A Fae's Paradise

[Anonymous]

Kapel’s wings fluttered slightly as a breeze passed through the valley. Spring was almost upon Sevenwinds bringing with it a busy time on the farm. For now though things were quiet. It was usually quiet there. The Kashmies wandered about the field grazing, their long hair brushing the grass.

     Kapel, unlike many of the other residents of Sevenwinds had not been born there. The fact he had pink hair and butterfly like wings made it apparent. No, he had been taken in by a kindly old couple who sadly had died leaving the farm in his care. A lot of people would find such an existence boring but Kapel liked the peace.

     He stretched his wings and leant back slightly, gazing up at the sky.

     “Looks like rain,” he muttered.

     He jumped down from the fence and began walking down the hill to the house. Nothing around him was artificial, the grass, the trees, the animals and even dry-stone walls, everything was made from natural resources; a far cry from the pristine and sterile, white and silver environment of TRIM.

[OOC Short but Sevenwinds looked so bare and empty. So I broke in another virgin board just like I did when Remnants first started!
Muahahahahahahahaha hahaha!
Muahahahahahahahaha hahaha!]

[Anonymous]

((Yeah, keep muahahaha-ing))

Not too far away from the farm was a small shop called "Cloudburst Tea Shop and Cafe". It was a humble shop with a small cottage connected to one side. On the inside of the door, a sign that said "OPEN" was switched to "OUT FOR LUNCH. BE BACK IN 2 HOURS." The door then clicked open and out stepped the shop's owner, Aine.

Remembering to securely lock the door, Aine stepped onto the worn path and began walking, taking in the spring air.

Aine was not of Sevenwinds, that much could be told by her appearance; blue skin, light blue markings, white hair, long ears, and her relative shortness made that clear. But since she was a child with no parents, she worked hard to become a trusting member of this village, which eventually paid off. Many years passed, and she opened a tea shop about a month ago. Business had been slow, but it was rewarding at the same time.

Yet even though the flow of customers was comforting to her, she yearned for something more...true companionship, true love. Yes, she was around that age when she wanted to find love, and that was the true reason why she posted the sign on her door.

Aine, wanting a little comfort in her walk even if it was only temporary, willed the clouds to cover the sun and allow a light drizzle of rain to pour upon the earth. She liked the sound of rain as it hit the earth. She liked the scent after the rain has fallen. She liked the feeling of it against her light blue skin.

She continued walking until she found herself in front of some farmland. There, she came across a man walking by her. But then she stopped. Did he...have butterfly wings? And pink hair?

Aine's heart raced. She wanted to learn more about him, wanted to talk to him! But she was so caught up staring that she didn't watch the ground below her, for her bare foot caught on a little bump in the path and she fell face first into the ground right next to him. "Oof! Ow...," she moaned. Well, at least it hadn't gotten muddy yet.

[Anonymous]

[OOC Sorry it's short my muse has locked herself in the attic again o.O]

Kapel was broken from his musings when a girl fell at his feet, that didn’t happen very often, not that he was complaining. In fact he was surprised he hadn’t noticed her before, she had blue skin! Then again he was pretty strange looking, he did have butterfly wings.

     “Are you alright?” he asked reached out his hand to help the girl up.

     Despite her relative strangeness she was actually quite cute and even if she hadn’t been, it was good manners to help someone out. At least that was the common consensus in Sevenwinds.

     “Haven’t seen you around before.”

[Anonymous]

Aine tilted her head sideways to see the strange man offering to help her up. She gratefully accepted the man's hand and was helped to her feet. She knew it was always rude to stare, but she never thought it would have consequences like this.

"I-I'm alright. Thank you so much," she said. She then got a better look at this strange man, who was much taller than she was, which wasn't surprising. Yep, he had butterfly wings, alright. He seemed handsome despite that strangeness. Could he be some subrace of faerie?

"I'm not surprised," she added. "I own a shop and cafe about a forty-five minute walk away from here. My name's Aine." She then paused and cocked her head to one side in a cute sort of way. "Are you a faerie by any chance?"

[Anonymous]

Kapel fluttered his wings slightly, “Sort of, I’m a Fae or so I was told.”

     That’s what he was listed as in TRIM anyway but he could understand why she’d think he was a fairy. When he first came to Sevenwinds it had annoyed him to be called a fairy because he associated them with girls. His colouration, pink eyes, pink and green wings didn’t help either. He soon learned that whatever he did people were going to think he was merely an overgrown fairy. Who happened to have a dragon as a friend.

     “You own a café huh? Maybe I’ll have to visit it sometime,” he said cheerfully.

[Anonymous]

Aine nodded at her confirmation. She herself was a faerie...or, at least, half-faerie. The other half of her was human, which would explain why she was larger than the other faeries, but much shorter than humans would be. It would also explain the blue skin.

Still, it brought her a lot more comfort to know that someone else related to the fae was living amongst the villagers of Sevenwinds that she wasn't the only one. She willed the rain to stop and the clouds to part, allowing the sun to shine once more.

"Yes, you should visit sometime," she relied with a smile. "Business has been rather slow for me in the past month since I opened, so I'm kind of hoping for more customers." She then looked out at the vast expanse of farmland, which was pretty gosh darned huge. "Do you work out here all by yourself?" she asked. She assumed he was the owner of the land, which seemed rather odd to her.

[Anonymous]

Kapel laughed, “Not exactly, my sister helps too…Well I say sister but we’re not really related by blood.”

     A Fae and dragon were about as different a pair of siblings you were ever going to get. Kapel actually found it strange that in such a small area there were at least three non-humans. Even though she worked a 45 minute walk away he still found it strange that neither he nor Lessea had seen her before.

     He glanced where the was looking and saw a strange shape in the sky. A shape that was flying toward them, obviously a dragon aka his ‘sister’.

     “Oh, that’s my sister now. Her name’s Lessea.”

[Anonymous]

Oh, so he had a sister. Aine gave a sweet smile. Well, family was family, regardless of blood. She sort of wished that she had brothers or sisters. But no, she had to be the result of an experiment at that godforsaken place, Thanatos, Inc. She hated it a lot.

She suddenly snapped out of her thoughts when the strange man signaled that his sister was coming. Aine looked in the direction of where he was looking, and green eyes widened at what she saw.

A dragon?

Surely her eyes were deceiving her. She blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. But the dragon was still there, flying towards them. She had heard of dragons in tales, but she had never thought she'd meet one in person!

"Your sister's a dragon?" she said in awe.

[Anonymous]

Kapel laughed at her reaction, “Well yeah, but like I said she obviously isn’t my sister by blood. We were both raised by the couple who owned the farm.”

     Lessea had been born from an egg they found and Kapel had basically fallen into their field a few years later. From the stories he had heard about Lessea when she was only a few years old it sounded like raising a dragon was a lot of work.

     The dragon came nearer then gracefully landed on the path next them. She wasn’t a very large dragon, partly because she wasn’t fully grown yet. She had bright pink scales and green eyes could probably have passed as Kapel’s actual sister if it weren’t for the species gap.    

     “Good morning,” Lessea said, well not really said, dragons used their minds to speak instead of their mouths.

     “This is Lessea,” Kapel said still amused at Aine’s reaction.

     He couldn’t blame her though few people had seen dragons before and they were quite beautiful.

     ”Pleased to meet you Aine,” Lessea said.

     Oh yeah he’d better warn Aine about the mind-reading. Most people knew about that already though. Oh well if she didn’t know she’d soon find out.

[Anonymous]

Aine still couldn't get over the fact that this strange man's sister was a dragon. And the dragon was pink, too! She still had that dumbstruck look on her face even as the dragon landed right next to them.

Strange...she'd imagined dragons to be a lot bigger. Maybe this one was one of the younger ones? Well, regardless, this one still towered over her by about two or three feet. Sometimes it annoyed her that she was so short.

”Pleased to meet you Aine,” she heard someone say. She jumped. Neither the dragon--Lessea, the man called her--nor the strange man seemed to have moved their mouths. She assumed that it was Lessea. But how did she know her name?

Unless she read her mind.

Okay, this was really getting shocking. "L-likewise, I think," she replied to Lessea, still baffled.

[Anonymous]

”I’m not fully grown yet, that’s why I’m not as big as you’d expect,” Lessea said, ”And I am reading your mind, sorry, Kapel should have warned you.”

     Kapel laughed nervously, “Well I thought most people knew.”

     ”And being short can be an advantage,” the dragon said cheerfully, ”At times being big can be annoying.”

     “Lessea’s right, being small isn’t a bad thing. I like small girls.”

     Then Kapel realised what he had just said…Oops…Oh well even if it did sound like he was hitting on her, was that really a problem? She was cute.

     ”Kapel think’s your cute by the way.”

     He glared at Lessea and thought to her, “I am so going to kill you.”

     ”I’d like to see you try,” she replied to only him.

     Sometimes having a sister was very annoying; she liked to embarrass him in any way possible. Maybe he should mention the list of Lessea’s phobias to embarrass her. Considering she was a dragon some of them very odd, it was a wonder she wasn’t scared of heights. Then he remembered Lessea’s big teeth. Ah, no embarrassing the dragon then.

[Anonymous]

Aine blushed furiously when Lessea said that Kapel--that seemed to be the man's name--thought that she was cute. She didn't really know what to say to that. She'd never been called 'cute' before in her life. Some only saw her as a blue-skinned freak of nature. Maybe it was because of her sky-faerie half.

Also, although she had experienced it for the first time, Aine thought that this mind-reading business was a bit invasive. People should respect others' privacy, she thought. She found it rude to have someone probing another's thoughts. It just wasn't right, in her opinion.

She hoped Lessea heard that.

Then she looked up to the sun, and, determining the time, realized that she had to open the shop back up.

"Oh my! I have to go back and open the shop back up! See you later! I hope you'll drop by sometime!" she exclaimed. Then, just like that, she jumped into the air and flew off back the way she came, which was north-by-northeast.

Once she was sure she was far enough to have her thoughts to herself, she landed back on the ground, a good five-minute walk away from her shop/home, which was poised on top of a gently rolling hill. Kapel thought she was cute? She pondered that statement as she walked and came to a stunning realization; could he be the significant other that she was looking for?

Even so, she shouldn't get her hopes up just yet. If he really thought so, then he would probably come to her shop.

She walked up to the door and lifted up the "Welcome" mat to find the key just where she left it. She picked it up, unlocked the door, and went inside. She was instantly greeted by the familiar scent of exotic teas and herbs lingering in the shop. On either side of the square shop, there were racks holding hundreds of different kinds of teas, herbs, and spices in glass containers. There were about five simple tables with four chairs each dotting the middle of the room. Two rectangular windows stood on either side of the door she came through. On the far side was a counter with four kegs of water standing behind it to the left. To the right was where she took orders, and in the far right corner was a door that led to her cottage.

After switching the door's sign to "OPEN," Aine walked over to the counter and went behind it. Since the counter was almost as tall as she was, she had to sit on a very high stool to make her upper half visible to the customers. She then took her straw hat out from underneath the counter and set it atop her head of white hair. She then set her elbows on the counter and her head in her hands, waiting for the first customer to walk through the door.

[Anonymous]

Kapel sat on the near-by dry-stone wall his wings drooping slightly, “Aww…you scared her off…”

     ”No I didn’t she wasn’t lying about having to open her shop up. And besides you didn’t warn her that I read minds.”

     “I thought most people knew…”

     ”Clearly she didn’t,” Lessea sighed, [/i]”She thought I was rude…”[/i]

     “Reading people’s minds is rude.”

     ”I’m a dragon, reading minds is what we do…I just haven’t worked out how to turn it on and off yet…”

     Lessea was at a bit of a disadvantage being in Sevenwinds. There were no other dragons to teach her about her abilities so she was learning on instinct. Also if she were to be spotted flying around by people outside the borders, Aedolis would come after her and in doing so would discover Sevenwinds.

     This was her home and Kapel knew she didn’t want to leave just yet. Perhaps she would when she was much older, she was immortal after all but hopefully he would be long dead by then.

     Kapel hopped down from the wall, “Right, since you scared her off you can do me a favour.”

     Lessea sighed, ”Fine’s I’ll help you find her shop.”

     “You read my mind again!”

     ”I didn’t have to that time.”

     She ducked down to allow him to get on her back, which he did with the help of his wings hovering ability.

     ”Hold on.”

     Lessea flapped her wings a couple of times before rising into the air. She then headed of in the direction the girl had gone in.

     ”I’ll drop you off, then leave, you can walk back,” Lessea said, ”I wouldn’t want to scare her again.”

[Anonymous]

Since she got back, Aine had two other customers. They didn't cause her trouble with her strange appearance, and she didn't give them trouble back. They had engaged in pleasant conversation, and she felt a lot better doing so. They didn't seem to mind her appearance as a half-sky faerie.

Still, after they left, she wondered if that Kapel person would ever stop by. In fact, she hoped he'd stop by, and she had an inexplicable feeling that he would. She wanted to see if this was her significant other that she was looking for.

Thirsty, she swiped a clean cup from under the counter and poured herself some hot water. She then heard the door open and someone step in. Still occupied, and with her back to the door, she said in her usual cheery voice, "Welcome. How can I help you?"

[Anonymous]

Kapel stepped into the café, it was really nice and smelt of tea, which he guessed was to be expected. There was a whole wall full of different teas and spices as well. How had she even got some of these? They looked like they were from different planets. Kapel hadn’t been passed the border since he arrived and Lessea had never left Sevenwinds.

     He then noticed her sat behind the counter with her back to the door, obviously busy with something else. He contemplated making her jump but decided against it. She’d probably been spooked enough by Lessea for today.

     “Hello again.”

[Anonymous]

Aine had just finished pouring her cup of hot steaming water when she heard a familiar voice saying, "Hello again." She turned around and saw that Kapel had just entered the shop. She gave a sweet smile. "Oh, hello again," she said. "I had a feeling that you would come here." She stepped off the stool and walked around the counter.

"Have a seat," she said, setting her cup down on one of the tables and gesturing him to sit. She then walked to one of the corners of the shop, where a tall ladder rested. She picked it up and placed it against the wall where the teas were. Hmm...what was she in the mood for today?

Perhaps some mintberry tea today. She climbed the ladder all the way to the second shelf from the top. There, she reached for one of the glass containers, then scurried back down. She still stood by the ladder. "Can I get you anything?" she asked Kapel.

[Anonymous]

[OOC Sorry it's real short o.O I've been staring at this for the past few days thinking damn you! Be longer! And as I said I'm ill o.O so sorry that it really sucks o.O]

“Just a tea thanks,” he replied, then laughed and said, “I’m not fussed which one.”

     He wouldn’t know which one to pick anyway. He was still curious as to how she had so many exotic ones.

     He didn’t want to seem rude, but decided he’d ask anyway, “Where do you get all the different teas from? Some of them are native to other planets.”

     If she did go across the border for them, that might put Sevenwinds in danger. Though he doubted she would do that.

[Anonymous]

((It's okay. My muse has been locked in the attic, too. But now it is released! Muahahaha! Get well soon!:))

Aine wasn't exactly sure which one Kapel would like, but since he said that he didn't mind whatever one it was, she smiled and thought that he would like her own personal tea (which she had yet to find a name for), a blend of spearmint, vanilla, and seeds of a Lkarine berry, a sweet fruit that tastes like a fusion of mango and apple and has an aroma that is akin to a scent that only comes after the rain has fallen. This was kept under the counter, so Aine put the ladder away and went over to the counter. As she did, she answered Kapel's question:

"The villagers told me that one of the original founders of Sevenwinds was an expert on herbology. Along with Earth's herbs and spices, he traveled across the galaxy to study sentient alien herbs and their uses. He had experimented with all of them, and he found many new uses for these herbs, one of which was making exotic teas. He was well-renowned for these teas specifically.

"He was very old when he helped found Sevenwinds, so he decided to retire there, since he saw the evils of technology. He placed an ancient spell on his entire collection of hundreds of herbs and spices that would preserve them forever until they were used, and he then put those herbs in a large box and buried it in the very ground on which this shop stands. He then spent the rest of his life in peace."

Aine went under the counter to get her tea and a cup, then went to pour hot water into the cup. She then mixed the bag of tea into the water, letting it steep for awhile.

"I was very intrigued by this story, so I decided to look for that box," she continued. "I eventually did only a few months ago. Then, after trying every one of these teas for a month, I found it a good idea to open a shop and an actual home, since I spent most of my life in the woods."

She went to the table where Kapel was sitting and placed the hot cup of tea in front of him and sat down across from him. "Tell me what you think of this one. I made it myself."

[Anonymous]

[OOC *Bangs on attic door with broom* Get out of there you stupid muse!]

The story was quite interesting; he could understand what the guy was thinking. Sevenwinds was nice because there was no technology, no cameras watching your every move, no weapons, except maybe the odd scythe and pitchfork, and no vehicles to pollute the atmosphere.

     He took a sip from the tea and found it delicious, “It’s really good.”

     Her mention of looking for the box made Kapel wonder if he should explore Sevenwinds a bit more, you’d never know what you’d find.

     “Could you teach me how to make this?” he asked cheerfully.

[Anonymous]

Aine smiled. "I'm glad you like it."

Some of the other customers had found her teas as well as some of the old man's teas to be a little alien and...well, not suited to their palate. That was one of the many reasons why business was going slow for her in the past month.

"Maybe I can show you how later," she added. "I'd like to talk first...about earlier." She paused and took a sip of her tea, the taste of peppermint and acai berry rolling down her tongue. The only way to see if this was her significant other was to ask him straight out.

"You think I'm cute...don't you?" This wasn't said in a gloomy way, but she didn't make it sound too hopeful either. Still, she was inwardly hopeful.