The moon cast a cold, blue glow across the room, its brilliance at odds with the restless heat simmering in my chest.
Her slender fingers tangled with mine as I pressed her into the bed. She clung to me with teary, uncertain eyes—eyes that might flee at any moment if I loosened my grip. The third button of her nightgown hung open, undone by my own hands.
"Don't… leave too many marks, okay…?"
Even as she protested, I kissed another claim onto her neck. She shuddered, breath hitching.
—Then I woke. Relief and disappointment warred as moonlight mirrored the dream.
To my right, the very fairy from my fantasies lay curled atop a book, tiny and serene. Her silver hair spilled across my pillow, her breaths soft as a cat's. The cage where she once slept now sat forgotten in the corner, a relic of her early days here.
When she stays this small, she often returns to it. But tonight, she'd fallen asleep reading.
Watching her, I felt the weight of sleepless hours.
"…Louis?" Her voice, half-awake.
"Did I wake you?"
"Can't sleep?"
"Not exactly."
She hovered up, barely taller than my elbow even at full stretch. Her eyes—clear and guileless—fixed on mine.
"Want me to sing?"
"No, I'm fine."
She drifted to the windowsill. "I'll fly a bit. Need to stretch my wings."
"Mind company?"
"If you're staying up anyway."
I pulled on a coat and summoned my staff—an artifact woven from sacred wood and strands of her hair. Magic hummed as runes lit beneath my feet: levitation, sustainment , protection.
We slipped through the window into the chill. She soared ahead, darting around me like a firefly teasing the crescent moon. The night air bit, but her laughter warmed it.
Just like the night I caught her.
—If I grabbed her now, would she still smile?
She glanced back, moonlight gilding her hair. "I had a dream earlier."
"Oh?"
"Flying through endless skies. Faster than I ever could."
Wind tugged at her sleeves as she gazed at the star-strewn river above. For a moment, she looked older—wise in ways her playful self rarely showed.
—"Louis, more… ah—! "
The memory of my dream flashed: silver strands pooling on white sheets. I swallowed nausea.
"This feels like that dream," she murmured. "Beautiful, right?"
You're the beautiful one, I didn't say. The fairy who trusts me as kin, oblivious to the rot beneath my courtesy.
"Louis suits the moon," she said suddenly.
"A scripted trait, isn't it? "
"Maybe. Did you know the game sorts love interests into 'moon' and 'sun' groups?"
"Rumored, yes."
"You're moonlit. Obviously."
"…Even I can tell that much."
She grinned, blissfully ignorant of the hunger she stoked—the part of me that craves to tarnish her light.
If you knew my soul belongs to this world, not yours… Would you still smile?
But the fool who calls herself my "mother" sees only the surface. And tonight, that ignorance is a mercy.