The woman paused her narration for a moment. Silence swallowed the street, and Kurt and Mila exchanged tense a look. Neither of them knew what to do with the information they had just been given. And how could they? It wasn't like either of them had any experience with the kind of discrimination Ruth was alluding to. At least not that they could remember. What little Mila could remember of her human life had led them to theorize, in private and in passing, that she may have been a victim of some form of ethnic cleansing back when she was a human.

  They really hadn't discussed that theory in depth. They didn't have anyhing to corroborate it with and, even if they did, neither of them wanted to cast an even more sinister light on Mila's Pre-Rescue life.

  Kurt felt that he himself had even less experience with the issue on hand. Sure, he wasn't exactly white (His mother had been a jewish german, and his biological father was Turkish of Kurd descent. That was, in fact, all he knew about the man.), that had never really factored in his life. He had always felt like he didn't really belong, neither in the order or in his own family, but that had been more about his lack of inborn magical talents than anything race related.

  "There was one person that treated me well, though." Ruth continued, interrupting Kurt's thoughts. "Someone I had known since I was a child, since we were both children, and whom I loved more than anything. His name was Walter, and he was my first and only love. I trusted him, and he trusted me, and we both wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Even if we weren't allowed to get married."

  Kurt felt coonfused at that last statement. Why wouldn't they be allowed to get married? Because they were both minors? She had said she had been a high school student at the time, and her sweetheart would have probably been the same age as...

  And the it hit him, and he felt like an idiot for nor getting the meaning of her words. If her human self ha died before 1967...

  "I used to think we were like Romeo and Juliet, I remember." She continued. "We... got halfway there too. His father, Walter's father, he... was an important man. A bussines owner, maybe the sheriff. I don't know. I do know hat he didn't like the idea of his son going serious with... well, you can imagine. I also know how he reacted when his patince at his son's 'antics' run dry. You know what has to happen for a regular person to become a fae, right?"

  They did. They both did, and the implication was harrowing.

  "I was so scared." She continued, and there was a vulnerability in her words that was completely at odds with the chlorokinetic horror he had fought back in the forest. Seeing this woman as anything but human was now impossible. "Why was that happening to me? Why was me loving that man so wrong that I was getting killed for it? I didn't go in a dignified way. No, I bawled my eyes out, and begged to anyone that would listen for salvation. In the end, I guess I got it, right?

  I woke up the next morning in the same spot the had me in when they pulled the trigger. I was naked, confused... and scared. It took me a few days to get my bearings and remember exactly who I was and what had happened. But when I did, I didn't waste my time. I used my newly discovered powers to make me a dress out of leaves and flowers, and rushed back to the town, to the house of the man I loved... and his father."

  Ruth threw her head back, and laughed. It was a sour, mirtless thing devoid of anything resembling true joy.

  "That old bastard sure made a funny face when he saw me. He hadn't been there when I died. He just hired some fuckos to do for him, the gutless bastard. But those same fuckos let me know exactly who had put them up to it, and why, and I remembered it. I wanted to kill him. I shoould have done it, I really should have, but I didn't. I just used my magic to scare him and scar him a bit, and asked him a question: Where's Walter?" Another dry laugh. "Fat bitch sold his son out without a second thought. So, I let him dangling off a tree by his heels, and ran to meet my love. I found him in the adress his father had given me. Him and his new wife."

  Kurt heard Mila sucking a whimpering breath to his side. "Oh God, no." She whispered.

  "Oh God, yes." said back the wyldfae, her tone sour and more than a bit confrontanional. She seemed to catch on this herself, because she took a few moments to regain her composure before she continued. "She was pretty, I'll give him that much. A pretty blond girl, living with him in a pretty, big house. The kind of life he really should have been striving for, instead of losing his time on..." Another pause. "On our thing. Hell, given how little it took him to get married, he probably had been 'working on it' while we dated! I snapped, and I almost attacked them, but something kept me from doing so. Call it sentimentalism, if you will, but I just couldn't bring myself to do them any harm. So I fled, before they could see me, and ran back to the forest. I had nothing in the world of humans, so I went back to the one world that had shown me kindness. Then I became the wooden monstrosity you have before you, and soon fell into some kind of half-slumber for decades, drifting in and out of consciousness for sixty years until those guys with the red robes came along." She shrugged casually. Far too casually for what she had just told them. "And I guess you know the rest of the story."

  Again, silence. Even more absolute than the one left by her first pause, this time Kurt and Mila didn't even exchange a single look, not even daring to avert their gazes away from the woman. In the end, it was Kurt who broke it.

  "Why..." He began, before clearing his throat and starting again. "Why are you telling us all this?" He asked as carefully as he could.

  "You guys are... the first humans I interact with in more than sixty years, discounting the red robes." she said. "It's sad but it's true. I guess I just didn't want you to, o don't know, go away thinking I'm some kind of irredeamable, crazed monster. Even though..."

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Ruth threw her head down, a hand in her 'forehead', and groaned in frustration.

  "Even though I gave you guys a reason to believe it." She continued, sounding very tired all of a sudden. She raised her head to look at the pair. "I'm sorry for what I did. It means nothing now, I know, but I really am. When you guys came into the forest, and I perceived Mila using her powers, powers identical to mine I... lost it. The idea of having someone like me to talk to, who could possibly even explain just what I was, it made me go crazy. So I sent you guys that tree-golem to try and keep you, Kurt, entertained while I snatched her up. But..." She began laughing awkwardly. "You beat thatsucker way too fast for me to do anything."

  "And then you attacked us personally. " said Kurt, trying, but failing, to keep the accusatory edge off his voice.

  "Yeah..." said the woman, scratching the back of her head. "When I saw you guys having that tender moment, with the spirits dancing around you like fireflies, I was reminded of a lot of stuff. Your thing reminded me of what I had, or what I believed I had, and it made me snap. I immediately started to tell myself that you were just like Walter, that it seemed like you cared but you really didn't. I projected myself onto Mila so to speak." At the mention of the girl in question, they both turned to look at her, finding her seemingly lost in thought.

  "Mila?" Called Kurt softly.

  "Girl?" Followed Ruth.

  Kurt lightly tapped Mila's exposed shoulder, and the girl recoiled in surprise. "Whaaa?!" She exclamied, her head snapping back and forth between Ruth and him. "Oh! Shoot, sorry. I... was really preocupied with something."

  "Oh, I see..." Kurt said, confused. "Anything you wanna share?"

  A grimmace overtook the girl's face, her eyes going to Ruth. "Maybe later." she said softly, almost demurely.

  "Okay then." he said, putting on his best reassuring voice before turning back to Ruth. "Do you want to keep telling the story?"

  "Oh? Oh! Yeah!" The wyldfae exclaimed. "So, yes. I saw you, and I snapped. I told myself that I had to protect Mila from you, all the fighting happened, you almost killed me... You already know all that. It was after you used that weird fire attack, and I was forced to reconstruct most of my form, where the interesting stuff happens. I resurfaced, ready to keep on fighting as if nothing had happened... and the I saw the state poor Mila was in, and you told me it was my fault which... looking back was kinda true, and I snapped back to reality. I wasn't protecting the girl from you. You were protecting her from me. Healing her with the amber was as much to help her as it was to convince myself that I was still protecting her. It worked wonderfully in both regards... and then you tried to bargain your life for her freedom. After that humilliation, I just couldn't delude myself any longer."

  She paused, and turned her head towards Kurt.

  "You love her." she said simply. "I don't know if you love her as a friend, a sister, or what, but you love her so much that you would die for her without hesitation. I spent sixty years telling myself that love like that just didn't exist. I hadn't gotten any of it, after all, so how could it exist? What would that say about me? But you proved me wrong, and I had no choice but to concede."

  She took another pause, and it was only after a few too many seconds that Kurt realized she was expecting him to talk. He didn't know what to say.

  "What will you do now?" Asked Mila, relieving him from that burden. "I mean... what now?"

  Ruth groaned in mild annoyance. "Hell if I know, girl." she said. "After the emotional beatdown you two gave me, I don't even know what I'm doing right now, let alone in the future. Maybe I'll go back to that forest, and think about just why I couldn't make 'my one true love' really... well, love me, until I become an actual tree."

  "How do you know he didn't love you?" Asked Mila, in the same tone a child would use when questioned about the verosimilitude of Santa Claus. "You never really talked to him."

  "Mila," Started the wyldfae, her voice soft, maternal, and very tired. "He got a house with another girl less than a week after my death. Those numbers don't check unless he was seeing her while we were together. I loved him. He saw me as a plaything. A decade of knowing each other, and I still couldn't make him love me..."

  "That's not true!" Exclaimed Mila, so loudly and suddenly that Kurt cringed back. "I'm one-hundred-percent sure that he loved you!"

  "You do, uh?" Asked the wyldfae, a bit more sourly, though still calm. "And how do you explain him getting married a few days after my death?"

  "Because...!" Started Mila, strongly, before trailing off. She then turned her head towards Kurt, a look of uncertainty on her face. "Kurt, you remember how fae are created, right?"

  "Yes, I do." He answered. "We... discussed it a few minutes ago."

  "Yeah, I know. But do you remember about the incubation period?"

  "The incubation...?" He parroted, before it hit him. The process of resurrecting a human as a fae takes a certain amount of time, which depends on each case. But this period is never inferior to a few years. "Oh, God." He whispered, before turning his gaze on Ruth. "Oh my God."

  "What?!" Exclaimed the woman. "What the hell are you talking about now?!"

  Kurt turned to Mila, and saw her face twisted with guilt. In that moment, he understood her predicament. Should they tell her about how long the incubation of a fae takes? Was it okay to stir those waters now, so many decades after the fact? It would shine a new light on her heartbreak scenario but, what good could it do for her now? And would that new light make her feel better with herself?

  The didn't know, neither Mila nor him. But they still had to make that decision.

  They looked at each other's eyes, expressions gravely, and nodded.

  Mila turned to the wyldfae. "Uhm, Ruth?" She called.

  "Yeah, what is it?" Quickly answered the woman. "What were you two talking about?"

  The girl fell silent for a moment, her jaw trembling just a little bit. "No less than five years." She finally said, and the wyldfae cocked her head in confusion.

  "What?" She asked. "What are you saying now?"

  "That's how long it takes to become a fae after dying." Explained the girl, still grimacing but with a clear resolution carried in her words. "It couldn't have been different for you so... it just seemed like a few days to you."

  "...what?" Questioned Ruth. Her tone was anguished and disbeliebing, little more than a whisper. "That... No. That cannot be. He... didn't look any different."

  "You most likely spent the bare minimun incubating." Kurt said. "Five years isn't that much time, and you just told us that you never really approached him or confronted him. If he had changed in any way, you probably didn't notice."

  The woman fell silent again, pondering on the boy's words. And then she fell on her knees. "I... spent so much time thinking that..." A groan of pain cut her words short, and the solid surface of wood that was her face began cracking. "Oh God. I... spent sixty years alone. I became this... abomination..." She slammed both hands down, and the road cracked under her might. "OVER A FUCKING MISSUNDERSTANDING?! I could have talked to him, even... even if he had fallen in love with another woman, we could have still talked. He..."

  CRACK!

  That sound filled the street, sudden and loud as a gun shot. A moment later, it was replaced by another, softer one: The sound of wooden splinters falling on asphalt.