Love Fairies aged slowly, living up to 800 years and only earning their first wrinkle at 300.
These stories—my stories—may have happened over a century ago.
But I really lived them.
And by some miracle, I still looked twenty-one.
I hoped I wasn't some kind of immortal. Because if I was, it meant I'd be carrying these dark memories for a very, very long time.
I had lived through them, day after day, in that dungeon.
How could I forget?
Betrayed by my own people—the ones I protected.
Then outcast. Locked away. Forgotten.
It felt like yesterday.
But here I am.
Not behind dungeon doors.
Not trapped in silence.
I'm here. In the present. Out in the open.
The world feels different. New. Strange.
And I have no idea what to do.
Thoughts crowded my head as I tossed my purple-streaked hair back and faced the sea of unfamiliar faces—eyes that didn't know me, lives that had marched on without me.
I don't know why it shocked me that time had passed—more than a century, apparently.
But it did.
It shook me.
I wandered, aimless, needing something.
Some familiar thread to hold onto.
Something real in a world so altered, so full of ghosts I couldn't touch.
And then I found it.
A small shop, tucked between two towering buildings. Like a memory hiding in plain sight.
The scent of oils and incense drifted into the street, grounding me in a way nothing else had.
It felt... safe. Comforting, even.
The shop was quiet. An elderly woman stood behind the counter, giving me a polite smile as I stepped in. Dust floated in the air around me like time itself was settling.
"Does Drizella still work here?" I asked, my voice hopeful.
The woman tilted her head.
"Young lady, I hope you didn't mean my grandmother, Drizella… She's no longer with us."
My face must have said everything. But the woman remained composed.
"Was there something in particular you were looking for?"
Then I remembered.
"Do you still sell golden peony perfume?"
My voice was calm, though nerves twisted in my stomach.
Golden peony—light, delicate. Like the last breath of summer.
My favorite scent.
The woman blinked, then let out a sharp, breathless laugh.
Almost cruel.
"Golden peonies?" she echoed. "They were rare five centuries ago. Now they're extinct. We can't make that. It's all gone."
She laughed again. Mocking.
It gnawed at me.
The words cut deep. My breath caught. I froze.
Golden peonies were more than a perfume. They were a symbol. Of everything I'd fought for. Everything I'd loved.
I used to wear it with pride, mixing it with my magic, letting it drift through the air like a whispered song.
Now… they were gone.
"Would you like to pick something else?" she asked gently.
But I was still reeling.
"Five centuries?" I whispered.
I'd known. Deep down, I'd known.
The long silences. The empty world. The lack of familiar faces.
But hearing it aloud?
Undeniable.
I stood there, a storm of memories crashing in my chest.
Love Fairies weren't immortal. But five hundred years?
Had I truly been locked away that long?
Entombed in Baltimore's twisted scheme to erase me from history?
And then... the worst realization:
It had already been a day since I re-entered this world.
And where were they?
The ones I knew? The ones I loved?
The other fairies?
Had they all passed on, like Drizella?
Had they been forgotten by time, erased in some nameless war?
Had they moved on without me?
The answer was there in the silence.
Yes.
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
A single tear rolled down my cheek.
The world had changed.
Why was I still alive then? Why did I still look the same as before? Still not a single wrinkle on my face. Does it have something to do with me, being the first Love Fairy?
Now I stood in the ruins of what used to be—adrift in a world that no longer remembered me.
Even the air felt thinner here. Like it had forgotten how to carry my name.
Everything was unfamiliar—faces, sounds, scents.
It was like waking up in a different realm entirely.
How could the world move forward without me?
How could it simply... forget?
And then I remembered him.
King Baltimore. At the wand-giving ceremony, he looked exactly the same as before too.
Like he had not aged a single day from my time.
It must be that damned Emerald.
He must have used it to extend his life—back when it still responded to the full moon. Before I reworked the enchantment to bind it to the Light Guardian and the scroll.
Who knows what else he's done?
How many spells had he already cast before I changed it?
He was likely the only one who hadn't changed at all, aside from me.
The Baltimorean Emerald.
The stone that could alter reality itself.
Where is it now?
It must not remain in his hands—not without the scroll, not without the Light Guardian.
The world wouldn't survive a monarch who craved only allegiance.
I wouldn't let it.
I clenched my fists.
The weight of centuries bore down on me.
Baltimore.
He had done this—locked me away, erased me.
Punished me for daring to believe love was more than obedience.
But he underestimated me.
He believed he could remake the world into a machine of devotion and control.
But I'm still here.
And now I have a second chance.
I will find the Emerald.
I'll pry it from his hands myself, if I must.
I will uncover the truth.
And I will make him pay.