The Sprite and the Other

"But why?"

The sprite curled her toes around the thick branch and pressed her fingertips into the bark, peering distrustfully at the other. Her harsh green eyes narrowed.

"This is human ignorance," she growled, her voice lowering with malice. "You seem not to understand what you cannot see, when really it is just that you choose not to understand what you do not want to see. It is all out there, if you only open your eyes to it. But you won't"

"What makes you so sure?" the other questioned innocently.

The sprite chuckled. "See, this is the difference between you and me. You are large and clumsy; I am small and lithe. You are loud and unintelligent, whereas my species is full of knowledge. You are human, I am not. There is the difference."

"It doesn't have to be a difference," the other mused. "Could we not just be similar?"

"Where is this similarity you speak of?" spat the sprite, crawling to the very end of the branch and straddling it in an ungainly fashion. "I see no similarities between you and I. But then again, what human can see anything but its own stupidity. There is nothing for you here- nothing. So why not just leave? Take your friends- your idiocy, and leave us be."

She hissed menacingly and plucked a waterfly from her ripped garment. The other frowned, expressing hurt and discomfort, but did not move.

"Go, I said!" the sprite screeched, sending a squirrel shooting up the oak's thick trunk.

"If there is nothing between us," the other stated clearly, "then who are you to tell me that your knowledge is of a higher kind? If we are not the same, what makes you better? Yes, I can admit that we are clumsy, loud, and idiotic at times, but you, what adventure do you have? You spend your life in the hollow of a tree, too terrified to even leave it for a moment. What kind of life is that?"

The sprite snarled threateningly and the hairs on her neck bristled angrily. The wrinkles embedded deeply in her gnarled skin wriggled as she stretched her entire body over the space of the branch. "A safe one," she replied angrily.

The other smiled sadly. "That is not a life."