Advent Story 2012: The Fae World: Alder: On Earth (part 8)

[kajones_writing]

Willow

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Alder wondered who exactly ‘we’ was, because he knew there were more of the fae who simply wouldn’t care enough to change their ways, even knowing that they’d destroyed two worlds, than there were who would care. It was something he wished he could do something, anything, about, but only people who wanted to change could work to make things different.

“Earth has always, from the time of the first fae, been a world that we’ve visited,” Alder said, remembering what he’d been told by other fae when he was searching for a new home. “When I was looking for a world that we could live on my first thought was a world that was already inhabited, so we would be curtailed in what we could do, because I didn’t want us to make the same mistakes we’d already made before, and Earth was a world that someone told me might be the best plan. The magic we have, Prime Minister, is dangerous. It’s made our lives too easy, so the fae don’t know how to survive without it, and we can’t recreate what we’ve used.”

“What’s special about us?” George asked.

“We believe, although we’re not certain, that humans have some way of gathering any magic that’s been used and turning it from ambient magic into core magic.” Alder smiled, thinking about the conversations he’d had with several of the fae who understood magic better than he did. “There’s no way of testing you to find out if that is what you’re race does, or if it’s because of something else on this world, but we think our best hope… that is Willow and I think our best hope… is to work with you to make certain that the fae cannot destroy this world in the same way they destroyed two other worlds.”

“Doors are one of the things that can use up magic quickly and on our old world there were several…” Willow trailed off. “Most of the fae who followed me have always been ruled by my family while others were ruled by other families. There was a group of thirteen families who gathered together and they had an elected monarch. The King or Queen would be elected from the elders of the thirteen families, based often on who was friends with who. We are a strange race and we don’t always get along, which was why we ended up with a number of different…”

It was obvious to Alder that Willow was having trouble describing the way the fae had grouped themselves, because it was hard enough for them to understand all the nuances. “Sects is probably the best word we can use to describe it, but at the same time it’s not the right word. We were all the same race, although we have different specialities when it comes to the magic we can use, and each of the groups was slightly different in some way. Like the thirteen families having an elected monarch rather than a blood monarch.”

“The mer was one group?” George asked.

“They were and they weren’t. I think that they were already on the world when we got there, but they have powers very much like ours, so I think they were fae who had chosen to walk away from the fae. If they’d have a choice I think they would have left our old world behind if they’d had a choice, but moving from one world to another had changed their magic.”

“In the same way the selkies magic changed,” Alder continued, knowing that what they were telling George was crossing one of the elder’s lines, but Alder knew the Prime Minister needed to know what he was learning. “When they travelled from our home world, wherever that was, to our old world they lost the ability to shapeshift without their skins. I think the magic of all the shifters changed at the time, but the selkies had the most drastic change.”

“Is that something you found out recently, when you found the book,” George asked, “or is this something you always knew?”

“We found that out recently. The only person who could have known was my father and he chose not to share the information with anyone. I don’t even think my mother knew about the book.”

The book… Alder sighed thinking about what he’d read, what had been hidden from the fae, and he couldn’t help hating Willow’s father a little more. Maybe there had been a reason the truth had been kept secret from them, but he couldn’t think of any reason that was good enough.

“So it must have been passed down from ruler to ruler since the fae travelled from the home world to the world you just left,” George said.

Willow nodded. “That’s the only thing I can think happened.” She sighed. “None of them seemed to have shared what they found out with the rest of the fae, but that’s not something I can know for certain. Our history is…” She looked at Alder and he could tell she couldn’t find the words to explain why something like that could have been hidden for so long. “At the very best it’s confusing and at the worst…”

“Most of the fae appear to have very little interest in our history, as though it doesn’t matter, but once you start trying to study it there are problems,” Alder explained. “The fae live for a long time. We have what could be called batches of children.”

“I was the youngest of my father’s third batch of children,” Willow said.

“Keeping family trees is one of the most important things for the fae to do,” Alder continued, smiling at Willow. “There’s a tree keeper in every family. My father was the tree keeper for our family and I was always fascinated by what he was doing. When I was old enough I decided that I wanted to start studying fae history and, stupidly, I expected our history to be as well documented. It isn’t.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Some periods are well documented, like the reign of Willow’s grandfather, but others… There are huge gaps in our history and it’s not something that was ever taught to us.”

“We don’t have schools,” Willow said. “There are tutors who often take on groups of children, but they mostly teach us how to use our magical abilities, and I was never taught any of our history. My eldest brother and sister might have been, because they were the two who were the most likely to rule, but I wasn’t and I know that most of my siblings weren’t. I wasn’t particularly interested, until I found the book in my father’s desk, which isn’t something I’m proud of now.”

“It’s not something we’re encouraged to be interested in,” Alder said, and couldn’t help reaching out to gently touch Willow, something he never should have done, because he hated that she was reproaching herself for being just like all the other fae. “My father, although he was fascinated by our family’s history and how our family’s blood mixed with the blood of other families, didn’t care about the history of our race as a whole. It seems illogical, but studying the family was more about magic than it was about anything else, and how he could mix our bloodline with others to gain certain abilities. I think he was possibly contemplating taking another wife before he died.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.