Side Story: Pancake Girl and Album
TWO varieties of fairies existed in this world.
The first resided in the fairy realm, only appearing when summoned by a human.
The second dwelled in the human world and coexisted with their kind.
No notable differences existed between the two varieties. Fairies were still fairies, after all.
There was a weasel fairy of the second variety who resided in the human world. However, he was something of a unique case as he had formed a contract with a human. The fairy even frequented the Royal Order of Enoch and participated in their missions.
But this fairy’s contract wasn’t with a knight. He merely came and went from the barracks as he pleased.
To get to the bottom of this behavior, one had to go back in time to a year earlier.
This weasel fairy was merely nameless back then. He was also the most powerful being in the forest where he resided, ordering the other fairies to supply him with food. He lived a comfortable, lazy life.
This fairy spent his days eating mushrooms, nuts, and young leaf buds from the forest. That all changed one day when a forest spirit brought him something much different. A kind of manmade food known as “bread.” A trader passing through the forest had dropped it.
Wary of this brand-new form of food, since he believed all manmade food was poisonous, he left it alone without giving it a taste. It gave off a fragrant wheat scent, but other than that, the rich aromas were unfamiliar to the fairy.
But after there had been four straight days of snowfall in the forest, preventing the fairies from harvesting any food, the weasel fairy had no other choice but to resort to the bread.
It had turned hard as a rock by then, but the strong jaws of weasel fairies meant they could eat pretty much anything—from tree bark to branches.
The inside of the bread was a different color, just like a tree nut. Not only did it smell like wheat, but there were other aromas he couldn’t quite make out. But regardless, it seemed like it might actually be delicious.
He didn’t hesitate to take his first bite. Not only was the crust crispy and flavorful, but the inside was nice and chewy. The more the fairy chewed, the richer the flavors he tasted. Food of this ilk didn’t grow anywhere in the forest.
It was the very first time the weasel fairy had ever eaten human food. It left him in awe after a lifetime of living off the land.
The snowfall continued after that. As always, the fairy spent his days relying on tree bark, sticks, and sap for sustenance. During the winter, tree sap with increased sugar from the cold solidified like candy.
But now the weasel fairy knew that something existed in the world that was much more delicious than sap. Each time he ate the sweet crystals, he was left unsatisfied.
He wanted bread—that savory, rich-flavored bread.
His appetite for manmade bread grew with each passing day.
One day, a man arrived in the forest with a large rifle on his back—a hunter looking for game.
The forest was human property, so it was common for humans to show up during wintertime to do their hunting. The hunter left his belongings in a clearing before setting out into the forest. This presented an opportunity, one which the fairy did not intend to let pass him by.
When he rummaged around in the hunter’s pack for bread, its rich scent started to waft into the air around him.
Finally, he had found what he was looking for inside a metal box.
The fairy carried the box back into his den—a hole he had dug out inside a tree. It took him some time to open the lid, but once he did, what he found was not bread at all. It was round like the moon and gave off a sweet scent. When he split it in half, he noticed that the outside and the inside were the same color.
Still, it smelled very much like bread. The fairy had never seen this food before, but he wasted no time digging in.
It was crunchy—so, so crunchy! This food was sweeter and even richer than bread.
This left the fairy in an almost trance-like state, going back for bite after bite of the hearty food.
Once he was finished, he returned to the hunter’s belongings and found the man shouting, “My cookies are gone!”
It seemed the food was known as “cookies.”
The fairy preferred the sweet cookies to the bread.
Human food had turned out to be delicious after all. They had complex flavors that nuts and mushrooms just didn’t have. More and more, the fairy found himself wanting to eat human food. So much so that he stopped looking for forest food and began to hunt solely for human food. Since the forest was human property, lots of people passed through depending on the season.
Tree sap would liquify again in spring. This brought in crowds of people to harvest it—the perfect opportunity for the fairy to strike.
He waited for them to leave their belongings, occasionally ordering the other forest fairies to help him rifle through their food. He feasted on well-seasoned “sausages,” cured “bacon,” and thinly-sliced “ham.” The fairy couldn’t help but lose himself each time he tried a different variety of food.
However, he was particularly fond of sweets that used plenty of “butter.” The rich aroma and flavor in things like bread and cookies turned out to come from butter.
The weasel fairy started to learn the favorite foods and ingredients of humans by listening in on their conversations.
Once summer came, the sap season ended and hunting was prohibited. This meant hardly any humans came to the forest at all.
However, one person did come once a week to patrol the area. He kept his bag on him, carried a rifle on his back, and kept a knife on his belt. If the weasel fairy were caught, he would almost certainly be skinned for fur.
But, in the end, the fairy’s stomach won over logic. He never dove into a person’s bag and stole their food directly off of them—until that very moment. Succeeding was probably the worst possible outcome as the fairy developed a taste for robbery.
Humans appeared to fear fairies as they refused to attack them even when confronted. The weasel fairy began to force the other forest fairies to join him in stealing food directly from people. He was hooked. However, the weasel fairy would face his punishment within a year’s time.
A group of knights dispatched to the forest caught him with total ease.
The human world was built to prevent wrongdoing. After discussing amongst themselves, the knights decided that the fairy would have to pay for his crimes.
The Second Expeditionary Squadron of Enoch had apprehended the thieving weasel. They were a strange assortment of characters made up of a bandit-looking captain, a pretty vice captain woman in men’s clothing, a wolfman, a pretty man in women’s clothing, a normal boy, a young lady who loved mythical beasts, and a Fore Elf.
The Fore Elf cooked pancakes that looked absolutely delicious. The weasel fairy was desperate to get a taste, but the mischievous fairy wasn’t granted so much as a single bite.
Even after he was stuck in a leather pouch and carried around the woods, there was nothing but pancakes on his mind.
I want pancakes… I want pancakes… I NEED pancakes…
He was still a bit fearful that he might be killed and skinned.
But his hunger for pancakes felt far more pressing.
After a few hours, the fairy realized just how dire the situation was. He was put in a metal cage where he thrashed around, unable to bear the hunger. As a result, he was brought to a middle-aged man who, judging by his scary face, couldn’t possibly be a good person.