Seraph Hunter 3 Chapter 20: A Small Conversation
I’m real
“I’m sorry, I don’t get many visitors. You may sit on my chair if you’d like, I don’t use it anymore.” She dusted off the seat, which was covered with what Brenzel thought must have been several years of dust. It didn’t come all the way clean, but Brenzel sat anyway; she needed to.
The small being moved around Brenzel, inspecting her, feeling her hair, as Brenzel’s wide eyes followed her, mouth opened.
“I sense you are surprised at my form?” Came the small voice.
Brenzel nodded.
“Thank you for not laughing, I hate it when people laugh at me.”
“You’re….You’re a fairy!”
Looking in her mind at one of the books Brenzel’s grandmother had read to her about fairies, Fey said, “I’m not a fairytale, I’m real.”
Sensing no threat, Brenzel didn’t push back at her host rifling through her childhood memories.
“I’m sorry about Iris. I really do feel your pain about her. I was scared, though, I haven’t seen anyone in a very long time.
What do you say to such a person? Brenzel wondered,
The reply came, anything you want.
Forcing herself to focus, Brenzel said out loud, “So you control all the people within the city?”
“Control is a very strong word, Brenzel, if I may call you by your name,” Fey said as she moved around to other side of Brenzel’s face, studying her. “I would say that we . . come to an agreement. I share their pain, they allow me to live through them. As you can see, I’m not really suitable for much of anything.”
“You’re the only real Fey?”
“Yes, just me.”
Momentarily, Brenzel felt badly for her.
I’m sorry
“I’m sorry,” Brenzel said to the small person before her.
“Who gave you that hat?” Fey asked.
“A person named Traveler.”
“You know Desiree, too…”
Brenzel raised her eyebrows, surprised that this little fairy would know her close friend she met in Elysia.
“Do you know who’s hat that is? What it contains?”
“Traveler said it used to belong to someone named Beauty.” ****(check and make sure Traveler actually told her this in book two)
Her wings glowing brighter, Fey put her small hand to her chin, frowning for a moment, as if considering her next words carefully.
Sitting down on nothing, mid air really, she crossed her legs and arranged her hair nicely over her breasts, saying, “I can see you don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Brenzel asked, adding, “I don’t want to become Fey, if that’s what you mean.”
Smiling, Fey shrugged, saying, “That’s up to you, but I want to show you a story. I think it is time you understood more. It may ease your pain.”
Brenzel looked at Fey, feeling a great inner need to know, to understand. The truth was, this “learn as you go,” way of doing things was hard. Could she explain? Would Joshua be angry? Could she show her how to get back to Iris? She didn’t feel danger, but would she even sense it if Fey didn’t want her to?
“Okay.”
Fey held out her small hand, saying in Bren’s mind, Don’t be afraid…
Looking down at her outstretched fingers, Brenzel reached out and touched her.
Hand in hand, Bren walked with Fey. The small woman seemed at ease now, chatting as if they were old friends, She began, “I was not always like you see me now, I used to be the same size as you, though Halan, not an Edenite.”
Bren saw her as she once was, tall and beautiful, much like Komae.
As they walked together Fey explained, “A long time ago, in the time we now call The Innocence, The Red Seraph, Beauty, committed original sin and stole three of the stones of fire. In these stones reside the power of creation and are that which God and His Seraphim used to create what you would call cosmos, or the heavens and all that they hold.” Fey pointed up, the stars of heaven sprinkled over the night sky like Brenzel used to watch on warm summers night, falling asleep on the grass, trying to count them.
The Tech Wizard
“Through the Tech Wizard and his Dark Tech, Beauty fashioned terrible machines that channeled hate and malice into unimaginably destructive forces. Also, hats were created that could channel power, concentrating it like glass concentrates the rays of sunlight into fire. There was a hat greater than all others, one that she wore, which allowed her to reverse the very energies of creation, draining the power that formed the stars and use it to transport her armies from her realm, Hades, across space and time – The Great Divide.”
Brenzel looked at the spiral form before her, filled with uncountable shimmering points of light, like diamonds, rotating slowly around a great center. One by one, the beautiful gems dimmed, the whole swaths fading. Brenzel felt sadness to see something so beautiful fade away, until most of it disappeared, with only a remnant of its former brilliance visible.
“Hala was the first of the realms Beauty attacked with her Hadite hordes. It was a desperate time for us, Brenzel, and though the other Seraphs and their people fought alongside us, we were losing badly. Our planet was being systematically destroyed; annihilated. First they burnt our oceans, then our forests. They intended to kill us by destroying our Tree of Life. Though we and others fought valiantly, we could not overcome the power Beauty wielded through her Dark Tech powered by the three stones.” She paused, looking intently at the hat Brenzel wore, then she continued. “Our people were dying. Something had to be done.”
“Dove!” Brenzel exclaimed as she saw a large hall. The other Seraphs stood next to the Blue Seraph, those she’d met when hatted. They were speaking to a group of seven people, giving them instructions,
Next, Brenzel saw the same people, all running in a vast place full of strange machines, fire and light. Behind them, in pursuit, many ran after them, shouting and firing weapons. A woman, face smudged with dirt and grime said, “We must split up. I will take one of the stones and you take two. We cannot fail,” she said, putting two small red stones in a woman’s hand, kissing her quickly. “Go with God.”
Oh my God, Desiree!
“Oh my God!” Brenzel said aloud as she recognized the woman Fey kissed, “Desiree!”
“Yes,” Fey said, “Desiree. You’ve met her.
“I ran. It was imperative that we reach the surface and beyond the power of the Dark Tech so that the Seraphim could transport our group back to Hala.”
In Brenzel’s mind she saw a woman run, then come to a dead end. There was nowhere to go, she was trapped.” Brenzel felt her fear, seeing her look down at her hand.
“You swallowed it!?”
Yes, it was they only thing I could do…Fey spoke in her mind.
“They tortured you…” Brenzel said in a whisper, turning away from the screams of the woman they questioned. Then they stopped, as a tall man in a hat walked in and the others stood back.
He put his hands on the delirious woman, first head, then heart, than belly, lingering there…then..
Cold steel cut through trembling flesh, screams of agony, hand digging, cutting deeper, ripping…
Brenzel recoiled, falling out of the story and off her chair onto the floor, holding her belly, crying out, desperately trying to break the connection with the storyteller.
After a moment, she uncoiled from her fetal position and looked up at the small face of Fey. “I felt your pain when he cut the stone out of you,” she said, crying.
Fey set the chair back up on it’s legs, then offered her hand to Brenzel, helping her up. She was surprisingly strong.
After a moment, trying to take it all in, Brenzel took a deep breath as she sat back down. “I am so sorry Fey, that was horrible.”
“Yes.”
“And eventually, you came to this city?” Brenzel surmised.
Fey nodded. “Over many years, people that wandered the forest, like I did, passed by. I found that sharing their pain eased mine. The more people came, the better everyone felt. As my powers grew I became smaller and now I am what you see today. Everything was going well until you and your friends disturbed my peace.”
The sadness
Brenzel, her perspective altered, said, “Fey, do you know you are harming people? You must know about the person who hung himself.”
Looking down, she said, “Yes, of course I know about him. I know all about him, his life memories are within me, all of them. I was with him when he died. I hate that part of it.”
“Did you do it?”
Looking away, wiping a tear from her small eyes, she said, “I don’t know. I get depressed sometimes. I feel lonely. I cry. It only happens then and not very often. I don’t want to, but the weight gets too heavy.
“I want to help people, Brenzel. All who come to me do so because I help them share their pain with everyone else. It’s always easier to bear another’s pain than your own. They are at peace, happy, that’s why they stay, I don’t force them to stay.”
“But they never leave,” Brenzel stated, “and if they do, they die.”
“Yes, they call it the sadness.”
Brenzel didn’t know whether it was because Fey was small, or that her voice was sweet and clear, but instead of anger she felt sympathy for her. On impulse, Bren said, “Fey,” opening her arms wide.
Fey looked at her, astonished, then her eyes looked away, then back. Slowly, cautiously, she inched forward, folding her wings, as she climbed onto Brenzel’s lap.
In a soft voice, the big Seraph Hunter said, “I won’t hurt you,” as she put her arms around her. Looking up into the Brenzel’s face awhile, she then laid her head on Brenzel’s heart.
“I’m so tired,” Fey said weakly, “I haven’t slept in years. . . ”
Looking down, Brenzel saw the little fairy’s eyes grow heavy, then she fell fast asleep.
As she held Fey, Brenzel said, “You’re safe now.”