A Fae's Paradise

[Anonymous]

At Aine’s question Kapel could feel his cheeks heating up.

     “Er…well…”

     He was going to find some way to get that dragon back. Lessea loved embarrassing him. Siblings seemed to naturally like to torment each other and being a dragon gave her an unfair advantage. Kapel suspected if Lessea ever did learn how to control her mind reading ability, she wouldn’t bother around him. She would continue to torment him. Still, he considered her family, even if she did drive him crazy sometimes.

     Forcing his mind back to his current predicament he said nervously, “Well…yes….I…I do.”

     Aine had struck him as kind of shy so why had she asked such a blunt question like that?

[Anonymous]

Aine nodded at her confirmation. He really did think she was cute! She had never been called "cute" before in her life, and he was the first to do so. This probably was the significant other she was looking for. A fae with strange looks like she had.

She stood from her seat and approached him. She then smiled in relief and gave him a hug. Tears began to form in her eyes.

"Oh, thank you, Kapel!" she exclaimed while still hugging him. "You have no idea how happy this makes me feel! You're the first...to have called me 'cute'. No one ever has before."

[Anonymous]

Kapel was shocked when Aine suddenly got up, smiled then hugged him. That was unexpected. Maybe she wasn’t so shy.

     "Oh, thank you, Kapel! You have no idea how happy this makes me feel! You're the first...to have called me 'cute'. No one ever has before."    

     “I don’t know why that would be,” Kapel replied.

     Well he did know, it was probably because she wasn’t human…and she was blue. But why should that make any difference? Then again, he looked pretty strange so that was why he wasn’t fazed by it.

     She had a cute personality as well, a little less reserved and shy and than he had first thought but still, she was very likeable.

[Anonymous]

Aine kept embracing him, tears flowing from her eyes.

"It's...it's just that," she said between sniffles, "I've lived most, if not all of my life, alone. Though most of the villagers accepted me for who and what I am, many of the others saw me as some blue-skinned freak of nature. I wanted desperately to make some friends, and that's also part of the reason why I opened this shop."

Aine released from Kapel, then set her tear-filled gaze upon him. "Surely you must understand what it's like? You and your sister have each other, but have you ever felt truly alone?"

[Anonymous]

“…Actually yeah,” Kapel replied, “I don’t know what it’s like to feel alone…I spent most of my childhood in TRIM.”

     Some of his memories of there had faded but there were some he would never forget; the sort of memories that woke him up at night. He would never tell anyone this though, except Lessea who already knew because of her annoying ability. If she didn’t have that he would probably never have told her.

     Kapel didn’t like to dwell on the past too much though; the future was what counted most. He wasn’t alone now because he had Lessea and they could be friends with Aine so she wouldn’t be lonely either. And if she couldn’t get used to Lessea then Kapel could still be her friend.          

[OOC This post is sponsered by Tea's Friendship Speeches]

[Anonymous]

Aine's eyes widened and her mouth hung open for a second or two. Did she hear that right? TRIM?

"You're...you're a TRIM escapee as well?" she asked in a hushed voice. She then turned her gaze away

Since Aine has lived a very long time, most of her memory of TRIM had gone. But some old memories seldom fade, as she remembered her birth mother was killed after Aine was "born." She also vaguely remembered the experiments those awful men in white coats did on her. Those memories sent shivers down her spine and tears to her eyes.

"I...I spent part of my life on TRIM as well..." she said. "Though I never met her...they killed my birth mother."

[Anonymous]

Kapel was stunned, what were the chances of two TRIM escapees living in Sevenwinds. It begged the question how she had gotten here; he had just floated down using his wings and had landed there when the ship he was on had crashed.

     “I don’t remember my real parents much; I was only 5 when I was sent to TRIM. I don’t know what happened to them either…”

     He only had vague memories of a woman with butterfly wings but that was about it. The horrors of TRIM had removed most of his early memories. It was of course possible they were still out there somewhere but he suspected his mother had been caught by TRIM and his father was probably dead. But Sevenwinds was his home now and he liked it there.

     It sounded like Aine had actually been born at TRIM…or possibly created. That didn’t matter though, how you were born didn’t mean anything, how you lived your life was what mattered.

[Anonymous]

Aine had calmed down a little bit and wiped the tears away from her eyes. So Kapel was just taken to TRIM; he had not been born or created there like she was.

"I see," Aine said. "I was born--or even created, I don't know--at TRIM. From what I was told by the one who helped me escape, I was the result of an experiment that involved the potency of humans interbreeding with other humanoid races. I'm half sky faerie, half human. I don't know what happened to my father, but I know my mother was killed after I was 'born' to keep her quiet about the experiments."

Aine couldn't even fathom why scientists did those horrible things to people and no one else knew about it. Either that, or maybe the people don't even care aboout what goes on in there. She tried to shake that thought away, but it just wouldn't die.

"But that's the past," Aine said. "Now is now, but even though life here is so much better, I'm always alone."

[Anonymous]

It sounded as if Aine had had a worse time there than him.

     “Well you don’t have to be alone anymore,” Kapel said cheerfully, “Me and Lessea will be there for you…And if she creeps you out well you’ll still have me. We non-humans have to stick together.”

     Hopefully he was cheering her up; he felt a kind of camaraderie with her, what with them both being former TRIM ‘inmates’.

[Anonymous]

Aine gave a sweet, understanding smile, and once again hugged him. So this was her significant other after all.

"Thank you, Kapel," Aine said with obvious relief. "That's very sweet of you. Now I don't feel so alone."

She held for a few moments before releasing. Then she went back to her seat across from him and finished her tea.

"Would you mind...if you stayed awhile and help me manage the shop?" Aine asked. "It can be a little rough if I'm the only one running it. I'll show how to make the tea afterwards."

[Anonymous]

“Sure.”

     He was glad he had cheered her up and he had made a new friend as well as helping out a pretty girl.

     “I did most of the work for the farm this morning because of the rain. Lessea can handle the rest.”

     They pair ran the farm together technically but Kapel tended to do most of the work, if there was something that needed doing Lessea would have to handle it. Gods knows she was big enough.

[Anonymous]

Aine smiled, but was inwardly curious as to how he might react if she told him it was her that had caused the rain. In the end, she settled on responding, "That's good to know."

She then wondered what work needed to be done in the shop. Well, she had harvested a new batch of tea herbs not too long ago and had sorted them all into containers that were sitting in a crate in the corner of her shop. Now those tea herbs had to be stocked on the shelves.

"Okay, Kapel, after you finish your tea, you can start by helping me stock these shelves with teas and herbs. The crate containing them is in the corner behind the counter. You can use the ladder if you need to."

She got up and was about to grab the ladder when a thought occurred to her. She had the ability to fly at will, right? So why did she need the ladder in the first place? So she decided to place the ladder next to the door where Kapel could get at it.

[Anonymous]

He drank the rest of the tea before heading behind the counter to find the crate. After retrieving a couple of containers he then went to stock the shelves. Aine had left the ladder out but he didn’t need it, he did have wings after all. He simply hovered up and placed the correct teas in the correct jars.

     When he had said about the rain, Kapel had noticed Aine looked a little shifty. Could she somehow cause it? Mages who controlled the weather weren’t all that uncommon, it was possible she was one. He himself was some what of a plant mage. Not a very powerful one but enough to encourage the farm’s crops to yield well.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, that's right. He had butterfly wings. Of course he could use them to fly. How could she forget?

Aine disregarded that and gathered up her end of the contents of the crate. She then floated up to the other shelves and sat herself in a mid-air cross-legged position. She then began stocking the shelves with the appropriate tea herbs.

There had been an awkward silence between the two of them for about a couple of minutes, so Aine decided to break it by saying, "Oh, I forgot to tell you something." She then turned in midair to face Kapel, her face blushing furiously. "I...um...I think you're...uh...I think you're rather...handsome." She was afraid of what he might say in reaction to that. But she really thought that!

[Anonymous]

Kapel was quite impressed when Aine sat cross legged in mid-air whilst she worked. If he tried anything like that he had to flap his wings harder to compensate and then he got cramp in them.

     “Oh I forgot to tell you something.”

     “What’s that?”

     “I…um…I think you’re…uh…I think you’re rather…handsome.”

     He didn’t know why but at that comment he felt his cheeks flush. Why was he being so embarrassed today, he wasn’t usually like that was he…Still it wasn’t everyday a pretty girl said you were handsome…

     “Um…thank you…But you’re a lot better looking than me.”

     That sounded braver than he felt.

[Anonymous]

Aine's face grew even redder (if that was even possible, considering the fact that she had blue skin). But she was baffled when she was referred to as "a lot better-looking" than he was.

"D-don't be silly," she stuttered with a smile. "At least you don't have blue skin. Well, true, you do have pink butterfly wings and pink hair...but I think they suit you quite well."

She turned around to stock a few more items, then turned back to him.

[Anonymous]

“Thanks,” he said beaming.

     No-one had ever said his pink butter wings and pink hair suited him before. Male and pink just didn’t seem to go together, even Lessea teased him about it. Aine seemed honest though, albeit embarrassed.

     “There’s nothing wrong with blue skin,” Kapel added, “It’s unusual and that’s always better than normal. Everyone loves the rare flowers right.”

     Oh my god…Had he just said that out loud…His face couldn’t get any pinker so his blush didn’t grow. It was strange that Aine could still blush though considering she was blue. But as he had said, skin colour, hair colour and wings meant nothing. It was what inside that counted.

[Anonymous]

Aine was very puzzled by this expression that Kapel had used, but it brought her comfort to know that he didn't mind her blue skin. He was right; there was nothing wrong with having unusual skin color. It was what's inside that mattered. And it seemed that Kapel's inside was one of kindness and understanding.

"Thank you, Kapel," she said sweetly. "Are you almost finished re-shelving?"

[Anonymous]

“Yep,” Kapel replied as she floated down again.

     It seemed Aine hadn’t really understood what he said about rare flowers, she didn’t blush anyway. On one hand he was glad because it saved himself further embarrassment but on the other…he liked her and she didn’t realise he’d paid her a compliment…Oh well.