A little girl was locked in a cage. When she touched the bars, it hurt. She stayed away from them. She looked around with the other slaves. She was alone. Scared. She didn't know what was going on. They just dragged her away from her mother. Her mother's screams, clawing her way and fighting the men with her fingernails, trying to get to her.

The room she was in was filled with sobs and agonizing screams. Soon, she was dragged out...then felt something hurting on her back. She didn't know what it was.

There were agonizing screams of a small child...searing pain...a white feather with blood.

Colleen snapped awake as she slept outside in the tree, drenched in a cold sweat. She could never remember why this had happened. She always hated nightmares. This was so real though.

She had many questions about her former life. Her mother didn't really tell her much. She only said the family had secrets and that no one was supposed to speak of them for fear of someone finding out. Yet since she had been enslaved, she learned a few things about herself.

Not wanting to think about her past much, she decided to put her mind on something else. She wanted to think of the happiest place on earth. A place she could feel safe. Closing her eyes, she began to think of her mother. She hummed her the special song that helped her sleep. That made her happy.

I know you/I walked with you once upon a dream/I know you that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam/And I know it's true/That visions are seldom often seen/But if I know you/I know what you'll do/You'll love me at once/A way you did once/Upon a dream...

Yet, no one was safe within the walls of the King's castle. She was trapped there, along with all the other enslaved. The girl looked towards the Moors longingly as she hummed her lullaby. She wanted to leave this dreaded place. The enslaved were treated worse than animals. She had seen the King sell them away, their clothes were rags and they were starving. And they were often punished.

Baiting was the worst of all: the enslaved would be stripped naked, chained up in the middle of the room with shackles while being prodded with iron instruments. They would scream and hiss in pain while the King's guest would laugh and jeer at them, calling them demons until the enslaved became weak. Some even died.

Colleen cursed. She scratched her leg furiously as she sat beneath the tree. She was chained up outside this time. Usually they wouldn't do this, but today was different.

The maids had caught her. They told on her. She was beaten and left outside. Colleen wanted to cry, but tears were useless. She hated it when they chained her up. The metal was just unbearable. It burned. It made her leg flare up.

It had always bothered her for as long as she could remember. She didn't know why, yet she was reminded on a daily basis that she was a demon. She thought about it at times and wondered if she was one of the fair folk. But she knew it couldn't be possible since her mother was a human. Her mother didn't speak of her father. She only told him he left to fight in a war and never came back.

She had to keep Jack away from here. She knew that the chain would hurt him. For it was made of iron. Iron burned fairies. Colleen had listened to the King rant to his people about the demons and told them to wear iron jewelry to protect themselves since it was their weakness.

The King was full of secrets. He even had a room that was full of them. A room that seemed to flutter like the sound of wings. The King would forbid all servants and slaves to enter that room of secrets.

The King himself would even allow his nobles to do the unspeakable things to the enslaved. She remembered the Unspeakable when she was small: the searing pain on her back, the sounds of her own screams...and blood. The blood just everywhere. Her tears and sobs as they finished. She nearly fainted from the pain...she had no idea what they had taken from her at the time.

...feathers...stained with blood...

She shook her head as she tried to forget that part of the Unspeakable. She hummed her lullaby, thinking of a way to sneak back to the Moors to see the fairy again.

Jack looked towards the human lands. He thought about his encounter with the slave girl. He wondered if she would ever come back. He wouldn't be surprised if she didn't since humans tended to avoid the Moors.

After hearing these things that the human slave had told him, he couldn't believe the lies the King told people: fairies being called demons and enslaving them. It all sounded terrible.

Sighing, the white-haired fairy laid back on his hammock, looking at the human lands. He hoped she would come back.

As the weeks went by, the girl didn't return. Jack continued to watch the castle from a distance, wondering if she would come back. He would go about his day, trying not to obsess over the fact of the human visitor. Yet, he had to admit she was a peculiar human. He sensed something very different about her.

"JACK!" called a voice from outside the borders of the Moors.

The fairy's pointed ears perked up as he heard his name called. Flapping his giant wings, he flew in the direction towards where the voice had been coming from.

Colleen as she waited outside the borders, looking up in tree tops and the sky for the winged boy. She had managed to sneak out, pretending to be picking wildflowers.

He saw the human girl, looking around in the forest and landed; the wind whooshed as his wings flapped.

"Well?" said Jack. "After all this time, what made you come back?"

"I thought it might be worth the risk," she said, smirking. "What do you do for fun around here?"

"Come!" said Jack, taking her hand.

He took her hand and they walked to the magical land where he showed her a game of mud ball. The two of them laughed and getting covered from head to toe in mud. The creatures of the Moors joined in as well. They splashed in the water, getting wet. Colleen even held onto Jack's foot while he flew up and dragged her along the water.

"I like your wings," the girl said. "They're beautiful."

"Thank you," Jack replied smiling. "I was born with them."

"May I touch them?"

"You may," he said.

The girl watched as Jack's wing stretched out automatically. It scared her a bit to see such a thing move like that, yet it was fascinating. She reached towards the blue feathers and touched them with her fingertips with hesitance. The muscle twitched a bit at the touch, then relaxed. Colleen smiled as she touched his wing: it was warm, the feathers were so soft. She continued to caress it to a full hand, smiling.

"What's it like...having wings?" she asked.

Jack smirked. "It's fun!" he said. "Would you like to see for yourself?"

She looked more scared, swallowing. She was curious since she had seen the flying boy a few times when she was outside. She lightly nodded, excited. The boy stepped up to her, wrapping his arms around her waist while she did the same on his neck.

"Hold on tight," he said.

He flapped his wings, stirring up the dust and flew up towards the sky. Colleen got scared and hugged him tightly, shutting her eyes tightly. She heard the wind rushing past her ears and through her air. He soared on the wind, then hovered slightly, flapping his wind. Colleen opened her eyes and looked around, seeing they were several feet off the ground. He soared higher towards the clouds. The girl shivered as the air got colder, yet her eyes grew wide as she looked at the clouds.

"So this is what it's like?" she said.

"You like it?"

"It feels like...freedom," she answered, taking a big inhale and enjoying the clean air above the heavens.

As the time passed, Colleen and Jack became the most unlikely of friends. And for a time, it seemed as though the hatred between the two worlds were forgotten. When they had gotten older, their friendship slowly turned into something more.

Love.

By the time, Colleen had turned sixteen years old, she had blossomed into a young woman, yet her misery remained from her enslavement.

She was quite afraid of her first kiss with a male. Many times spent in the King's castle, the nobles would frequently grope her and even attempt to shove their disgusting mouths on her like they believed they had the right to. She would avoid them as much as possible and there were times she had to fight the nobles off when they had tried to take her innocence. She resorted to ways of keeping the ravenous wolves away by learning some tricks from the other enslaved and the servants by rubbing garlic, pepper and other foul smelling herbs on herself.

Upon ready to sneak out towards the Moors, she decided today would be the day that she wouldn't go back to the castle. She wasn't going to tell anyone her intentions. She didn't really trust a lot at the castle and she was quite careful about how she left. Surely no one would see her.

Running towards the Moors, wanting and ready for her first kiss with the fairy, she looked back at the castle, smiling as it got smaller and further away. Her blonde hair flew behind her in tangled waves until she arrived at the border. She looked at the necklace he had given her with a jewel he had taken from the Pool, smiling. It would was the best gift anyone had given her.

Jack heard Colleen's voice and came flying to her. He brought her to the highest hill in the Moors where they had watched many sunsets together. She looked at Jack, quite nervous.

"Jack?" she spoke with a tremor in her voice.

"Yes, Colleen?" he said, tilting his head, noting she seemed quite nervous. "You alright, snow angel?"

"I-I'm fine. I just..." She let out an exhale. Colleen looked Jack; blush comes to her cheeks. "Do you believe true love exists?"

"Why yes," said Jack. "Why do you ask?"

"Um...well..." she dithered, her cheeks were redder than ever. "I...I wanted to ask if you ever kissed anyone before?"

"No," he said, also blushing. "Why? Do you want one?"

"I...I do," she said.

Cupping his cheek, she caressed Jack's face. Her heart was pounding so wildly, her cheeks burned with a mixture of embarrassment, excitement and passion. She leaned forward to kiss the fairy's dusky lips, quite very shy about it at first. Her body was trembling. Her nose brushed against the fairy's nose. Inhaling, she smelled Jack's scent: peppermint, trees and wind.

Jack pulled the girl in for his first kiss. Her lips were warm and sweet. Her scent was female and sweat. His hands went almost to the back of her head, feeling the soft hair thread in his fingers. The two of them began to kiss. It got more and more passionate. Hungry. The two youths continued to kiss, tasting each other. The girl was trembling more, touching his hair and neck.

He pulled away, looking at her. "You're trembling," he whispered.

The girl panted, feeling her heart flutter and her cheeks burning. "I'm fine, Jack," she said. "I...I never done this before."

"Don't worry, Colleen, you're safe," he spoke, moving a strand of hair away from her eyes.

He move to her neck, kissing her softly and slowly, making her let out a soft moan. Her fingers threaded his snowy hair. Jack's hands wandered to Colleen's back. feeling two protruding stubs on her back. He stopped and frowned. She pushed his hands away quite quickly and withdrew. She looked quite uncomfortable about it.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's nothing," she replied rather quickly, pushing Jack away.

Colleen looked away from him, quite ashamed of these scars. They were something that happened to her in the past that she wished to forget. Jack frowned again. It wasn't like his friend to be like this.

"You can tell me," he said.

"No, I can't!" she said in a high voice.

She got up and started running towards the castle. She wished she didn't have to tell her new love about what had happened. How she was only a little girl. How she never knew what it was they did to her. All she knew was they cut something off. They didn't tell her what or why. She didn't even know what the pain was as it pressed beneath the flesh of her back. It started growing stronger just after she had been dragged off from her mother.

Jack sat there, completely puzzled and rejected that his friend would just brusquely depart like that even after their first kiss. He had to find out why...what was she hiding? He waited until the sun was completely down so he could use the darkness to his advantage.