The fairy Nyx was true to his word. Never did he leave the windowsill of Adela’s room. Every night the towns people passed on their ways, little children pointing up at the window and saying “look Mummy, that’s where the fairies be” and the elders shaking their heads and clucking saying “a fairy must always have its way”. And every day a soft blue light could be seen following Adela as she did her work, warding off any other suitor who might see himself fit to become attached to the Fairy’s love.

It wasn’t for many months, until winter, did Adela allow the fairy to enter her room once more. On one cold night she lay in her bed, watching the blue light that was Nyx huddling against the window for heat. It was on this night, she brought her face close to the window to see his little light slowly pulse. It faded and brightened, just like a flickering flame about to blow out. And although she knew her father had told her not to speak of fairies, and not to allow one into her home, she couldn’t help but reach out to Nyx. She lifted the piece of wood that covered the hole in the window. Nyx however, simply looked at her with wonder.

“Why art thou in the cold?” she whispered gently, so to not wake her brother.

Nyx took a deep breathe and yelled his response “I promised thee I shant ever leave!”

“But thou shalt freeze. You might die.”

The fairy shook his little head “Thou art worth every moment of pain, my love”

Adela sighed, watching the shivering fairy outside her window. “Won’t thou come in then?” she asked.

“Only if my love desires it to be!” the little nymph responded.

“Nyx…” she said as she cuddled herself into her bed “Come inside.”

The fairy lifted himself off the windowsill, cold wings carrying him inside and onto the pillow.

Adela held her breath as he curled up close to her face and gently touched her hair with tiny fingers.

“Will thou be warm now?” she inquired.

Nyx shook his head “M’love,” he said with a smile “Even in the cold winters night, I am warmed by thine heart.”

And so, the fairy Nyx began spending every night in Adela’s room. Entering at dusk through the tiny crack in the window, waiting on the drawers for her arrival, and sleeping next to her head. And just like this did Adela realize how much the fairy did in fact love her, and she began to love him back.

Just like all fairy tales though, this one does in fact have its trials that must be faced. One day Nyx had arrived in Adela’s room, making his way over to the set of drawers where he waiting for his beloved, when suddenly the same jar as before came down upon him, locking him in the jar.

Nyx looked up at the figure that had entrapped him as the human placed a lid on the jar. This human was not one he had recognized, but rather one he had been told about by Adela. Nyx knocked on the glass and yelled as loudly as he could “If thou releases me, I shall grant thee one wish!”

The man holding the jar scoffed. He was a young man, only a few years older then his human love may have been. For although Nyx had never seen this man, he knew that this was Adela’s brother, back from a neighboring village in which he had married his new bride. And this man had finally returned to be with his own family, brining his young wife with him.

Yet the man holding the jar did not seem interested in the wishes that Nyx had to offer. He scoffed again, shacking the jar and sneering at the fairy.

“So thou art the little nymph that stole my sister?” the man said venomously.

Nyx regained his footing at the bottom of the jar and bowed slowly, “Tis’ I.”

“And you the fairy who hast destroyed my sisters chances of marriage”

“Good Sir!” Nyx shouted, obviously very insulted “although I may have bewitched my beloved into the forest, not a hand did I lay on her virtue!”

The man shook the jar again, tussling Nyx to the other side. “And one wish may I receive?”

“One wish may you regret if you shant set me free human!”

The brother smirked, shaking the jar ever so slightly as he walked down the stairs to show the towns folk what he had found. Coming to the landing, he placed the fairy Nyx (still in his jar) on the mantle of the fire, and walked out of the house to gather his family.

“We shall wish for him to leave Adela” said the mother when she discovered what her son had found.

“No we shall wish for riches” the son replied.

“For chocolate!” said the littlest brother.

“For him to leave the family and the village be” insisted the father.

While the argument for the wish continued, Adela snuck back into the house and crept towards the mantle. Picking up the jar and looking down sadly at the fairy she had grown to love, she opened the lid to let him fly out.

“One wish” said the fairy when he came to his human-sized form.

“I know,” Adela said back to him sweetly, “I have found fairies before.”

Nyx nodded, lowering his head sadly. “Thou dost not need to go to the forest, nor hold a flat rock to receive thine wish. I simply wished for thou to be with me always.” He shifted his boot along the floor ashamed of his actions “Shalt you wish for me to leave thy family, thy home, and thy heart? I shall, my love.”

“Nyx” Adela began as she stepped closer to the blue-lighted fairy “I wish not for those things.”

“For riches then? I shalt give you all the riches you may want. And more then thy could ever wish for, if I may still be aloud to just sleep on thy windowsill.”

“Nyx” she said again “I don’t want riches.”

“Then m’lady” he said gently “I know not what to grant you.”

“And you Nyx?” she stepped closer again, narrowing the space between them “you said thine wish would be for me to be with thee always?”

Nyx nodded “A fairy doest not grant his own wishes my love”

“Yet, I wish for the same thing.” Her hand rose slowly and ran along the Fairy’s jaw. “Fairy Nyx, I wish for thou to take me into the forest, to be with thee forevermore.”

The Fairy’s blue eyes met her deep brown ones, filled with wide-eyed wonder and shock. “Is’t that really thou wish?”

“Tis’.”

He raised his hands to the side of her face, cupping her beauty in his hands. “Mine love, thou shalt not need to waste a wish on that. For I would grant that to thee any day.”

Adela smirked, bringing her face closer to his. “Yes Nyx, but this way we must not go through the trouble of finding a flat rock.”

Nyx smiled gently, before lowering his lips to meet hers. They kissed gently, and Nyx put the town into a dreamless sleep as he guided her out of the house and into the wood, so that he may make her into a fairy and they be together for all of time.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End.