The fairy world was loud with color.
Lanterns floated like captive stars above the festival grounds, drifting lazily through the warm air. Music spilled outward in glittering waves, weaving through laughter that rang bright and endless.
Oscaf felt none of it.
He stood at the edge of the celebration, hands clasped behind his back, watching as if the joy belonged to another species entirely.
He was beautiful. Everyone said so.
His blue skin held a pale glow beneath the lantern light, almost translucent. Silver hair fell in soft strands across his narrow shoulders. His limbs were long and delicate, his waist narrow. At four feet eight inches, he stood an inch taller than the average fairy—a detail elders mentioned as if it meant something.
Mothers whispered about him.
Daughters stared.
Young men resented him.
None of it mattered.
Across the dance floor, girls laughed too loudly when his gaze passed over them. They mistook his silence for mystery. His distance for depth.
In truth, Oscaf felt hollow.
The music swelled. Feet moved in patterns perfected over centuries. Festivals were sacred among the fairies—celebrations of harvest, of birth, of survival.
Every year was identical.
Plan the festival.
Attend the festival.
Pair off.
Reproduce.
Grow old.
Plan another festival.
The world shimmered with color.
His thoughts did not.
He imagined the Other World instead.
The forbidden one.
The gateway carved into the northern cliffs—guarded, restricted, spoken of only in lowered voices. Jack claimed it led to humans. Said they were giants. Said they lived inside stone mountains and traveled in moving houses. Said they created magic words that could be heard without sound.
Oscaf didn't know if any of it was true.
But it was different.
And different was enough.
A wet hand landed on his shoulder.
"Come dance with me, Oscaf!" Cecilia beamed, already tugging at him. Her wings fluttered impatiently, scattering flecks of gold dust.
"No," he said softly.
She laughed, mistaking refusal for flirtation, and pulled harder.
"I said no."
He could have stepped away. Could have let her stumble. Instead, he gently disentangled himself.
Another pair of arms wrapped around him from behind.
Ada.
"You're avoiding me again," she murmured, her breath brushing his neck.
Cecilia's smile dropped. Tension flared instantly.
Oscaf closed his eyes.
They did not love him.
They competed over him.
He felt like a trophy carved from bone.
"Sit," he said calmly, guiding them toward a carved stone bench. "I'll get drinks."
He didn't.
He slipped away.
His secret place lay beyond the outer trees, where lanternlight could not reach and the music faded into something tolerable.
Fedora was already there.
She sat on the roots of an ancient silverwood tree, wings folded tightly against her back, staring at nothing. The forest seemed to hold its breath around her.
Oscaf sat beside her without speaking.
They understood silence.
After a moment, he leaned his head lightly against her shoulder.
"Escaping?" she asked.
"Yes."
"From who?"
"Everyone."
She nodded, as if that made perfect sense.
Fedora had not always been like this. Everyone knew that much. Whatever had taken the light from her eyes had done so completely, leaving something quiet and watchful behind.
"Do you ever feel," Oscaf said carefully, "like if you stay here long enough… you'll disappear?"
Fedora's jaw tightened.
"I already did."
He didn't ask her to explain.
A sudden shout shattered the quiet.
"Oscaf!"
Jack burst through the trees, breathless, eyes bright with something dangerously close to awe.
"You went near the gateway again," Oscaf said flatly.
"Closer than ever," Jack grinned.
"That's illegal."
"So is breathing near it too long," Jack shrugged.
Fedora leaned forward. "What did you see?"
Jack lowered his voice. "Moving houses."
Oscaf frowned. "That makes no sense."
"They glide across the ground," Jack insisted. "Carrying humans inside them. And their buildings—they scrape the sky. They trap light inside glass. They have magic rectangles that show distant places."
"What do they do?" Oscaf asked, before he could stop himself.
Jack smiled.
"They change things."
The word settled into Oscaf's chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Change.
In the fairy world, nothing changed.
Behind them, the festival music swelled louder, insistent and eternal.
Fedora watched Oscaf carefully. "You're thinking about it."
"Yes."
"You'd be exiled."
"I know."
"You'd never come back."
He hesitated.
Then, for the first time that night, something like life flickered behind his eyes.
"Maybe that's the point."
She studied him, then nodded once.
"Okay."
She didn't laugh. Didn't call him foolish. Didn't try to save him from himself.
She simply understood.
And somewhere far above Jupiter's sky—too faint to notice, too early to fear—space bent almost imperceptibly, as if listening.
Since the night of the festival, Oscaf had not been able to think of anything else.
The other world lingered in his mind the way a wound refuses to close—quiet at first, then aching, then unbearable. At the edge of every lesson, behind every laugh, the image of the gate waited for him: tall, silent, and humming with a promise no one else seemed desperate enough to hear.
With time, he began to follow Jack.
At first it was innocent. Curiosity disguised as coincidence. They would drift toward the cliffs where the gate stood, always careful, always distant. Using the little magic they had learned in school, they scattered the colors that veiled the portal—just enough to see deeper, just enough to glimpse the impossible.
They did it every day.
Weeks turned into months, and what began as wonder became routine. They memorized the guards: their faces, their habits, their rotations. Which days they stood watch. Which posts they favored. Which ones grew bored. Which ones slept.
For Jack, looking was enough.
For Oscaf, it never was.
He wanted to feel the other world beneath his feet. To breathe air that did not weigh on his chest. To exist somewhere the pain did not follow him like a shadow. His own world was already killing him slowly—each day the pressure in his chest tightening, each night the thought returning that soon it would become too much to bear.
So he decided.
The morning he chose was beautiful.
Oscaf walked toward class like every other student, but there was more light in his eyes than usual, a dangerous brightness he did not try to hide. He listened through the morning lectures without hearing them, counting minutes instead of lessons.
Today, he would go to the human world.
The moment the final lecture ended, he ran.
He raced toward the cliffs where the gate stood, heart pounding harder with every step. Two guards were exchanging posts—exactly as he had memorized. Oscaf slipped past, heading for the place where he usually watched the human world from afar.
He scattered the colors and waited.
Hours passed.
Just as he knew they would.
The guard at the gate eventually fell asleep, slumped in quiet boredom. Oscaf's breath steadied. This was it. The plan was simple: run. The lookout towers would see him, yes—but by the time they reached the cliffs, he would already be gone.
He ran.
Shouts erupted behind him almost instantly. Alarms, boots, voices breaking the calm of the morning. The noise woke the sleeping guard just in time for him to see a young boy sprinting straight toward the gate.
The man reacted on instinct.
He spread his arms and legs wide, planting himself in front of the portal like a goalkeeper facing a final shot.
Oscaf didn't slow.
At the last second, he twisted, dribbled past the man, and dove forward—but another guard had reached him. Fingers caught his backpack, yanking him backward.
Oscaf made a choice without thinking.
He let go.
The bag tore free from his shoulders, and with nothing left holding him back, he fell—through the gate and into the other world.