A few days had passed since I met Madeleine. In this span of time I practiced my throwing, went hunting with Sorbet and gathered berries with Madeleine. The little snake not only could hunt on it own but when I wore it around my neck like a scarf it was able to warn me about approaching prey and predators, which of the latter we didn’t see many. Snakes can ‘smell’ with their tongue and apparently this sense of theirs is much stronger than whatever senses I have. Another fact about Madeleine was that he was venomous and he really liked being petted.

  Myself and Madeleine were out searching for more berry bushes while Sorbet was hunting by the river. We came up the most peculiar sight, mushrooms growing in a perfect circle, most commonly known as a fairy ring. Now the modern person in me knew that this was the result of an underground mushroom network. But as I was holding a spear made from a lamp that was hit by red lightning on a clear night sky I wasn’t taking any chances. After all I didn’t wanted to deal with they fey no matter how slim the chance of interaction.

  We circled around the fairy ring, only to come across another one a few meters away and another one after that, each ring spaced out perfectly between each other, this definitely didn’t felt like a natural occurrence. Spending a little time on this I figured out that the rings themselves were forming a circle and by this point my curiosity was overwhelming my caution. I really wanted to find out what was in the center of this circle, after all it had to be something with such a setup. With a deep gulp and no warming from Madeleine I took a big step over the fairy ring and into the ‘forbidden zone’.

  Nothing happened, at least nothing that I could notice, I was still in the forest, with both my eyes, so at least that meant the formation didn’t acted like a large fairy ring. I didn’t felt cursed in the least as I ventured deeper into the formation but one thing became apparent, not even birds dared ventured into the circle. I could still hear them outside but the deeper I went the more drowned out their singing became, until silence fell. It felt unsettling, so suddenly being cut off from the familiar noises you hear from dawn till dusk.

  I finally reached the center, or at least what I assumed to be the center of the formation as I found a shrine, a ruined one at that, looking at the remains it appeared to be a small house made out of rocks. Only the rocks had fallen apart, scattered and reclaimed by the nature around them. I had a decision before me, should I repair the shrine and face the consequences or ignore it and face the consequences. From the moment I reached the shrine I could feel eyes on me from all directions, Madeleine even warned me that we were surrounded even if he couldn’t pinpoint their locations.

  On one hand they could be watchers, making sure this shrine was never to be restored again while on the other they may have a reason why they can’t fix it themselves. Ugh! Why must I always push my luck like this? Back in the tribe I was content with my role and neither pursued the unknown nor my curiosity for the world I was inhabiting so why? Maybe it was all the freedom I found myself with, living away from the tribe and their judging eyes gave me the opportunity to spread my wings and pursue what I wouldn’t dare approach when I was a part of it.

  Not that any of it mattered right now, I had invited danger into our lives and had dragged Madeleine into it. At least Sorbet wasn’t here with me although I’m sure he would try to warn me if he was. As I debated what to do I felt the gazed burn through me more and more intensely, that may have been a clue as to what action I should take but one could argue that it worked for both cases, in one they wanted to walk away and standing around wasn’t good while in the other I wasn’t restoring the shrine which also wasn’t good.

  At the end I decided to restore the shrine because of one simple fact, the shrine did not seemed to be destroyed by the hands of anyone, it simply fell apart due to the passage of time. Which meant that whatever was watching over me did not destroy the shrine willingly, putting it together was a simple enough job once I put my mind into it, I simply put together the slabs with the windows on the sides, the solid slab on the back and the slab with the door on the front, I then placed the remaining solid slab on top and the little house was ready and with it the bloodlust subsided.

  As I was ready to jump from the happiness of making the right choice I felt a stink on my back and before I knew it I was on the floor looking at the shrine sideways, I could have sworn that as I was losing my eyesight the little stone house begun glowing. I found myself in a field of colorful flowers, as I slowly rose up to my full stature I noticed that the flower shifted between every color of the visible spectrum at seemingly random intervals creating vivid illustrations. I also noticed that I was alone, Madeleine was nowhere to be found and no matter how much I turned and shouted he didn’t showed up.

  “Quite worried about our companion, aren’t we?” I heard a voice coming from behind me, which was impossible since there was no one when I checked. I turned around once more to see an entire kiosk inside which an ethereal figure was having tea. It was a lady of pure white, from hair to skin to dress, everything match in tone to the point I thought of her naked at first. She had her eyes closed as she sipped from her tea cup with elegance. Standing down, her upper body was already taller than me, I couldn’t imagine how much she would tower over me if she was standing up. The only point we matched was our pointy ears but hers were like thin daggers jumping out, unlike mine who were much wider.

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  “Who are you, where’s Madeleine?” I asked in a panic once I managed to collect myself enough. It wasn’t good to just stare no matter how beautiful she was.

  “Does it matter who we are, all that matters is that we restored the shrine.” The woman spoke in a soft and warm voice putting my worries to rest, disarming me of all my alertness.

  “Is-Is that why I’m here? Because I restored the shrine?”

  “We did well in restoring our shrine which earned us an audience.”

  “An audience with you or someone else? Speaking about you, are you an elf by any chance?”

  “An elf? We get that a lot but no we are not an elf, we are but a humble fey in charge of the smaller fey.”

  “A fey queen!” I said in shook at this revelation.

  “No, no, we are more of a fey manager, nothing as grand as a fey queen.”

  “Oh, I see!” Thankfully she wasn’t a fey queen, since I didn’t knew how to act before fey royalty but still a fey manager, you’d thing this was some sort of company. “So what does this fey manager requires of a nobody like me.”

  “Fey cannot interact with our world so repairing the shrine with our hands was impossible, trapping the fairies on the other side and preventing passage from this. We have repaired the shrine and thus we shall grand you with fey sight. Now come closer.”

  “Thank you for this boon.” I thought against asking what fey sight was since the fey manager wasn’t looking very eager to answer my question. I drew closer but I felt like the distance between myself and the kiosk never closed, like it was infinitely far away to me and so close at the same time.

  “That’s good enough.” She finally said extending her free hand towards me. The arm felt impossible long, longer than the total length of her body, gaping the infinite distance in an instance. Fear gripped my heart, even thought there were no bars or walls I realized that I was a prisoner, a prisoner of this place’s stranger rules and the whims of it’s owner. She touched the bridge of my nose, right in between my eyes and suddenly everything felt more vivid, the colors became more vibrant and there were even some dancing in the air. That was before intense pain shoot from my eyes, it felt like burning and I started screaming.

  The next moment I open my eyes to see the shrine were I had fallen down before with Madeleine knocking on my head with his. “I’m up, I’m up, stop hitting me.” The pain was gone. Madeleine finally stopped and let out a happy hiss. As I got up I found myself wondering if what I had seen of the fey managed was a strange reality or an elaborate dream. One thing dispelled my thoughts and gave me a definitive answer, it was the colors. I could see colors more vividly and there was this strange colored ‘aura’ emanating from everything.

  Suddenly something flew in front of me, it was a small ball of light, as I traced it with my eyes I saw something at the center of the light, something that looked like a bee with four arms, two legs, large transparent wings and a humanoid face. It was a strange creature to say the least. “You can see me!” It said in a high pitched voice.

  “Yes…” I answered back

  “Everyone she had the eyes.” This was not addressed to me for a moment later I was surrounded by those lights, each an individual voice bombarding me with questions. One thing I understood was that the ‘eyes’ she referred to were the fey sight I was bestowed by the manager. So the reason I could now see the presences I only felt before was due to the fey eyes, interesting. I told them to calm down and ask them their questions one by one, they only kept quiet for a moment before starting back again all at once.

  I had to result to the true and tried method of pointing at one of the lights and asking it to make its question. It was related to how I got the eyes, I quickly retold my tale of meeting the fey manager, thinking back on it I didn’t even managed to get her name, what a miss. The next question was why I took so long to put the shrine back together. I explained to them that their hostility was preventing me but they played dumb. We went like this for a while, myself all the more eager to answer their questions, how long had it been since the last time I held a conversation?

  The sun had started to set before I could realize it so myself and Madeleine rushed back to base saying goodbye to the fairies. I just barely got back to the base and set up a fire before Sorbet returned and then I realized that the colored auras persisted, shining brightly even in the dark. That could prove useful if I ever wanted to hunt at night or anything unexpected happened. At the end I didn’t found any new berry bushes and wasted most of the day on the fairies but the fey sight was a boon so all in all I could say today was a good day.