One
Whether mortal or not, anyone could find magical creatures wandering the dense forest of Faeriewood. A dark landscape at Tarsag’Itus with a starry night hovering between branches and leaves.
Faeries enjoyed pursuing the trail of the delicious star mushrooms. A fugal that only sprouted in the wee hours, glowing around long-standing trees in a flawless circle.
Maggie felt the weight of her eyelids close. She was ready to flap her wings away to her bed nest. She was about to finish her task. Adding the last shimmering mushroom to her full basket.
When interrupted by her sister’s murmurs: ‘Maggie! Hey Maggie, come here!’; whispers Maddie, a couple of long steps away.
‘What?’; she hisses back to her twin, wagging her wings as light paper, and then she heard it too. ‘Is that a baby?’
‘Should we look for it?’
‘Are you mad? Are you so careless? You dimwitted pixie dust! What if it’s a hag trying to eat two dumb fairies like us?’
’And what if it is a baby? Then we are the hags! Hags who let a baby! Yes, a baby! In the woods! Here alone until it’s not!’; the twins watched each other’s gaze matching the strongest glare until the cooing became louder and louder, mixed with laughter.
‘It’s a baby.’
‘Is definitely a baby!’
‘Or a very talented hag.’
‘It’s a baby!’
Maggie walked toward the loud baby howl from the deep of the forest. For a faerie, it was unusual to brave themselves so far into the woods. Dangers would spawn to any creature roaming the woodlands in secrecy, hidden in the night. Any who would love a pixie snack.
They followed the adorable, carefree sound. While a line of fireflies flew along the faeries. Until they rested on the bark of a hollow dead tree surrounding its teeny window.
‘By the Green Mother!’; said Maggie.
‘What? What is it?’
Maggie came closer to the tree. She dipped her head inside the hole and came out with a baby. It looked older than a newborn and appeared clean and well-fed.
‘I told you it was a baby!’ but her sister’s face was pale as the moon while holding the infant. ‘What is wrong? Maggie! What is it?’
Maddie flew a jump next to her sister. She stared at the baby; observed its glimmery pinkish skin. And colour eyes that none ever saw. Nor could words illustrate the hue of those round eyeballs. There was also a strange mark on the baby’s forehead, an infinite symbol branded in gold. Maddie understood the pale expression of her twin.
The baby presented a minor scratch on her cheek. Certainly done, while Maggie grabbed it out of the hole. It was a slight cut, nothing serious, but the baby was bleeding, and that little child was bleeding blue blood.
Maddie looked at her sister. ‘She has blue blood.’
‘She has blue blood.’
‘She has blue blood!’
‘Stop repeating she has blue blood! I know she has blue blood!’
‘You were right. I am a dimwit. An old hungry hag would be better.’
‘What should we do?’
‘Put it back?’
‘Put it back!?’
‘Well, it ain’t ours!’
‘Well, it ain’t ours?’
‘It’s a baby!’
‘I know it’s a baby and a blue blood baby!’
‘Stop saying that!’
‘It ain’t ours, and it looks dangerous. What do you expect me to say?’
‘We could take the baby home, perhaps.’
‘We could take the baby home?’
‘Yes! We could take the baby home!’
‘What about the mark on its forehead? Do you know what it means?’
‘What? It’s cute. ’
‘It’s cute?’
‘Yes, Maggie, it is cute!’
‘Maddie, don’t you read any books? That is the mark of the Battle Mages! ’
‘So what? It’s still a cute baby with a cute mark! ’
‘Why do we have so many books at home if you don’t use them?’
‘Because you read them! I think they are boring and don’t have any pretty pictures! ’
‘You are supposed to use your imagination!’
‘I don’t need books to use my imagination. I just imagine! And why are we talking about the boring books at home?’
‘Because you don’t read them!’
‘Why should I read them now? Shouldn’t we be discussing what we should do with this baby?’
‘We are taking it home!’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we can see the baby is a battle mage! It is dangerous. And don’t need books to imagine how we will feed it, nourish it, love it as our own and then it grows and might even kill us! ’
‘Why? Why would it kill us?’
‘Maggie, how can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time? Sometimes I wonder if you even listen. That baby is a battle mage!’
‘I don’t understand the fuss about it. We should go home!’
‘Maggie, give me the baby. Let’s put it back.’
‘No! It comes with us!’
‘No! It doesn’t!’
‘Yes, it does!’
‘Maggie, it is dangerous! You know the old song!’
Maggie holds the infant tight against her chest, mumbling vexed the old lullaby words as if it was an insult: ′Red, green and stone, no other colour runs the bone. Stick, leaf, pitch my speech and my eye deny with my life!′
‘We need to put the baby back. It doesn’t belong to us.’
‘It’s just a baby, Maddie. It can’t hurt us, and we shouldn’t judge one by the colour of its blood. Every creature and mortal, everyone, should love and be loved the same way.’ Maggie looked at the dime light on her sister’s face: ‘We can love the baby as much as anyone. Let’s take it home.’
‘Maggie….’ Maddie gave up staring at her sister’s wet eyes when she realised the fireflies were drawing the pathway to their home. ‘Maggie, look!’
‘I think it is clear what they are telling us. We should take it home, our home.’
‘Alright, let us take this baby home, but I still think we had been luckier as the supper of an old hag!’
