"We cannot keep him."


The farmers children gather outside the door, five sons and two girls exchange looks with fingers over their mouths in a shushing motion. There was no soul in this house who didn't know exactly who the father was talking about; The sixth son upstairs sick in bed. He had been so his entire life. Rare were the occasions Laurentius could come play with them, and he certainly couldn't help with chores on the farm.

Their parents had struggled for years to feed them all. It was unavoidable, with the majority of the family wondering when Laurentius would simply slip away as it was...He was a bright child, but a bright child from a poor family was useless. He wasn't well enough to be sent away to a monastery to learn, and he would almost certainly die on the journey.

Their parents argued, with their father concluding that Laurentius couldn't stay as he was, that he had no hope in this world or in the family, living a life of solitude and near death. He was only alive because of the will of fate. The children back away and try to resume their chores when their mother walks from the room, lips fixed in a tense line and hands clutching fabric in her hands as she trudged up the stairs past her children, the house creaking.

Their father orders them to gather outside to say goodbye to their brother.

---


"...We will surrender him to the Tuatha Dé. He's no other hope now, and if they take him, we might get something in return. Either way, this is his last night in this house." He says gravely, steeling himself against whatever he might be feeling about having to send a child away in this manner.

But what other choice did he have?

The march to the forests on the outskirts of their territory resembles a funeral procession.

His older brothers pull him along in a wagon lined with straw and covered in a blanket their mother had made him some years ago, and the entire family comes to a halt just short of the line of trees, their father beseeching the people of the Gods to come and take him. His sisters put crude flowers made of fabric in the cart with him, patting his head as they backed away to their mother's skirt, becoming anxious as a warm wind blew through the forest, an eerie feeling coming over the lot of them.

Laurentius knows what is coming and had wept enough that his tears by now ran dry. He had heard the tales his siblings had passed from their parents and friends to him, and had absorbed every detail. Kidnappings, awful atrocities committed by these not-quite human things. Some seemed blessed and helpful and if you were on their good side, would contribute to the farm or housework... And others would devour, murder, prank, steal. Some could scare you to death with a glance, and... In all honestly, death is what he had prepared for. He struggled to think of any other use he would have, being the way he had been for so long. He couldn't help with chores, he could barely stay awake most days. The only thing that gave him any life was learning. Listening to his siblings, absorbing any little bit of the world around him...

...But that was probably over now.

His family bids him farewell when nothing shows up for some time, his mother stifling her sobs as she's pulled away from him--he smiles weakly for her. She had tried her best to nurse him, had been from what he knew of the world a good mother, but he saw the circles under her eyes--sleepless nights spent at his side when he coughed blood, when he wouldn't wake up, when his body was chill but he wouldn't die.

The town had always thought him cursed, and maybe that was so, for now he lay alone in his cart, fingers weakly clutching the blanket, unable to find strength in his legs to leave it. He shuts his eyes against the dark and slips unconscious.

Alone.

He hears voices at one point, feeling too warm even in only a blanket and his bed clothes. The cart is moving. Did his family come back for him? When he gains the strength to peak his eyes open, the things he sees are not his mother and father, or his brothers. They are long and thin and move in ways that almost feel like a mockery of the locomotion of a human. Like a bastardization of an animal and a person.

He gasps as fear settles into his bones and sends him into a violent coughing fit that ends in him losing consciousness again.

---


When he opens his eyes again, he's warm but not feverish. He squints against a bright light, eyes slowly scanning the sky around him. He finds the tops of trees and an endless, strange blue he's never seen in his life--not a single cloud!

He sits up with a start, remembering glimpses of the night before. What's more surprising is that for once in his entire life, he doesn't feel like it takes the weight of the world to will himself upright. It comes too easy, and he almost sends himself sprawling forward onto his knees. He's not in the cart anymore, but laid out in the middle of a field with... the most beautiful flowers he's ever seen before. Flowers?

He covers his face in a panic, but... He doesn't feel the need to sneeze, doesn't start coughing violently. He slowly lowers his hands in awe, lips trembling as he takes an unstrained breath. He nearly starts crying again then and there, certain he must have died on that dreadful cart ride the night before. But he feels as solid as ever, the warm wind on his skin, the sweet smell of flowers... He still has his mothers blanket on the ground underneath him.

A soft, sweet sound catches his attention as tears roll down his cheeks. There is something else in the field with him, and he's fairly certain that it's singing. It sounds like a woman, like the way his mother used to sing a lullaby to him--but there's something ethereal about it. Not human.

And when he spots her, there's a strange mix of fear and awe. She's not as giant and spindly as the things from the night before, her body softer like a nobles. Bones still jut out unnaturally in some places, like her elbows and knees... Oddly sharp, not quite right. The effect is... jarring. Her long golden-pearlescent hair shimmers color in the sunlight, large transparent wings of light on her back... She almost reminds him of some kind of angel or Goddess, the way everyone around him always described them.

Was she... one of the Tuatha Dé? Had they taken him after all? He unsteadily stands, feeling some amount of weakness still in his legs. He still wasn't exactly as healthy as his brothers, but every movement felt... Lighter, easier. It didn't hurt as much as before. He wanders toward her cautiously, biting his lip and scrubbing at his face with his hands. She's shorter than his mother, but definitely not a child like him. Just... small.

"...E-Excuse me?" His meek voice calls to her when he's a few feet away, watching as she seems to tend to the field of flowers they stand in.

A smile curves her lips, warmer than he was expecting of something like her. She looks at him, and he's struck dumb by how blue her eyes are, the way they almost make the sky above them look grey. She definitely isn't human... She stands to her full height before him, her form wrapped in a silky white fabric that reminded him of the spiders webs that gathered inside the house.

It moved in such a way, too--light and airy. "Hello, little human." Her voice is warm and sweet, lilting even more than his own--the very words birdsong. He can do little more than stare foolishly at her, trembling.

The woman moves so smoothly he doesn't notice when she arrives in front of him, lost in the daze she created in him. He flinches back, remembering to breath when she looks down at him with her soft smile. "You are a timid one, though I can't say I'm surprised." She says with some amount of mirth.

"You were but near death when you were passed along to me, little one. --Do you understand what death is?" He nods slowly, pursing his lips as he watches her with apprehension. So... he was brought to her by whatever those things had been last night?

He manages to stutter out a few more words, speaking first too fast from anxiety, and then slowly as he tries to apply caution. "W-Who are you?-- I... I only remember my parents offering me, and that... That these strange creatures pulled my cart... Am I dead?"

She laughs then, and he wonders if his legs are going to give out. It's beautiful. He feels some amount of shame, thinking that her laugh was more beautiful than his own mothers. It was the sort of sound he'd never heard before, would have never heard if he had died back in that bad, in that house...

She shakes her head slowly, little flowers falling out of her hair and tumbling into the field. "No, you are alive." She smiles a bit more boldly then, crouching down to look at him eye to eye. "I'm sure this must be a shock to you, little human." She watches him with some amount of amusement, resting her chin in a long, spindly hand.

"You may call me whatever you please. I have heard the humans refer to me as Aibell. What may I call you?" She reaches out and ruffles hair long dark brown hair, combing her fingers through it.

He stiffens, uncertain of her intention in putting her hand on him. It was... warm. Like the sunlight. He can't help relaxing a little as she combs his hair. "...Laurentius..." He mumbles back, observing her form with curiosity. So much of her looked very human, but details were... strange. Her eyes were large in her head, her mouth able to get quite wide when she smiled. When she spoke, her teeth were pointed like a predators. Her fingers were long and narrow and sharp, many of her bones where the skin became thin stuck out--but where it did not, she had rolling curves, and her body was thick the way his brothers had described noble ladies who were well fed. Her hair was longer than anyone's he had ever seen--although he didn't have much experience with people.

Her lips curve into a smirk as he silently takes her in, and she laughs again. "You have wise eyes, child. What do you think I am then, without me telling you?" She asks him, voice full of mirth and life.

He sucks in a little breath, fingers picking at the bottom of his shirt. "...A ...Tuatha Dé? Or one of the Gods?" He hopes he isn't wrong--what would she do if he was? But all she does is laugh again, slowly standing back to her full height.

She offers her hand. "That I am. --Not a God, but a child of them. My kin and I, it is our job to regulate things here, to watch over the world and keep balance with the humans and other creatures who inhabit it."

Oh. He was... sort of right, then? He stares at her hand, hesitating at first before taking it, watching her long fingers wrap around his much smaller hand. He follows her through the field to a small cliff overlooking another clearing, surrounded by forests. They look over it, and there are dozens of creatures beyond it. He can scarcely comprehend them all, the tangles of limbs and bizarre anatomy. Some of them looked near indistinguishable from animals, others were varying levels of between... Feathers, fur, humanoid--bugs, and things that couldn't have possibly been of this world--transparent like ghosts!

It excited and frightened him in ways he had never thought possible until now, even with all the time he had been given before now to wonder the world outside his home that his siblings always spoke of.