Atop the Mountain

By: Alicia Chen

Every year, a fairy sits atop a mountain, waiting. She waits for someone to claim as her own. Every year, she will sit atop this mountain until someone is handed over to her. This is the fairy of unjust. Her name is Hiru.

Hiru was one of the great fairies. The great fairies rule over the weaker fairies of their own categories, which means the great fairy of nature would rule over the fairy of flowers, who would then rule over the fairy of violet grass.

There are five great fairies in total. Life, Death, Nature, Fairness, and Unjust. These fairies have been living ever since the beginning of eternity. Even though all these fairies are unbelievably old, some still look like little children.

What was odd about the fairies living under the control of the fairy of unjust, though, was they had emotions and all the other fairies did not.

What the fairy of unjust does is that she takes things that don’t belong to her. So, every year she waits atop the mountain for someone to hike it. Then, she creates an “unfortunate accident,” and that person is hers to keep. After Hiru gets a person, she turns them into a fairy under her own category. Or she uses them as experiments.

A long time ago, though, as Hiru was using somebody as a test subject, she glimpsed something inside this person that she had never noticed on herself, or any other fairies. From what she could tell from this person’s memory, it was something called emotion. As Hiru was a very ambitious fairy, she wanted this “emotion” for herself.

So, she decided to use fairies as test subjects this time. She picked out a fairy, who was the fairy of cruelty named Kaeda. She put a spell on Kaeda that made her have similar emotions to the human she found the “emotion” on. Soon, Kaeda was different from all other fairies, having the emotions to love, grieve, and be happy. When Hiru found out that her test went well, she immediately went over to all her fairies and did the same to them, granting them emotions as well.

The problem was, though, a fairy could not put their own spell on themselves. Which meant, all fairies under Hiru’s control could have emotions, but Hiru herself could not.

And that is why Hiru takes people without a second thought to this day, while some other fairies take pity and give more than they take.