Chapter 1: Fae short story

“Shit”

“What?” replied the young person sitting cross-legged in front of me, snacking away at the fruits they’d picked, an adorable yet clueless expression upon their face

“You…are you human?” I stammered out hesitantly, realising just how much I might’ve messed this up. They paused.

“I’m… yeah, I am? Why?” they played it off as a silly question, but their posture stiffened in subtle ways that would be hard to pick for most.

“Even though you’ve got the bright and colourful hair, which last time I checked didn’t occur naturally?”

They paused for a moment, before saying slowly and nervously

“It’s…dye? You’ve got to know that, right? You used it too, right?” They say, gesturing uncertainly at my own unruly mop, its iridescent lustre just a little more vibrant than any natural plumage should be. “Right?”

“N-no, I’m. I’m rather afraid not” I say back, before slumping to my knees on my lawn in front of them. I look up at the human, their brown eyes full of nerves and anxiety that their facial expression is trying so hard not to relay.

“Wh-what? What do you mean you’re *rather afraid not*? What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Well. Um. It means that, despite my best efforts to live out a quiet life and not get into any trouble or anything like it, that I’ve managed to accidentally offer you food that you really shouldn’t eat.”

“What do you mean?” they ask again, their nervousness creeping into their voice more and more with every phrase.

“Well,” I begin, the guilt of the situation I’ve just unwittingly pushed us both into flooding my mind and body as I try to speak. “Are you at all familiar with the rules of dealing with fae, fairies, or just any supernatural sapient being that you’re not sure of?”

“Somewhat, why?”

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“Well,” my voice trembling, “are you familiar with those around food?”

They paused, a tremble entering their voice as they spoke. “Remind me.”

“The rule is that no human should eat fairy food, or you’ll not hunger for mortal food again, and will find yourself bound to the fae realms.” I speak each word clearly, fighting against the wave of panic building inside me. “You’re uh, a lot farther away from home than I think you realise, my friend.”

The denim clad human looks at me with an expression of shock, which melds into anger, which calms once again.

“Oh. That’s… less than fantastic.” they said, quietly and flatly

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it! I thought you were just new to the area, but that really probably should’ve been the first hint, shouldn’t it?” I scrambled to say. My anxiety was spiking, the realisation of what i’d done, what I’d condemned the human across from me to stuck in my throat like a pebble. “You’re nothing like the others and I guess I got caught up in there being a new person who was not an asshole and- fuck, oh fuck I am sorry.”

We sat there in silence, the shell shock of the situation washing over us, the enormity of the situation making itself known and looming over each of us. We sat there for minutes on end, and I could see thoughts flitting through their mind like a whirlwind of confetti, too fast to properly process all of it at once but enough that you can understand how much of it there is, their facial expression shifting in microscopic ways until a wave of grief washed it all away as they burst into tears. They slumped over tears, bursting from their eyes as it all hit at once, and it was all I could do to offer them a hug, holding them as they wept and wept, as the recognition that their life was going to be immeasurably different hit home like a sledgehammer. We stayed like that for hours, at times just them crying, at times the both of us. Eventually they pulled away as the light started to change and the dusk light began to shine through the forest canopy down onto us, glowing like the light of a fire as they looked up at me with puffy eyes. Their expression was sad, pleading, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the one other time such a mishap had happened in my presence.

“Listen,” I began, speaking softly and carefully, “everything is terrifying right now. That’s okay, that’s absolutely okay for you to feel and nobody can or will judge you for it. But if I can offer you one piece of solace, it’s that I have seen this before. I have seen this mistake made before, and I can tell you with certainty that you will be okay. The last time such a thing happened, that person survived, and became happy and healthy. Yes, a lot changed for them, but in the end it wasn’t the end of the world. But it’s not the end of the world. Things will work out in the end.”

“How?” they asked quietly, their voice shaky and uncertain, “How do you know things will be okay?”

Was I really going to do this?

“Because I was that human.”

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