The Fairy's Tale (Heat 15 preview)

Story by dark end on SoFurry

, , , ,

I have a story coming out in Heat 15 this year! The latest volume will be released at AnthroCon and you can purchase your copy here: https://sofawolf.com/products/heat-15?sku=H-15


Humans never tell the story right.

To hear them, you would think that the heroes of history were actually fools, and the fools were actually heroes. You would think that simple maidens possessed better magical knowledge than the most learned witch. And you would think that they had bested me.

For a while their folly was fun. But no longer.

For I am Mab--herald of the court of Oberon, handmaiden of Titania, arbiter of the Summer Court, whose fur is the color of midnight and whose wings shimmer with starlight--and from now on, I tell my own tales.

* * *

They at least get the beginning right. Once, long ago, two kings lived in adjoining kingdoms. One was a warrior who always lusted for conquest. And the other was proud and refused to surrender. And so they fought. But they fought too near to the home of the aes sidhe, the people of the mounds, and in so doing enraged them.

Normally, we would have delighted in a battle. We have a hawthorn tree that overlooks a field, and each of us would have settled on a leaf to watch the bloodsport. But the battle was large, even for those old days. Swords bit at the bark of the tree, arrows tore at the branches, and feet trampled our favorite dancing ring. It had been exquisite. And the stupid humans ruined it. For lesser trespasses have greater kingdoms fell.

One of the warrior king's men, who had the name Tadg, noticed the damage that had been done and informed the king once the battle had ended. The warrior king refused to do anything, but Tadg offered us apologies in secret. He was a wise man for a human. Alas for his kin, his king was not, and before they had left the battlefield, we had already begun to plan our revenge.

After many long summer days, when at last I had decided what should be done, I traveled north and east along the path laid out by the constellations, until I arrived at the elfhame of Titania, queen of all fairies. I made the proper obeisances and sought her permission for such a bold incursion into the land of mortal men. Yet before I had finished telling her my plan, I knew that she would permit me to enact it. Although all the fair folk can change form, only ephemeral Titania changes as quickly as her mood. When I first bowed before her, she was a regal deer, but as I spoke, she shifted into the form of a fox like me--only she was white as a strawberry blossom and I black as charcoal. I knew that the cunning nature of my plan delighted her. She gave her assent and agreed that the role of honor should go to our king, Oberon.

I thanked her and left, winding my way home along the starborne path. The finest tricksters from among my host assembled, three and three again strong we were, and we flew to the warrior king's home in the land where twilight ends. With pieces of elder bark in hand, we each sent the villagers and denizens into a deep sleep. Guards nodded off at their post. Craftsmen fell asleep at their tables. Mothers rocking their children joined them in peaceful slumber.

Then we descended, three of us into the settlement and three of us, myself included, into the great stone home of the king. It was no work at all to find the bed of the warrior king's only son, but it was terrible work to take him with us. If a human wanders near or into our demesnes, one can draw him into the otherworld with ease, but out here, beyond the borders of our land, there are old rituals and still older rhymes that must be obeyed. We touched a drop of morning dew to his forehead, we sprinkled fairy dust in a circle around his bed, we placed an acorn at the edge, and through it we pulled a little patch of fairyland into the land of mortals. When we lifted him up--with much straining--and pushed him out of bed, he fell into the shadowed place between worlds. Like all humans who enter our world, his size now matched our own, and no longer being so much larger, it was easy for my tricksters to fly him back home.

To be continued in Heat 15