A Future

A fantasy story.

A Future.

“Fairies are small creatures of light which flit around the woods and meadows.” the book said. . “Yeah right” Aratherial added with a bitter afterthought. Those female fairies might have pretty diaphanous wings and be able to fly about, but us poor males have to stay on the ground where it’s predator and prey in a life or death struggle. Male fairies don’t have wings.

Being a fairy two inches tall means most forest creatures refer to fairies as “lunch”.

He looked again at the book the human was reading. “Faerie Folk of the Forest” the title said.
Aratherial wasn’t sure where the author had got the information about “Faerie Folk” from, and figured most of the details had come from a 50% proof bottle of something!
He had a good vantage point from a tree stump, and could plainly see the book the human child was reading. Aratherial was debating whether to break all the rules and talk to the human, pointing out that the book bore absolutely no relationship to reality.
The picture the child was looking at showed little lights dancing in the twilight…which in fact was pretty close to the truth. The females did fly about at night, but only to lure a bat down to within bowshot. There’s good eating on a bat, and those leather wings make good armour when stretched and cured.

Aratherial cast a protective glance in the direction of the hole in the tree where the rest of the tribe were sleeping then carried on reading over the child’s shoulder for a while.

A new page revealed a picture of a brightly, nay, garishly dressed “Imp” sat atop a mushroom, grinning inanely. The caption read ‘Imps are mischievous creatures, who spend their days looking for pranks to play on other fairy folk and unwary humans.”

Aratherial shook his head in disbelief, secure in the knowledge that there was no such creature as an “Imp.” No, the odds were the author had spotted a lone male fairy who’d been thrown out of his tribe for being useless, or whose tribe had fallen to  predators, maybe even human predators who had cut down his part of the forest, something which happened all too often these days.

In fact, it occurred to Aratherial that the child’s presence meant it would soon be time to retreat further into the heart of the forest. Humans brought cats with them, and cats meant silent death in the night. He’d had seen two tribes of fairies wiped out by these “pets“ of humans. The feline killer just used them as playthings until they stopped moving, then losing interest and moving on. Such carnage and waste, all for entertainment. They didn’t even eat the kill! If he saw a cat, he’d put an arrow into it just for spite. His arrows couldn’t harm such a large creature, but they did annoy it. Small revenge, but revenge nonetheless.

Then from within the woods came a rat-a-tat, in three burst of twelve.

The child jumped up and ran out of the woods with a cry of “Mummy, Daddy I’ve just heard a woodpecker!”
“Woodpecker indeed!” sneered Aratherial - that was Tharemen signalling an invitation to all tribesmen to a hunt tonight. Aratherial would signal back soon, it would  be good to have some company for a change, and there was safety in numbers. Fresh food would be a blessing too. The larder needed filling for winter and with two pregnant females in the tribe, there were harsh times ahead.
For the millionth time Aratherial wished his ancestors had “gone over” with the elves. The Elven people had witnessed the growing numbers of humanity, seen a glimpse of the future…it didn’t include Elves! And so the Elves had left and the location of the portal had been lost to the fairy folk over the years. There were rumours of a messenger, but where and when…none now knew.

The child had abandoned the book in its rush to tell of the “woodpecker”, and a breeze turned the page.
Aratherial nearly fell off the stump in shock as he read of Fairy Mounds, and a ring of toadstools around a small knoll, with the full moon in the background above an almost triangular rock. He knew that rock formation, it was barely a mile away! Few fairies went there and even the animals avoided it as the hunting was poor. Without doubt it was the same place!
All of a sudden, something went ‘click’ in his memory as he recalled a rhyme from his childhood.
 
“Step light, step dark, twice round the mark
Step bold, and hark you’ve found the mark.
Twixt summer and snow, twixt snow and the sun
Twice a year to us you can run.”

Could this be ….. the portal? Had the confused author inadvertently stumbled upon something?

It was four days to the half phase of the moon, an open portal, a gateway to the Elves.

He was hit by a sudden rush of indecision. Should he send out a scouting party to confirm his suspicions or throw caution to the wind and move the tribe en masse with all the potential dangers that entailed?
But first he must signal. He had to get word to Tharemen of what he’d seen in that book. He took his axe and tapped out five burst of six…”Meet me. Urgent”.

Dare he hope there might be a future for the fairy folk after all.

All of a sudden, his thoughts were shattered by the sound of an excited yapping coming from the direction of the child.
He almost screamed in anguish. “Oh no! Please, by all the gods of the forest not a dog, not now!”  He drew his bow. The few yards between him, his tribe, and the future had just become deadly miles.

He didn’t see the wind blow the book to the first page, where the author’s name was displayed…E. L. Venkind.

There are no fairies in Britain anymore.

Reviews

[SamBug]

good write. i loved it times a million