>>5779537“And that was that?” Pearce asked.
You glowered fearsomely, and he’d just smirked, and both of you had broken into sniggers.
“Stop it,” you’d chided him, and continued the tale.
After that you’d spent all day preparing, waiting. When dusk came, you were ready. Moving slowly, precisely, you went through the motions of the ritual. You spoke the words. You lit the incense. You circled the tree. You closed your eyes. You opened them.
And opened them again.
There, in that tiny grove, you beheld a fairy court—a group of True Fey, albeit tiny ones, only distant cousins to the Fairy King and Queen, Titania and Oberon, who your mothers people descended from and worshiped still as gods. Spriggans, mostly—little tree-spirits, small-but-mighty, and known to be 'mischievous' in dark ways when displeased.
“But I knew how to please them!”
“That so?” asked Pearce, waggling his eyebrows.
“You’re the worst,” you sighed.
In actuality, candy had been the trick—small candies, but lightly-enchanted to crackle and pop in a person’s mouth. An offering like this drew them close, closer to the veil between spiritual and physical realms, between dreaming and waking. There, where you could see them closely, they accepted your gift… And invited you to dance, and to sing, and to while away the night, between places.
“Then dusk turned dark, and they started to fade,” you trailed off. “But since I’d given them a gift, they gave ME a gift, too!”
You held up a hand and, with a flourish and a word taught to you by the Spriggan—older even than the Elven language as it is spoken today—you produced a smokeless fire, transparent and ephemeral, like a <Mage’s Torch> but blue and hardly giving off light at all. <Faerie Fire!>
“When they handed me this, I could see them all—at least a little, no matter the time of day. And that wasn’t all I could see. There’s so much hidden in this world—beyond, JUST beyond, or… Where things cross over, you know?”
Pearce had nodded sagely, and said: “Like in creepy backrooms of shops, when nobody else is around and a broom falls over.”
“No,” you’d sighed. “Not like that at all, Logan.”
You’d looked up at that moment, though, and seen it in the window—peering eyes, gleaming in the window. As Logan Pearce’s rom was well above the ground, that was reason enough for you to hastily snuff the fire and to change topics to something else—like the missed graduation party, or how sick your mutual friend Francis Blanchette had become from the moonshine. You did not speak of the eyes, for fear of holding their attention unduly. Not all fairies are friendly, even to half-elves…
And when you can notice the unnoticeable, the unnoticeable sometimes takes a special notice of YOU.
