Long time lurker, first time poster.
I don't write that much but any feedback is appreciated!
Julie: faerie she/her
Tyllie: human she/they
CW: accidental whump/fear, injury.
Julie was gathering everything up, a succesful borrowing trip. She had been running low on supplies for a while now, but the human she shares her home with had been home much more frequently than Julie had liked. She's not sure what changed, but the human had become a lot more vigilant, and barely seemed to leave their home. At the current rate, she might have to use most of her magic just to evade detection. A distant noise snaps Julie back to the task at hand, she needed to be quick. She bundled up the last of the food she'd gathered, and got ready to take off. However, right as she flew through the doorway a human figure appeared in it, faster and quieter than Julie had anticipated. She had no time to react and flew straight into the forehead of the brute.
---
Tyllie was slowly getting ready for her workday. Ever since her new remote job, things have been so much more relaxed. No commuting, no coworkers stealing my food from the fridge, and all the time early in the morning to lazily wake up. Fully relaxed after a morning shower, she leasurely walked into the kitchen when something hit her in the face. Something the size of a tennis ball. But as they looked around, they couldn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary. As she was about to continue into the kitchen, she heard a small groan coming from the floor. Was she going mad? She leaned down to where they thought they heard the groan, closely looking for any sign of where the sound came from. Breathing. Quiet breathing. She wasn't mad, right? But there really seemed to be nothing there. Just to make sure, Tyllie felt the stone tile with her hand, sweeping over it, looking for any explanation as to what they heard. And then they felt it, there clearly was something, was it invisible? As they picked it up, they heard more wincing, whatever it was, was alive?
---
This was bad, really bad. As Julie did her best to suppress her painful gasps, she looked up at the looming human. She needed to get out of there, and it needed to be now. The first flap of her wings immediately sent an electric pain through her back, one of her wings must be broken. As she groaned through the pain, she realized the human still had not moved. Go, leave, just move, Julie's thoughts screamed at her. But as she looked up again, the face of the giant creature had become scarily close. She did everything in her power to steady her breathing. Everything in her body was telling her to run, but her legs seemed to be in almost as bad a shape as her wings. She slowly crawled away from the kitchen, but at her scale it will take at least an hour just to crawl back to a safe corner of the massive home. But she would push through, she always had. As she looked back at the much too close form of the human, she realized that she might not make it that far however. A hand bigger than her entire form descended down on her, had her magic failed? The hand swept into her with the force of a truck, sending another, stronger wave of electric pain throughout her entire body. She tried to suppress her reaction to the overwhelming pain, but could not hold in a loud whince. The pain quickly went from excruciating to unbearable, and her vision went black.
---
Tyllie looked at their open palm, her eyes telling her it was empty, but their hand was telling them that they were holding something. Moreover, whatever they were holding, seemed to be alive. But it didn't seem to be moving, at least she did hear it breathing, so it was still alive. Tyllie carefully prodded at where she could feel the creature on her palm, as she poked it, a small part of the creature became visible. As if they were rubbing off paint. Tyllie took the creature to the sink, and started rubbing off more of the "paint". They cleaned off more of the substance, and decided to take another good look at the creature. Tyllie could not believe their eyes, whatever it was, it seemed to resemble a small person, but not quite. It's ears were longer, it's face sharper, and something else seemed wrong. Tyllie tried to rub away more of the paintlike material, but it seemed like the back of the creature did not want to reveal itself. Tyllies finger glided over the back of the creature, whatever it was seemed to be quite smooth, but she wasn't sure what to make of it. Tyllie decided that, whatever the creature was, it probably needed some rest, considering it was still limply laying in her palm.
---
As Julie came back to her senses, the overwhelming pain had dulled somewhat to a manageable amount. A new wave of fear washed over her as she remembers the looming hand that picked her up before. Had she really been captured by a human? She carefully opened her eyes, looking for any sign of her captor. While she didn't find the human, it became apparent to her that escaping it would also not be an option. Trapped, trapped by a human. Even if there was a way out, Julie was in no shape to try, her entire body was still sore from the collision. For now, all she could do was sit there, sit there and imagine all the horrid things the human was going to do to her.
---
Tyllie had decided that work could wait, they had no scheduled calls, so they could focus on the little creature she had found in the kitchen. Whatever it was, it would be infinitely more entertaining than her job. They walked back into the kitchen and immediately heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing. The sound was small, but it was clear the creature was in distress.
---
Julie looked up through her tears, terrified at the sight of the human that has returned for her. She tried to compose herself as best as she could, but the only thing she could think of were the horror stories she'd heard as a kid. If you were caught by a human, they would eat you for your magic powers, her grandma had always said. And that was if you were lucky, unlucky faeries would be kept as a mana battery, living on scraps, never to freely fly again. "Are you okay?" A voice boomed over her. Was the human concerned about her? It had to be a trap, she decided, giving no response. The humans face got uncomfortably close to her cage. Eyes bigger than her head peering into her very essence. Julie would give anything to be relieved from this. "Do you, uh, understand me?" The voice asked, quieter this time. Julie gingerly nodded yes. Immediately regretting it internally, why did she answer, she just wanted out of here as quickly as possible, and now it knows it can talk to me. "Are you hurt?" Julie scoffs internally at the question, she feels more than just hurt, her wings are in no better state than before, she can't stand on her own legs, and with the giant staring her down, she feels like she can collapse any second. Why does this human care? If it wanted to help me, it should just let me be. The sound of metal on metal snaps her back to reality. The human has opened the cage and is reaching for her. "Please I just want to take a closer look, make sure youre okay." Not that Julie is able to stop the giant hand from taking her out, she still winces at the hand putting too much pressure on her wings.
---
Tyllie picks up the small creature without any protests from it. With the tiny in their palm once more, they take the time to more closely inspect it. Whatever cloaked it from view before, seems to have worn out. Tyllie carefully picks up the creature to inspect it from all sides. It has wings! Well, it had two of them, but it looks like one of them has torn off halfway, the poor thing. It looks quite battered in general. Was this all from flying into me? Tyllie was going to have to be careful with it. Whatever it was.
---
With every prod and poke investigating Julie, she felt the last hope of this ending easily evaporate. "What exactly, uh, are you?" Julie looks up at the giant, its eyes staring intently. She does her best to gather her voice. "Please don't hurt me." The giant looks almost offended at her request. This is it, this is how she is going to go out. Julie braces herself as well as she can, and. Nothing. She opens her eyes back up, and is met with a confused look from the human. "Did you think I was going to hurt you?" It asked. "no, well uhm, you've already uhm uh, hurt me." Julie immediately regrets her words, stammering to try and backtrack what she said. "Well that was hardly on purpose, was it now?". The human was right, if anything it was her own fault for flying into it. With her cloak up, there would have been no way the human could have seen her. The faerie deflated once more, this was all her own fault. She should have paid more attention.
---
Tyllie couldn't help but feel a little sad for the creature. It looked like it was going to collapse at any moment. She decided to carefully put it back in the safety of the enclosure she got for it, and put some food and water out for the little thing. Just some bread was going to have to do for now.
---
Julie couldnt believe her luck. The human put her back in the cage, with the door still unlocked. With what little magic she could still muster, she whipped up a new cloak and started limping to the exit. She knew she had to get out of here, before the human did something even worse to her. She needed to get out of there, whatever the cost. Just as she made it to the door, the human turned around from whatever it was doing, and started searching for her. "Little one, where have you gone? I was just getting some food and water for you." Julie tried her best to move out of the cage as quietly as possible. One of the humans' arms brushes past her, and she can only hope that it does not notice her. With every step she takes, her legs send more and more pain up her nerves. But she has made it, kneeling more than standing just a bit away from the cage, still unnoticed by the human. With a loud crash, the cage door closes next to her, had she been any slower, she would have still been in it. "You dont have to hide yourself, please, just have some water." It must think she was still in the cage. This was an oppertunity she shouldn't waste. Sooner or later that human will try and feel around in the cage and notice she wasn't there. But what could she really do? With her wings damaged, and her legs also in a bad state, there was no chance she could get off this table. Let alone all the way back to her home. But she had to think of a plan.
---
Tyllie was impatient. She wants to help the little fairy, but it seems to only want to hide from them. She is trying their best to give the creature some rest in its enclosure, so they decide to go back to work. Better to put their mind on something else for a little while, she thinks.
---
Julie watches in relief as the human leaves her alone in the kitchen. She does not know how much time she has, so she immediately starts plotting her escape. Except, is it even going to be possible? It is already a long way down to the chairs, and even further still to the actual floor. The only thing on the table that seems to be any help is a box of tissues. Could she glide down using one of the sheets? She slowly makes her way to the box and starts pulling on the fabric. With a lot of effort, she manages to pull one of the tissues from the box. Folding two corners into each of her hands. Julie shakily walks to the edge of the table. This is it, she thinks. With one last, deep breath, she tries to clear as much distance from the table, before falling down. Thump. The tissue didnt work as well as Julie had hoped, and she hit the floor pretty hard. Her bad arm definetly took the worst of the blow. While she hurt all over, she was glad she was still able to walk. She started slowly making her way to safety, one of the entrances of her home. The entrance wasn't too far, she normally didn't use it because it was quite far from her actual home, but getting out of the humans reach was her top priority right now. Her magic was weak, and she did not know how much longer she could keep her cloak up.
---
Tyllie was now focused on her work, quietly typing away behind their laptop. She had almost forgotten about the little creature, when the sound of something falling in the kitchen snapped her out of her work. They made their way to the kitchen to look what happened, and to see if the fairy was still okay. When she got to the kitchen, she noticed a tissue on the floor, and a, blur? Right next to the sheet on the floor the black tile seemed blurry, was it the little creature? As she made a move towards it, the blur started moving away from her. Tyllie was more intrigued than anything else so they watched it move with interest. After watching for 20 seconds or so, Tyllie noticed what it was moving towards; a small opening in their kitchen wall. They had long intended to seal it up sometime, to stop mice from entering her kitchen, but as they never had any trouble with mice, they hadn't gotten around to fix it.
---
Run, Julie had to run. Even though her legs were already giving out and her lungs were burning up, she had to make it to safety. She was just happy the human hadn't seemed to notice her yet, otherwise she would already be snatched back up into that damned cage. She was so close now, she could already peer into the entrance. "So, is that your home?" Julie stumbled over her own legs at the words. How long had she been seen? The human was looking right at her, for how long? She had to make it though, so she quickly gathered herself and kept running for the wall. Part of her hoped that if the human let her go all that way already, maybe it would allow her to leave the kitchen? She powered on for the last little bit and almost collapsed from relief when she made it into the wall. Safe at last. She slowly made her way back into her home, this really was the long way there. It did not matter, even though every step she took still hurt a little bit, she was glad she was not out there anymore.
