It had been days since she had anything to eat. Gathering food in the wood had always seemed so easy, and the few times she had a rough time of it, she could always rely on her friends to help her out. It hadn’t worked that way since she stumbled into this steel forest; none of the trees seemed to produce their own food, and the only things she could find to eat seemed to be carefully guarded by humans or kept strange, bright baskets that prevented her from getting to them.
She came to the steel forest almost two weeks ago. It seemed like fun at first: there were stories about the humans who would come to the wood from there, but no one had gone to where they were from. Well at least not any that she was aware had come back.
The dare seemed innocent enough, but she soon lost her way among the giant trees and the criss-crossing pathways. No matter where she wandered, she never good find even a glimpse of her beloved wood. Sometimes she would see something she thought was it in the distance, but it was never it; the steel forest seemed to have its own small places of green and grass, but there was no hope of finding food or shelter among the small copse of trees.
She had resorted to stealing the human’s foods from their kitchens. She only learned that word a week ago, but it seemed terribly familiar now. The humans dedicated entire rooms to the process they apply to animal fats and vegetables to make it “palatable” to them (which was another word she recently learned, but she still didn’t quite understand what it meant). Until recently, she was able to still find berries or nuts that hadn’t been processed by the humans yet, but that seemed to be next to impossible the last few days.
She found herself staring at some slices of what the Cook had called “white cake.” They were some that were small enough to grab and sneak away without the humans noticing, but she found herself hesitating. She had taken a piece of the human’s changed food before, back when she first arrived, but she had regretted it ever since. Flying was so much harder after eating it for almost a day. She felt heavier, and although she eventually got used to flying again, she never managed to shake the feeling that she had been changed by the experience.
There was little else to be done right now though. If she didn’t eat soon, she’d faint; if she fainted, a human were surely find her, and if that happened, she would certainly be killed, or worse. They didn’t seem to like anything that came from the wood, and tended to chase off, hunt or kill everything they found that wandered into their steel forest from her home.
Many raccoons would come back from the steel forest, talking about the great food they would steal from the bins of scraps they kept by their trees, but these raccoons were always fat and lazy; not many lived for much longer after bragging about their conquests, either dying from the dangers of the wood or from the humans when they try to gather more food from the bins.
Still, she could remember the taste of the last meal she had stolen like this. The strange vegetables that had been dipped in some sort of oil and turned crispy-brown were strange, but good. They did little to compare to the sweetest berries she once had back home, but she could not find them anywhere here. Her stomach would not allow her to go much longer right now, and this smelled so much sweeter than the strange “fries” she had sampled before.
The Cook turned his back. With a flutter, she raced in, grabbing the slice from the leaf upon which it sat. She could lift it; she pulled as hard she could but only managed to break off a piece. She fell backwards onto the leaf, which surprisingly didn’t make the strange “clinking” noise she was used to hearing when she fell on them.
It took her a moment to realize that the leaf had been lifted, and was racing towards the same corner she had just come around. She saw the tiny, stubby fingers of one of a young human, seemingly holding the leaf above their head as they raced out of the room.
The leaf and cake stopped suddenly around the corner. She tried to come up with a plan, but wasn’t able to think of anything. The plate was lowered, and she found herself looking directly into the eyes of a young, female human.
“Whoa,” it said slowly, as its pupils widened. With only a moment’s pause, but without taking her eyes off of the faerie sitting in front of her, the girl grabbed a handful of the cake and began eating. She continued to carry the leaf out of the building, cake and faerie in tow, and sat down in a well lit but unpopulated alleyway and began eating more. All the while, she kept watching and smiling.
“Hi!” the girl said finally. “My name is Carrie. What’s yours?”
The faerie gulped visibly. She stood up on the leaf, bowing formally. “I am Percilla Piper. But please, call me Perkie.”
“Hi, Perkie!” The girl grabbed another handful of food with her stubby fingers, but instead of stuffing more into her face, she instead extended it to the faerie. “Cake?”
Perkie took a bite. It was sweeter than the sweetest berry in the wood.
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