Child of Earth

The first time he had seen him, he had told his mother and father. They had dismissed him, believing it to be a figment of child whimsy. He had only been around 8 years old at the time, after all, and his nana had been reading him far too many stories. But Otabek could have sworn that he saw a child in the forest with sparkling, transparent wings, watching him and his family's party trek through the trees. The forest had been so thick…so quiet and eerie. The grass had crunched brittle beneath their feet and the branches of the trees had clawed through the air, forming a leafless net to hide the sun above. It had scared him and he had clung to his father's chest for most of the journey. That was probably why he had been so surprised when the shimmer of light caught his attention. He hadn't expected to see anything as beautiful as that child had been - an unmoving statue, hidden in the failing light. He didn't know people could have hair that captured the sunlight and turned it yellow. He didn't know people could have eyes the color of gemstone. He thought that color was reserved solely for his mother's jewelry. But he had stared at those eyes for the brief second he saw them, shocked silent by the fire within. He felt drawn to the child.

But then a tree broke his line of sight and he blinked, the spell broken and the child gone.

When he was a little older, he had wanted to go play in the forest. Maybe find the child he had seen that one time, but his parents forbid it. The forest was dangerous, they told him. Animals lived there that would want to hurt him, or he'd get lost and never find his way home. But he hadn't seen any animals in the forest ever. Not even birds. The dead forest they called it, because no life remained within. His nana told him the reason was because the forest was cursed. The land they lived on was once a home of the fae folk – a magical race that lived with nature. She told him that fairies are mischievous spirits that like to play tricks on humans. She told him to stay away from the fae, because they would try to ensnare him with their treachery and spells. She would tell him fairy tales about rings in the ground that would whisk him off to fairy land if he wasn't careful and sing him old folk tales and songs warning of the dangers of the magical.

The older Otabek grew, the less he believed in the fairy folk his nana had once filled his head with. He saw no evidence that little magical sprites existed, purposely going about and scaring the animals, killing the crops, poisoning the water. That was nonsense. He learned of course that the reason the forest had no animals was because the animals were afraid of the people and probably hid away in the deepest of the woods, that's all. The soil was ill suited in the forest for growing anything but the poison mushrooms that seemed to pop up in the shadows of the old withered oaks and elms. The forest was pretty much a wasteland. Even rain didn't seem to want to touch it. There was nothing for the animals to eat and forage from near town, that was all. That was why birdsong only existed away from the forest and not within. There was no curse. The only reason the trees weren't harvested for their wood was because of the wood rot that ate through to the core. Otherwise, more people would have reasons to go to the forest. It was not a curse, Otabek repeated to himself, which was keeping them away.

Otabek grew out of fairy tales. He had to become a man and take on his role in the town. He had to help his father and mother with their merchant's stall and to be a good example to his baby brother. But sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could picture the child in the forest. He couldn't remember the details of anything else but the eyes. Had his young mind once pictured the child with wings? Likely, with his nana filling his head with fairy lore. He wondered if the child had been entirely made up in his mind, or if he really had seen a lost kid in the trees. He wondered, if the child WAS real, what had happened to him.

Nearly a decade after traveling through the forest as a child, Otabek would finally enter it again. A man near grown, he had taken it upon himself to take care of his parents and his little brother, and in these winter months, food was scarcer than normal. Nobody bothered hunting in the dead forest. There was no point, they had said, because there was nothing to hunt. But Otabek was sure if he went deep enough, surely he'd find something. His parents urged him to reconsider, to join the regular hunting parties, but those parties took weeks and were coming back with empty traps. Not even a rabbit to split between them. They were desperate. Desperation meant trying things they knew probably had nothing to offer…but even a slim chance was still a chance.

The hunt was days in, and still there wasn't a single track to be found, nor even a dropping. The grass was still as brittle as he remembered, maybe even worse. It crumbled at his touch, dry and browning. The tree bark peeled, the inside ash, with just a light tug. The only thing that moved at all were the branches, and that was only when the wind thought it would try to liven things up here…but the dead forest was aptly named. This had been a fool's errand. Otabek had just been about to head back when movement caught his eye, just there, between the trees. For a breath he thought it just the wind again, but he felt no kiss of cold on his skin from a gust. Heard no shifting of branches above. His attention turned in the direction of the movement, and there again he saw it. A brief shimmer, the sun reflecting off of something bright where it could snake through the snares of the old branches overhead. Otabek carefully made his way through, trying to be quiet, but the world was so dry and broken that there was no hiding the snaps and crunch of his footsteps. At least that was what he thought, but when he got a better view, he saw his noise hadn't caught the attention of what he saw at all. But his attention went undivided. His eyes widened and his jaw briefly fell slack. Sunkissed hair as bright as daylight sat atop skin as pale as the moon on a figure so slender and breath taking, for a moment, Otabek had forgotten to breath. He exhaled slowly, stepping carefully closer so as not to spook the figure, but they seemed too caught up in their dance to see him. The young hunter could only stare as the dance continued, edging closer all the while until at last the figure, dancing so silently and without hesitation, spun and stopped. Green eyes like jewels locked with his own. At first Otabek swore he saw desperate longing, but perhaps that was just his own eyes reflected back at him, for now he saw only surprise.

With the dance ended and the two staring at each other, Otabek could take in what he saw. A boy, young and with braided hair fairer than anything he'd known possible on a human being, and skin the shade of a noble who never once worked the field. His simple backless shirt seemed far too small for him, tight around his chest and cutting off high, revealing a skinny waist and flat stomach. It was something better suited for a child of three years than what he assumed was a boy in his barely-teens. His feet were dainty and bare, his legs long and exposed beneath skin tight black shorts and a white silken half skirt that could have once been a child's blanket. Strangely, the ground where the youth danced was rich in color; a vibrant green that screamed of life and healthy growth over rich brown soil, quite the contrast to the brittle grass and ashen earth everywhere else. A flicker of movement made Otabek's eyes jerk back up, and only when the sun shimmered on the translucent appendages did Otabek's mind finally register the other worldly wings. But that couldn't be right. Magic wasn't real, and humans did not have wings. Just like that boy he saw all those years ago hadn't had wings. He had made that up. Surely. And this surely wasn't the same boy, despite having the same hair, the same eyes, the same everything, aged the same as him. This wasn't a fairy.

The longer he stared at the boy, the more he realized he had just been fooling himself.