Hognose Fairy

“Loali! Look who’s gonna bloom soon!” Just as usual, the moment Biarn left me at the door to the workshop and went about his own duties I called out for Loali, but this time my voice was at least a few octaves higher than usual. Hardly a moment passed before Loali’s dark obsidian eyes were fixed excitedly on the pot in my arms and her hands were tenderly examining the dozens of tiny, elongated, white and yellow-green pulsing buds emerging from each of dozens of bulbs themselves diverging from nearly a dozen separate branches.

“Really? They’re so pretty now, but I can hardly imagine the flowers, let alone- ah, I can’t wait!”

As I finally moved further into the room, picking a place on my own workstation to set them down, I could feel that the plant was as excited as we were.

“I think I made it here just in time.”

“The bulbs weren’t glittering like that yesterday.” Loali noted, a pleased hum carrying her into her next sentence, “One after another, you’re introducing me to more and more wonderful things. I never thought I’d get to see something like this.”

“I could say the same.” I replied, pushing past a bit of embarrassment at her statement.

“Well I n-” Loali’s voice self-stifled when both of us noticed motion in what we’d both realized was the largest bud of the bunch. Each of us were holding our breath.

The bud had begun to more rapidly pulse with light as it began folding open, followed closely by the tinier buds popping around it. From the bud’s center a slithering shape the thickness of my thumb and many times that length, with their own petally skin and yellow-green glowing ridges following their long body, took their place among the soil of the pot. For all intents and purposes, they were a snake that could perfectly blend in among the very petals and leaves they were born from.

This was a plant-borne monster.

“Danny, they’re really...” Loali’s whispered voice led me to nod, each of us still fixed on the little creature.

After taking a moment to peer at their surroundings, the pinprick green eyes of the unusual hognose snake-like petal landed on me, and slowly but without hesitation they began to slither my way. I naturally returned the gesture by outstretching my hand, and soon lifted them to eye level with myself and Loali.

“Hi there,” I said, offering with a finger to pet along their head, and when they accepted the offer readily I could feel myself melting. The little sigh I heard from Loali to my left told me she likely felt the same.

“Hi.” I could hear a frail and small voice, which I understood to be transmitted to me telepathically.

Some monsters could speak, but plant-monsters were never known to be capable of speaking. Some people had speculated they could speak among their own kind, as plant monsters had been known like some other monsters and people to coordinate and even develop family structures, but proof for such theories had been lacking.

Until this point, I’d only interacted with non-monster plants. Every living thing harbored some kind of magic, so having magic wasn’t itself an indicator of whether something was or was not a monster, and from what I’d learned the line wasn’t always clear. In the case of the plants I’d manipulated until this point, however, the fact that they seemed unable to use magic in any threatening way, that they were entirely stationary, and that their magic was somewhat limited were all points against them being considered monsters instead of regular plants. Given the fact that I’d learned that plant monsters could in fact communicate on a more sophisticated level than “plants,” the delineation between them had become a bit clearer in my mind.

This monster, one of many types of “little fairy monsters” known to be born from small plants, contrary to what anyone including me might have believed possible several months ago, was comfortably accepting affection in the palm of my hand. And they could speak with me, specifically.

“They said “hi.”” I relayed to Loali, who seemed to just barely stop herself from jumping in excitement, probably because she didn’t want to scare them.

“And they’re happy to be here?” I hardly had to think about the answer, considering the wonderful feelings the little fairy fed back to me.

“Very.”

“Then monsters really can be tamed?”

“I don’t think this is much like taming magic or those games I talked about,” I responded, aware that her next thought would probably move to replication of my success herself. “I wouldn’t say it’d be impossible for someone else to do it, but I think the fact that I can communicate with plants in the first place is important. I’m not really controlling them like the taming magic I talked about, it's more like they’re just agreeing to help me because they want to.”

“Maybe because of the Gloam Tree?” She questioned, preempting my own thoughts.

“Maybe. I mean, this could be another bit of evidence that I’m part plant monster now, or something like that, because the Gloam Tree did something to me when I came here.”

“I can’t exactly argue it,” I shared a bit of the conflict in her tone myself, aware of the fact that such a distinction wouldn’t be broadly positively received if it were made known, but there was nothing either of us could do about it either way. Considering the fact that my healing abilities, and my ability to communicate with and manipulate plants and now plant monsters, were mostly only a benefit to all of us, we couldn't exactly complain one way or the other either.

“That aside, what’re you gonna name this little baby?” Loali asked, continuing the conversation past the brief silence as she tried to take my place petting the completely laid-down fairy. When I removed my finger, the fairy looked between me and Loali’s finger for a moment before they accepted. “So adorable...”

“Why don’t you name them?”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Several days later Loali, Creyna, Biarn, Eir and I, Eir asleep and perfectly concealed in the hair on my head, were making regular rounds of the village completing our respective jobs; device use and maintenance, guarding, and, in Creyna’s case, learning more about guard and hunting details. Following her mother and Biarn, Creyna had long since decided she wanted to take on a combat role for the village.

“Eir’s going, and she’s just a few moons old.” For the second time since our rounds had started, Creyna started a campaign to try and convince us to take her with us when we, accompanied by Byza and several hunters, set out into the forest in a week to search for the Gloam Tree as well as several other rare plants and materials.

“She’s also a monster.”

“But you’re not, and you’re not even as strong as me.”

“But neither of us are as strong as the adult hunters, and I’m only going because I have to go with them. There’s no sense in them taking along more inexperienced people than they have to.”

“Then what about Loali? She’s-”

“Spent a lot of time learning Itelber’s role in identifying rare materials, a role he and my parents deemed me capable of fulfilling in a provisional capacity under strict orders to listen to everything the hunters tell me to do, like always.” Loali interjected.

“Ugh- you’re supposed to be on my side, you know that?” Creyna puffed, “You’re supposed to say that it’s unfair and that you’ll make sure they’ll let me go with you next time, at least.”

“The moment we get home I’ll argue with your mom about it, alright?” Biarn offered, to which Creyna seemingly immediately deflated.

“Please, uh... don’t.”

“What?! What’s that supposed to mean?!” He croaked, only somewhat incensed, but Creyna immediately responded with an all-to-serious answer.

“If you try to argue it’s a good idea they won’t let me out for the rest of my life.”

“...” Biarn appeared genuinely offended by the comment for a few moments, before he muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite pick up on. It seemed neither Loali nor Creyna had either.

“That’s gibberish, say it like you mean it.” Loali said.

“You’re all so mean,” he replied, “when’s the last time I did anything my dad yelled at me for, huh?”

“...” Despite each of us preparing something on the tips of our tongues, for a few moments we walked in a surprised silence and exchanged several glances.

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” I finally stated to break the silence, to which Loali and Creyna nodded along. Even though we were all agreeing that he had seemingly been less reckless lately, he immediately became distraught again.

“C’mon! Why’re you so surprised! I’ve grown up!” His voice began with a genuine plea, but I noticed partway through that he was definitely lightening up about it. “I’m a full-fledged hunter now, and the chieftess even complimented me when we went to Boundary City!"

“It’s good that you finally have.” Loali snipped back.

“Now that you've pointed it out, I do feel a little safer about the trip.” I added, to which Biarn just shook his head, his displeasure now clearly an act.

“My own brother and sister couldn’t even believe in me... my, how very, very mean they both are...”