but the fox in pain

In the early evening hours, tucked into a myriad of linens in the back room of the cottage, Kaede awoke to the sound of scampering on the windowsill.

His entire body was assaulted by the deepest pain he could experience, more than it was physical. He had to bear great shame when he came to realise each morning what he had become, more monstrous than the days prior, more agonisingly painful than the greatest sinner’s hell.

The inside of his throat stung as if it had been filled with fiery ash, his eyes were caked with the remnants of its water and he was cold as ice could grow.

This… this was like death clinging to him from all sides, like an octopus was enveloping him, like he was being eaten by sludge, or maybe even a sea of acid and intense nostalgia.

Whatever that feeling was, it was hell.

He reached over to a nightstand beside the bed and grasped at a small clay jug. It had been filled to the brim with a medicinal philter that would offer him temporary relief throughout the day. 

Still, it was never dulled completely, and it was forever constant...

How long had he existed like this? His entire life, he felt. That was all he seemed to remember, was this vivid pain.

There were whistlemary boughs hung against the window frame, so that the wind would blow the calming scent into the room with each gust. She had strung ivory lace between each one, the Healer had been attentive in her care beyond most anyone’s capacity.

It was… astonishing, but he didn’t have a mind to speak, much less thank her.

It was agonising just to exist, just to breathe. Each inhale like slicing into his back, each exhale like pressing together the slit folds in the flesh.

Why had he been reborn?

He turned himself over with great effort, his ears buzzing with the sound of chirping not just a bit above him. Turning his eyes along with him, he caught sight of a small bug on the windowsill, jumping up and down frantically.

“Wha…” he started to speak, suddenly caught up by the pain into his throat. A coughing fit… it always followed.

As he struggled to regain himself, the bug fell from the windowsill, landing on the bed before walking up to him.

“You are… the Hero, yes?”

“Wha- wha? Everyone- everyone calls me… the Hero… yes.”

“Good, good! I found the right place…”

He took two steps forward, bowing as soon as he had ascertained Kaede’s attention.

“I am Puck, a fairy from the Endless Dream! I’ve come to greet you, to converse with you, to offer you a gift. Would you accept this, dear Hero?”

Kaede eyed the minuscule creature, narrowing his eyelids to try and perceive it through the haze.

"Why are you… so small?"

Puck scowled. "I'll have you know that I'm a perfectly normal size! We just have to... adapt to smaller means when we visit."

"Why…?"

Puck's face suddenly turned quite mischievous. "Well, it's simple. If you looked at my other form with your own eyes, you would die instantly."

"Because you're… so ugly? Is this like… cat-fishing? Are you messing with me?"

This corpse was quite infuriating. Puck seemed to vibrate like a cicada in the summer.

“Well, let’s talk business kid! You’re too crazy for normal conversation!” He chuckled, twirling about. “They can’t find out what ails you, can they?”

“My hair is paling…” Kaede had grabbed a bedside mirror from his nightstand, cowering at the thought of his hair’s colour fading. It had been a stark-black, once. Now, it was verging on the darkest of browns…

…and it definitely wasn’t just the light. He was sure of it.

Throughout all of his studies, he had never encountered such an illness as the one he had been struck with. Neither did the greatest Healer of their Kingdom, at least so proclaimed, could find out what was wrong with him either…

“Hey, hey! Are you listening!?”

He glanced tentatively back down towards Puck, grimacing.

“Ah… I forgot you were here. Existed, really…”

The sickness hadn’t yet taken Kaede’s abrasive tongue.

So what should he do? If it wasn’t related to magic, at least not as a Sorcerer could see it, and it wasn’t feasibly medical, what was trying to claim his life?

“I can help find the cure for your ailment, dear Hero.”

Kaede’s head suddenly perked up.

“Finally paying attention?” The fairy cooed.

“Can you really cure me?” Kaede spoke in a low, gravelly tone.

The words of his sentence trailed off like the way that the edge of fog would curl and wisp away, they were laced with the frost of winter.

“Of course I can, otherwise why would I bother coming all this way to visit you?”

“Don’t- don’t speak to me like its a fucking fairytale. I’m not a child being read a storybook. Just talk to me. What do you want, what can you do from me, and when can you leave?”

Puck shrugged as if he had no clue what Kaede was yammering about, spinning around once more before smiling coyly.

"Do you have the will to walk through hell? If I gave you the opportunity to travel over a field of flames barefoot with your salvation at the end, could you manage it?”

"I can do anything, don’t try and offend me with stupid hypotheticals. I simply can’t be ragebaited.”

“I don’t even know what that means…” Puck seemed ultimately defeated.

Weren’t humans supposed to marvel at the sight of fairies?

Why had this human turned out to be such an asshole?

“Anyways, what do you want to do? Do you want my help or not?”

“Why do you want to help me?”

The fairy remained silent, looking adamantly up towards Kaede, reaching out his tiny hand.

Kaede leaned back against the bed rest, putting a hand to his sweat-beaded forehead. His head ached something awful…

Still, it was a considerable offer, even if he didn’t know all the points of it…

This mysterious fairy could be hiding something serious, some grand plot he couldn’t consider…

His eyes moved towards the windowsill, past the wavering curtains where the world outside the cottage sat, waiting.

How cruel was the idea that he had been sent to a wondrous, magical world, and hadn’t been able to step one foot outside his bedroom? It had only been a month, but he felt as if he was in a true hell.

What did it matter what the outcome was?

What was there left but this one chance?

“Alright.”

Kaede reached out with his hand of flaking flesh and touched Puck’s hand with his fingertip.

He felt… cold, like the depths of the dark had swallowed Kaede.

Then, the world was swept up around him. It was as simple put as that.

The shades of light that flew from the wall-mounted lanterns, the colours of sun that burst through the loosely-shut curtains, even his pallid, pale sky coalesced into one, swirling point in the center of the air. Of course, this left the vast void of nothingness around him absent of… well, everything.

It was simply there.

He wasn’t quite there either. He felt that he had been lost in the swirling point of everything that ever was.

“You alright, lad?” He heard a voice call out to him from his left.

Turning his head he wasn’t still sure he even had, he saw the vague outline of a million overlapping scraggles, wriggling black lines which seemed to resemble… a person.

“Ah, your vision is still fucked. Let me fix that for you.”

The figure raised his poorly-scribbled hand backwards, delivering a harsh slap to Kaede’s face. It felt like his skull rattled like thunder as colours seeped back into the space around him.

It was like… the fantasia of a wickedly young mind. Beautiful sprawls of swirling, vivid shades and titanically-scaled landscaped stretched out on all sides around him. The two were centered in a rough-sloped crater of foliage and trees, minuscule trickles of winter-cold water rushing past their boots.

Paths of vines and leaves traveled up in spirals towards the base of a great canopy, one could easily walk up them if they had a slight nature of balance.

But more than his surroundings, there was one thing that stuck out to Kaede most of all about his particular situation.

The agony that plagued his body was completely gone.

This was the first time he had felt normal in weeks…

“What’s wrong? Are you still in a stupor?”

Kaede’s eyes shot over towards the young man standing beside him. His features were pleasant in that he couldn’t seem to take his gaze back away. It was like it had been stolen by force, cursed to be aware of the contours of his jaw, the seeming softness of his skin…

It was Puck! The fairy wasn’t short anymore. In fact, he was taller than Kaede!

“Y-you-!”

“Ah- I think I do need to hit you again!” The fairy grinned, tilting his head as he scoffed. His short, soft white hair fell towards his cheeks, contrasting the deep, endless darkness of his eyes.

He snapped his fingers, summoning his hat before placing it fit around his head. It was as if he had lost it somehow in the midst of madness.

“Welcome to the land of fairies, the Endless Dream.” Puck said, bowing slightly as he gestured out towards the expansive, illusory landscape. “How do you feel right now?”

“Feel- eh, how should I feel when confronted with something like this?”

“Usually, mystical dreams are when a human like you is able to conjure their first abilities, where they find that Sorcery is born. I would have assumed that any human— you are the first by the way— visiting the dream would instantly develop a magical ability. They’re usually based on the theme of the dream they have… hmm…” Puck paused for a moment, stepping several paces in a circular manner as he pondered. “What does the landscape around us remind you of? The first thing that comes to your mind, what is it?”

“Besides wanting you to be quiet…” Kaede cursed, glancing around him at the mystical beyond they had appeared in. The first thing that came to his mind? What kind of nonsense was that? It was like he was in his literature studies class again…

Suddenly, something distinct popped into his mind.

If it was like literature, didn’t the landscape need to feature a protagonist?

“A suit… of armour. Fearsome, menacing black armour.”

Chirping in the distance grew silent, the wind was devoid of its rustle on leaves. While he could sense that Puck was still speaking to him, not a single sound left the fairy’s lips.

When he glanced down at himself, he noticed that his pale skin had seeped a step further into translucence, missing completely. All that made him up was an infernal, maddening array of words, symbols, and mantras. They flowed over the shape of him like an illusory, liquid coat, spilling their meanings out into the world.

He was instantly infatuated with their ideas, but the aura of information and fantasy quickly blurred when confronted with a burning, red-hot sentence in the depth of his forearm. It seared itself into the image of his mind, becoming distinctly revealed to him.

“Shroud of the Onyx-Eyed Empress.”

Like when the world had spoken to him the moment he had arrived in the magical kingdom, the same honeyed voice whispered out towards him.

And his eyes widened with the horror of realisation, dread creeping up his opaque skin.

Because he knew this title.

It was of Earth.