1 Wingless fairy

At the castle courtyard a small boy was playing in a small pond that had appeared there due to a storm last night, people were cleaning the courtyard from debris because today was very important day for the Duke of the castle as his oldest son is to be married with 4th royal princess. Duke's family has been the fortress against the remnants of the old world, which from magical beasts and mysterious creatures emerge to cause havoc.

Duke appeared at the courtyard to check the condition from storm and also told his youngest son Joakim to stop playing in the pond as important guests were to arrive any moment now.

Joakim hurried inside to his room and grabbed a vial from under the bed where he usually kept all kind of insects he had found, from his pocket he pulled out small humanoid like creature that had torn wings on it's back and placed it inside the vial and sealed it.

He laid down on the floor while holding the vial above his head to have a better look at the creature. The figure was the size of an adult thumb and had a small dress made from leaves, she was clearly badly injured and that made Joakim wonder if it was even alive. He placed the vial gently on the floor where sun was shining and then he rushed to the kitchen.

The kitchen staff was in a hurry to prepare for the guests and no-one noticed Joakim's desperate attempts to grab attention. Elderly woman who was peeling potatoes noticed Joakim and signaled him to come to her.

"What is it my boy? Are you hungry?" The woman said while setting aside the peeler.

Joakim nodded and pointed towards freshly baked cookies. The elderly woman laughed warmly and grabbed the tray "Take it, and make sure to not bother the kitchen staff anymore"

Joakim rushed with the tray full of cookies back to his room and dropped some crumbs inside the vial for the creature to eat. The scent of the crumbs filled the vial and the wingless creature opened her eyes, she had beautiful ocean blue eyes which were filled with sadness. As she came to her senses, panic filled her as she noticed Joakim's big face staring at her. She tried to flap her badly damaged wings with no avail, as she realised her situation she seemed to wither, the color of her eyes became dim, the brightness of her skin became pale and her red hair turned blac, she was extremely weak and tried to say something to Joakim, but all Joakim heard was "R-run..." before she lost her consciousness.

Joakim felt sorry for the creature and opened the vial as he thought it was suffocating there, but nothing happened. He poured the creature on his bed, this made the creature to gain back some of it's radiance, but the hair was still black.

Suddenly someone knocked Joakim's door and this caused Joakim to panic, so he quickly hid the creature inside his shirt.

Inside the room entered the head butler Joseph "Young master, the guest's have arrived and your father is expecting you to be downstairs to greet them"

Joakim shaked his head as saying no, and hid under his bed. Joseph sighed and peeked under the bed "You are already 8 years old, it is time to establish yourself in this family as the son of duke Kartova."

Joakim did not budge, he stayed there until Joseph left the room. Joseph informed the duke that the youngest son is not feeling well and thus is unable to attend. Duke gave furious glance towards Joseph, but before he could say anything the guests entered the hall.

"Welcome to my humble castle your majesty" Duke Kartova said while kneeling down with everyone present. King waved his hand as a sign to drop the formalities "I don't have much time, so let's get straight to the point." King said with little enthuasim.

Duke gribbed his fist tightly as he lifted up and put up a smile "Ofcourse, my son Arden here has prepared a gift for your daugther" as he said that, Arden stepped forward and told Joseph to bring the gift, Joseph came with a large chest and opened it in front of Arden revealing one of the world's most beautiful necklaces, even the king seemed surprised by the necklace.

Arden grabbed the necklace and went to the 4th princess to place it around her neck "This necklace is known as tears of sky dragon, and it is said that the ashes of the first hero are bound inside these gems to provide protection from dragon's breath".

"Ooh, this kind of gift might be too precious for a mere 4th princess..." King replied with astonishment.

Arden felt insulted but kept his composure "A woman who marries to Kartova family deserves the best, even if they are mere 4th princess" he replied.

"Indeed, may this union strengthen our families for decades to come" King replied with gentle laughter.

Joakim was upstairs spying on them when he suddenly felt movement under his shirt, the small creature crawled to his collar "You know it brings extremely bad luck to capture a fairy" the small creature told Joakim.

Joakim who was mute shaked his head as to try say he has not captured her, but rescued her. The fairy seemed doubtful and jumped down from his collar to attempt walk down the stairs when she suddenly noticed the royal family, she started shaking from fear and crawled back inside Joakim's shirt. "Quickly! Get out of here!" She whispered to Joakim.

Joakim ran to his room and placed the fairy on table as to ask what's wrong? The shaking fairy replied "D-death... Death is here, we must escspe while we can!"

Joakim was confused and did not quite understand what she was saying "I'm telling you to run away from here while you can!" She explained while trying to pry open the window with her small figure but couldn't.

"This is not good, i did not escape from imp's for this!" She continued while trying to search something to use as a levarage for the window.

Joakim followed her actions with confusion and opened the window for her while giving big warm smile. The fairy jumped on top of a branch that was nearly touching the window "What are you doing? I'm not going to wait for you" she hurried Joakim.

Joakim grabbed a cookie and reached out to the fairy handing it to her after which he closed the window as to say goodbye.

The fairy had saddened expression on her face while descending down the tree, but without any hesitation she sneaked out of the courtyard and left the castle without looking back "I hope you stay safe..." she mumbled to herself while biting into the cookie.

Back inside Joakim's room someone was knocking on the door and this time it was the Duke who seemed to be really dissapointed, Joakim could not glare back at his father's gaze. "What am i going to do with you, your brother's know their duty but here you are acting like a..." Before duke could finish his sentence the head butler Joseph rushed to the room "Master! Something is wrong with the king, he is in great pain!".

Duke left the room in a hurry with Joseph, downstairs the king was squirming in pain. A small black hand emerged from his chest holding the heart of the king, the king stared in horror his own heart and so did everyone else "What kind of black magic is this?" Duke questioned as he crouched next to the king.

"P-please, save me." King plead to the duke while gribbing tightly to his shirt. "Quickly! Bring the doctor here!" Duke yelled at Joseph, as the Joseph was about to leave the room, rest of the royal family stopped him.

"What is this!? Can't you see the king is in grave danger!" Joseph questioned the royal family members who were standing in front of the door.

They started laughing manically as they collapsed to the floor, black shadowy arms emerged from each royal family member and arms quickly stretched to the throat of every single Kartova family member lifting them up.

"Who is behind this!?" Duke demanded answer as he tried to free himself from the grib.

The hand crushed the king's heart instantly killing him and after that each royal family member exploded one by one revealing black mass of darkness which slowly emerged with other masses while holding up the kartova family members.

Joakim was peeking trough keyhole and witnessing this horrifying scene happening behind the door. His brothers and father was in danger and all he could do was watch.

Duke noticed Joakim's shadow under the door "Joakim, Run! RUN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!" he yelled from the bottom of his lungs after which the hand crushed his throat dropping him to the floor. Tears started pouring down as Joakim saw his father's lifeless body laying on the ground.

The black mass retracted it's arms swallowing the members of the Kartova family inside it's dark mass. Joakim ran outside where he saw the royal guards standing at guard, he desperately tried to communicate with them and inform what is happening inside, but the guards tried to shoo the boy away as he was distracting them from their duties. Suddenly hundreds of black arms stretched outwards of the castles walls and roof and started grabbing the soldiers scattered around the courtyard, Joakim fell to the ground and tried to crawl to the safety, but one of the arms grabbed him from his heel and started pulling him towards the castle.

He thought this was it, he is going to die the same way as his father and brothers... Then a radiant fairy appeared out of nowhere riding on the back of a large wolf. The wolf bit the black arm in half and tossed the small boy in it's back and started running towards the nearby forest.

"Old hag will never forgive me for this, but i could not let you die at the hands of the fallen one, so you owe me big time, got it?" The fairy told Joakim who was barely listening due to the state of shock he was in.

Joakim stared at the castle which was engulfed by thousands of arms, images started to pour in his mind about his family and the work staff, everyone had a warm loving smile towards him. As they entered the forest, Joakim felt dizzy, he was about to lose consciousness when he heard someone say "Sleep my child, let this day become a bad dream and forget who you are...".

When Joakim woke up, he was inside an old cabin, he felt that he had forgotten something important. An old woman aproached Joakim "Oh, you are awake, i don't like children but Arya wished me to take care of you, so here, eat" she said while handing him a bowl of porridge.

He stared at the bowl which did not resemble porridge at all and gave teary stare towards the older woman. "You think i'm trying to poison you? Just eat your damn porridge." She said while giving him a gentle whack at the back of his head.

"I heard you were mute, it should fix that, or it will turn you into an eel" She added while giving a sinister laughter.

Joakim took spoonful of the alleged porridge and the moment it entered his stomach, he felt sharp pain troughout his body. It felt like he had eaten spoonful of glass and the pain was unbearable, he was coughing for air and audible words came out of his mouth "H-help me...".

Joakim could not believe it, he was able to speak for the first time in his life, the sudden pain he felt dissapeared as fast as it arrived.

"I can speak!? But how!?" He yelled as he could not control the volume his voice. The old hag gave him another whack "I might be old, but my hearing is as sharp as ever".

The small fairy appeared at the window "It seems old hag was able to cure your voice, i thought you will never wake up after what happened 5 days ago".

Joakim was confused "5 days? What happened?" He asked.

"Don't you remember? Afrerall i rescued you?" She questioned Joakim.

When Joakim tried to remember what had happened a part of his memories were blurred, it felt like trying to remember a dream you had forgotten. "I-I don't know... I remember finding you from a pond, but after that everything is blurry, m-my family, i can't remember them either!" Joakim started to panic.

Arya and Old hag stared at each other as they knew something, Joakim noticed this and demanded an answer "What is going on! Why i can't remember!".

"The mother of the forest might have sealed your memories to protect you..." Arya replied.

"Calm down, you witnessed something a mortal man should not have, if mother forest had not sealed your memories, you could have lost your humanity..." Old hag explained to Joakim.

Joakim calmed down and took a better look at his surroundings and asked if the old hag is a witch because he saw all kinds of odd objects and potions scattered around the cabin.

"This old hag? There is no way she is a witch, shes too kind to be one." Arya laughed while pointing towards the hag. The hag gave mean look towards Arya as if she was about to do something witch like to her.

"I'm sorry to assume you as a witch, after all you restored my voice and i'm grateful for your kindness" Joakim bowed sincerely towards the hag.

The hag felt disgusted as if kindness is something nasty and nauseating. She quickly stormed outside. "Did i do something wrong?" Joakim wondered.

"Don't mind her, she act's like that but i bet she is crying tears of joy right now" Arya replied while trying to pry open one of the jars on table.

Old hag returned inside and whacked Arya from the jar as if it was a fly. "I will look after you until you are strong enough to survive on your own, but after that i want you gone, got that?" Old hag explained to Joakim.

Joakim gave huge smile towards the hag and promised to not cause her any problems... Meanwhile far away at the depths darkness a being was spying on them trough dragon's eye it was holding in it's hands, it was scratching it's long sharp nail across Joakim's face.