Chapter Zero

There was a rose garden on a hill overlooking the city of High Eclipse, and at the garden's centre was the burnt shell of a lightning-struck oak, where a wild fairy had been born almost eight-hundred years ago.

She was a thunder sprite, and she spent her days drinking the nectar of the wildflowers that grew nearby, and when the sun dipped below the sheltered waters of the bay she allowed herself to get drunk on moonlight. The next morning she would wake, slightly hungover and buried in a hedge, ready to repeat the cycle even as she shook off the stubborn headache from the night before.

Like most Faefolk, she couldn't count higher than ten, so she had no way of knowing that she had gone through the same ritual over a hundred and fifty thousand times completely alone.

That changed one night when a dozen warships were chased into the bay by the pirates they were supposed to be hunting, and human boots stepped onto the shores of the island for the first time.

Everything moved quickly from that point onwards, and the fairy on the hill saw High Eclipse grow from a few ramshackle tents to a sprawling city almost overnight.

The grounded warships were dragged ashore and stripped for parts like a beached whale being torn to scraps by hungry wolves. A small port town was built from their remains, and a bridge was built to the small island that guarded the mouth of the river, where a massive bonfire was lit to guide the fleets of settler-ships that arrived in the bay at the end of every month.

At first, the fairy watched the humans obsessively, keeping track of their movements in the hopes that one of them would visit her; but even as they cleared the forests and planted a golden sea of farmland, they always seemed to stop just short of her lightning-struck oak, and she felt the years start to fade into one another again. She sighed, shrugged, and returned to the endless cycle of warm nectar and cold moonlight.

Time passed, the city grew, and she barely noticed. Two generations had lived and died working on the legendary walls of High Eclipse, and the fairy in the lightning-struck oak didn't even know it was being built until the fireworks were being launched to celebrate its completion.

And then, as the fairy dragged herself out of a ditch the morning after an unusually strong full-moon, she realised that all the wildflowers had disappeared while she slept. She didn't have anything to eat anymore, and by the next morning, she was hungry for the first time in her life.

It wasn't as if she could just look for food somewhere else - she couldn't fly more than a dozen meters away from the lightning-struck oak - but before she could start to panic, she saw a strange new plant sprout from the black soil that had been exposed the same night the wildflowers disappeared.

It was a rose, and it was quickly joined by thousands more of its kind that covered the hill in a deep scarlet carpet.

A human - a young one - had turned her home into their garden, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it... until she tried the new flowers and discovered that they were easily the best thing she had ever tasted. Before long, the fairy and the gardener had made a deal with each other; she would protect the roses from parasites, weeds, and anything else that entered the garden without the permission, while the caretaker would make sure that there was always an obscene amount of nectar for the fairy to drink until she passed out.

The seasons came and went, and when the garden wasn't flowering the caretaker would leave a small dish of sugar or honey outside the lightning-struck oak every morning before sunrise, even as the rest of High Eclipse were urged to stay inside until the storms and blizzards passed.

Eventually, the caretaker was joined by another of their kind who shared their dirty blond hair and slightly crooked nose. They were younger - maybe half the age of the original - and the fairy realised that they were the first caretaker's son. The two humans talked as the worked; about the son's friends, usually - but every few weeks the father would tell a war story from his life on the continent, and both his son and the fairy would listen silently. Over time, the fairy learnt their language, but her life was a lot less interesting than the humans', so she kept quiet.

One day both of the caretakers were absent.

The next evening the son brought a shovel to the garden and buried his father under the lightning-struck oak.

A week passed before he returned to the garden, and he worked in silence for two years.

It took some time for the fairy to settle into the new routine, and - not knowing how else to help - she worked twice as hard to keep intruders out of the garden, and she floated a little closer to the caretaker on cold days to keep him warm.

After three years, the gardener started to whistle, and for a few months, he would eat lunch with a stranger as they leant against the lightning-struck oak.

The fairy never saw the stranger again, but after another ten years, the caretaker arrived early one morning, said a prayer to the lightning-struck oak, and returned later that same day with his son that had inherited the blue eyes of their grandfather.

The fairy watched over the four generations of the family and their garden until the last caretaker grew old without an heir. It was a warm evening in mid-autumn, and the setting sun painted the sky and the sea the same gentle pink and orange hue. The last caretaker sat on the bench their great-grandfather had made, and the stared out over High Eclipse with a soft smile.

"Looks like this is it, Fae."

"Probably."

It was strange, hearing her voice for the first time, and for a moment the fairy thought she had said the wrong word, but the caretaker broke the silence with a laugh.

"I knew it," he whispered to himself before turning to face the fairy, "What are you going to do next?"

The fairy wasn't quite sure how to respond. She'd never been particularly good at planning ahead.

"I don't know."

The caretaker laughed again, "You haven't left the garden in, what, three hundred years? You can't think of anything else you want to do?"

"I think I'd probably like to explore the city."

"Then why don't you?"

"I can't leave the garden," she explained, "Not without a name."

Another pause, longer this time, as the gardener swore under his breath, "If I was forty years younger..."

The fairy shrugged, "I don't mind. I'm immortal - remember? I'll just wait until someone offers me a contract."

"How long have you been waiting? How many years?"

"I can't-"

"Was it before my father's time? My grandfather's?"

"Before the garden. Probably when I first saw the ships arrive in the bay," admitted the fairy quietly.

The colour drained from the caretaker's already pale face, "That's..."

"A long time?"

"Nearly four centuries. Maybe more."

They spent the next half-hour in silence, watching as the last ships left the harbour and the street lamps flickered to life along the wide streets of High Eclipse.

"Can you promise me something, Fae?"

"Maybe."

The last caretaker stared into the fairy's eyes while tears began to well up in their own, "Find someone who can name you. You don't deserve to stay trapped here."

"Why-?"

"You've helped my family since the day we arrived on this island- it's only fair that someone helps you as well."

The last caretaker stood up, dusted themselves off, and began the long walk down the path and towards their cabin. They left behind a small pile of sugar and honey by the lightning-struck tree and, just beside it, a small bunch of wildflowers.