Do not be afraid, little one.
From Create Your Own Story
I will drink you in your sleep. It will be painless.
Embrace the infinite dreams beyond your mortal coil.
So that you may find peace.
These words echo through your mind as your eyes shut, invoking a sense of security you have not felt in a long time. You are warm. Everything around you is soft, like the linens of a bed. There is nothing left to do, other than sleep.
You are running on the grass. The autumn wind carries upon it the slightest hint of a chill. Your friends are all in front of you, laughing at you and fleeing from you. They are older than you, so you are incapable of catching them, no matter how hard you run after them.
"Iolaus, go back to the village!"
"Iolaus, you can't come with us! You're a bad guy! Bad guys can't be adventurers!"
"Wipe your snotty nose if you want to play with us that badly!"
"Ewww, it's all over his fingers! Gross! Iolaus is so gross!"
"Bad guys are gross! Iolaus is a gross bad guy! Hah hah! Go away, Iolaus!"
"Yeah! You can't come to the cave with us! We're gonna explore it and find the treasure and you don't get to have any of it! Hah hah!"
You trip and fall in your single-minded desperation to catch up with them, scraping your knee on a rock. Blood begins to run down your leg. Your friends all run off without a single care about your state, except one, a plain girl in a white gown. She trots up to you and ties her most prized possession, her silk handkerchief, around your knee. Spots of red quickly stain the expensive fabric. You brush the tears out of your eyes, because you're a boy, and boys do not cry. The black-haired girl brushes her bangs out of her eyes and smiles at you, then runs off to catch up with the others.
You lay on the cool grass for a while, and stare up at the clouds in the sky.
Iolaus?
That girl never came back to the village after that day.
Hey, punk?
You still have her handkerchief, but you were unable to get the stains out. You planned to do everything in your power to not have to apologize, because boys do not apologize. But then she never came back.
You were lucky, because you did not have to apologize to her.
Wake up already, you brat. I swear, if I wasted my precious magic on you again, for nothing, I'm going to... to...
You open your eyes when you feel the hands shaking your shoulders roughly, only to see that nymph leaning over you. For a brief moment, you see what you think is concern in her features, but it rapidly flickers into a glaring scowl. You are momentarily distracted by the cool, sticky wetness all over your body, but you manage to get your thoughts together well enough to speak. "What do you want?" you manage to utter, your body still too weak for your hoarse voice to carry at all. She seems to understand you, though.
"Is that any way to speak to the gorgeous fey who just saved your life?" Fernweh says. "For the second time in about an hour or so?"
You do not answer her. You try to move, but you feel so heavy.
"That soul-eater's venom is still affecting you, but my spell should be purging it from your system. That's why you're sweating so much. You'll be fine in a few minutes, it was only meant to paralyze you, anyways." The redhead sets about removing the rest of the webs on you, though she's clearly already done most of the work while you were asleep.
"Soul-eater?" you ask. She nods and jerks a thumb over to your left. You turn your head, and see that the horrific overgrown arachnid seems to have been crushed by a boulder, and its very being was slowly dissolving into ashes.
"Soul-eaters subsist off of the souls of living things. There's a lot of kinds of them, and all of them are nasty, but you were lucky that this was a minor, artificial one. Some human made it, it's obvious by the structure of the spells that make up its being. So clumsy and inelegant! Anyways, since it was such a poorly-constructed artificial spirit, it was vulnerable to brute force, so I simply dropped a big rock from the ceiling on it. The rocks were strangely enthusiastic about the whole thing. I don't like it one bit."
"Huh?"
"Another nymph thing. You wouldn't get it. Not many humans would. Anyways, are finally you willing to listen to me and work with me so we can get out of here? Or do you want to run off and try to get yourself killed again?" Fernweh asks, pulling the last bit of webbing off of your legs. You can already feel the strength and feeling returning to your limbs, and you try to sit up, but you still cannot quite manage it. The nymph reaches out, places her hand on your back, and lifts your torso up. You flush in embarrassment at needing her help.
"Fine!" you huff, pouting. You still dislike everyone in the world, but you can see why sticking together is important in this particular situation.
"Good!" the nymph says, her frown finally turning into a small smile. "You know, I'm really glad you're alright."
"Yeah, right!" you fold your arms and turn away.
"No, really, I know this might be hard to believe, but I care about every living thing very deeply! And especially you!" she says, grabbing you by your shoulders to force you to face her. You lack the strength to stop her from doing so, but you still try to resist, just for the sake of it.
"Me? Why me?"
"Because you're an innocent, and we do know each other, silly. You saved my life, even!" she says cheerfully, and the bright look on her face brings a blush to your cheeks for an entirely different reason than shame, a warm and gooey reason that you feel much more uncomfortable with. You avert your gaze and mentally scramble to change the topic and forget that feeling.
"If you care about every living thing, then why'd you kill the spider?" you ask under your breath.
"That was an unnatural entity with no sentience or soul, wise guy. It was just a construct obeying its instructions," Fernweh says without missing a beat. "I would never kill any living thing. Not a single one. Are we clear on that?"
"If it was just a construt-... construck-... thingy with no sen-tee-ants, then why did it talk to me?" you ask with a grumpy tone.
"It talked to you? It shouldn't have been able to talk," the nymph muttered, scratching her chin thoughtfully. She glanced over where it had been, but there was nothing left to examine, only ashes. "You probably just hallucinated or something."
