Dawn breaks but Marigold can’t will herself to get out of her cushion of ferns. How long has it been since she’s last felt the grass in her toes, or talked to another creature. Two weeks? Three? She wouldn’t be surprised if she exited just to realize that an eternity has passed while she indulged in pity.

The place has already began showing signs of being unkept. Plants once thriving now wild and spread, crowding the small cabin, engulfing the place with a sweet and tangy scent.

Yes, Marigold might be a nymph, but she prefers keeping the untamed plants on the outside. She’s beginning to appear a hermit!

She trims the plants, dusts the place, and is left with one conclusion; Marigold, hates plants.

They have never done anything to her personally, though she is bitter that pollen makes her sneeze uncontrollably. What she hates is what they represent. A time where she lived with her fellow nymphs and sisters, being one with nature in a way no one can ever understand. Spending the days nude and cloaked in vines under the sun, breathing in an air so sweet only a fool would turn away.

But Marigold did just that.

She fell for a boy. An elven boy, with ears pointed to perfection and hair as bright as gold. If nymphs were thought as beautiful, he could only be described as the lover from the ballads.

And her admiration didn’t go unnoticed. He swooned her, making every word that came from his plump mouth rush heat up her cheeks. He kissed her, and loved her in a way she thought nobody ever could. And when the time came, she left her family. Not that they wanted much to do with her after her love declaration anyways.

She ran with him, and he whispered sweet words of the life he had planned. A life of adventure and mischief and wonder.

But it was all a dirty lie from the mouth of a trickster. She should have know, Marigold now realizes. They may be beautiful, and perfect in a way that ethereal beings melt in their touch, but they are tricksters. Beings who enjoy breaking hearts as much as they love clawing them. And Marigold was just another short infatuation for the elven boy.

Now the consequences of following her heart has left her here. In the outskirts of the forests, where only humans, pixies, and outcasts live. Away from everything and everyone she’s ever know, in a small house that she despises, and a heart aching.

So Marigold makes herself a promise. This would be the last time the elven boy ever took someones heart, before she would take his.

Nymphs may be docile creatures, but she no longer knows what she is, for nature will never bring her the same comfort it once did.