matched its colourful mane. Florimal screamed when the beautiful creature was struck with a beam of magic between the eyes. It dropped next to her. Dead. The hunter slit its throat with the rusty key, throwing it over one shoulder and her over the other. He carried them both home through the snowfield to a warm, log cabin.132Please respect copyright.PENANAIyISluaOvo
Shaking her head, Florimal waded out into the cold stream with a crudely sliced piece of soap root clutched in her palm. Checking around to make sure she wasn’t exposing her naked body to the two children in their party. Greenwood had seen her naked more times than her own family. Dawn and Randolph didn’t hold the same prude sensibilities as humans. Florimal already missed those rudimentary showers at Sheehan’s school. They weren’t showers in any sense that humans would think of outside of camping equipment. Showers in this world were pouches made from soft leather with holes poked in them. The craftsmanship required for one of those bags was too expensive for average peasants to buy or learn to make. Florimal missed the privilege of hot water and daily, balanced meals. She felt naked leaving her wings in the camp, balled up in Greenwood’s jacket. The same old, smelly trench coat from when they met.132Please respect copyright.PENANAd6iD8iJxay
I need to re-dye my hair. The dye is fading. What is dye made from here? She thought as her reflection caught her attention. To its credit, Other Worlds dark purple and black dyes lasted longer than dyes from her world. Thinking about the life she left behind made her heart ache. Had her brother forgiven himself for her disappearance? She never blamed him. What if she flew back to her brother? Would those figures have let him live? From what she learned since, the wings were some kind of officials and the wings were illegal technology. She had never seen another pair of wings in Other World.
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Greenwood dipped his hands into the pot and splashed the gills on the sides of his neck repeatedly. When his gills reached their saturation point, he could think rationally.132Please respect copyright.PENANALeRDGOfyFh
“I’m goin’ to ‘ave to fill up the water be’ore we think about leavin’.” Greenwood said.132Please respect copyright.PENANA982PE1MmyT
Randolph nodded from the tree line where he was collecting armfuls of leaves and twigs for the fire. He needed to reignite the fire just enough to cook breakfast before they left.
Greenwood knew Florimal liked a morning brew that she compared to ‘caffeine’ from her world. Dawn would need a cup o’ tea to extend the time that her controlling behaviours would take to drive even her best friend (Florimal) and even the saintly ‘Randy’ insane. Greenwood did not expect to look over and see the human was gone! He was not going to jump to conclusions. If anyone was held hostage by Fomorians it wouldn’t be her. He noticed her bathing. Greenwood tore through her belongings to find the ingredients for her morning brew. He was near-sighted due to the murky water of his natural habitats.
Florimal never thought she’d meet someone denser than herself and Simpson sharing their last brain cell, until she met Greenwood. He was not as scary as he looked. By the time Florimal returned from spacing out and meandered back to the camp, Greenwood had investigated the ration pack Genevieve made for her to make a drink for her. Her belongings looked like a crime scene. She smiled at him with flushed cheeks as she took the cup from his webbed hands and drank like she was doing shots at a bar.132Please respect copyright.PENANAd0dWmeaox3
“Thanks, Green.”132Please respect copyright.PENANAUbocEtcEef
“You’re welcome, Purple.”132Please respect copyright.PENANAAjqHmRiwFp
She realized that the carcass of the Nightmare had been disposed of during the night or else she would have stepped in it on her way to the river. Dawn, Pan and Daisy were roused from their slumber by the aroma of leftovers that Randolph reheated for them.
Greenwood sighed and grabbed a long stick. He poked the eleven-year-old until she picked herself up. Suki rubbed her blue eyes with her gloved hands, confirming that the marks criss-crossing half of her face were in fact lifelong scars not temporary grime. Who would do such a thing to a kid? Dumb question. Greenwood knew there were cruel fairies. That’s why he left his family’s river and lived alone until Florimal fell into his life.
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