// Shoutout to this person for getting me out of my writers block lmao
// short & mostly fluffy (little hurt/comfort tossed into it too)
// grammar was, in fact, tosses out of my brain because I did this in three hours with no actual plot in mind.
———
Phil has gained a shadow.
He’s not sure if they mean harm, but his shadow seems content with just watching him as he preens his wings. For all he knows, it could be a kid, curious about seeing a hybrid. The village he’s stopping at doesn’t seem to have any hybrids- but no one seems to eye him with wariness- so he’s not too concerned.
They’ve been following him ever since he stopped by a particular vendor who sold some tasty cinnamon, honey covered apples. Every time he’s tried to get a glimpse behind him, though, he’s seen nothing. They’re a sneaky fellow. It’s kinda funny.
Still, he’s decided to just sit at the edge of the town’s fountain to wait his shadow out. Maybe they’ll come out, or maybe they’ll leave. Either way, he’s content.
A group of children pass by him, sparing only a glance before giggling to themselves and running off. Their laughter reminds him of bells. He smiles, moving his fingers to the next section of his wings and carefully smoothing everything out. The rhythmic task takes him an hour to complete, and the unwavering feeling of being watch doesn’t leave the entire time, despite it now being late.
He hums, folding his wings behind him. Well, whoever his shadow is, they’re very keen on watching him. That’s fine. He’s keen on just letting them watch.
Maybe not while he’s sleeping, though.
Instead of sleeping outside like he usually does- mostly a personal preference, after years of having to deal with unkind people, the habit stuck with him- he heads to the small inn and gets a room.
“That’ll be five silver,” the woman’s kind expression smiles at him. He smiles back, sliding over the coin. She places the key down, and he takes it with a nod of his head. But, before he can leave, the woman hums, “say, before you head to bed, can I ask somethin?”
Phil blinks, tilting his head, “sure. What’s up, mate?”
He expects it to be a question about his wings, or maybe about his travels but instead- “has anyone been botherin’ you?” he must look dumbfounded because the woman continues with a chuckle, “sorry, a lotta travelers complain about bein’ watched. We’ve been tryin’ to figure out who’s been a peeping Tom around here.”
And- oh, that makes a lot of sense. He shrugs, “yeah, I’ve notice someone watching me. Didn’t get a single glimpse, though. Sorry.”
The woman waves him off, “nawh, ‘s okay. Didn’t expect you to. Everyone starts complaining that they started getting watched right after my wifey sells them a apple treat, an’ now I’m just trying to figure things out. Have a good night, sir.”
He hums, curiosity peaked as he goes to bed that night.
The next day, he buys some more cinnamon, honey apples. He doesn’t eat them yet. No, instead, he heads back to the same well from before. The feeling of being watch returns as he sits down and places the food next to him.
He stares at the snack with intrigue. Somehow, this food was connected to his shadow. He had no idea how, though. He resolves to ponder on it as he checks up on his supplies.
He turns away from the food for a moment to sort through his small bag of supplies, and suddenly a melody of bells flutters through his feathered ears. It’s pleasing to listen to. His ears flick up, and he tilts his head up to see where it’s coming from. Head turning to the sound, he lets out a startled chirp at a horrifying revelation.
Too caught up in his grief of a lost snack, he doesn’t hear the amused rings of bells nearby.
Phil decides to stay another day, and buys another apple treat. He’s determined to find out who stole his damn treat. It was good, okay? And he really wanted to enjoy it.
He sits down at the well, at his stakeout, purposefully keeping the treat in his sights today. He has nothing else to do except preen his wings again and maybe read a little.
This shadow of his obviously doesn’t mean physical harm to him, but, prime-be-damned, they sure were a mischievous little fucker. He was going to make them regret it even if it took him a week.
Well, okay, maybe he worded that a little too strongly. It’s not like he cared that much- he didn’t- it was just…
He didn’t care that much. Anyone who said otherwise could shove it.
Halfway through preening, he has to take his eyes off of the apples to reach a particularly hard to reach spot on his wings.
His eyes are only off of the treat for a minute, but it’s long enough that the sharp ringing of bells tickle his feathered ears. Turning his head sharply, his eyes widen and- one of the apple slices are gone. Already.
He makes a half-offended squawk. How?
Wildly glancing around, he doesn’t even see a trace of where the person could’ve gone. They just… teleported out of existence!
He groans, head lolling back as he shuts his eyes.
He gets through a third more of his preening before another slice is taken, and he decides to finish the other two off before they can be stolen.
He has to clean his wings off when he gets the sticky, sweet honey stuck in some of his feathers.
Soft bells giggle behind small, honey-covered hands as the avian hybrid cleans out his wings.
It’s a day later when Phil finally gets a glimpse of the person tormenting him. They’re obviously not human, and the inn-keeper is quite certain of that fact too after another day of him coming in with drooped wings.
Another apple slice had been stolen- he had only taken his eyes off of them for ten seconds, for Prime’s sake- and the familiar sound of bells had laughed in his ears. Not yet disheartened, his feathered ears flicked around quickly as he tilted his head up and-
His eyes widened as he saw a small figure crouching on the wooden rod with his stolen apple piece. They startle too, not expecting him to look up either, and he fumbles as they throw the apple piece at him and take off flying. Grabbing the, partly bitten into, slice of apple with unsteady hands, he gapes.
The only thing he can discern from them are blue, delicate wings as they disappear into the nearby bushes.
He doesn’t give chase, despite his wings already spreading out to fly after them.
That might, he learns from the innkeeper that the little creature he saw was a fairy. They’re mischievous creatures, but never too harmful at small volumes.
“I’ll say,” the woman laughs, “you’ve really caught onto some good luck, man. People who’ve met fairies get good fortune, y’know? They say that people who get favors from fairies can ask whatever they want, and the fairy will get it done.”
He cradles a cup of warm tea in his hands, given free of charge for the exciting news, “I think I might’ve startled them off,” he frowns. He didn’t want to do that. He had grown quite… fond of their mischievous quirks.
The woman- he’s ought to ask her name, to be honest- waves her hand dismissively, “nawh, fairies are pretty tough. I’ll bet they’ll be back tomorrow, back to stealin’ my wifey’s apples from you in no time.”
He sips his tea, unconvinced but hopeful.
A few days pass. The fairy does not return, to his disappointment.
“You sure you don’t wanna stay an extra day?” the innkeeper asks, hesitantly taking his key, “I won’t charge you.”
He smiles, “no, it’s okay. Thank you for the offer. I really must be going, though. I enjoyed my stay here.”
The woman just frowns thinly and nods, “at least get one last batch of my wifey’s apples. Tell her I said it’s for free.”
He agrees, getting one last snack- and paying despite the vendor’s arguments of otherwise- before tucking the food away for later. He stops by the well one last time, staring at it with an oddly fond look. Maybe he’d come back here one day. The people were nice, and he’d love to actually see the little fairy.
The sound of faint bells reaches his ears as he turns away from the wishing well, and he whips his head back towards it. He doesn’t see a trace of the little creature despite the constant sound of bells. It’s still faint, but obviously coming from the well.
A little hesitantly, he peers down into the well. And, at a first glance, he sees nothing. He leans closer down the deep well, and recoils when he sees a familiar figure floating in the water. They look half dead. His heart clenches. They must’ve been there for hours, possibly days. He needs to help.
He doesn’t even think as he drops the bucket into the well and spins the handle to the spindle until it reaches the water. Carefully, so not to accidentally hit the fairy, he waits for them to move out of the way before lowering the bucket further in.
“Climb in,” he gasps, unsure if they can even understand him. They might not understand his words but they definitely understand his intent, because they’re weakly pulling themselves into the bucket and floating inside there. With a grunt, he pulls the bucket back up. After a minute or so of spinning with adrenaline pumping through his veins, he roughly grabs the bucket and cups his hands around the fairy.
They don’t struggle as they’re scooped onto his calloused hands, too exhausted to even move, but a quiet, frail jingle of bells fall from their mouth as they curl up in his hands. They’re freezing to the touch. He carefully takes the edge of his jacket and dabs off the water droplets clinging to their long, pink hair and pale skin. He’s… reluctant to touch their wings, knowing that his own were sensitive to the touch and that they probably wouldn’t like their own wings touched. Instead, he leaves them be.
The fairy twitches in his hands a few tense minutes later, shallow breaths escaping them as they fumble to their knees. A shaky ring of bells escape them as they glance around them to see a skin-coloured ground beneath their legs. Their wings flutter uselessly behind them, water droplets still weighing the thin, membrane wings, and a breath hitches from their throat as they turn their head and meet his gaze.
Obviously, Phil has not made a good impression on them if the scared look on their pale face means anything. He softened his look, a guilty feeling tugging at his heart, “hey, mate, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he soothes, nudging them into one hand as he reaches into his bag for the sweet treats. They tense as he pulls out a napkin, only to lighten up significantly when he unwraps the napkin to show off a familiar treat, “see? Not gonna hurt you.”
They stumble to their feet as he brings his other hand over to them, and fall against the apple, digging their hands into the treat to break it into bite-sized chunks. He just watches, taking in their appearance. They have a baggy shirt on that had a big cutout slit for their wings, and just as baggy pants. It’s probably made out of scraps, seeing that the edges are fraying. Or, maybe that’s because they’re out in the wild so often. He’s not sure.
And, their wings. They’re oddly… memorizing to look at. Shimmering blue with what looks like gold etched lines that make an ethereal dragonfly look to it. The wings twitch ever so often as water droplets slide off of it slowly. He breaths out quietly, wondering what they look like while flying.
The sound of wary bells make his feathered ears flutter, and his gaze slides over to their gem-like, red eyes. He blinks. He’d been staring, “ah. Sorry, mate. You got pretty wings.” They frown, wings pressing against their back, and he can’t help but apologetically smile, “sorry again. I should know better than to stare, since I got wings of my own too.”
Honestly, he’s still not sure if they can understand him but they do turn back to keep nibbling from their slice of apple. He takes it as a cue to keep rambling, seeing that the other isn’t gonna fill the silence up, “say, you got a name? Mine’s Philza. Phil for short. I’m a traveler. Just stopped by here for a little while, but I was heading towards my son’s place. I… guess I stayed here a little longer than need be. Mostly ‘cause of you,” he chuckled.
The fairy just spares him a glance during the entire time he’s rambling, but they don’t seem agitated so he keeps going, talking about his travels and everything until they stop eating and lay flat on legs with a content jingle. He smiled, “full?” a quiet jingle, “I’ll take that as a yes,” he airily laughed, folding the napkin around the food. The fairy whines, making grabby hands for the food as he tucks it away, “wha- it’s still my food. I just shared it because you were stuck in a well!”
They flop against his hand with a drawn out jingle, and he shakes his head, “I have no idea what you’re saying, mate.” The fairy blinks up at him, and he amusedly raised an eyebrow. A second later, the pull themselves to their feet again, fluttering their wings uselessly with an annoyed huff, “you need something?”
They- surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly- nod, and point at his hand then up to his face. A little confused, he lifts his hands closer to his face, “is this what you want- oh, a little closer, okay.”
They’re brought up to his nose, and they lean towards his face, rubbing their hands together. A second later, they slap their hands together and somehow powder explodes from their hand. He coughs, pulling his hands away with a curse. What the fuck?
“There! Now you can understand me!” a voice, decidedly no longer bells now, says. And, wow, that’s also not at all the voice he expected them to have. It’s… much lower and deadpanned than he expected.
He blinks, a little dazed as the fairy crosses their arms, “you- what?”
“You can understand me now, right?”
Oh, holy shit, he can understand the fairy. He nods, slowly, “what did.. you do?”
“Fairy stuff. My name is Techno,” they introduce themselves, “thank you for helping me and not tearing my wings off.”
“I- you’re welcome? It’s really no problem-“
“Still,” the fairy- Techno- cuts him off, “thank you. I… I owe you.”
Phil makes a noise from the back of his throat, remembering what the innkeeper had said, “I- woah, wait, you- what? You don’t have to do that-“ he really didn’t need anything.
Techno flutters their wings, “you saved my life. Of course I do.”
“No? It’s okay, I- I don’t need- or want- anything.” Primes, what had he gotten into?
“But- there has to be something?” the fairy fidgets, “I can’t just do nothing.”
Phil furrows his eyebrows in thought. They looked uncomfortable with not somehow repaying him… but he also had no clue how to defuse this situation.
After a minute, an idea pops in his head, “well. Okay, I… I guess there’s one thing?”
The fairy leans closer, waiting for him to speak his wish.
Phil grins widely, “how about you repay me for all those stolen apple slices?”
