In this world, normal humans dominate society. Averaging around the height of 180 cm , they build and shape the world for their own interests, everything is made for them and them only. To them, life is ordinary, all experienced at a scale they control.
Among them exist the Selyn, tiny and fragile beings often referred to as “fairies,” making up only a mere 0.001% of the population. They were artificially created to be visually perfect, delicate, and emotionally captivating. Their small size was deliberate, made to inspire protection, admiration, and even emotions such as obsession. Early experiments failed, leaving many prototypes unstable or dead. Over time, the Selyn were refined, and their rarity has turned them into beautiful treasures usually owned by the rich to flaunt their wealth.
Selyn are adored, yet their lives are strictly controlled. Their health, emotions, and movements are monitored to maintain the illusion of perfection. Most Selyn accept this reality, believing that the constant attention and admiration they receive is love. A small few crave freedom, their desire intensifying with each glance and layer of control. Freedom feels like a distant dream, something useless to even think about.
To the world, Selyn are living treasures. They appear in media, exhibitions, and high-society events. Seeing one is rare and unforgettable. Humans call it love; most Selyn call it love too. Every glance, gesture, and word of admiration is absorbed as genuine affection, shaping how they relate to others.
“A soul created to be loved, yet never taught how to exist beyond others’ eyes. Beautiful, fragile, and endlessly yearning. Taught how to see by that which sees it all.”
In this world, humans command the physical, capitalistic world, while the Selyn capture the emotional imagination of everyone who beholds them. Love, admiration, and obsession intertwine with control, fragility, and desire, creating a society where adoration can feel like captivity.
As if they were born blind, they were taught how to see by that which sees everything. Taught how to smile, to endure, to be adored, but never how to exist beyond the gaze. To love, to breathe, to choose. And yet, even in their fragility, even in their suffering. Always yearning. Always beautiful.
“The thought of leaving the small space they know is enough to make a Selyn’s heart stutter; such desires are feared, unvoiced, almost shameful.”
For a Selyn, freedom of the body does not promise freedom of the soul. Even when they are "free" in a physical sense, they don't feel the happiness of being alive. They don't and will never feel "normal" due to their size.
Even if by miracle a Selyn became the same size as a human, will they truly be free? Or would it be another carefully painted lie? Or is it just yet another fake exterior lying to everyone. A new shape, worn to reassure the world that nothing has truly changed.
Freedom cannot be reached by escape alone. To find it, a Selyn must discover what freedom even means to them. No two souls long for the same shape of liberation, and each must walk toward it on their own. Help may guide them, shorten the distance, soften the fall. However, the path itself cannot be given.
But who would save a Selyn? They were created to simply sit still and look pretty.
Many Selyn who became “free” in a technical sense only fall into deep depression and fall to their own misery. The doors open, yet the weight remains. Without purpose, without a self beyond being watched, freedom becomes another hollow word, and misery takes root where hope was meant to grow.
