Submission (#3670) Approved

He never really did wonder why the house he’d bought with the little amount of currency he had was five times cheaper than anything else he’d found. Sulapei’s downtown core (if several scattered small towns masquerading as one large one could be said to have a downtown core) wasn’t that far, the house itself was structurally sound, everything he needed was less than an hour’s walk away.

And then a strange bout of miasma had popped up on the main road out of town, and everyone was stuck staying home while waiting it out in the middle of summer, and Lunarity had been forced to actually spend more than his customary fortnight at his small, two-room home in Kyendi. And suddenly, the reason for his home being so cheap when he’d bought it made itself abruptly clear.

One of the things he’d done within days of finding out he wasn’t going to be able to leave anytime soon was throw himself onto the mercy of a local seamstress in hopes of curtains thick and black enough to hide witchlight through. He’d bought as many books on the fey folk as he could carry on that same trip, and read faster than he could turn the pages about it.

Today, though… Today was not that day. Today he had been up since just before dawn with flour and berries and jars of jam and sliced meats of six different kinds, and he had read all that he could, and he was going to make it count. He had consulted with Shiwu and two magical practitioners in town and all of them agreed that the large fey festivity that was causing the ring-o’-mistflowers to be as noisy and as flashing-bright that it was.

The offer was simple: he would offer the fey folk gathering for their celebration as much a banquet as one kittom could put together, and in exchange, he wanted a curtain of vines or something to keep the noise and lights down when he was trying to sleep. He dusted his countertop with flour, dropped an impressive mound of dough on top, and started kneading. There was much more cooking to be done, and he was just happy that the stew had been cooking since last night.

He'd loaded everything he had into a wagon, and carefully, carefully pulled it across the stream that marked the difference between his back yard and the overwilds where the fey folk lived. Whenever he had to venture into the overwilds – pretty often, as it ended up being, but he never went that far – he didn’t go through his backyard. No, he used the normal paths carved out by stronger elnin. It was the difference between using someone’s front door versus climbing over their back fence, and he wasn’t rude.

But he pulled his wagon across the stream and into fey lands, and he could tell the moment he crossed the border. From his side of the stream, the fey lands were alive with lights and chattering and strange voices he couldn’t quite make out. From theirs… everything was silent, save for the creaking of his wagon’s wheels, and he could hear his own heart hammering in his chest.

He’d done it right, he knew: sigils painted with milk across his flanks, a necklace of braided yarrow in his mane and matching bracelets of albafica around his forepaws. He’d dusted his eyelids with rowan ash from the fire and he was wearing his cloak inside-out. Any precautions he could have taken, he had. And now it was time to put it all to the test. The whispers of the forest and the unseen shuffling of the fey-folk’s wings returned as the magic grew stronger. The normal tones of the forest, crickets and cicadas and moving beasts, did not. Yes, he was properly outside of mortal lands now.

He breathed in, deep as he could to try and settle his heartrate down, following the old, warm cobblestone-and-lichen pathways deeper into the overwilds. The paths weren’t well-maintained and he was walking uphill now, ascending the mountains at a rough hike with a wagon of food on his back. Maybe this hadn’t been his best idea. But they set trials for the few mortals who sought them out, and he trusted he was no different. The sweat would prove he was willing to do the hard work to meet them. And so he climbed, into the mist, following the worn, still-warm cobblestones, and hoped that he was right.

He was walking for an hour, and the sun was setting, and he’d sworn the fey ring was closer than he’d expected. But he could taste the magic trailing towards it, could feel the festivity up ahead like a beacon, calling everything towards it. He’d be lucky if he didn’t get eaten by the Daeva before he got that far, the magic was so powerful. But he kept walking.

Lunarity kept his eyes on the pathway – look into the eyes of the fey folk, and you’ll be stone by morning and dancing for a century before morning comes – and abruptly, the trees and gentle ruins around him cleared away to a circular, utterly abandoned clearing. He didn’t dare look up, but the beacon of magic was right in front of him, and his heart was racing, and it took every scrap of willpower he had to not look up and probably find himself incinerated. But the ring-o’-mistflowers was there, and the fey-folk had abruptly fallen silent.

He unhitched the wagon, eyes on the ground, and slowly started to unpack it, placing each offering inside the ring. Cauldron of stew bigger than he was and fortunately on wheels just for that purpose: check. Four different platters of cheese and meat and fruit: check. Three platters of sandwiches, check. Another three platters of varying baked goods with jam from three different regions: check. A bowl the size of his head of fruit salad: check. A second bowl of homemade punch: check. A third bowl of whipped chocolate: check. And finally, a roast hart on a wheeled platter, easily bigger than he was: check.

He stepped carefully around his contributions and offerings, settling down into a seated position just outside the ring, eyes still on the ground in front of him. At least this part was semi-scripted. “Lords and Ladies and all ye Gentry of the wood of Kyendi, I bring you an offering and I bring you a plea. We have been neighbours for now some time, staying on the sides of the border of yours and mine. But things have been bleeding through the moss, some things the borders never allowed o’er to cross. I ask only that this be set right. I ask only that in exchange for what I offer, we bask only in our own light.”

The rhyming was important. The cadence, just as much so. It had taken him a week to get it right, repeating the words and twisting the syllables between stirring the pot and rolling out dough and checking the heat of the oven. The whispers of the fey-folk returned at full height and sound. He forced himself not to move, not to so much as twitch. He knew better.

The clearing abruptly turned silent. This was it: this was where he either got himself cursed or had his trade accepted. The risk of getting himself cursed was high, but if it meant he could sleep at night until he could travel again, it was worth it.

He dared, without moving his head, to look very slightly upward from his paws, just enough to see the ring-o’-mistflowers. The magic of the beacon quieted, less of a roar of power, before flashing even brighter. His offerings, once there, now completely gone. What remained in the circle was nothing more than a small wrapped platter: wrapped in leaves and moss and a few flowers. He dared look up a little more: the clearing was empty at ground-level, save for the platter.

“Is this for me and for mine?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer. “If it is, I appreciate your attention and your time.”

He reached for the platter, pulled it close to his chest, and turned back to his wagon. He’d done what he’d come here to do. His wagon was still there at the edge of the clearing, empty of the food and full of the – surprisingly clean – dishes. At least he wouldn’t have to replace his cauldron.

Lunarity set his platter on the wagon, ensured everything was secured in, hitched it to his back, tossed a sprig of rosemary and a pinch of salt over his shoulder without looking, and booked it home as fast as his legs could carry him.

The platter contained several sandwiches. He would distribute them to all those who had helped him on this particular quest: one for Shiwu, who had been a friend in her way; two for the fortune tellers; one for the bookshop owner; and a few for his neighbours. For him and for his: that was what he’d promised the fey, and he knew better than to break a promise to them.

But he ate his sandwich that night, and the bread was a sort of whole-wheat he’d never seen before, and what sort of jam and cheese and meat was inside it, he hadn’t the faintest clue. The jam was blue and the cheese was halfway-melted and the meat tasted ever so slightly like fish. The first bite was all he’d needed, and he knew it the moment he bit into it.

She’s laughing. “Come now brother, don’t tell me you’re trying to eat your pudding before your dinner?” she asks, and she has golden-and-pink hair and eyes brighter than the sun. Her dress is dark blue and a black corset and it’s all splattered with stars from the sea, and she has shells in her hair, and for all she stands on two legs she’s still a dragon. He knows her. The blue swirls almost to black around her cheekbones, and she is rotting from the inside, and she’s laughing.

He snatches the teaplate away from her before she can react, reaches for the fork, and stuffs a bite of pie into his mouth. The jam is sweet and salty and the pastry is twice as salty and it tastes drowned, like they scavenged the flour from the bottom of the sea, and he’s happy, and – and he recoiled from the sandwich in fear, dropping it on the table bare, the shadows in his small home too large and too dark for his comfort.

Lunarity forced himself to rise. To strike a match against the small strip of flint and light a lantern. He lights every one he has, and one of the incense sticks he bought from his last trip to downtown, in case he needed something to ward with. Anything to lighten the room.

It didn’t do to refuse a gift from the fey folk. He muttered something rude under his breath – not directed at anyone, but rude nonetheless, learned from an adventurer who thought he was sleeping at the time and who had dropped their hatchet on their toe – and forced himself back to the table. Eat the sandwich, Lunarity. Don’t pay halfway and leave the fey folk hanging.

He eats a second bite of pie, this time with the matching ice cream. It’s sweeter and saltier with marshmallows and chocolate and jam, and it’s perfect. She waits for him to finish before taking his plate at almost indecent speed, handing him a larger plate of a fishy dinner, hissing that he’d better wait this time to start when Lilu gets here, to not start before everyone’s arrived.

Of course he doesn’t wait, and he dives into the fish with its cheese sauce and its herbs of a garden he grew beneath the sea and whose flower seeds he stole from the corpses of great beasts. She’s still laughing, as she takes her place beside him, as the winged man with dark hair and malice in his eyes walks into and down the length of the banquet hall, tail flicking at the spade, scales threatening to break through his skin.

He smiles at the man, fork still in his mouth. The man, eyes bright with cruelty under his long black locks, smiles back at him.

“Hello, darling,” he says, and Lunarity snapped out of it, sandwich gone and feeling at once both entirely satisfied, and deeply unnerved.

He stepped out of his chair and towards the window, tied heavily shut with blackout curtains. He pushed one aside, and peered into his back garden. There was a heavy curtain of vines between the edge of his yard and the stream. Just beyond it, he could make out quite the lightshow. But from here, he saw very little, and could hear nothing but the normal nighttime forest noises, and the faint chattering of the fey folk.

Well, at least he’d be able to get some sleep tonight. Better yet, he had nowhere to be tomorrow, and that meant he could sleep for the next three days straight.