Title: Fairy Men
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG
Thoughts: This is the result of an idea I had on my way home. There’s potential there for a larger story, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that right now.
——-
Jaid looked at the wax sealed, archaic envelope with her cramped, messy writing and then back up at the bird-like figure of Sr. Steward Geoff Edimon. “You mean to tell me,” she said slowly, her head feeling like a helium balloon someone let go, “that we’re supposed to cross into the Fae World, go back in time, and meet up with our boyfriends – four – hundred – years in the past?”
Geoff calmly nodded, peering between Jaid and Ami, gauging their reactions. “Yes.” As was expected, Jaid lead the attack while Ami looked shocked at first but after a moment of spinning her tires, she’d be backing Jaid up. It’s what gave them so much potential to work together as a team.
The two girls looked at each other, the pain and worry they’d experienced over the last few days had taken its toll. Jaid’s pale, freckle flecked skin was normally a perfect alabaster; now she sported dark circles around her eyes, scratch marks on her arms from absently scratching and her long red hair stuck out in a curling halo of chaos. Similarly, Ami’s usually glowing, tanned body looked pale and gaunt, her eyes swollen and read with her lower lip swollen from nervous biting. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and she wore one of Iain’s discarded t-shirts.
“How do we – how are we supposed to know this isn’t a trick too? They took Cayden and Iain! Geoff, they’re Dark Fae! They’re pure-bloods!” Ami gestured wildly with her hands, “Jaid and I – we’re just humans.”
“But you have potential,” Geoff’s calmness persisted.
“Then why didn’t someone start training us years ago? Why just two years ago?” Jaid looked at the envelope with a growing sense of unease. The words on the paper sounded like her, but the Dark Fae were capable of too many things.
“I don’t know. Cayden and Iain made that decision as your leannán.”
“Geoff,” Jaid hissed, her cheeks crimson, “we’ve never – uh – Geoff!”
The man drew in a deep sigh, and fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. “I don’t know all of the details, but I have served Cayden and Iain for many years and I hear them talk sometimes. I might not believe these words if I didn’t know the Master’s, but I’ve heard them talk about four hundred years ago, when the two of you appeared like visions of angels, wearing their First Swords and telling them it was time for your Hundred Year Training. Doesn’t it seem odd that they have not initiated you? That you have not already begun? That they’re doing little more than teaching you tricks?”
The two girls shared uncomfortable looks.
“Jaid,” Ami gripped the other girls arm, “I can’t live without Iain, and there isn’t anyone to rescue him.”
“We could fully cross into the Fae World and get the help of the ancients,” Jaid said without conviction. “And then risk coming back here decades too late to do anything useful.”
The two girls locked eyes and groped for each other’s hands.
“But, Geoff, we have to cross into Fae to go back through time,” Ami’s face scrunched up as she tried to think through the details.
“I wrote instructions,” Jaid laughed and unfolded the envelope. “God, I even wrote things I should bring. Look, a straightner.”
“So what’s – what’s our first move?”
Jaid squeezed Ami’s hand. “According to my list, get their First Swords.”
“I have those.” Geoff went to a trunk that had sat against a wall, unopened for as long as they had lived here, and picked up two, long wooden boxes. “The First Swords,” Geoff said reverently, placing a box in front of each girl.
In silent agreement the two girls didn’t touch them – yet.
“Okay, so we need to pack and then what?” Ami was almost visibly pulling herself together.
“We leave.” Jaid and Ami shared a scared look and got up.
~ ~ ~
The two girls, loaded with the gear they had instructed themselves to pack, stood in the shadow of an old castle in front of what looked like nothing more than a ruin, a tumble of stones.
“Any idea what we’re supposed to say?” Ami asked grimly.
“Not a clue,” Jaid shook her head and squinted up at the setting sun. That moment of neither day or night was the easiest time for a human to slip into the Fae world.
“We’re doing this for them,” Ami fidgeted with the sword at her hip, the weight alien to her. Her powers were for healing and magic; swords and fighting were foreign to her.
Jaid felt the weight of the twin blades on her back with more of an ease, as if she’d always been missing that weight. She’d scoffed when Cayden told her she would be a battle mage like he was, but now she had to believe him. “For them,” she echoed.
The Hundred Year Training was what they’d anticipated beginning at the turn of the new year; they’d secretly decided Iain and Cayden wanted time to just be with them before they had to push them every waking moment. Now they found out that Iain and Cayden had known them, known them as their wives for a hundred years before. All so that now, in the future, they could single handedly attack the Dark Fae. Jaid thought it had the stench of prophecy about it, but she wasn’t about to give it the time of day; she had a Fairy Man to rescue.
