Child of Pain

His nana was old and rambled about weird things often, but a few years ago she told him when Otabek was little, he had seen a fairy. That had made him curious to ask his older brother, but Otabek had shrugged it off without much comment. Nana was happy to tell him the same stories she told his sibling though, and he drank them in. He had never seen magic or anything magical, but his brother was one of the most sensible people he knew, and if Otabek wasn't outright denying their existence, then that was good enough for him. Otabek seemed less inclined to believe the older he got though. Still, he never told Rustahm he was stupid for believing in fairies even when it became obvious Otabek no longer did. He never dismissed Rustahm's wild stories like his parents would. It was one of the reasons he loved his older brother. Otabek might have been eight years older than him, but he never treated him like a baby. He always treated him as an equal.

He missed Otabek desperately when he left for his hunting trip, and watched the dead woods every night in hopes of spotting his brother's return. His parents told him he wouldn't be back for at least a week, but a week came and went, and still no Beka. He grew more and more nervous with each passing day. His parents started to join him on his nightly vigil and would carry him to bed when he inevitably passed out.

One evening, a glow in the forest caught his attention. Faint, and gone, just as quickly. He was tired. Too tired, he knew, from restless nights. He was seeing things. But then there it was again, a flash of the sun in the dead of the trees. But it wasn't the sun. It was hair. A boy? A girl? With hair that long, it had to be a girl. She was beautiful, pale, shimmering in the low light. His eyes had widened at the sight of her, confused by her worried expression. But the beautiful figure was forgotten when what she was dragging came into view. Beka.

He ran towards the trees, tripping over his feet and hitting the ground with a yell. When he looked up again, the girl was leaning over Otabek, her wings glimmering behind her. Wings? Unimportant. His brother was there on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, spitting blood from his mouth from his bit tongue, and hurried to Otabek's side. He shook him roughly and with too much force.

"Beka!" he called, but no reply came. Otabek was paler than normal. Stiff. Cold. Tears ran hot down his face. "No. No no no no no!" He looked over the figure, covered in forest debris, blood, scrapes…and his feet. Good lord, his feet were an absolute horror. What had happened? A slender hand was reaching for his poor brother, causing him to lash out.

"Get away!" he yelled, slapping at the delicate hand, tears blurring his vision of the surprised look on the other's face. The winged girl quickly back tracked and disappeared into the trees. Rustahm paid her no mind. His only focus was the lifeless body in his hands.

0

His parents had heard his wailing and came out in a sprint, only to gasp at what they found. Their youngest, holding their firstborn and sobbing freely, was a sight no parent had ever wished to see.

It had been a fight to separate Rustahm from Otabek, the young boy having been so close to his brother. Denial had plagued him and he hadn't wanted to let Otabek go, not physically nor mentally. He had screamed and howled for hours after the separation, curled in his bed. When silence finally surrounded him, he had felt empty. But then burning anger had filled his heart. Beka was stronger than this. How could he leave him? How dare he leave him? Fresh tears seared his skin but he made no sounds as they flowed down his cheeks. His mind flashed back to the image of the girl in the trees. It was her. It had to have been her. She did this to him. She took away his big brother. How dare she. Why would she?

Wings flashed in his mind.

Fairy.

Things clicked into place. Nana's story flooded his brain. How long had the fairy made Otabek dance to make his feet such a mess? How many days did the fairy torment his brother, not letting him eat, drink, nor rest? Then she left them the corpse, a mockery to show what she could do, that they had let her do it.

Rustahm got out of bed, hands fisted. The fairy had taken advantage of Otabek not believing in evil fairy magic anymore, but he wouldn't be so easily fooled. He wouldn't dance in her stupid ring. He'd make her die in it. But first, he'd make her grant him a wish.

0

This was stupid. He knew that when he left, but the need for closure drove him on. He had slipped past his grieving parents without them noticing. They had taken his older brother's body out to the shed and rested it under a tarp while they prepared for….Rustahm didn't want to think about it. He had to think only about the hunt. The fairy. The evil creature that was behind everything in this forest dying.

Rustahm was young and only had the map they had found on Otabek's body as a lead, but he thought for sure that would be enough. He was wrong, his map reading skills not quite up to an adult's level, but that was luckily ok. There was a path he could follow through the trees easily enough. First it was the very obvious drag path through the dirt. Nothing disturbed this forest ever….nothing except a stupid fairy dragging its victim of course. He followed the trail, hoping it led to the fae's nest.

But the trail stopped abruptly.

At first he was alarmed, until he noticed broken branches. A lot of them. Fairies must be bad fliers. She had tried to throw him off her scent, it seemed, by switching from air to ground, or perhaps she had tired of carrying his brother and saw fit to just drag him. His eyes hardened into a glare and he followed the broken trees.

This path took hours upon hours to get through. He tired. He had eaten his rations of food he had packed ages ago, and he still didn't know how close or far he was from the fairy's nest. It had been a full day already….his parents were probably worried sick. What if he didn't get home? His quest had started in anger, but fear was crippling him now.

Another hour of trepidation finally led him to something. Blood. On the trees. On the ground. On the rocks. An icy claw gripped his spine and made him tremble. He probably wouldn't have moved from that spot if he hadn't seen the shimmer of wings past the blood. There. Ringed by mushrooms. It was the fairy. Fire ignited his heart and he rushed forward with a cry, pulling a small iron knife from his belt. He didn't stop as the fairy turned towards him. He prepared himself for a fight, for surely this was a trick to slow him down.

Rustahm's knife slashed straight through the fairy's shirt and spilled blood across his hands and arms. The force of his attack sent him careening forward and onto the ground. The fairy fell to the side away from him, a slender hand covering the wound he had inflicted. Rustahm scrambled to get back to his feet and not let the fairy have any room to get him unawares, holding his blade out and surveying the other warily. It was around then, as the shredded shirt fell loose that he noticed the fairy was male, not female, like he originally thought. But it wasn't the gender epiphany that stilled him from launching a second attack. He was taking the time to actually see who he was fighting, and the state of the fae was surprising.

His wing was ripped, starting near the top of the large, insect like wing with a large shred hanging limp like spider silk blowing in the breeze. His body held cuts and scrapes just like Beka's had, but his weren't cleaned by loving parents. They were roughly scabbed and dirty. The fairy looked at him in surprise, looking every bit like he had been crying, minus any tears. Even then, with this creature looking utterly disheveled, Rustahm would be a liar if he said he didn't think the fairy was still pretty.

"You look like Otabek."

The voice that came from the fairy was deep and hoarse, but it was the name that made Rustahm lose his breath. No, he was done crying. He had cried every tear he had already.

"Shut up! Don't you say his name!" he hissed even as he felt the wet well up at his eyes. For some reason, the sad smile that fell onto the fairy's lips made him even angrier.

"You're his little brother. He mentioned you…."

No, Beka wouldn't have conversed with such an evil creature. It's not true. This was all fairy lies to trick him into dancing in the fairy ring and dying.

"Sh…shut up I said!" he swung his knife, the blade making him feel just a bit braver, and stepped closer, "and use your stupid fairy magic to bring him back! You have to or… or I'll kill you!" he yelled. The fairy only sighed though, frowning and trembling as he stared at the ground.

"I can't…I don't have magic. I'm sor-" he started but Rustahm wouldn't hear it.

"You're a liar! Fairy water can heal anything, even death. Nana said so! You know where it is. Only fairies know. Nana said it calls to fairies. So give it to me, now!" he ordered. The fairy's attention had snapped up to him. When the fairy stood up, he was taller than Rustahm, and the younger boy was starting to lose his bravado. His hands trembled and when the fairy charged he found himself petrified to the spot.

But the fairy passed him, disappearing into the trees. Rustahm was left alone, and without anything to help his brother. He had failed.

Rustahm's parents found him shaking like a leaf in a ring of mushrooms hours later, their search party having spent the majority of the day calling through the woods. Rustahm only cried into their arms. He couldn't explain the blood on his knife either.