Ambient sounds courtesy of tosha73 and EminYILDIRIM
Greetings to those below. I am Death, though Azrael is the name I prefer. I said last time I like pixies even less than fairies, and that is true in a sense, but . . . I suppose I just have bad memories, is all. Pixies are complicated. Dare I say they are more complicated than their fairy cousins? Because on the one hand, pixies are shallow, vain, flighty things who only care about shiny things. Shiny things could be glittering baubles, trinkets, or even people they find attractive. Heaven forbid they think you are ugly.
Wn the other hand, despite their petty motivation for doing so, pixies have done quite a lot of good and have helped many people, especially on Rhye after The Battle of the Royals Dead. So what am I to do? I suppose I will just tell you the facts, and you can make up your own minds about them. But I will caution you, those below. Just because someone does something good doesn’t make them a hero. Why they do it is equally important. And that is where I get stuck with the pixies.
Black Roses
by Darkmoon_Art from Pixabay
he pixies are the seventh race of people among Those Who Came After. They began appearing on Orosta at the same time as the fairies, making their placement on the list something of a tie; though, technically, the gold roses housing the fairies were found first.
The black roses, then, each one containing a little sleeping pixie, began sprouting in different areas in both Rhye and Altyma. Great fields of them blossomed, until they, too, were disturbed by grazing deer, playing children, and the like. One by one, the sleeping pixies awakened, until there were enough of them to start building a kingdom. They chose the southern rainforests in Rhye—as far away as they could get from the fairy kingdom, Rhyseel, in the north—and named their tiny kingdom Rhyxie.
Despite their differences and animosity toward each other, pixies and fairies have much the same origin. They both awoke from roses, they both discovered how fragile such a beginning was, and they both harvested the remaining roses and replanted them under strict and constant guard. Because also like fairies, pixies cannot have children. They also adopted the holiday known as Bloom Week. However many pixies died that year are how many are awakened from the black roses during Bloom Week to replenish the population. So, too, do pixies mysteriously, instinctively recognize family members should they encounter them. And no, they also have no explanation for this. They also don’t remember, but I say that is for the best.
Trust me.
The Problem With Shiny Things
by Willgard Krause from Pixabay
ut that brings me to the first of my bad memories. I said pixies like shiny things, but that single-minded focus has led to no small amount of trouble. Remember I said the term “shiny things” does not necessarily mean glittering baubles or trinkets. Those are nice and certainly would never be turned away, but “shiny things” is actually quite broad in meaning, and it more often than not applies to people, as well. You, if a pixie finds you attractive, become the next great “shiny thing,” and how you will be adored by the masses. That is until the masses get bored and leave you squelching in a ditch.
Flaky, flitting, and shallow. That is a pixie. Unlike their fairy cousins who pretend to care—if only to claim moral superiority over the pixies—pixies do a great job of not caring at all. They don’t care about trees, flowers, or exactly where their squirrel-skin boots come from. They don’t care about orphans, the changing seasons, or the fact yet another butterfly had its wings torn off to make a dress. In fact, shiny things are perhaps the one thing they do care about, to the point I wonder if it is the only thing they
can care about. They are so quick and zip and dash that if they ever did slow down long enough to think of two things at once, their heads just might explode.
Hm, I joke about that last part, of course, but the fact pixies are this shallow makes them, well, extremely dangerous. When I say they don’t care, I mean it. There could be a man broken, bleeding, and starving banging on their gates for help, to which they would respond, “Ew,” and slam the door in his face.
They would do the same to a child.
As I said, I have bad memories. Because if they do think you’re ugly, then it is open season on all things mischievous. Remember I said the fairies would stick a pin in your eye for confusing them for pixies? Well, the pixies will do that, too, if you confuse them for fairies, but they also will do it if they feel you are ugly enough to “warrant it.” But how bad could they be, right? Three-inch-tall little things pulling pranks? Harmless fun, surely.
Those below, have you ever met a bee? It is small, too, but I don’t see people running up to give their hives a hug. So then, I present the pixie.
The Good About Shiny Things
by Willgard Krause from Pixabay
his brings me to another bad memory, but it is . . . well, I did say pixies are complicated. 150 years ago after The Battle of the Royals Dead where everyone over the age of fifteen was brutally slaughtered, the fairy kingdom Rhyseel, claiming horror at the carnage, closed its borders and refused any future relations with its ruined neighbors. But the pixies in Rhyxie did not close their borders. You see, they liked the shiny things they got from their neighbors. Never mind most of them were dead. Never mind that, as far as the evidence showed, the slaughter had been an intentional, self-inflicted attack. The pixies didn’t care and went on happily with foreign relations as if nothing had happened.
With all this in mind, at first, you might think the fairies did the right thing. Good for them for sealing their gates, for denouncing the horror of it all, and so obtaining that moral superiority they love to flaunt. If the humans didn’t like their place in the world so much that they were willing to almost completely destroy an entire kingdom, just to advance themselves, then let the Veldriss enslave them as punishment. They deserved it. Good for the fairies for continuing to turn away as the Veldriss proclaimed herself a goddess, as spying mirrors crushed the kingdom under her fist, as the Sithuwaye—one of the oldest Orostian peoples—were systematically hunted. Good for the fairies waving their silk handkerchiefs from behind their walls and squealing, “Oh, how horrible! We would never associate with such violence!”
And certainly shame on the pixies for profiting from a bad situation. Shame on them for continuing to associate with humans, assassins, Vānima the Veldriss, and whoever else would give them shiny things. Shame on them for wanting shiny things so badly that they would accept any trade, perform any task in exchange—even if that meant bringing food to starving children, helping to rebuild buildings smashed by dragons, or even freeing enslaved humans and smuggling them to the safety of the Fisherhook Gang where they would no longer be tortured by cruel slave masters. Shame on the pixies for almost singlehandedly bringing Rhyastil back from the brink, for giving those few who still lived hope for a future again, all in the name of shiny things.
I hope by now you can see I’m being facetious, those below, but I think you well and truly have grasped my point. I am a firm believer in motivations, and I will repeat the ugly truth that pixies do not care. None of what they did was out of charity. But in the wake of The Battle of the Royals Dead, only children were left alive. They couldn’t have rebuilt the kingdom on their own. They couldn’t have saved themselves on their own, even with Vānima claiming the throne and promising to protect them. So you see, without the pixies, for better or worse, Rhyastil would not be what it is today. Without the pixies and their obsession with shiny things, so many people I hold dear would have never been born. Had it been up to the fairies clutching their pearls,
everyone in Rhyastil would have died.
And So the Conundrum
by Willgard Krause from Pixabay
o then, I leave my mixed feelings about the pixies to you, those below. I maintain my belief that just because someone does something good,
why they do it is equally important. In a certain light, what the pixies did was despicable. A mountain of shiny things built on the back of a brutal tragedy. And yet, in another light, what they did was wonderful. A great devastation was healed through their aid. A kingdom was resurrected from the ashes. Children were saved.
In the end, does it matter they did it all for shiny things? Hmph. I honestly don’t know. What do you think?
Signed your conflicted narrator,
Azrael the Star of Death
Book Information
To learn more, hop on over to the books page OR hop on over to the teaser and get a sneak peek of Chapter 1! For more articles like this one, have a peek at my Worldbuilding Journal and explore Orosta.
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