Jaqueline

A Chapter by Shay

Interview with Jaqueline

An Interview with Alternative Beings Council Member, Jaqueline Witte.

By Monica DeAngelo

MD: Thank you so much for meeting with us … uhmm… Mrs. (?) Witte.

JW: (small smile) Actually, my official title is Reina Witte, although its quite understandable for that to be an unknown fact.

MD: Oh, can you tell us what Reina stands for?

JW: It is a word that is celtic in origin that means Queen. All members of the High Court are referred to as Rei, King, or Reina, Queen.

MD: I see, and how does the High Court differ from the Alternative Beings Council?

JW: The High Court is the governing body for all Alternative Beings whereas the Alternative Beings Council is a subset of High Court members responsible for interactions between Alternative Beings and Humans.

MD: And by Alternative Beings, you mean the supernatural?

JW: Yes and no. We do not want to use that word as it projects the concept of ghosts and parlor tricks onto our citizens. There is much meaning already attached to the word supernatural that might unfairly color society’s opinion of Alternative Beings.

MD: Can you give us a run down of the basic history of Alternative Beings and the classifications that can be seen today?

JW: (A slight grimace) The word classification makes it sound like we are bugs under a microscope.

MD: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to --

JW: (Waves her hand) No, no. I understand. The history of Alternative Beings goes back a very long time ago. Millennia really. There were originally two intelligent species on earth, Humans and Fae. Where Humans excelled in technical pursuits and are social creatures, Fae tend to be more private and as a species we eschew the technical in preference of the magical. But just as there are many different races and cultures of human, there are many different races and cultures of Fae all with different needs and abilities. Unlike most species, however, some races of Fae can mate with a Human and create viable offspring, some of whom can create their own offspring. Some bloodlines became more and more mixed while others remained unmixed. Some definitive… classifications… arose and it became evident that while some have different ratios of Fae and Human blood that they generally fell into a few distinct categories.

MD: Such as…?

JW: Well, there are several thousand types of pure Fae blooded citizens, but a few of those are Mage, Seelie, Unseelie, Selkie, Nymphs, and Trolls.

MD: (Suprised) Trolls? Like, under bridges?

JW: (Laughs) Trolls are the engineers of the Fae world. They use magic to fix and fortify things. Long ago there was a Troll who was under a small bridge trying to fortify a it with a ward spell that would dissuade farmers with large carts from using that particular bridge. A goat herder began crossing about the time that the Troll began casting the ward spell and I’m afraid there was a mix up that resulted in half of his goats vanishing. The Troll, angry over the loss of two months of preparations for that spell, gave the herder a piece of his mind which lead the herder to believe that the Troll had eaten the goats. Superstition was such that the story got out of hand and soon you had rumors of Trolls eating naughty children and running off with livestock. Nothing to it.

MD: I see! And you have a recorded history of this type of thing?

JW: Oh yes. Magic can be very dangerous and because of this oral history became an integral part of our traditions. Even though many of our citizens have an undeterminable life span, a push was made to record oral histories in a written format to circumvent the loss of valuable knowledge. For the safety of the public we are working on getting this information into a format that is easier to access and are ensuring training to all of those who are accessing more advanced information.

MD: Fascinating! You mentioned that there were some definitive types of Fae/Human hybrid beings. Can you mention a few of those types of classifications?

JW: Well, there are Witches and Wizards, which come from a Mage/Human hybrid. They carry some of the magical powers of the Mage, but are not as powerful as Mages. There are Shapeshifters, a Selkie/Human hybrid, who differ from the Selkie in that their normal form is human so they are limited to the shapes of animals. There are beings similar to the mythological vampires called the Colti, or fanged ones. They are an Unseelie/Human hybrid. But I have to emphasize that none of the Fae ever eat humans or drink blood or any of the horrible stories that have perpetuated themselves through the years.

MD: So then why hide? Why have you waited until now to reveal yourselves to the world?

JW: Initially, it was because the Fae tend to be a private people. Eventually, though, it became about fear. Humans are prone to war and violence while war among the Fae is rare. Eventually the population got so that it became harder and harder to keep track of everyone and some Fae were seeking out human companionship. That’s when the intermixed breeding began to swell our population, but even with that population boost humans have always been capable of out breeding us on an incredible level. Because of the __________ it was determined that for once Fae outnumbered Humans. And in the Human world many Fae are already living as Humans, hiding who they really are. For the first time in history we have both the population advantage and the technological advancements to provide information that will prevent unsubstantiated rumors from creating monsters out of us.

MD: How do you see this relationship between Human and Fae progressing? Already there has been some voiced resentment from certain extremist groups saying that the Fae are dangerous.

JW: Well, I hope that our relationship will be a peaceful one. As I said, Humans have always been the species that is prone to violence. In general, the Fae are a scholarly bunch who would prefer to be peaceful. Technological advancements have created for Human-kind a buffet of cybernetic body and brain enhancements and have created for Humans a magick of their very own. You, yourself, have an aural implant that is converting this conversation to a transcript and an optical implant that is recording, yes?

MD: You got me.

JW: (Laughs) Anyone who sees the Fae as a threat is misinformed. Its just not in our nature.

MD: I see. Well, thank you very much for the information. Our readers are very interested to learn as much as they can about new neighbors.

End of Interview

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