He had been there for as long as I could remember. And I could remember a long time. When he had first arrived the trees had been alive with talk of him. There was not one who did not speak of the human who had invaded our home. Some spoke with joy at the idea of one so foreign that they could study at their will. Others with scorn that a human would dare come into our territory.
Those words had died over the years. They had faded as the years had passed and the others had grown accustomed to his presence. They had faded as those of my kind had disappeared along with the trees they had once called home. And now I was the last, lonely in the diminishing forest. Now it was just him and I. There was none left to talk.
I, though, was as a ghost to him. He could not see me. Could not feel me. Could not touch me. He knew not that I was so close. He was oblivious to the fact that we were the only ones left.
So now I watch him. As the years dragged by. Years that once seemed as a blink of an eye. And he did not change. I wondered on this, my mind convincing me that he could not, then, be human. That the others were wrong when they spoke of his human stench. He must be as we were.
I tested this, one day. I called out to him, stepping out from behind my tree, eager to see the surprise that would surely streak across his face as he took in my presence. But he did not so much as look in my direction. I should have known. He had not once in all those years seen us. But I had hoped, and so I was disappointed.
Now I do not leave my tree. Instead I watch from a distance. Waiting for the day when I will vanish as the others did. When he will finally be alone in these woods that once teemed with Nymphs and Fairies. Fae that were once cherished, then banished to the backs of human’s minds, until we could no longer even be seen. Until we died off, unnoticed by the humans who have forgotten us. But until then, I will watch.
That is all.
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