Marked By The Unseelie

Chapter 7 Air

Chapter 7

"Are you sleeping in your own dream?" Steve, my literal dream guy, appears before me. He appears to be smiling, but from the look in his eyes, it has the opposite effect. He appears to be worried.

I noted the scenery in my dreams and found out that we were on an uphill mountain in a cloudy setting. Usually my dreams would be a little more creative, which makes me wonder if the scene is coinciding with his mood.

Nonetheless, it was good to see Steve. His presence always has this pleasant and calming feeling whenever I dream. When he appears in my dream, I don't feel like it is a dream at all. It feels more like I am seeing a friend.

"What's with the bland setting?" I pushed myself to a sitting position before looking at him. Steve fixes himself until he sits right beside me.

"Sorry, I can't think of anything good at the moment." He looks distraught when he utters the words out.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just distracted."

"Distracted with what?"

At my question, he turns his head in my direction. His brows are drawn together while he fixes me with a worried gaze. "You."

His answer caught me off guard. "Me? Why? Did I do something?"

"You're in danger." The way that he says it fills me with a sense of urgency, which reminded me of our last encounter. Strange that in this dream, Steve still has the same expression.

I look around us and give him a weak chuckle. "Danger from what? There's nothing here but us." I gestured around us to prove my point.

Steve just shakes his head. "I don't mean here. I mean in the other realm." His jaw clenches, making me think that this matter might be more serious than I thought, but what, I have no idea.

I must admit that something in the back of my mind is telling me that I should be concerned. That I should wake up soon because there's something more important that I should be fixated on right now.

"What kind of realm are we talking about, Steve?"

Steve's face turned serious and dark and his next words made me shiver.

"The fairy realm."

***

I immediately jolted awake from a dream that I cannot recall. There's a pain at the side of my head, like my brain is trying to make me remember something that I can't put a finger on.

"You're awake. Good. I thought that it would take longer for you to regain your consciousness."

I gasp. My eyes quickly follow the spot where I hear Zhier speak. He's sitting beside me while holding a leaf over his mouth as if he was playing a tune before noticing me. I notice how I am wrapped in some sort of giant leaf cocoon.

"What the hell?" I try to unwrap myself from the cocoon, but it is futile. I am stuck. "Let me out of here!"

Zhier hisses. "Calm down, human! You are going to disturb the forest."

I don't exactly know what he means when he's referring to the forest, but based on what I've experienced so far, I don't even want to find out.

All I did was wait until Zhier unbound the cocoon and helped me sit up. That's when I finally got my brain working and remembered what occurred before I passed out.

"What happened back there? Where's my father?" I turned to him as I waited for his answer.

"Your father is safe, if that is what you are worried about. I brought him to the humans, where he could be treated with your inhuman drugs. But of course, I already healed enough of his injuries that he could survive long before getting treatment."

I stared at him. "So you could have fully healed him before leaving him?"

"Of course." He answers like me like I was asking a dumb question.

"So why didn't you?"

"Did what?"

"Fully healed my dad...?"

Zhier frowns, making me feel a little worried that I might have somehow offended him. "Fully healing your father will require more time and attention than I already have in dealing with you. I cannot leave you alone out in the woods when I have to guard you from the unseelies. I have to carry you myself and patch you up in the fairy realm just to be safe."

It took me a while to process his words. It's like my mind does not want to fully accept what I just heard from him.

"...fairy realm?" I choked on my voice a little. My eyes start to wander around me like it is the first time that I am fully seeing my surroundings. The trees are taller than usual, and the tree barks are all so odd. They don't seem normal at all. They have patterns on them that you don't see in normal trees. If that isn't the most obvious indication that I am in a different world, the trees are of different colors. There's blue, green, violet, and other colors of the earth that you can think of. The place is beautiful. Alien-like beauty, to be exact. I don't even know how to describe it. It just seems magical. Even the sunlight here is odd like a unicorn just spat a rainbow in the sky to make it rain down on us.

Come to think of it, I just now notice that the leaf that I am cocooned into is ginormous and is purple in color. I can't even think that there's something similar to this kind of leaf back on earth.

Wait, are we still on earth or this is just a different part of earth? I can't really tell. My head hurts just thinking about it.

"Where do you think you are? The human realm?" Zhier scoffs. "The humans are worse than the unseelie. At least the unseelie respects the land, unlike you land reformers." He offers me his hand and pulls me out of the cocoon that I was in. I was still a little shaken on my feet, and Zhier had to move himself behind me to support my weight. "You seem to be pale. Is this what you humans refer to as abnormal exit?"

"You mean freaking out?!" I am well aware that I am once again screaming at the seelie prince, but I am not kidding when I say that it's getting harder to breathe in here. My head starts to spin. "I...kind of am. What is wrong with the air here!?"

"Your body must be so used to breathing poison in the air that it is still adjusting. I thought that you would get used to it by then, but apparently not."

My eyes were getting so blurry that I almost fell down if he was not holding on to me. "I...can't breathe..."

"You are starting to panic. You're using too much air when your body is not even used to it yet...DAMN IT, HUMAN, STOP USING TOO MUCH AIR!"

"I AM NOT EVEN BREATHING SO STOP YELLING!"

"You humans are so fragile." He says through gritted teeth and pulls me close to him. "Close your eyes. This will be over quick." He inched his face close to mine, and I figured out what he was about to do a little too late.

Is he about to kiss me?! From the looks of it, he is about to do just that.

I didn't have enough strength to push him away because I was already feeling lightheaded. The only thing that I can do is to close my eyes and hope for the best.

My hand starts to tingle, and soon, it grows into a strong wind that surrounds my body. Zhier had to move back as he was getting pushed back.

When the rampaging wind finally died down, I suddenly breathed better, like I had just gotten a nasal cleansing. I turned to look at my hand, which I felt was the source of the wind. To my surprise, my scar seemed to be glowing for a few seconds before it died down along with the wind.

Zhier suddenly smirks. "It seems like the unseelie prince is looking out for you. It's too bad that I no longer have to use magic on you for this ordeal, but at least now I know that he is still alive." He pauses. "Somewhere."

"The unseelie prince..." I stare at my hand for a while like I was expecting to see the unseelie prince through my scar. I know that it sounds a little weird, but hey, we are experiencing magic here.

"Come, Livia." Zhier extends his hand to me once again. He is smiling and his eyes seem to burn a little brighter than they did before when he smiles. "Let's go to the seelie palace."