You learn about the butterfly effect in school. The concept is interesting, but not so interesting that you don’t fall asleep partway through the movie. You hear something distantly about a butterfly beating its wings and hurricanes. You think it will never apply to you.
You know now (not then) that power comes through and from favors.
If you had known that then you would probably not have done so many.
(This is where it starts.)
There is a strange creature crossing the road behind the lecture hall. You stop on your bike and frown at it. It looks a little like a turtle, but it’s limbs are longer than any turtle you’ve ever seen. It’s stretched out on the hot asphalt, long, pale limbs clawing forward towards the small stream that runs on the other side.
You hop off your bike and gently pick the creature up, hands under the belly of the shell like you learned from the internet.
Imagine your surprise when the shell slides off the creature instead, dropping a tiny woman onto the asphalt.
“Water,” she croaks, tiny eyes screwed shut. Her eyelids are the size of yours which means they’re huge on her. “Please.”
(You will not know until later what exactly please means to the fae.)
You feel yourself move through your shock. You pick her up and take her to the water’s edge. She slips under the surface, pale skin flashing like the scales of a fish, and she’s gone.
You’d wonder if your roommate slipped you something this morning if she wasn’t back a moment later, pushing a small rock into your hands.
“A boon,” she says. Her eyes are large and black, suited for her underwater world. “For a favor.” She smiles, showing teeth jagged and sharp like a piranha.
When you blink, she’s gone.
You stare at the rock in your left hand. It’s smooth and worn from years in water, an interesting swirl of granite and quartz. “I wish I knew,” you tell it.
The rock ices over so fast that you don’t have time to drop it. The frost swirls across your skin, burning you where it touches, and you watch in horror as your skin turns a mottled black and blue.
You fall to your knees from the pain and choke on a scream as the stone sinks into you, touching your bones and sending more ice through your marrow. It climbs up your arm and touches your eye, changing you vision so now that you’re see double, a strange, blue world juxtaposed next to the one you know and love.
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