Dragon Fey by Mara DragonClaw (top 10 books to read txt) 📕

Words:

         Some of the words in this book are either hard to pronounce or they are unknown to you. Most made up and latin words are defined in the book, usually in the paragraph they first appear in. For the ones that aren't, I have a fey to English dictionary that you can use to look up words used exclusively in this book as well as latin terms.

Scale:

         For the sake of visualisation, I use what the measurements would be to us instead of calling it a "fairy inch". To make things a little more clear, an inch is equal to a fairy foot, making 1/12 of an inch their inch, and 5,280 inches their mile. Also, when "domesticated" flowers are referenced, assume that they are to scale with the fairies and not with people unless otherwise specified.

Aria Windbourne woke to an annoying rapping sound coming from her window. What the heck is he doing here at this ungodly hour? Aria got up from her bed of flower petals and leaves, and carefully made her way over to the window; stretching her wings as she went. When she reached the window, she shoved aside a porcelain pot with a wilted lily in it and pushed open the shutters, letting in a stream of moonlight in the proces.

“Jacob, what on Earth are you doing here at this godforsaken time of night?”

“Actually,” said the blonde fairy boy sitting on the outer windowsill, “it is two in the morning- not at night,” He gave her his smug know-it-all grin and slipped through the window.

“I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night or the early morning! This is getting rather ridiculous Jacob; what if our parents were to find out?” Aria said, stepping back from the window to allow Jacob in, despite her protests.

“Our parents aren’t going to care Aria. It’s not like we ever do anything, we just talk,” said Jacob, as if sneaking into a girl’s house in the middle of the night was something everyone did and no one cared about.

“Okay, so maybe it doesn't matter if our parents find out; but what about the other fairies Jacob? What would they say if the most popular and promising fairy in the entire Hollow was caught being friends with the ‘cursed one’?” Aria was concerned not only for Jacob’s well being, but also for her own. If anyone found out she had been “tainting” their electus… Her hand instinctively went up to brush her wings.

Aria was… different. In what others considered a very bad way. The most obvious factor was her wings: instead of having butterfly or dragonfly wings,  she had demon wings. Or at least, what all the other fairies called demon wings. She and Jacob were the only one’s who could seem to see what they really were: dragon wings. The top sides of them shimmered with green, blue, copper and gold scales, and their undersides were that of the loveliest shade of mint green. But yet, still they were called something evil, and Aria was named the cursed one.

And on top of the fact that her wings were different, her talents were different too. All the plants she had ever tried to grow had died, while all the animals she had taken care of had flourished. With most fairies, the opposite was true. Her room was filled with failed attempts at gardening, the latest one sat at the window sill.

“If anyone has a problem with me choosing my own friends, then they can go suck a bulb and mind their own business,” Jacob crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look tough, but being the most promising fairy in the Hollow had next to nothing to do with being tough, this was good for Jacob, for while he was handsome, he was definitely not tough. It was mostly based on gardening and healing talent, of which he did have plenty.

Aria laughed, “I don’t think the elders would agree with you,” the elders were the oldest fairies in the Hollow, and they were the fairies that had given her the title- if it could be called a title- “cursed one”, and had forbidden any contact between her and the electus, or “chosen”.

“The elders don’t rule my life Aria.”

“Where have you been for for the past eternity? Of course the elders rule your life! It may not be right but they do. They chose everything for us, our houses, our spouses, how many children we must have. It’s utterly ridiculous, but that doesn't make it not true.”

“Well then…” Jacob paused. He hadn't really considered what the “what” after the “well then” would be. “Well then I’ll leave!” He said, sounding incredibly final.

“What!” exclaimed Aria, “You know as well as anyone that leaving the Hollow is complete madness! What would you do out there? How would you live? There are dangerous animals out there Jacob, and none of them are exactly friendly with fairies.”

“That’s why you should come with me!” he said in his very final, this-is-not-optional-in-anyway voice.

“What!” Aria exclaimed again, though this time it was more because she hadn’t thought of it herself, and less because she thought it was ridiculous.

“Yes!” Said Jacob, starting to get on a roll. It hadn’t started out as anything serious, but a plan was beginning to form in his mind about how it could be made possible. “It makes perfect sense! Aria, have you ever been truly happy here?” Aria reluctantly shook her head “no”, “Exactly! Leaving this place would be perfect for both of us. You wouldn’t be treated so badly, and I wouldn’t be a puppet for the elders to play with! It would work too. I could grow the plants and the food that we would need, as well as take care of any injuries, and you could keep us from being eaten alive by wild animals! This will work Aria!” He was really excited now, and the excitement kept building as he imagined how much better life could be for them if they went out there.

“Okay, okay!” exclaimed Aria, laughing slightly, “Alright. I’ll do it. But we need to have a plan first, and I need to be allowed to leave a note for Calea,” Calea was Aria’s adopted mother, and had always been very kind to her despite her wings. Aria didn’t want to hurt her.

“Deal,” said Jacob, “Starting tomorrow, I’ll start to discreetly gather supplies from around here, and you can go out and collect supplies from the wild and find a place where we can stay.” Jacob had it all laid out in his mind: a perfect life with his best friend.

Aria laughed, “Wasn’t it you who was correcting me earlier about it being morning? I believe that what you meant to say was ‘later today’, not ‘starting tomorrow’. Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll go out on what everyone will think to be a berry hunting expedition, and I will come back saying I couldn’t find anything. Everything I do find will already be at our new home when we get there,” If we get there. Aria was a little worried about what would happen if they were found. Jacob would probably be fine, mostly anyway. But Aria… She didn’t really want to think about what would happen to her.

“It’s settled then,” said Jacob, walking over to the window, “Alright, I guess we need to get some sleep if we’re going to pull this off,” he sat on the windowsill and gave her a devilish smile, “Bye,” he said and pushed himself over backwards, his own pale green dragonfly wings catching his fall in mere seconds. Aria looked out the window at the small figure flying away from her house.

She yawned and stretched more as she walked over to and layed down on her bed, folding her wings neatly behind her. As she drifted back to sleep, she thought: What just happened, exactly?

This time when Aria woke, it was to the sun streaming in through the open window. Dambe, forgot to close it. She tried to roll over on her side and fall asleep again. Of course, that didn’t work.

“Aria! Time to get up!” Calea called up from the level below Aria’s room, the sound carrying easily through the thin floor. Uuuuuuhhhhhhhg. Aria groaned inwardly. She really did not want to get out of bed that day. At all. Partly because she was so tired, but she also had to admit that she wanted to put off setting Jacob’s plan into action. This was serious stuff they were getting into.

After about five minutes Calea called up again, “Aria? Are you okay?” Aria groaned and got up, tripping over a pot holding a dead daisy bush as she stumbled over to the door and opened it.

“I’m okay,” she called out the door before closing it again and going over to her dresser. She riffled through the many drawers before settling on a green, maple leaf tunic and brown, mouse hide pants. Fairies may be vegetarians, but they don’t waist other resources when animals are beyond saving or are already dead.

Aria’s room was fairly big, with a large window on one wall and the door on the one opposite to it. It was littered with pots filled with flowers in various stages of deadness and had a slightly gloomy air to it. The bed was in the corner by the door and was always unmade with the blue flower petal pillows askew and often on the floor. The furniture was all grown into it’s shape, so no carving was required. The fairies would coax the wood into the shape of whatever it was they needed, and they would fit separate pieces together to make things like the drawers in dressers and in cabinets.

She walked over to the window side of the room to look in a mirror that was set into the wall next to it. It was said that long ago some fairies had the incredible ability to manipulate water, and that was what they used as mirrors. Now, they used spells to make water stay inside a frame and reflect a fairies image back at them.

Aria got a tie from where