4. land of the fae

The fireplace was always so warm.

"Mother," a younger Nyx murmured as her light brown eyes with golden flecks locked onto the flames before her that warmed her everywhere besides her bum which was pressed against the cold wooden flooring of their home.

"Yes, my darling?" her mother answered from behind her, one arm cast over her daughter who was leaning against her, her free hand stroking through Nyx's golden waves of soft, delicate hair. She gently pulled a strand of hair away from the girl's face, tucking it safely behind her ear.

Nyx's lips pursed together as she stared into the fire, a facial expression that her mother had memorized as hesitance. She stayed silent though, waiting patiently for her daughter who was rather expressive for an 8-year old to speak her articulate mind.

The girl chewed on her lower lip, another signal that her words were close to tumbling out. And so they did, quiet and curt. "Do I have a father?"

They had journeyed to town that early autumn morning, and it had been busy considering that families were stocking up on food and necessities for the oncoming winter. There were children and their parents all about, and when Valerie had been in line at the market to buy flour, she noticed Nyx staring out the window at a family that was passing by outside. There was a mother holding a baby bundled up in sheets, cradling it in her arms as she smiled up to her husband. On the shoulders of the man sat a girl around Nyx's age, holding his hands and steering them as if her father were a horse. They had laughed and giggled so cheerfully, and Nyx's observant young eyes had watched them all the way down the street.

Valerie exhaled breath through her nose, a faint cloud surrounding where her breath was released. She had avoided that question for eight whole years, but she knew her daughter and her analytical brain would question it at some point. Her father had been like that, too—a hawk's eyes with a mathematician's brain.

"You did," Valerie finally whispered, straightening out a wrinkle on the small shoulder of her daughter's faded blue dress.

Just as expected, the child sat up away from her mother, turning her upper body around to gaze up at her. "What happened to him?"

Of course Nyx knew that something must have happened to him. Most children her age could not draw a a line along the dots between life and death, of absence and presence. To most children, existence was linear and constant, only moving forward. But Nyx's mind somehow grasped the complicated circles of life, and she knew that since her father was not there, that something must have happened to him.

Valerie pursed her own lips, a habit which she could not tell was adopted from her daughter or vice versa, unsure of how to answer the question. Was she unsure of the truth? No, she knew good and well what had happened to Nyx's father, but she was a mother. She had to keep her child safe, and if that meant forfeiting the truth, so be it.

"He isn't with us anymore," she whispered, staring down into those sparkling, inquisitive orbs so bright and charming. Her daughter, even at her age, had charmed the candy out of merchants' hands just with those scintillating eyes many times. "But he was a good man," she quickly added.

She could see the dark blonde eyebrows of her daughter crease in a look of question. Her probing mind wanted to know every detail, as always, but Valerie could not give those details. Nyx, while full of rebellious life and challenging valor, or at least as much as an 8-year old could be filled with, was obedient in certain times. That was one of those times, when her mother's jaw clenched with silence, signaling that no more questions would be answered.

Nonetheless, Nyx was still a child with a mind capable of being distracted and enamored by the next most intriguing thing. So her head turned back to the fireplace where she stared into those flames, leaning her back against her mother's chest as drowsiness overcame her.

Valerie continued to stroke her hand through the girl's golden locks, even as her fingers began to tremble. She could say with most confidence that Nyx would be safe throughout her childhood, that she could live freely and laugh loudly through her adolescence.

But there was a timestamp on that—a deadly one. And even though Nyx was only 8-years old, Valerie feared with all her heart and soul the day that she turned eighteen. For then, that promised safety mark would be gone, and there was no telling the dangers that would arise.

♔

A soft crackling sound filled her ears. Her closed eyelids were warm, and through them she could vaguely see orange light flickering to and from, back and forth the way the sun flickered through trees if you ran past them fast enough. She could feel the weight of a heavy blanket lying over her body, its fuzzy ends tickling her ear. She was lying on her side, and her body felt so warm that she was burning up.

Grumbling, she rolled over onto her back and kicked the heavy blanket off her body, her eyes still closed with grogginess. She inhaled a deep breath, feeling a soreness arise all throughout her body, especially in her back. A cough escaped her mouth, the movement causing her back to ache even more.

"God Almighty," Nyx whispered, reaching her hand underneath her back and rubbing the spot in the middle where it hurt. She heaved herself up, and when she placed her other hand on the ground to push herself up, her hand sunk into softness that could only be a mattress.

As her eyebrows creased in confusion, a pounding ache resounding throughout her head, she brought her hand up and rubbed her eyes that were seemingly glued shut until they finally opened. Shock and confusion filled her honey eyes as she observed the space she was in.

It was a small cottage, dark and completely empty. There was one window at the front where a bit of sun shone through, but from where she was, she could only see the tops of trees. A small fire blazed before her, and she noticed that there was no wood or cement as flooring, but only natural ground covered in straw or hay. The fire was burning a few cylinder-shaped blocks of wood that was encircled with stone, meant to keep the straw floor from catching on fire. It was small but very warm, and Nyx could tell by the blue tint of the trees outside the window that it was very cold wherever the fire was not.

Looking down, she noticed that she sat on a small mattress on the floor. It was thin but soft, and the few dirt stains told that it had been used quite often. Cast over her ankles was the blanket which she had kicked off, and her eyes alit when she saw that it was made of wolf's fur. It pained her to think of what had become of that wolf, but never in her life had she seen such a warm and beautiful blanket. She stroked her hand across the thick, grey and tan fur of the blanket, her fingers seeming to melt in the softness of it.

She was still wearing her olive green dress and bulky leather boots, and right beside the wooden front door of the little cottage was her tan cloak hanging on the wall. But, in the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a few red stains on the neckline of her dress, and it took her a moment before she remembered where those stains had come from. Fear filling her, she traced her forehead with her fingers, trying to find the wound until her fingers scraped over a grass-like material right at the corner of her forehead.

Creasing her eyebrows in confusion, she pulled at the grass-like substance until it peeled from her skin. Bringing it to her eyes, she realized it was a strip of moss. Someone must have placed it over the cut on her forehead, and as she realized this, she brought her fingers up to the cut and felt fresh blood. She had reopened the wound when she peeled the moss off.

Letting out a shaky breath, she closed her eyes and gently rubbed her pounding temples. She tried to remember what had happened. In her mind, all she could remember was white wings, large and looming, flapping behind the figure of a woman with white hair and crystalline blue eyes as she lunged towards her. She remembered coldness—deathly coldness—as the woman crouched over her and placed her hands on her face. She remembered feeling ice imbue her bones, the sound of her heartbeat slowing to a stop. That was about as far as she could remember.

Was she dead? Was this purgatory, this tiny little room of a cottage that she was cursed to stay in for eternity?

She didn't have very much time to ponder the validity of the so-called afterlife she may or may have not been in, for right outside the cottage she heard footsteps and a soft humming coming closer. A shadow cast itself across the wall adjacent to the door, and her heart which had been lagging suddenly woke up, pounding furiously as it pumped adrenaline through her bloodstream.

As the humming came closer, she looked around the room about her, trying to find something to use as a weapon. Seeing it was totally empty and futile, she glanced down to her boots momentarily before she began quickly untying the one on her left foot.

The humming neared until it was right behind the door of the cottage, and the shadows of two feet appeared amongst the light at the crack below the door. There was a small pause before the brass doorknob at the middle edge of the door turned slowly, the door audibly unlatching and squeaking as it was pushed open, light gradually filling the room.

At the very second that a figure appeared through the door, the boot flew from Nyx's hand at full-speed through the air. Years of practicing archery with her mother, since a homemade bow and arrow and the trunks of trees were the most affordable sport around, had sharpened her aim. The boot flew right towards the face of the figure as soon as they entered the door, hitting them with a loud smack.

"Ah!" cried out a voice, followed by the obnoxiously loud clanging of metal items being dropped onto the ground as the figure bent over, clutching their face as the leather boot also fell to the ground.

Nyx stood immediately, one boot-covered foot seeping into the thin mattress while her bare foot could only reach the surface of it due to her now unequal height.

"Bloody goats!" the figure cried out, stumbling farther into the room and causing Nyx to gasp out of fear and press herself against the opposite wall, as far away from them as possible.

But as the figure stumbled farther into the room, the light of the fire cast upon him, revealing him more clearly to the frightened girl who was frozen stiff against the wall. It was a man—more like a boy—who had the body of a human but was obviously one of those creatures like the woman-creature who had attacked her in the forest. But this creature wasn't even half as frightening, for the eagle-like wings on his back were only half the size of the woman's. They were dull, brown, measly little things, with feathers that were ruffled and obviously hadn't been preened in ages.

The boy was short and stocky in comparison to the woman who had been tall and lean, and she had stood majestically in comparison to the chubby thing who squabbled over like a chicken. He groaned with a voice that sounded ever-congested, rising up and holding his swollen hand over his eye which Nyx had struck with her boot of flight.

"My," he began, "Impeccable aim you have." He wore a grossly yellow tunic, its belt tied tight around his bulging belly, and below its skirt were brown stockings accompanied by dirty, bare feet. Averting her eyes up his short figure, she noticed his brown, spiky hair that made him look like some sort of hedgehog. His eyes were not gleaming like the woman-creature's; instead, they were a brown as dull as his wings.

Nyx still gripped the wall behind her, unsure of his species or the abilities that came with it. Her mother had always told her that there was more to people than met the eye. "W-What are you?" she breathed, gulping hard as she stared at the creature who looked too incompetent to instill fear.

"What am I?" he exclaimed in a scratchy, unsure voice. "What are you? Some kind of new archer fae that we haven't heard of yet?" He groaned again as he bent down to pick up the things he had dropped.

The girl's blonde eyebrows sewed together as she carefully watched him pick up whatever it was he dropped. While he was bent over, she quickly bent her knee up and began untying her other boot. "Fae?" she whispered, eyes widening as she recalled the old mythical creatures she had heard of her entire life. As he stood back up, she hid the boot behind her back.

"Y'know, I was bringing you some food and water," he began, standing up with what was now clearly a tray of food. "But, uh, I don't think you'll want it now." He held up a piece of bread that had dirt and straw stuck to it.

"Where am I?" she questioned, her voice clear and strong. "Who are you? Why am I here?!"

"Hold your horses!" he chuckled, smiling with a set of crooked but pointy teeth that matched his large, pointy ears almost as big as his head. If he hadn't wings, his ears would have sufficed as flying devices. His brown eyes locked onto the girl's forehead which had fresh blood dripping down it, and he curled the end of his lip upwards with disappointment. "You weren't supposed to take that off, yet. Catori made that bandage with her own moss—" He began walking towards her again, but she cut him off when she whipped out her second boot and held it up in the air.

"Don't come near me!" she exclaimed, positioning the boot in the perfect angle for throwing straight at his face.

He froze in his tracks, the gleam of humor leaving his eyes as he stared at the boot in her hand. "I'm just gonna slide you the tray," he began nervously, watching her carefully as he began to lean down. "Can I do that?"

She did not answer him. There was something innocent in his eyes, as if he was just some sort of puppy, but she was in a foreign place and was too terribly confused to trust anyone. She only watched, boot gripped sternly in her fist, as he placed the tray on the ground and slid it over to her until it bounced against the edge of her mattress right at her feet.

"The corn was in a covered bowl, so it didn't touch the ground," the boy-creature spoke as he slowly stood up with his hands up in the air. "And there's still some water in that cup, a-and there's also some fresh fish in there, in that bowl." He backed away a few steps, knowing that the girl needed some space. "It didn't touch the ground, either."

The sound of the corn and fish made Nyx's stomach growl, and when the creature heard it he smiled, his left ear twitching inhumanly. The girl scowled at him, glancing down to the tray for a moment and then back at the creature. "Don't you dare move, else I bruise your other eye socket."

The boy nodded hastily, obviously fearful of the threat, probably because his injured eye was already turning blue underneath his scrawling eyebrows. "Will do."

Grinding her jaw, Nyx bent downwards slowly, pressing her knees into the mattress and letting her bum rest on the back of her feet. Still holding the boot up towards the creature, she reached down and grabbed the iron cup of water, throwing it back and gulping it down as she eyed him from behind it. She cared not if it was poisoned. She was so thirsty that her throat began to feel as if it were closing up.

Once every last drop of water from the cup was down her throat, she lowered it and let it fall to the floor, gasping from relief. Wiping her mouth, she realized that she had lowered her boot while drinking. Snapping her head towards the creature, she saw that he was now sitting down in front of the door with his legs crossed, watching her with a tilted head of intrigue.

"What?" she growled, keeping her eyes on him as she reached towards the bowl of corn and took the leather cover off the warm bowl.

"My apologies for staring, but I've never seen a human so close before!" Resting his elbow on his knee, he let his chin rest atop his fist as his brown eyes filled with fascination. The fire between them crackled, lighting both of their faces with an orange hue.

"And... what are you?" She looked down at the corn which looked perfectly ripe and fresh, as if it had just been plucked from its plant, cut off the cob, and boiled only minutes before. "You said something about fae?"

He was silent for a moment, mouth ajar as if he was too intrigued to answer. Then he blinked, his ears twitching as he sat up straighter. "Why, yes, we are fae, of course."

"We?" she questioned as she brought the bowl to her mouth and tilted her head backwards.

"Yes, we," he repeated, "Here at the Land of the Fae."

She took the bowl away from her mouth as she chewed the soft kernels of corn. "Land of the Fae?" she murmured through the corn. Laughter filled her chest as she set the bowl down, resting her hands over her face as she began to giggle.

"W-What's funny?" the creature asked as he shifted his crossed legs, his small set of wings fluttering behind him.

"Oh, dear mother Mary," she breathed. "I must be dreaming. This is all a dream. I-I just hit my head, and I—"

"This isn't a dream, Nyx," he interrupted her, his voice edged with agitation.

She peered at him through the cracks between her fingers, surprised to hear him say her name. "Then why am I here? Why was I attacked?" Her heart began to pound again, and she suddenly felt the urge to spring to her feet. So she did, jumping to her feet and suddenly kicking the tray away, holding up the boot with a vicious urge to throw it. "Tell me why I'm here!" she screamed.

The boy-creature's eyes widened as he peered up at her with fear, struggling to get to his feet. "J-Just calm down!"

"Tell me why I'm here this instant, you hedge-born knave!" she yelled, holding the boot up behind her as if preparing to throw.

He held his hands up in front of him both to gesture her to calmness and to block the boot if she were to launch it towards him again. "Uhh..." he began with fear in his trembling voice. "Caspian!" he yelled, turning his head towards the door.

Fueled with rage and confusion, Nyx let out a cry and flung the boot towards him. But the creature held his arms over his face, and the boot anticlimactically slapped against his elbows that shielded his head.

"Caspian!" the creature shrieked again, this time much louder and full of terror.

She let out a groan and looked around for something else to use as a weapon, finding the small mattress below her a good defense to use. So, stepping off it, she picked up the pillow thing longer than her own self.

The boy-creature took the chance to peer through his shields of arms, and upon seeing that she was lifting up the mattress, he let out a shrieking, "No, no, don't!"

But it was too late, for the rather aggressive human girl had launched the thin mattress towards him with all her might. Nyx had, apparently, overestimated her strength, for the mattress fell short of reaching the creature and instead fell right over the fire between them.

The light in the room was extinguished, the only other light being what was coming through the window. There was only the sound of the girl's panting as her and the creature who still shielded himself with his arms stared at each other, both seemingly froze in time as they waited for what they knew was to happen.

Then, as they had expected, the fire which the mattress had fell on top of exploded through the middle of the mattress, fluffs of cotton flying in the air as the fire roared with might. Both Nyx and the creature let out a girly, childlike scream.

"Capsian!" the creature called again, watching the fire with fear as it ate up the mattress and then caught onto the straw-covered floor, quickly reaching up the walls of the small cottage. He leaned forward and began to blow quick, pathetic breaths towards the fire as if it would extinguish it.

"You dingbat!" Nyx yelled over the flames. She gripped the wall as the fire began to inch towards her, burning straw at a fast and furious rate. She began to panic, her knees close to buckling as she watched the fire blaze before her.

Then, the door of the cottage suddenly flew open, and the figure who entered was obviously more needed to be feared than was the pathetic little hobbit of a creature with crooked wings.