Child of Life
His feet pounded against the dead floor of the forest, heart hammering in his chest. That boy…Otabek's brother. If what he said was true, then somewhere was something that could fix this. Something that only Yuri could find. He had no reason to doubt the existence of fairy water. Otabek had known far more about fairies than he had, and apparently Yuri was a fairy himself. But if what that boy said was true, then he should have a natural pull to the water that he needed. If he just trusted his instincts….or did he have to will it? He had no idea, so he just chose a direction and ran. Ran and prayed. That was how he had found Otabek's home the first time, after all, though at least then he had had a direction to go off of. The one the wingless had come from. Now though, he was running blind.
He didn't know how long he ran. His feet were cut up from stray branches on the ground, and he now finally understood why he had seen the wingless wearing shoes. He had good stamina as all fairies do, but the injury to his side was leaking fresh blood and slowing him down considerably. It was funny how exciting red had been at first…now he despised the color. But he deserved this gash, he knew.
His foot snagged on a root and he fell, crashing through long dead bushes and hitting a decaying tree trunk so hard it actually exploded into rotting splinters. Down and down, he tumbled off a rocky outcropping and off a hill. When he finally stopped, he was sprawled across the ground in the bottom of a deep crevice. His body felt so bruised and broken…he had been far faster at flying and already missed the use of his wings, torn as they were, but he had no time to mope and nurse wounds. He had to find the water.
Forcing himself to open his eyes, he used the wall to get to his feet, and nearly fell straight back down when he did. His ankle wouldn't support him properly. He had twisted it, he knew. It had happened once before when he was young and dancing, but the mushrooms had healed him after a few hours. There were no mushrooms here to fix his blunder though. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself and used the wall to limp down the crevice.
He didn't know how long he walked. He felt so slow, edging along in the darkness. He didn't know how he was going to get back up anyway with a bum foot and a torn wing, but he knew staying still wasn't going to do anything, so on he moved. The ground was cold between his toes now. It must have been night then. Otabek had told him the world got cold and dark at night.
Just the thought of his only friend made him bite his lip and squeeze his eyes closed tight. Physical pain was better than dealing with his emotions. He should have been watching where he was going…his foot stepped into open air and he slid even further down into an empty basin. Here there was nowhere to go. He was in a pit and he was stuck.
It started to rain a few minutes later, the clouds crying the tears Yuri refused to shed. Yuri lay defeated in the mud and his own blood, hating his own uselessness with every passing minute until black covered his vision.
0
When Yuri awoke some time later, the sky had stopped crying for him. He didn't notice right away though, because it had been a noise that roused him. A pretty sound, but loud. At first he thought a wingless had found him and was calling to him, but the source turned out to be winged indeed.
A bird was perched atop his knee. An animal, in the dead forest. Otabek had said it was unheard of. Yuri stared at the small thing, what he would later call a kestrel, and it stared back, tilting its head before taking wing and flying skyward. It was midday now, though who knew what day it was the middle of. Yuri sat up, the ground clinging to his skin in a way he'd never experienced before. Mud. When his hand went down to support himself though, he was surprised to hear a splash. Immediately his head jerked down.
He was sitting in an inch of water that only got deeper towards the center of the ditch he found himself in. His breath caught. Was this it? Had he done it? This surely must be magic water. It hadn't been here when he closed his eyes, and now here it was. He jumped to his feet, immediately toppling back down and crashing face first into the water as his twisted ankle reminded him he was unfit to walk. His wings splashed as they beat against the not air and he gasped, pulling his face free.
Yuri's second attempt to stand was easier going. The cool water was actually helping soothe his injuries, though he still limped horribly. Now the question was, how did he bring the fairy water to Otabek?
The realization that he had no way to carry liquid crashed heavily on him. He fell to his knees at the edge of the water, staring down at it, and curse him for finally crying again. He wished his wing was fixable at the very least, so he could cup his hands with water and fly to Otabek…but he didn't know if his wing would ever heal.
Yuri slept until nightfall in the water. He stayed in the muck until his skin was pruned and squishy. Until his hair dripped no matter how much he shook it out. For a moment he wondered if he could ring his hair to pool enough water for Otabek, but he was sure he was far too late now. He'd never make the hike back before his friend was out of his reach and in the ground.
His ankle still ached some, but it was much better after being off of it for who knew how long. His wing though…he glanced up and blinked. Huh….the scrap that had torn before had torn free in the water, but the rest was mending. The hole was still obvious, but water glittered off of a barely there layer of skin that was so transparent you'd never know it was there if not for the droplets clinging to it.
The pool of water he had been sitting in was shallower now. Drying up without the rain to feed it, though that was something Yuri again wouldn't know until much later. He barely even noticed the water level was lower, as he was too busy staring in surprise at his wing and testing it. It held, but it ached something awful and he had a feeling even the slightest touch would pop the fresh layer like a bubble. He doubted it could actually hold him.
Nature was on Yuri's side though, trying so very hard to help him. Even as Yuri sighed, the winter wind was kissing his wings, freezing the water around the hole in the wing. Strengthening it with ice. Then the wind tried to pick him up. 'Fly' it seemed to whisper, magic in its unheard voice. This was a fae forest once. Fairy magic had been the life of the forest an age ago. With Yuri, it could be again. If only Yuri would see the signs.
Dripping wet and limping, Yuri's wings flickered again, this time with less pain. He blinked at the appendage and fluttered again. His feet left the ground. For a moment he only hovered in disbelief, but only for a moment.
Yuri darted from the pit and straight above the trees. There, he spotted the clearing at the edge of the forest which the large not trees loomed. Water pulled from his hair as he flew with all his might.
0
Yuri hadn't had the chance to learn to land and was a little less than graceful when he collided with the ground near Otabek's home. He was cold but that didn't stop him. The lights were all on, but there was nobody around. All the nearby people were in the forest, still returning from their hunt for Rustahm. Yuri was lucky, otherwise the mess of a fae would have been hounded for seeking a corpse. But as it was, there was nobody to stop him from entering Otabek's home and searching for him. Nobody to stop him when he leaped from the upper window of the main house to explore the smaller structure beside it, nor anyone to stop him when he broke open the shed door with a kick. No one to say a thing when he saw hair sticking out from under a tarp; not a soul to say 'how dare he' when he yanked that tarp away.
Yuri's breaths squeezed from his lungs as he stared at the body. Immediately he tried to ring his hair…but the wind from the flight had dried it past the point of dripping. He cursed.
"No! Come on!" he climbed on top of Otabek's ice cold chest and tried again. Nothing. "Please," dammit, he had been so close. He found the water. He was here. He just…dammit. Dammit!
"I'm so so sorry…" he leaned closer, until their foreheads were touching. Yuri's skin was still clammy. His hair still damp. Water did drip onto Otabek, but it was the fairy's tears.
"Please….wake up…." He knew Otabek wouldn't. The body was still icy beneath him. Otabek's chest didn't move an inch. Yuri hugged the wingless boy, holding him close for the first and last time. His only friend…his last friend too, he vowed as his head moved down to rest against Otabek's unbeating heart. If this was what happened when a human befriended a fairy, then maybe he was alone for a reason. Maybe he was supposed to be alone. He wished Otabek had never found him and that he was still trapped in the fairy ring. At least then Otabek would still be alive.
Yuri sat up, staring at Otabek for a second longer before getting up with a flutter of wings. His final tears escaped, dripping down onto the prone form below. With a wordless goodbye, he flew out the doors and never looked back.
0
His body remembered before his mind did. Pain. Agonizing pain. His lungs clenching frantically trying to get enough air but wheezing in failure. His feet crying in agony over broken toes and split heels that his body continued to put pressure on. Muscles that screamed from over exertion as he was forced to keep on moving. His brain pounding from desperate need of more oxygen that his lungs just couldn't supply. He felt like he was choking. Like his legs were full of broken bones that kept breaking through his skin over and over again. He was dying. No, he was dead. He was lucky he was dead, or he would have screamed from the remnants of the pain, even as they faded.
His last memory was of falling, of seeing Yuri, so happy and carefree, unaffected by the toils of endless dancing, and then he saw only darkness. Had Yuri called for him? A voice had echoed in his dying brain. Perhaps the fairy had cast this curse on him by accident, if such a thing were possible. He had prayed it to be true, or Yuri was one damn good con artist. Like a gift, his mind replayed the call.
"please," Yuri's voice. Death was funny the way it gave you things you didn't know you wanted. "I'm so so sorry," yeah, it would be really nice if Yuri had actually said that and hadn't meant to do this. At least his imagination could make him pretend. He wanted Yuri to stay an innocent and indomitable spirit until the end. He only wished he could have figured out a way to free the fae. Yuri would go back to being lonely, he supposed, stuck in the dead forest with no escape. "….please….wake up." He would never wake up again. He felt so numb. Death was better than pain though.
A weight lifted from his chest. He hadn't realized there had been anything on him. He also hadn't realized the weight had been warm. Now he felt cold. So very cold. Also wet. Something was dripping on his face. But he wasn't supposed to feel when he was dead, so why could he feel this? Silence filled his senses for who knew how long, then another chill. His body moved automatically, his lungs taking in a breath. He felt his heart thudding in his chest, desperate to warm him.
He opened his eyes to the light of the moon peeking through the open doors of his family's shed. He touched his cheek, feeling a droplet of water. It was salty, strangely enough. And when he sat up, Otabek found a single strand of blond hair tumbling down his chest.