When Jason wasn’t out fighting, he’d be in Tinker’s Nook, customising his pride and joy, a pixie-dust-powered flying bike crafted from the shed exoskeletons of mantises and dragonflies. It wasn’t much, but it was his.

Funny, really. As a kid, all he’d ever wanted was to be a Tinker-Talent fairy. But life had a way of grinding every last bit of his hope into dust. He thought he’d be used to it by now, but part of him still ached every damn time he saw a Lookout Tower, watching the Guardians soar across the sky.

He used to be one of them, the Guardians of Pixie Hollow, recruited and trained by the Minister of Winter himself, Lord Bruce. Back then, he’d believed in it. The mission, the Code, all of it. But that was before. Before the Shadows got to him. Before Needlepoint Meadow swallowed him whole and spat him back out.

Those hawk riders had captured him. Tortured him. They’d fed on his resentment towards Bruce for failing to save him, stoking the fire of vengeance already burning inside. They’d turned him into a weapon against the Kingdom, against the Queen, against Bruce and the Guardians.

Though he’d clawed his way back eventually, most fairies still looked at him like he had a pair of hawk wings hidden under his cloak. When Captain Richard—the perfect, shining leader of the Guardians—offered to help him rejoin their ranks, Jason had laughed in his face. Yeah, no thanks. He’d had enough of living under Bruce’s rules, of trying to meet expectations he’d never be able to reach. Instead, he spent his nights alone, cutting down Hawks and Sprinting Thistles without mercy. The Code? That nonsense could rot. Every life he took deserved everything he gave them.

“What a pile of stinking pebbles,” he muttered, anger bubbling as he brushed stray pixie dust off his hands and onto his leaf-made trousers. He picked up his hawk bone blade, carefully shaping a spare piece of red mantis exoskeleton for the bike’s new frame, trying to keep his hands and his mind busy.

“Stupid, mud-eating, Thistle heads.”