“What is this supposed to be!”

Marli, lacking all “common sense,” snapped, slamming the book shut. Was she the only one who didn’t know something so “obvious” it wasn’t even worth writing down? She shot a fierce glare at the cage.

“Hey, fairy!”

The fairy, already scared out of his wits, stayed silent. Marli shot up and violently shook the cage from side to side.

“Not going to answer? Should I just turn you into a specimen?”

“Whyyy…”

Rolling helplessly around inside the cage, the fairy finally let out a pitiful cry. Marli belatedly took a closer look at her mysterious prize.

The wings, which had looked like the pale green of a luna moth out in the meadow, were actually colorless and nearly transparent. When the firelight flickered, they shimmered like opal. His hair, too, was a silvery shade much like his wings, and his body—far paler than a human’s—was perfectly smooth, not a single hair anywhere. His light blue eyes, wide with fear, stared back at her.

“What’s your name?”

The fairy didn’t want to answer, but the witch was far too frightening right now. Knowing she was a witch was scary enough, but seeing that book made it even worse. And of all places, it had to be the northern forest, infamous for its gruesome legends.

In a voice quieter than a fly’s wingbeat, the fairy replied.

“…Rim.”

“What?”

“Prim…”

“That’s a weird name.”

Prim bristled with indignation, but forced himself to swallow it down. If it had been any other fairy, he would have shot back with a sharp, ‘Well, you look strange, too,’ just as quick-tempered and troublesome as he was infamous for being back in the Oak Woods. After all, it was precisely that hot temper which had got him exiled from his home and sent all the way to the northern forest in the first place.

But he wasn’t stupid. He knew when to keep his mouth shut if he wanted to stay alive — he was up against a witch, after all. No matter how angry he was, he could only grit his teeth and tremble in silence.

With the last shred of his pride, he managed to force out a question of his own.

“What about you, witch? What’s your name?”

“I’m Marli.”

“…Your name’s weird too.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Marli agreed so readily that Prim didn’t know how to respond. He’d thought she was a terrifying witch, but after chatting with her for a while, he thought she seemed almost slow-witted.

Just as he was starting to think that the witch before him might not be so scary after all, Marli spoke again, making his heart stop.

“Hey. How do I get your essence out?”

“What?”

“Your essence. Fairy essence. If you just give me that, I won’t turn you into a specimen.”

Clang! Prim felt like he’d been hit in the head with an acorn. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard from this human woman—he began to doubt his own ears.

“You want… my essence?”

“Yeah.”

Marli nodded brightly. She didn’t plan on letting him go just because she got his essence once, but now that they’d exchanged names, she didn’t really want to kill the fairy either. Still, Prim’s reaction was far from what she’d expected.

“No way!”

“Why not? Fairy essence keeps coming back.”

“Do you… do you even know what fairy essence is?”

“I do. It’s expensive.”

Prim’s vision went black. They said that even if you were caught by a collector, you might survive as long as you kept your wits about you—but in this situation, that was impossible. The witch standing before him wasn’t just slow-witted; she seemed to be missing something fundamental.

“I said no! Go away, you idiot!”

Prim hastily wrapped his wings around himself, not because he was embarrassed (no fairy in tune with nature would be self-conscious about nudity), but purely out of instinct, desperate to shield himself from danger.

His reaction only aggravated Marli further. First, the book had made her feel like an idiot, and now this tiny fairy was looking down on her, too. Annoyed, she marched over to the cabinet and returned with a massive jar containing a preserved frog.

“Hey! See this? I’ll turn you into this if you don’t talk. Fairy specimens are worth even more than essence, you know!”

Marli held the jar right up to the cage and shook it vigorously. Inside, the corpse of a frog floated grotesquely in the water, its eyes wide and its limbs splayed. The thick layer of dust on the outside of the jar made it clear that the frog had been dead for a long time. Prim imagined a fairy trapped in the jar for centuries, unable to return to the earth, drifting endlessly.

“D-don’t… Please, not a specimen.”

“Then give me your essence! How do I get it?”

“You… you really don’t know?”

“Nope!”

She was clueless and proud of it. Defeated, Prim quietly folded his wings.

Marli felt triumphant at having asserted her dominance and didn’t consider that her opponent was dozens of times smaller than her.

Prim stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. There was no way around it; if he wanted to convince this oblivious witch, he would have to spell it out for her.

Despite staring directly at the n*ked ‘little human’ in front of her, Marli was completely unfazed. He was just so tiny that he simply didn’t register — so small, and then even smaller.

Prim pointed to the centre of his body with his tiny finger.

“The essence you’re talking about! It comes from here!”

“Huh?”

Marli squinted, following the tip of his finger to the center of the little fairy’s body. There, dangling from his tiny form, was something just as small.

“Fairy essence is a bodily fluid that comes from here, you idiot!”

Marli blinked dumbly. The fairy’s small p*nis hung in the air.