Fairy 6.9: Wants
Ihe

You wake to the sound of furious, panicked screeching and the sight of pure darkness. Opening your eyes doesn't help: somehow, they're already open. You try to look around for light and see some in the sky. Not from the sun. From thin, branching cracks that replace the stars. You can see them, but they don't let you see anything else. The adults are asking each other what's going on. They grow more and more frustrated when no one knows.

A furious scream cuts them all off. The Whaleslayer, Conqueror of the Spire Tribe, Leader of the Tall Cliff Tribe, calls the company to order. Flowerpecker, your youngest sibling, nervously chirps beside you and you hiss to silence him. Now is not the time for disobedience of any sort.

"Only speak if you know what happened and why," Whaleslayer calls. No one answers. "I will go to ask the dark ones. The rest of you, stay here and wait for the last hunters to return."

No one questions that. If anyone is safe to walk in total darkness, it's her.

Who are the last hunters, though? It's late. You didn't hear the growls of the dark ones. Most of the company should have returned. But the food has not yet been divided. Have your parents returned? Flowerpecker nervously chirrups again. Trying to get their attention? It's not a bad idea. You join in. Adults approach. Two.

Storm Braver softly grunts and Flowerpecker runs over to her mother. You can hear The Northerner shift beside his mate.

"Are you there, Vengeance?" he calls.

You are proud of your name. The seabirds had created a big storm to harass the dark ones. Including your caretaker. The adults weren't sure what to do about it so you stormed the beach yourself and pecked at the seabirds. They reared up and spread their wings but seemed unsure how to attack. Probably thought you would run. Your kind do not run. They left with bloodied feathers.

"I am."

He shuffles over in the darkness, careful not to come too close lest he knock you over.

"Unhurt?"

How would you be hurt? Nothing has happened except the darkness, Your father is weird. He was raised by humans for most of his life. Knows some cool tricks. But he comes from a different tribe. A different species, even. He's too soft. Everyone knows it. He wasn't even allowed to challenge The Whaleslayer.

The other rufflet wouldn't train with you for two moons after that. It took your mother's intervention to change their minds. You hated that. Relying on someone else, even her. You should have been able to win them over with your own strength.

"We'll get through this," he promises. Even though he doesn't know what this is or how long it will last. Is he claiming to be strong enough to fight the darkness itself?

You ignore his words and hop over to your mother and sister.

The hunting has not been good. Were it not for the dark ones you all would have starved long ago. Whaleslayer was injured early on when a strange insect appeared. It was bigger than him, bigger than any of you, and strong enough to break a wing in one hit. None of the light ones or the dark ones remembered a creature like it. Even its flesh was wrong, filled with juices that did not feel like blood in your throat and meat that tore too easily in one direction and not at all in another.

Thankfully the dark ones can see corpses and predators with their beaks, even in the dark. But the adults are eating less and less. The children are fed. Whaleslayer eats his share. Some days there isn't enough for the lower ranked adults to get anything. Like your father. Every day he tries to tell you that things will get better, that you can rest with him when you're tired, that he can tell you a story to pass the time. He can barely even move anymore. He's barely spoken at all the last two days. Good. You don't need another reminder of what a failure he is.

Your parents are waiting for you when you return from the dark ones' care.

"Vengeance," your mother opens. She sounds gentle. That's almost never good. That means you did something so wrong that she's worried about telling you bluntly. "Your father and I have agreed. There is not enough food here. We do not know when there will be again."

You already know this. You do not know why they bothered to say it.

"We've learned that the humans have food. Even light. There's even one with a young bird traveling nearby. You would be safer there than here."

You puff up your feathers in shock and anger. There is enough food for the children. You eat first. You are not starving. They are doing this just because they want to eat without hunting for their prey. "Why would I want to end up like him?" you growl. "Can't hunt. Can't make a challenge. What are the humans good for?"

Your mother shrieks and you feel her advance, wings spread. You match her.

"Let him fight!" you shriek. "Make him fight his own battles! Like a real adult!"

"None of us can hunt! You insult his hunting, you insult mine! Fight me or take back your insult!"

By now the others are taking notice. You can hear their talons clicking against the hard ground as they approach. You don't want to take it back. You don't want to fight your mother. You don't want to go to the humans. What you don't want doesn't matter. But you can at least put your rage towards something.

Your beak connects with her ribs.

They lied. There is no human with a baby bird. She has a baby something, but it talks and moves and feels all wrong. She won't take you. Some powerful bird in the sun or maybe her tribe's leader told her not to. She isn't being clear.

She won't let you fight either of them. Barely acknowledges your offer.

Instead you end up with a male human. He fights you. You both leave bloodied. Good. You wouldn't want a weak trainer who was too afraid to fight or too weak to bloody your feathers. One like your father's human. He has another bird. A long-beak. Not quite a fire-beak. She seems tired. Like your father. She pecks you hard on the base of your neck when you challenge her. When she finally speaks, she tells you to go away.

The baby who is not a bird is coated in feathers. She fights you like a light one. Even when there is nothing to settle she will still gladly fight. When you are both tired she will sleep next to you. Like a sibling. A better, stronger sibling than Flowerpecker ever was. The female human calls her Coco. You will accept her, even if her words sound like the roars of a dragon instead of the cries of a bird.

There are two human females in the group and one male. The male is your trainer. Coco's human will sometimes speak to you or sleep nearby. She will not be your trainer. She refuses over and over again. Refuses to fight you herself. The second human barely deals with you. She is always nearby. Sometimes she will have one of your pokémon fight you. That is all you do with her.

You learn that your human is like a light one. He cares about you and the other bird only for your power. He wants to teach you how to fight better. How to win against stronger and stronger enemies. He makes sure you and the other bird are fed. He does not ask you about your feelings and you do not ask him about his. Like your mother did with you. Like a proper light one should treat their child.

Coco's human is like a dark one. She lets her pokémon decide when to fight. Sometimes she will help her pokémon learn a plan or work on a move. They are mostly left to learn on their own. She cares far more about their lives than their strength. It feels like she talks to her cold mammal every day about one problem or another. She is always teaching Coco lessons about how to be a dragon or stroking her feathers. Both the mammal and Coco walk beside their human during every day and sleep against her every night. Your human leaves you in your ball more often than not.

Coco's human even likes her floating rock. You do not understand her floating rock. You never come to understand her floating rock. You are not sure if Coco or even Coco's human understand the floating rock. It is there. It is always watching. It rarely eats. It never sleeps. Its skin is so hard your beak cannot scratch it. You do not want to understand the floating rock. You are not supposed to. Someday you will learn how to defeat it and you will never think about it again.

Skysong's mammal misbehaves and isn't punished. The other bird and your human's later pokémon change and grow and receive training almost every day. Hers stay the same. Stay weak. She wins her fights through trickery if she wins at all. One of her pokémon got hurt so badly they almost died. You told her she was weak. She tried to kick you but missed because she's blind and weak. But you respect her for trying.

Coco only gets stronger because she always trains with you. She is your rival. Your friend. The only pokémon that you trust on any of the human's teams. And, when you learn enough of her language and she of yours, the only pokémon you will talk to about things other than fighting. You don't need to. You try not to. It is still good to have someone you can talk to.

Coco wants to talk to you as soon as you can listen. Even before you can really listen. She has a human to tell everything that crosses her mind and she still feels the need to tell you, too.

"That's wrong."

"It's true!"

"No." You refuse to believe that humans, who can't even fly at all, managed to fly to the moon.

"Mother said so!"

You hiss. She's. So. Frustrating! "Your real mother or the human."

She looks at you and bares her teeth. A challenge. You're still tired from training earlier. You will have to ignore this.

"They are both my real mothers."

"You look nothing like her. She is just your human. She brings you where she wants to and makes you do what she wants to. Keeps you from your real mother."

Thunder flies between her teeth. She rarely does that. Not with you. Not when you refused her challenge. "I don't want to go to my egg mother. Even she says I should stay here."

You feel angry. Upset. Sad. You do not know why. You will not talk to Coco about this anymore.

Later, you realize why. Coco thinks she has two mothers and a father she could go to. You do not have any.

It should not bother you. Coco thinks that many things are unfair. That she deserves things and so do other people. How human. You have always known that the only things life will give you are the ones you seize from it with your beak and talons. You are not owed parents. You don't want a human to coddle you like a dark one. You don't want to end up pathetic and helpless like your father. Thinking otherwise means you're weak, means you inherited too much from your father and not enough from your mother. You don't want to be weak.

What you don't want has never mattered.

You find the floating rock and stab it over and over again until you can't work up the energy to move. Coco's human comes soon after to ask you if anything's wrong and take you to her nest. Your human comes by a long time later to ask if you're okay. You tell him that you are. He accepts your answer and takes you to train even more. Just like he should. Just like you want.

You might have misjudged Coco's human.

She got a fourth pokémon: a cowardly bug. He would run the second you approached. Did not accept any challenges. Refused to fight for his human. A waste. You were curious when Coco's human started taking the bug to fight other, even weaker bugs. You scoffed as he ran time and time again. Until he stopped running. One day he even fought back. These were not impressive wins. Not worth being named for. But his human treated them like massive victories and showered him with praise anyway. The kind of praise you got after scaring away the seabirds. The kind of praise your human has never given you or any of his pokémon.

One day there was a powerful beast of stone. Coco and her human used every trick they knew and some they made up on the spot. It was not enough. Only the bug remained. And he stood. And he grew. And he fought. And he won. The kind of victory that he could be named for. The Stone Slayer. The Last One Standing. Coco relayed the names. The bug didn't like them. He still deserves a name. You can call him Leo. The floating rock can be The Unbreakable. She was confused by the name, insisted that she could be broken, but did not object to you calling her that.

Your team won against The Queen of Stone. You did not. Your human did not allow you to fight. Did not even allow you to challenge him or the other pokémon for your right. A bug had his chance to prove himself. You were not given one.

What really changed your opinion on Coco's human were two battles. Both with stakes of life and death. You did not witness either but you heard the stories. First, she ran to save an ally. She fought mind changers inside of a mind and won. You know about mind changers. Your father's father was one. She should have lost. She did not. Her scars weren't visible, but they were there. She should be proud of herself. Her new mate was proud of her.

Then she did the same thing for the mammal that had left her. She fought the strongest pokémon of one of the islands' strongest trainers herself. No pokémon. She did not win on her own. That required The Queen of The Northern Island. But she fought. And sometimes the fight is the point, not the victory. You did not win against your mother. The world did not give you what you wanted afterwards. But you fought. You showed the world that your wants mattered to you, even if it would never care. And you tried.

She faced down the impossible and told the world what she wanted. And she got it. Twice.

For the first time you understand why Coco is so loyal to her human. She has not accepted any titles for herself. Just laughed you off when you asked. Told you to call her whatever you wanted. (Coco would later tell you the mammal's name for her, Skysong, which is close enough to a good name.)

She still won't take you. Her gods and the distant king forbid her. She still will not let you fight either of them.

Then she lies to you. Tells you that your human likes you. That he cares about you and doesn't want you to leave. You believe that he doesn't want you to fly away and take your strength with you. You do not believe that he has ever cared about you like a dark one, or even like your parents. Sometimes he preens your feathers. It feels lifeless. Like he isn't sure what he's doing or why he's doing it. Then Coco and Cuicatl will be right there beside you. Coco will lean into the touch and squirm and talk to her human as Cuicatl tells her stories or answers questions or tells her that she loves the baby dragon, even if she already knows that. Like a dark one would. Or a mother.

She still doesn't help her pokémon grow stronger as much as your human does. Still can't even care for herself with her blindness. Still acts with gentleness. Like a human. Like your father. Like a weakling that would starve in the dark. You still have the better human.

…right?

You don't think that you've ever felt alone before.

With the company you always had your parents and Flowerpecker and the dark ones and all the other birds. For the first time since you've left you wonder where Flowerpecker is. If your parents gave him away, too. What kind of trainer he ended up with. If you'll ever meet him again. What he's like now.

You don't miss your parents, though. They gave you away. They failed. Your father especially. You don't mind that he was gentle anymore. Just that he was gentle and weak. Then he at least would have been a braviary and not a human in a bird's shape. Then you wouldn't have had to leave. All of this is his fault.

Coco is not a bird, whatever your parents said. Just a weird dragon. But she thought you were a sibling. Whenever you needed to talk to someone or train or just sit near someone who liked you, she was always there. Even when she couldn't understand your words she understood you. Fine. She's not a bird. But she has feathers and the thrill of the hunt in her blood. Close enough.

Now? Your human has never wanted to talk to you. He barely even wants to train. His other bird ignores you. Just sits by the window and looks out at the sun. Sometimes she lets you sit next to her. One day she preened you with the tip of her massive bill. It was sudden. Unexpected. You locked up in shock.

"Your kind live with lots of birds," she says. It's not a question. It's not not a question. She's weird like that. "I'm sorry."

"You haven't done anything. Why are you sorry?"

"Harder for you."

She doesn't talk to you again. When you challenge her she pecks you off the ledge.

His large mammal, the one that is and isn't female but isn't quite like a dark one, he likes to fight. To train. But he thinks you're too weak to train with. He either ignores your challenges or kicks you away. You're worried he might actually break your wing. You stop trying to get his attention.

He has three other pokémon. The ghost and the rock sometimes watch you without saying a word. Sometimes you allow it. Sometimes you challenge them. The rock lets you peck it without ever fighting back. The ghost slowly floats away.

His bug sits beneath his bed and never, ever moves. You're pretty sure he died.

One of the other humans has two birds. One ignores you until you try to peck his eyes. Then you find out that his feathers are sharp. You stop playing with him. He isn't interested in helping you get stronger. The other bird is clever but not strong. He does not want to be strong. He wants to pluck your feathers and steal your food and run away when you try to attack. When you try to talk to him he laughs like a human.

You're alone.

Your human did this and you couldn't stop him. He wouldn't let you challenge him, either. That's fine. It's what happens. Nothing is fair or unfair. The world doesn't care about you don't want. He wanted something, he made it happen, you couldn't stop it. That's normal. The hunter doesn't care what their prey wants.

Life only gives you what you can seize from it.

It doesn't care what you want.

He doesn't care what you want.

But you can always fight. Always let the world know what you wanted. Even if it doesn't matter.

You decide that you like Armoranth within a few breaths. All you need to see is your human being bossed around like one of his own pokémon. You're still wary of her: your parents taught you to never go into the flowers and, if the flowers came to you, to leave as soon as possible. Territory could be reclaimed or found. Honor could be redeemed. Whatever the fairies take, it is easier to earn it back than to fight them and lose more than you could imagine.

"So," Armoranth purrs like a mammal. "What are you going to ask him?"

Your human looks at you. "Do you want to go back to Cuicatl?"

Obviously. But she wouldn't take you. The human doesn't understand your silence. "It's fine if you do. I'll take you when I can."

"Would she take me?" You would like to go back to Coco. But she still has her leader and her gods.

"I… uh, well, you could always go with Lyra or Genesis if she doesn't."

Genesis has no desire to fight and rarely listens to her pokémon. Lyra. Maybe it would work. You would not be happy, but you would be close to Coco. You wouldn't be alone.

"Oh, I think I can persuade Cuicatl if it comes down to it. Or my aunt can."

Do you want Skysong to be threatened? Cursed, again? Whatever the fairy would do? Why should you care what she wants? If she was strong enough she would fight and win. But that's not how fairies work. And she's already proven that she will fight things like them.

"I want to talk to her." And then, maybe, Armoranth can threaten Skysong enough that she finally lets you fight her god or leader. Or at least challenge them. Show her that you will fight for the right to be beside Coco. That you are not a useless northerner. That even when death comes for you, she will find your beak open and your talons raised. It won't matter. You will still die. But the gods themselves will know that you wanted to live. How can you earn the right to your life if you are not willing to tear it away from death?

"Cool, cool. I can't take you there immediately. Don't know where she is. But I will as soon as I can. Promise."

You did not expect him to put in any more work than he had to. You work for him, not the other way around. That's how it has always been. You're just surprised he isn't punishing you for fighting him. Not like you would care. You'd just fight him again. As many times as it took.

"What do you, uh, want to be called?" he asks.

It takes you a moment to decide. He named you after a weapon. You like that. He meant that you were his weapon, an object to be used. You liked that less. You have been part of great victories as Ihe. But you were always just a piece of the team. Your biggest role was boosting the winds. Is that better than fighting off the seabirds? No. It is not.

"Vengeance."

"Edgy. I like it."

Good. You do not care if he liked it or not, but now your greatest fight is being honored. Even if he does not know about it. You will have to tell him, later.

The human looks upset. Did he expect you to stay? Why? You didn't want to join him in the first place. Still. Maybe you should talk? Not to lie. You don't care about his feelings. Just to tell him truths he can think about.

"You helped me get stronger."

"Didn't really care about you as a, uh, a person." He says it like he can't believe it. That you could even have wants.

"Most humans don't."

"Cuicatl does."

She sees Coco that way. And her mammal. And her bug. And even her rock. But not you. She's a dragon at heart. The dragons on the cliffs ignored everyone around them until they decide they're a friend or prey. You were neither to her. Maybe, if you just fight hard enough, you can change that.

"Cuicatl's better than me," he says.

You aren't sure. She wouldn't have made you as strong. And you're worried that if you go to her you'll be useless like your father.

But you won't be alone.

You don't want to be alone. Even more than you want to be strong.

Maybe, this time, you'll be able to fight hard enough to get what you want.