Mild blood content warning
Did you feel the flow of magic?
Now imagine drawing it from your whole body into the palm of your hand... yes, just like that.
I visualise a blazing fire, and,
"Haah!"
Release it all at once!
"... ... ..."
--- Crickets. The silence hurts.
From one corner of the room, a "pfft—" of stifled laughter. It was young Stillus, leaning against the wall. His attempt to somehow cover it up, a consideration unbecoming of an eight-year-old, only makes me more miserable.
It wasn't supposed to be like this...
He dropped the watching pose and held out a hand to me as I hung my head in mid-air. I reluctantly knew what that hand was for, so I sat down on it.
My white ankle-length dress fanned out; I'm aware I looked every bit like a fairy.
More importantly, what I should be worried about is my own incompetence. I've tried water, earth, wind, all kinds of things, but fire failed me too. I can produce a single drop of water, raise earth by about a centimetre, and summon a light breeze, but when it comes to fire, I couldn't even produce a wisp of smoke, what's up with that?
"This is definitely not right."
"Is it not?"
"I'm the saviour fairy, you know? I should be a powerhouse, right? That was the whole setting, so why can't I use magic?"
"Well, even if you say that. Don't fairies use magic back where they live?"
"Our lives are just flying, sleeping, and having cosy chats with animals... And humans don't come attacking us all that often either."
"That's why you ended up getting caught by a kid like me."
He lifted me with his palm and set me onto his shoulder.
Lately it really does feel like I'm being tamed.
"You want to use magic? Like that Eleanor from the game?"
"Yeah. I want to try going 'yeehaw!' with that ridiculous amount of mana. Everyone's got that kind of dream, right?"
"I can't say I don't get it, but as someone who is practically a cheat right now, I wouldn't recommend it."
There are things you can only say once you're strong.
The boy glanced at sulky me and left the study with me still on his shoulder.
Come to think of it, this is the first time I've been out in the hallway while out of the cage.
--- Wait, can I actually escape?
He must have caught me thinking this, because he casually declared, "I think you already know this, but there's a barrier here, so you can't escape from this house."
"So, where are we going?"
"To the lab. The one in the basement."
"Why?"
Why do you look so happy about this. That's the scary part.
"I thought you wanted me to experiment on you."
"Hm?"
"Hah?"
"Why would I want to be your guinea pig?"
"When you say 'saviour fairy,' that's the one who gets caught by the Demon King and, after cruel and inhuman experiments are repeated on her, gains that enormous amount of mana, right? It's a common trope where she also has an ulterior motive to take revenge on the Demon King ... I don't know what it's like when the fairy is female, but I'd imagine it's basically the same."
"Aaaah right that's right, ugh, this is the worst."
That's what happened in the game. The connection between the fairy and the Demon King gets unfolded in detail once you enter either of their routes. I'd heard rumours that relationship had picked up unexpected popularity among certain gentlemen and ladies. On both the roses side and the lilies side, it was fodder for doujinshi. [1]
"In the 'source material,' I believe the fairy isn't caught until later, but things are already off-track given that you've met me. Shall we give it a try?"
"I'll ask even though I know... try what?"
"The experiment."
"Rejected."
"Eeeh, whyyy? Let's do iiit, it's fuuuun, you'll get addiiicted?"
"Are you a kid?"
"I am a kid."
Forget about the plot, escaping from this guy is priority one. I can't stand being used as a guinea pig like this.
I'd been biding my time waiting for the right moment to fly, but the instant I stood up to move my wings, he grabbed me tight as if he'd foreseen it.
No one could stop young Stillus's momentum as he dashed down the stairs.
"Let meee goooo!"
"I reeefuuuuse."
This is why humans are hopeless!
But somewhere in the back of my head, there was a part of me that remained carefree.
Say what you will, young Stillus is kind to me. Even when I was practicing magic, something he'd told me not to do, he just watched over me in silence.
"Did you really think I was going to do it?"
He said it with such a deadpan expression that I felt an overwhelming urge to punch him. I'd made it clear with my attitude that I wasn't going to forgive him, but after watching his experiment up close, I couldn't keep saying that.
The instant a single drop of that familiar purple liquid fell onto a petri dish, it dissolved with a sizzle. The petri dish did, that is. What fairy wouldn't be terrified watching the boy calmly say "I forgot the strengthening spell on the equipment" and go about handling it?
"That was a bit of a failure. I'm sorry for showing you such an unsightly side of me."
That's not the issue.
"I don't let anyone other than myself into the lab, so... I suppose I was nervous."
Even with his embarrassed ehehe, it's not cute.
His small finger pointed at the mixture of the petri dish and the purple liquid. It ignited. I stared as it burnt away; my own spirit was close to burning out too.
And then,
"Please don't inhale this smoke. Your lungs might rot."
When he says that like it's nothing, I'm at my limit in all kinds of ways.
To keep his attention away from me, his "test subject," the best I could do was sit huddled on his shoulder like a doll with my knees drawn up. This is why humans.
It has been about three weeks since I've been kidnapped, and I haven't been experimented on yet.
He no longer used the cage except for when I sleep. As long as I stayed out of sight of his little sister, I'm able to fly anywhere in the house.
And then I got hungry. While I was sprawled limply on the study desk, the door opens and the boy comes in.
He's in a bad mood, and his eyes on me are cold too.
"Can you, by any chance, use telepathy or something?"
"Fairy to fairy, yes."
What's this, all of a sudden?
With his bad-mood still going, he seemed to be thinking about something. He rested a hand under his chin, head tilted slightly down and eyes aimed at the lower left; a "Louis Stillus" habit.
--- Seeing him like this, he really is pretty.
Even among the capture characters, I think he's strikingly handsome. I don't know much about Stillus-san's past life, but mentally he has to be an adult. His mannerisms, his whole aura, are those of an adult. The way he was running through hypothesis after hypothesis in his head was like a ruler's.
My mind isn't working properly because I'm hungry, so my thoughts drift in an honest direction. So much so that I didn't notice him coming closer.
"Well, we'll talk about telepathy later. Let's go."
As I laid motionless, still staring at the boy's face, he held out his palm like he always did. I stared at it, then back at his eyes, and pleaded that I didn't want to move.
"Something the matter?"
"I'm hungry."
"Ah, it has been three weeks now."
He looks exasperated, as if to say I told you so.
The boy pulled his hand back and stared intently at me lying on the desk. He ran his fingertips through my dishevelled hair, and I watched him do it. I was so hungry I felt nauseous.
"Now listen, Eleanor. I have no intention of releasing you. I won't use you as a test subject, nor do I plan to kill you; I just want to keep you here."
I said nothing, urging him to go on.
"There's no point in being stubborn, is there? If you don't want to keep suffering, then tell me what you can eat."
It was a command. It didn't matter whether his words were lies or truth.
Because I can't resist. I'll die like this, I'm sure of it.
The reason fairies hate humans is because they hate suffering, and humans are the ones who inflict suffering on fairies. Enduring this agonising hunger on my own just felt wrong somehow.
"If you lie, I'll run away," I warned him and he earnestly replied, "Yes, I'm not lying."
"... We eat things from nature that contain a lot of mana."
"Things like trees?"
"And like flowers, or leaves."
"I see."
The kind of thing that's hard to come by in a city like this. The ones deep in the mountains are top quality; the nature on land that humans have taken over is mostly withered, and eating it wouldn't fill me up anyway.
"So fairies eat mana, basically?"
"Probably."
Yes, I think so. Instead of needing nutrients like humans do, we take in mana. That interpretation felt right.
"In that case, perhaps 'this' might work, too."
The boy murmured, and took a fountain pen out of the pen holder on the desk. He pressed the nib against the tip of his index finger and, with a prick, pierced the skin.
"... What are you doing?"
"Experimenting."
Ignoring me as I lay there speechless, the boy watched as the blood welled up into a bead on his own fingertip.
I watched his strange behaviour too, I stared at him intently, and realised that the blood was red, giving off a scent of iron, soft-looking, fresh, and so, so, so very, --- delicious.
"It's a bit scary how you're staring. Do you want it that badly?"
I want it. I want it.
Wobble, sway.
My will pulled me up onto my feet despite my unsteadiness, and I was gripping onto his clothes.
I didn't care that he seemed pleased to see me acting so shamelessly.
That rich, mellow-scented mana of the highest grade. Even though I wanted it badly, what kept me from putting my mouth to it when he held it close and said "You can lick it" was my own pride.
In my past life I was a human. Licking a person's blood, such an absurdity... such an unreality, there was no way I could accept it. The reality that my whole body was craving someone else's blood already had me wanting to cry as it was; if I took it any further, there'd be no turning back.
He saw through my hesitation.
"What are you hesitating for? You aren't human anymore."
--- He gave a condescending scoff through his nose.
Hearing that, something snapped. I decided to forget the human inside me.
I gripped the boy's fingertip with both hands and pressed my lips to the bead of blood.
The moment I did, a sweet sensation spread through my mouth. I found myself craving for more.
My head started to fog up.
My brain felt like it was going to melt into sludge.
Even after I'd licked it all up, reluctant to let the iron aftertaste fade, I pressed at the skin to make more come out. I snapped back to my senses before I went too far. I remembered this was someone's open wound. When I looked up at him with a hesitant glance, he smiled gently and said, "A bit more is fine," and I couldn't stop myself any longer.
"... Mm, mn."
--- Ahh, it's delicious.
That my eyes had gone lewd with rapture was something only the boy could see.
The change came on suddenly.
My body felt like it was heating up from its core, and I instinctively let go of his finger.
"Have you had enough?"
"No, something's, wrong."
"...?"
"My body's, hot..."
What do I do, this is the first time this has happened.
It was as if all the fluids in my body were flowing in reverse. I was boiling. I thought this heat should be starting to show on the outside by now, but strangely, my skin remained at its usual temperature.
I tried to scream, but I didn't have the strength to do so.
I blacked out for just a moment. When I opened my eyes seconds later, there was the boy, looking up at me, in surprise.