I Won't Ever Stop You

I sigh. Before I can lose my resolve too much, I speak up. “That was amazing, Cleaver, thanks a lot But now I think I’ll have to –“

“Hey! How could I forget!” Cleaver looks at me, eyes shining. “Come on, Helix! I gotta show you something!” Flapping his wings quickly, Cleaver takes off into the sky, oblivious as usual to the fact that I’m half-human, and just with my luck, didn’t have any pretty, colorful fairy wings.

I start running after him, sighing mentally: it’s Sunday already. My long weekend is coming to an end, and so is my time with my magical comrades. It was so calm and refreshing here. I don’t know why exactly, but I’d chosen that I was going to live in the human world instead of Deep Within The Forest, even though I enjoy every second spent with the various creatures, magical and non-magical, here.

I guess it’s because it’s too tame around here, where everyone knows each other, and everybody is incredibly friendly and helpful.

I guess I like the fact that, on the human side of the world, not many people know you, and very few care. You got to fight to make and keep your place there. There’s corruption, racism, abuse, drugs, criminals – and you? You’re just one of oceans of people. Fight or die out there.

It was hard, but it made you strong. And I liked it.

My family has made it clear to me that they think I have problems, and should seek help soon.

Cleaver leads me into a minute, unnoticeable clearing in th forest, trees overshadowing the tiny space. Sunlight filtered through the branches, making dappled patterns on the ground, and birds chirped cheerily overhead. Animals occasionally passed by, calling greetings, and butterflies flitted around the colorful wildflowers.

I instantly see what he wanted to show me.

“Why didn’t you show me before? God, these are so beautiful!”

I already knew that Cleaver was an extremely good artist, and made incredibly beautiful artwork.

What I hadn’t known, however, was that since the last time he’d shown me his work, he’d made a gallery worth of beautiful, realistic artwork. He was currently using the trunks of the trees surrounding the clearing to display them.

I walk over to the paintings. All of them were themed differently, mostly based on nature, a scattering of different styles here and there, and they were consistently beautiful. It almost felt as if the clouds and birds and trees branches in the canvases were moving in the wind.

“Oh well … I didn’t exactly wanna brag, you know …” He was grinning madly. “But I felt like I just HAD to show you before you…” His face darkened for a fleeting moment. “… went away for who knows how long. You like it?”

Before long, I’d dragged him and his paintings over to the Leader of our Lands – we don’t exactly give much attention to government and such – Frennel (we don’t do surnames either). Frennel was pleased to no end when he saw Cleaver’s paintings (he always was when he saw fresh talent), and instantly assigned him a post in Designing. His job was that whenever anything in town needed to be built or needed refurbishing, he would give ideas on its finished look. We don’t have offices – our community is too small for all that unnecessary hassle. Since we all know each other so closely already, we do everything informally. It works just fine here. Nothing challenging. Barely any competition. That’s why it’s just so much more interesting with humans. Back at home, a person would have to give a hundred interviews before they were finally selected for a job they might just be underpaid for, but have no choice but to take, since we all need to fill our tummies at the end of the day.

I also told Cleaver that if he ever wanted to put his paintings out into the human world, I would try my best to get him a place at an art gallery or something. In the meanwhile, Frennel wanted his paintings exhibited here.

All these developments made Cleaver extremely happy, and he was practically bouncing in excitement as we make our way out of town, standing just on the magical boundaries separating us from the part of the forest visible to humans.

I look at the sky sadly, realizing the sun was coming down, and I would have to take my leave soon.

I look at Cleaver, and had just opened my mouth, when Cleaver suddenly looks at me head-on, chocolate brown eyes shining brightly.

Without any warning at all, Cleaver wraps his arms under my armpits, then flaps his wings hard, launching us into the sky.

I feel the rush of air as I am lifted into the sky; stopping and hovering mid-air when we breached the tops of the tallest trees. An airplane is nothing compared to these occasions, when Cleaver decides to do me a favor and becomes my personal hot air balloon.

“Click a picture, quickly! I want to use this for a painting!” Oh. Well. I guess nothing in this world comes for free anymore. I will have to print the picture out later, since he obviously doesn’t have a phone. But I am not gonna deny him reference for a painting - not after I myself am the one encouraging him the most in this.

I whip my phone out of the pocket of my black jeans with chains dangling from the belt loops (I may or may not be a little emo) and click a picture of the horizon.

I gotta admit, it was really beautiful up here. Oranges, pinks, yellows and blues were splashed across the cloudless sky. The yellowish-orange orb of the sun had half disappeared below the horizon line, and birds outlined black against the fading light were all making a beeline to their homes. The branches of the trees in the forest danced, even with the light, easy breeze, and the river that separated the forest from the fields glinted in the distance, just in sight. Below, we could see the bustling of the beings living in the forest (that included everybody from the average bunny, to a 10-feet tall unicorn, it’s 3-feet long horn swirling with colors, clearly visible, even from up here. Unicorns are always just hogging around for attention, and are hardly of any use other than some fancy occasion. I personally don’t like them. Pegasi are better).

But I also had in mind that it was a Monday tomorrow. And every time Cleaver interrupted me while I tried to say goodbye to show me something interesting, my desire to go back diminished a little bit more.

“So?” Cleaver grins at me, clearly feeling excited after this little excursion, after we hit the ground. Fairies love to fly too, but it got exhausting, just like any other rigorous physical exercise, so they never did it enough to get tired of it. “That was sick as usual, Cleave, but I really need to go back now.” I say before he can interrupt me again, because I was slowly getting a feeling that he kept interrupting me on purpose, whenever I tried to give him my farewell, for whatever reason. Let’s see what he does now.

“Hm? What? What did you say?” I just stared at him, internally face palming at how obvious he was.

At this point Cleaver, too, realizes that his acting is pointless, so before I can say anything, he holds his hand up, sighing.

“Before you say anything, Helix – when do you think was the last time you visited us?" This was the tone that indicated a speech. Or lecture, however you wanted to look at it. "Your family and you friends here? Two months ago, Helix. Two months. We didn’t see you, didn’t hear from you, didn’t know what had become of you – you know we can’t even use tech-technologly to talk to you! You know how closely knit we are, right? Us magical folk? You cause us such worry, disappearing into the unknown, foreign human world, cutting off contact for weeks – months – on end. We love you, Helix, and we worry about you. And we grow anxious when we don’t hear from you. Couldn’t you at least send a willing owl or a pigeon with a letter for us, just so we know you’re okay?” Cleaver looked at me sadly, which made me feel pretty terrible. Whatever he said was true – after I got engaged with the humans, I barely thought about my family here in the woods.

“We would never want to stop you from doing your thing, Helix. We just care about you. We enjoy your company. I love spending time with you. More than I do with anyone. I – we – just wish that you’d be with us more, you know. Talk to us, have fun with us, spend more time with us. Why, I would happily learn how to use a mo-bill phone to be able to communicate with you more.” He smiled warmly.

He rested his hand on my shoulder. “We know that, for you, at least, it is more exciting out there. We all understand that you have dreams. But I just-“ He shook his head. “I’m bad at this. Just … will you stay? Only for a week, until next Sunday? Then you can go on your way! Just one week more?” I realize that this isn’t just about me staying for one more week. My answer to this will actually be an indicator of my willingness to be with them, to spend time with them. And knowing the fairy folk, if they got even the slightest indication that I didn’t want to be with them, then they’d stop ‘imposing’ on me.

“Cleaver, you didn’t have to work so hard to get me to stay here, you know? Y’all are much more important to me than my job, than the humans, than my own life, than anything else, any day. And how did you think that grass-headed plan of yours, of trying to distract me whenever I tried to say goodbye, was gonna help anyway?”

Cleaver just smiled sheepishly, looking down at the ground. "Maybe I just wanted to try out my acting skills." God, was I going to be able to get this sweetness anywhere else? I was being dead serious when I said that these people mattered to me more than my own life. I would never let go of them for anything, not for the latest iPhone model, no.

I smile, pulling him into a hug warmly. Because I love him as well. Because I care for him too. Because I know I can speak a hundred things this way, without having to speak a single word. Just because I felt like I needed to.

He hugged me back warmly, clutching onto me like he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. Now this was some foreshadowing. “We don’t want to stop you from pursuing your dreams, alright? We just want you to adjust time for everything in your life - including us. I just wanted to spend more time with you.”

“And all you had to do was ask.”