"As lively as ever, aren't ya?"
I observed intently as one of the giants, this one gray-haired, deep-voiced, and smelling of something bad, picked me up like I weighed nothing, pondering the deeper meaning of the sounds he uttered.
As, as.
Lively.
Ever.
Aren't ya.
Tones.
Patterns.
Repetitions.
I missed nothing.
"At this rate, you'll start to crawl soon, won't ya? Don't cause trouble to my old bones when you do, m'kay? Let's see... huh, you smell awful, little fairy. Time for a good wipe."
Rate. Start. Crawl. Soon. Trouble. Old. Bones. Smell. Awful. Fairy. Wip-
Wipe‽
The instant I recognized that horrifying word and the deeper meaning it implied, my body reacted instinctively and I stiffened up, something apparently felt by the one holding me.
"Heheh, already smart enough to recognize some words? A bit too smart, aren't ya? Is it your Origin Aspect? [Insight]? [Focus]? [Perception]? Oh well, ya do ya, time for a good wipe."
No! I don't need it! I don't want it!
Unfortunately, no matter how much I struggled and made my discontent known, only the faintest of unintelligible sounds escaped me, which was far from sufficient to cause any change, and soon enough, I was being wiped, feeling my skin being ripped off by the rough square of slightly soft metal being used.
"There ya go, all clean."
There. Ya. Go. All. Clean.
I listened.
Soon.
Soon, I would understand all sounds.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
My entire arm, from my fingers to my shoulder, burned from the [Exertion] I placed upon it, but I held on and continued to bring myself up until my back lifted off the weird grating surface I had been left to lie on since entering this place.
It was then the turn of my head, which, more than anything else, I once couldn't imagine having the strength to lift, but [Guided] had never forgotten about it, and the results spoke for themselves when I successfully raised it alongside my back, finally independently opening the world to my sight as it rose above the once unimaginably tall edges of my "crib".
Getting to behold this previously hidden part of the world through my own ability felt thoroughly different from witnessing it by being raised by someone else.
I accomplished that by myself.
And now, I had infinitely more to observe.
Whenever I wanted.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
My crib.
More cribs, empty.
Bigger cribs without edges.
Beds.
For bigger beings.
Metal.
I had heard many say everything was made out of that, whether it looked the same or not.
Beds, cribs, walls, ceiling, floor, or doors, all made out of metal.
I believed I was starting to recognize it.
There was rust, too.
Also metal, but different.
There was rust inside everything that was padded—like the floor of my crib—in the form of powder.
Itchy sticky powder.
Powder being lots of pieces too tiny to pick a single one in particular up.
It all made so much sense.
[Guided] agreed as it steered me towards making more observations and linking them with what I had already learned about the world.
One connection after another, reality slowly assumed a different kind of appearance, one colored by everything else I already knew, established through comparisons...
There was so much I had yet to learn, to understand...
I couldn't wait until I finally became able to escape my crib.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
"I really don't know why they took you in, fairies really only know to cause problems... at least you eat nearly nothing and aren't a bother..."
I listened to the words spoken by one of the giants I disliked the most and barely puzzled out their surface meaning.
She didn't like me.
Not that surprising, all things considered.
I wondered what "Fairy" and "Origin Aspect" meant, though.
Just another part of the puzzle that was the world surrounding me.
When she roughly fed me the tasteless watery paste, I was [Guided] not to act up and to make myself smaller, aware from experience that making my discontent known would only worsen things.
She wasn't the first one to treat me roughly, and she wouldn't be the last.
Just as my [Cycle] had yet to mature sufficiently to ward off both hunger and cold by itself, and my [Exertion]s were only entering the territory of being capable of keeping me in a seated position for many breaths, I only needed to be patient.
Soon.
"That should be enough," she suddenly said, the watery paste abruptly withheld from me before I felt even remotely full.
I refused to make my discontent known, only staring at her silently.
"So docile." She looked down at me with eyes that only contained cold, without a bit of warmth. "Your Origin Aspect is [Parasite], isn't it..."
Soon.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
At long last, things changed when I proved my ability to remain seated for as long as I was willing to be.
"Do you fairies grow up so fast?" The apparent leader of this place, the wrinkled one, eyed me suspiciously as I remained seated with nothing to support my back and head.
It still burned a little, but that hardly mattered.
[Guided] always knew to keep me going until I genuinely couldn't hold myself up anymore, regardless of whatever suffering came before that point.
As for that suffering, I had learned so long ago I couldn't remember when that it was a remarkably unreliable indication of what I could actually accomplish.
"Well, you didn't cause any disaster to befall our refuge, I thank you for that, little one. Now..."
She stared into nothing for a couple of breaths, then, as if satisfied with what she saw, nodded and picked me up with the same strange mix of firmness and softness I strangely recalled from the first time I encountered her.
"Now, it's time for you to pay us back a little for what little paste we provided you. You like to move around, right? That's perfect, there are always pipes too small for anyone else to scour the rust from, and you'll be perfect for that. It'll even slightly quiet the discontent about your presence if you do it..."
She talked and talked, and while I listened, I was way more fascinated by where she was heading.
Through the door.
An entirely different world.
Well, it certainly looked like more walls, ceiling, floor, and doors made out of metal colored by rust, but it was new.
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New in that it was the first time I had the opportunity to see them.
Eventually, we arrived at a bigger and different door compared to all the other doors I had gotten to witness.
This one was... clean?
No.
Not just clean, it was too clean to compare to what I previously referred to as clean.
Was that clean, and all other doors actually weren't?
Was there something above clean?
"There we go, the rust scouring hall."
She effortlessly pushed the door open with one hand...
Light.
"Ah!" A pain that pierced through my entire head, starting from my eyes, assaulted me so suddenly that I couldn't stop a small cry of pain from escaping me.
"Careful there." A hand swiftly came to rest on my head, covering my eyes with warmth, comfort, and safety. "You've never been exposed to light before, dim as this one is. Endure for just a bit, and your eyes will do the rest by themselves."
I didn't understand.
[Guided] appeared to, however.
I needed to... keep my eyes open.
Against my instincts, I opened my eyes once more and was welcomed by a wrinkled hand keeping most of the pain away while still letting parts of it through.
Even just that was painful, but I endured, [Guided] to slowly win out against this new enemy I never knew existed through sheer [Exertion].
And this win took the form of simply pushing through the pain as my eyes developed their own mystical means of adapting themselves to the light.
When I felt ready, I softly pushed the hand away, and the process resumed, over and over again...
Until the hand vanished and I beheld the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
Details, texture, little shadows, bright colors...
Compared to the reality I endeavored to fully experience prior with so much curiosity driving me, this...
This was so much more.
Overwhelmingly more.
"Let's get you settled in the rust box first."
Still dazed by this world-upending discovery of light and what it brought to the world, it wasn't until I was seated inside a boxed area filled with what I knew to be rust powder—what was inside the padded floor of my crib—alongside others that I came to my senses.
"This..." The words of the wrinkled one paused as soon as she began, and for whatever reason, she turned me around to give me a profound look before nodding slightly, as she seemed so used to doing. "She's the little fairy you've probably already heard of. She's going to be a pipe scourer."
Those words proved sufficient to cause everyone to look my way, causing a strange sense of pressure to settle over me, in turn making me stiffen up in an utter lack of preparation to face so many gazes at once.
"Fairy?"
"Fairy bad."
"Pipe scourer?"
"Fairy evil."
So many new voices spoke at the same time that I was thoroughly unable to hear anything in particular.
Yet, I still caught the most important bits.
Fairy.
Bad.
Evil.
"No, fairies aren't inherently bad or evil."
The wrinkled one spoke up, but her words weren't different.
Fairies. Bad. Evil.
"They're simply different, fairies are born with an Origin Aspect that defines their life, either in good or in bad," she stated while softly petting my head.
Origin Aspect.
I remembered those sounds, those words, uttered so many times that I unavoidably came to associate them with something on the same level of importance as the likes of fairy, metal, and rust.
Nevertheless, this time was different.
Fairies.
Origin Aspect.
Something clicked.
I delved inwards, deeper and deeper, till I made contact with that overwhelming sense of myself, of my own existence.
[Guided] (Origin)
[Exertion] (Tier 0)
[Cycle] (Tier 0)
[Insight] (Tier 0)
Origin Aspect.
Something about [Guided] echoed the subtle meaning of Origin as I came to understand it, even if I wasn't entirely certain how or what.
It was a beginning, though.
Before long...
One word after another.
One sound after another.
I would understand everything.
"There you go." With one last pat, she stood back up. "Get used to playing in rust, you'll need it."
Then I was finally left to myself, surrounded by unfamiliar others who seemed very keen on approaching me.
I was [Guided] to let things come to pass.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Back in my crib following the many [Exertion]s that made up my first experience in the rust box, I was only disappointed that it ended so quickly and that I didn't have more energy to give.
In the end, the others had kept their distance from me, leaving me to experience this new side of reality by myself, with all its strange textures, tastes, smells, colors...
Now, when I took in the sight of the ceiling above my crib, of the faded edges of my crib, of the slightly darker patches where rust had taken over...
I felt nothing.
Or that's what I believed until [Guided] started hinting at something more.
This dark, still, uninteresting place could be more.
I simply needed to see it for what it really was.
Nonetheless, I was too tired to start doing that now, and thus I wisely chose to follow its more urgent hint to close my weary eyes and stop dwelling on what could be.
It was time for me to rest, sleep, and recover the energy I needed to further understand the reality I was in.
And just as there was a time to rest, when I next woke would be the time to explore, to listen, to observe, and, given even more time, I was certain there would come a time when even this darkness would gain interesting colors.
From rust to light.
From warmth to darkness.
From sounds to touch.
From having handfuls of rust powder thrown into my eyes to pronouncing my first complex sounds...
I was [Guided] to experience everything, no matter how seemingly insignificant, all while keeping my [Cycle] and doing oh-so many [Exertion]s whose meanings I couldn't be bothered to ponder.
I was growing stronger.
I was understanding more.
That was enough for me.
"Faiwy... bat. Faiyi... ba. Faiwy... bad." I practised my voice in my corner of the rust box, confident no one would come to bother me anytime soon.
Everyone who dared to try to hurt me had learned to avoid provoking me after I made my capabilities known, after all.
Small and light though I may be, I was always [Guided] towards victory one way or another so long as I didn't give up.
As for the meanings of those words I practised with...
I already understood them, having grasped what those sounds-words signified many sleeps ago.
I was a fairy.
I was different.
I was also different from other fairies.
My difference was my Origin Aspect.
[Guided].
Other fairies had other Origin Aspects.
Origin Aspects that could be [Bad] or [Pain] instead of [Guided].
And when I understood that, I understood why fairies are bad, even if I was one.
[Guided] was always there, I was always [Guided].
If [Guided] was [Pain], [Hunger], or [Cold] instead...
I trembled at the thought.
What would my life be like without [Guided] constantly at my side to guide me?
How would I have ever battled off hunger without it?
"Pipe... sou-eur. Pipe... screur. Pap... scou-eur..."
It was frustrating to fail over and over again at pronouncing what I sought, but I also knew that hurrying would change nothing.
Like my attempts to slowly stand upright and walk, like my [Insight]s to parse the deeper meanings of sounds, like the unending [Cycle] I maintained and which I was ever so slightly refining, bringing it closer and closer to enabling me to battle off both hunger and cold by myself at the same time...
It was a question of [Exertion].
The act of relentlessly attempting something to better it, regardless of how bad it was at the beginning or how impossible the end goal appeared to be.
Speaking was just that.
"Wuft... pow-eur. Wust... pow-deur. Russ... po-deur."
Trying to stand on my two legs was just that, too.
Just as everything else was just a question of [Exertion], too.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
I woke up and opened my eyes to see a discoloured ceiling whose greatest points of interest lay in the darker patches scattered here and there that I reckoned to be rust.
I flipped myself onto my side, then used my arms to slowly lift myself, my entire body put to work towards lifting me up.
When I gained sufficient height, I grabbed one edge of my crib and, from there, pushed with my two legs against the floor of my crib to stand up.
[Guided] was there to help me, warning me whenever my balance was at risk of breaking.
Once I stood tall and upright, I had to gather my wits for a moment as I stared over the edge at the faraway solid metal floor underneath.
This time was the one.
Firmly grabbing the edge with my two hands, I steadily leaned my entire body over, and before I knew it, I felt a sharp cold invade me through my feet.
Huh.
The floor wasn't that far away in the end...
Releasing my grasp, I was just in time to secure my footing and balance before the door leading outside opened and the gray-haired one who smelled bad walked in, his gaze swiftly coming to rest on me.
"That may well be the worst escape attempt anyone ever tried to pull on me, little fairy." He approached and scooped me up, again, like I weighed nothing. "And believe me, I caught too many little scurrying youngings to remember."
With that, he put me back into my crib, but instantly seemed to think otherwise. "Wait, why am I putting you back where I know ya can jump from? But ya're still so little... How are ya even able to escape? Want to show me again?"
He wanted me to... get down? Again?
I hazily figured out what he was saying, and after meditating on it for some time...
"Ya," I uttered my affirmation and nodded, copying the wrinkled one, then began my previously successful get-down process anew.
I flipped, lifted myself, stood upright, leaned over the edge, and just like that...
"Ah!" I made my success echo through my voice, then looked back at him.
"Is your Origin Aspect perchance [Grow]?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "Or did ya already form your first Aspect? [Balance]? [Escape]? I really hope for ya it's a good one if you did form one, cause there's no going back once ya forms a Path Aspect, it's there to stay forever..."
The gray-haired one chattered and chattered, but for the first time, even if it was only barely...
I believed I was beginning to understand the overall meanings of the words spoken.
Aspect.
Form.
Path Aspect.
Origin Aspect.
All these were connected.
Not one and the same like other sounds were—which had caused me no small amount of trouble parsing their meanings—but so closely related as to almost be one and the same.
And I already probably knew what Origin Aspect meant.
I was so close.
"...anyhow, I don't see you going back to sleep. Want me to take you on a small trip? Make the journey to the rust box by yourself? It would be good training for sure. Maybe I can show you some rust scourer tools if you feel up to it? I know it's a bit early but..."
I listened, he talked, and I nodded and made noise every so often when [Guided] told me to, my balance always on the verge of breaking.
Then the gray-haired one grabbed my hand, serving as an anchor of stability as he urged me to take my first steps.
[Guided] urged me to make the best of this opportunity, and I hastily did just that.
Freedom.
At last.
In some way.
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