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Long before her human parents leave her behind, there is a man.
He looks like a man, at the very least. From a distance it’s hard to tell; his hair is long, his clothes dark, his skin as pale as the moon. When Linnéa sees him she is seized by the desire to run out from behind her mother’s skirt and grab onto the back of his dirty leather coat.
Her parents stop her, of course. They tell her not to run after strange men, and they aren’t the only ones who find this man ‘strange’.
But much later, when she is ten instead of six, when her parents have left her with Katya, as she wrestles with the indecision of revealing herself to the other children—
She remembers that man. That feeling. She has seen him since, out of the corner of her eye on the rare evenings the man comes to Nasha Town. Some of the other children call him a ghost or a vampire; Katya says he lives on Paha Isle, tending the graves and the nearby outbreaks of the Wild Hunt.
At ten years old, Linnéa leaves Nasha Town during a quiet morning with a bag of food and a map. She walks and walks, pausing only for a few minutes every few hours to eat her sandwiches and drink some water, until her feet are sore and her body heavy and the sun has set.
She spends the first night sleeping in a cave with Sniffer Moles, then continues on the next day. It’s night when she reaches the end of the island, and she shivers at the chill of the sea breeze as she walks along the shore.
She’s always been able to navigate well in the dark. It’s easier out here than in Nasha Town, somehow. She stands on the beach, staring across the water at the next island chain, where the Fatui lab everyone has been talking about is being constructed.
“You’re a long way from home, little miss.”
Linnéa almost shrieks, spinning around and swinging her bag. It smacks rather uselessly into the legs of the man who had spoken, who is so unbothered by being struck that he doesn’t even make a sound.
It’s the strange man. The grave-tending Lightkeeper. Here in the dark of night, he truly does look like a ghost; Linnéa has only ever seen skin so pale on her human mother, when the woman was sick and near death. His eyes are an unnatural yellow, gleaming like candlelight. The lantern he carries bathes them both in an eerie blue glow and just as she had all those years ago, Linnéa feels an immediate sense of connection between them.
“You’re…Mr. Flins, aren’t you?” She asks. Her voice wobbles.
“Indeed, that is what I am called. And how might I address you, young lady?”
For some reason she hesitates in a way she doesn’t when giving her name away to others. Well, her parents left her, so does she have a claim to their name any longer?
“I’m Linnéa,” she finally says. Flins looks at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“A lovely name,” he remarks, his voice slow and careful. “You should take care of it, young miss.”
Before Linnéa can ask what he means, he continues.
“Now, what brought you so far from home?”
“I…” Suddenly, Linnéa feels very foolish. Maybe she’s imagining this strange likeness between them. But she’s tired, and she’s sore, and she has nothing left. “You’re like me. Aren’t you? You’re…”
She trails off. She can’t say the words, her throat closing around them, and Flins’ expression is so blank that she drops her head, fighting the urge to cry.
“I’m sorry. This was, this was stupid. I’m sorry, Mr. Flins. I’ll leave you alone—”
“Young miss,” Flins interjects. She pauses, sniffling. “I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to return alone. I will take you home.”
“I don’t have one!” She bursts out. She looks up at him, at his beautiful, cold face. “My parents, they—they left. Because I’m not theirs. They left to find their real daughter. Their human daughter. And I—”
She sobs. Her legs give out under her as she bursts into tears that just don’t stop. She puts her face in her hands, feeling the wetness stain her fingers and chafe against her skin as she muffles her sobbing. She hadn’t cried when they left her, or on any of the nights spent at Speranza; she couldn’t, no matter how sad she was, because three other girls were in the same room as her. She couldn’t wake them. She couldn’t worry them.
It bursts out of her now and it doesn’t stop. Slowly, almost awkwardly, a hand touches her back. At first she flinches and it begins to move away, but then she launches forward—Flins had kneeled down in front of her, and she clings to him now, wailing into the thick leather of his coat.
He says something she can’t quite understand over her desperate crying. She must be a bother, he must hate this, but he puts his hand on her back and lets her cry all over him. He doesn’t push her away. It makes her cry even more. Despite how cold he had looked moments ago, he’s warm as she holds onto him.
She doesn’t know how long she cries, but by the time she’s done, the leather beneath her face is soaked, her throat and eyes burning.
“Feeling better?” Flins asks when she slowly lifts her head. She nods miserably, unable to speak. “Do you have water?” He then asks. She nods again, pointing to her bag, and he pulls it towards them.
Once she’s drank what is left of her water, he pats her on the back once more.
“There we go. Can you walk?”
When she shakes her head, he asks if he can carry her. She nods, and instead of taking her along the shore towards town, he brings her to the graveyard.
One of the boys at Speranza came from Paha. He said he passed through this cemetery and that it had been terrifying. That he could feel eyes on him, that it was cold and dark even in the middle of the day.
Linnéa feels eyes on her, too. But they don’t feel scary. The graves are all old and worn, but they look well taken care of. The grass is not too wild and frostlamp flowers grow in clusters around many of the headstones.
Flins sets her down in a creaking wooden chair next to a cooking pot by the dilapidated lighthouse and she grabs the back of his coat when he tries to step away.
“I’ll return in a moment, young miss,” he says, and she reluctantly lets go. He disappears into the lighthouse, leaving the door open; there is no light inside except for the flickering blue of the strange lantern he carries.
He returns quickly, as he had promised. He carries a sleeping bag.
“I’m afraid the lighthouse is not yet suitable for guests,” Flins says apologetically as he puts his lantern down nearby to lay out the sleeping bag. “It’s quite hazardous in there, especially for one so small. I hope this will suffice.”
“It’s ok,” Linnéa croaks, sniffling and curling around her backpack, dragging her gaze from the lit stove to his lantern. “I slept outside last night, too.”
Flins pauses. He finishes smoothing out the sleeping bag, then sits in the other chair, close enough for her to reach out and grab him again if she wanted to.
They sit there in silence for several minutes. Linnéa doesn’t know what to say or how to say it, but the silence doesn’t feel bad. She hadn’t thought a silence could feel anything other than awful, after all of the tense hours of lonely silence at home.
Finally, he speaks.
“I am not quite like you,” he tells her. She looks at him, really looks at him—and maybe it’s the way his lantern mixes with the light of the cooking pot to give him a warmer glow, but he doesn’t look as cold as she had thought. Something in his face is softer, or maybe it always had been. “But I may be more like you than your human parents.”
“What does that mean?” She asks. Her voice is still creaky. “Are you like me, or not like me?”
He purses his lips, a complicated expression crossing his face.
“Young miss, a crow is not an eagle. An ibis is not a duck. A dove is not an owl. They are all birds, but you would never mistake one for the other. Likewise, your mother was not your father, and your father was not your mother. You are neither of them, and they are not you, and the Starshnaya is not me, and I am not—”
“I get it,” she laughs, a wet, warbling sound. It’s the first time she’s laughed in weeks and she thinks he might be smiling. “But you know what I mean. You’re…not human. Right? I’m not imagining it?”
Her earlier desperation has been dampened by her own exhaustion, but it’s still clear in her voice as she pulls off her lopsided hat and her wings unfurl. She looks at him, hopeful and afraid all at once, and for a moment she thinks he won’t answer, or that he’ll tell her she was mistaken after all.
“You aren’t wrong,” he finally says, almost like it pains him.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admits, trying not to ask if his human parents left him, too. “I’m scared of hiding, and I’m scared of telling the other children. My parents told Ms. Katya, and she said I don’t have to, but I feel like I’m drowning. Do you hide it?”
The words rush out of her. She has to ask as much as she can, while Flins is feeling indulgent enough to answer.
“Young miss…” Flins sighs, but he doesn’t look or sound annoyed. Just a little weary, like Katya after a long day. “You are so very young, by both human and fae standards. You should not feel the need to hide yourself for the sake of other people’s comfort. An old man like me is not a good example of what you should do.”
“So you do hide it,” she says.
“I do not advertise it but I do not refute it either,” he says, holding out his hands. “There are people who know and people who don’t. Many of us are like this, and an old man like myself finds a bit of pleasure in leading people around by the nose, so to speak.”
Linnéa thinks about that for a moment, then scrunches her face.
“…So, like when Ms. Katya makes extra dessert for us before the kitchen closes, but she acts like she didn’t…?”
“Yes, like that,” Flins nods.
She doesn’t really get it. She tells him as much, and he makes a faint sound that could be a laugh.
“You should get some sleep,” he tells her, amused.
“I’m not tired. What kind of fae are you?” Linnéa asks. Flins gives her a placid smile and does not answer.
“Ugh. What about me, then? What am I? Do you know? Can you tell? When I saw you, I knew you were like me, but…”
“I could not give you a definitive answer,” Flins says, “I could guess, but do you want to hear that from me?”
“Yes,” she says, then grimaces. “No. I don’t know. I want to know, but I don’t want to.” She feels like even more of a child than she is, saying something like this.
“Some people go their entire lives not knowing who they are,” Flins tells her. “There’s no rush. The journey to answer that question may be a long one, but you came all this way, didn’t you?”
Linnéa stares at him. Do people spend their whole lives chasing that question? Do people die not knowing the answer? Terror fills her at the thought. What if she never finds out who she is?
But you came all this way, didn’t you?
That’s right. She walked for two days, and she would have walked for a whole week or a whole year, even if the result would have been the same: Flins, answering her in all these roundabout ways.
“Did…did it take you a long time?” She asks quietly.
“You could say that,” is his noncommittal answer, and Linnéa groans as he chuckles.
“Go to sleep,” he tells her again.
“I’m still not tired,” she lies.
“At least lay down. I’ll talk until you fall asleep, and I’ll be here when you wake.”
Reluctantly, Linnéa climbs into the sleeping bag laid out by the cooking pot. It’s been warmed by the heat nearby; she feels as if she’s been wrapped in a big, warm hug as she settles into it, Flins’ nearby lantern casting a shadow over her face.
“Mr. Flins,” she mumbles when she’s settled. She can’t see him, only his shadow. “Did your parents…did this happen to you too?”
She’d tried not to ask, but she can’t keep the question inside. She has to know. She wonders what expression he might be making as the silence stretches.
“…No, young miss,” he finally tells her gently. “I did not have parents of any kind.”
She jolts, trying to sit up and wincing when she does nothing but flail like a trapped worm.
“What? None at all? How!” She exclaims, her voice carrying sharply through the cemetery in a way that makes her cringe at herself.
“Don’t worry about that, young miss.”
Flins clearly won’t elaborate further. Linnéa is overcome by a shameful mixture of jealousy and guilt; she wishes she hadn’t known the love and warmth of her parents before the truth of what she was emerged, and yet she is abruptly grateful for it.
Flins continues speaking. He starts to tell her a story, something about the Belyi Tsar, and as his voice washes over her in the same way the waves lap at the rocky shoreline nearby, she sleeps.
Linnéa only wakes late in the morning, when Flins has already carried her halfway back to Nasha Town. She’s mortified as she pushes at his shoulder, drool making the leather shine in the sunlight.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” She cries out.
“You were sleeping so peacefully, young miss,” he says, unphased as he puts her down, shrugging her bag off his shoulder and returning it to her. “But it’s good you’re awake. We’re close to town and there are things still left unsaid.”
It takes a moment for her sluggish brain to realize what he said and she becomes more alert, looking up at him; curiously, the daylight makes him once more look cold and sickly.
“I am not quite like you,” he continues. “But there are things that remain true between us that I assume nobody has taught you. First, you may have noticed an inability to lie outright…”
He lets her grab onto his sleeve as they walk. He tells her that they cannot lie, which is why so many fae like to talk circles around humans. He tells her not to make a promise she cannot or will not keep, or she might suffer for it. Cold iron and base metals are like poison but silver is safe. Be careful giving your name to others, because fae are not bound by human rules but humans can abuse the rules of the fae. Do not accept food from a fae, and be careful giving food to others…
It makes her head spin.
“Linnéa!” A familiar, distraught voice screams. She freezes, looking up to see a disheveled Katya sprinting down the dirt road leading from Nasha Town, and before she realizes what she’s doing, Linnéa is letting go of Flins’ sleeve and throwing herself into Katya’s arms.
“Oh, thank the gods, you’re safe,” Katya cries. She holds Linnéa so tightly that it almost hurts, her voice shaking as though she’s crying.
“Y-You were looking for me…?” Linnéa’s voice cracks.
“Of course I was. We all were!” Katya pulls away from her enough to look at her face. “Néa, we searched all over. We called the Lightkeepers and the Frostmoon Scion’s. We were even going to talk to the Fatui, just in case—what happened?”
“I’m sorry,” Linnéa bursts into tears, much like she had the night before. “I’m sorry, Ms. Katya! I shouldn’t have left. I went to find Mr. Flins. I just…I wanted…” she doesn’t need to explain. Katya crumples as she realizes what Linnéa means.
“Oh, Néa…I’m sorry you thought you couldn’t talk to me. I could have reached out to him,” Katya looks at Flins, wetness catching on her lashes. “Sir Flins, thank you for taking her home. For looking after her, for this short while.”
“This is nothing to thank me for,” Flins shakes his head. “It was an honor to meet the young miss properly and to…answer what questions I could.”
“Still. Will you be in town long? I’d like to treat you to a drink, at the very least. I would offer a meal, but…”
“You’re too kind, ma’am,” Flins puts a hand on his chest. “I should head back, especially if you called the Lightkeepers, but perhaps next time I come to town.”
Linnéa wipes her wet cheeks on her sleeves and looks up at Flins.
“Mr. Flins, can I…can I come visit you again?”
Katya’s hold on her tightens for a moment.
“When you’re old enough to travel without giving your guardian a heart attack,” Flins tells her and she drops her gaze shamefully. “But I can stop by when I’m in town if you’d like, so long as the good lady here doesn’t mind.”
“You’re always welcome, Sir Flins,” Katya gives a tired laugh. “You know that. Okay, Néa. Say goodbye for now. We need to let everyone know you’re safe.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Flins,” Linnéa says, letting go of Katya. She hesitates, wanting to reach out and hug him, but it feels wrong to do so now. Flins had let her cling as she cried last night, but…
She almost flinches when he lifts his hand to pat her shoulder.
“Take care of yourself, young miss,” he says. “Remember. You are not me, so you should do what you feel is right for yourself. There’s no need to rush.” With that, he turns and leaves. His strange lantern sways, the sunlight making the silver of it glint like gold.
“Thank you, Mr. Flins!” She shouts after him. When she follows Katya into town and she sees the relief on the faces of the other children, of the adults who had helped look for her, the guilt she felt when she saw Katya doubles in its weight.
But there is relief and a strange joy bubbling inside her, too. She was looked for. She was missed.
And later, when days have passed and she’s settled enough to find her courage, she’ll pull her hat from her head and let the feathery texture of her hair be visible for all to see.