Tagging: @slaintetowhump, @wildfaewhump, @fairybean101 who all asked to be tagged once I got around to writing something. If you would like to be or no longer want to be tagged, please let me know!
CW: Nothing, unless you count lack of whump :)
The government says there is no such thing as fae.
If you know where to look, there is technically a law, a footnote of a footnote really, that makes it illegal to be fae. Not to practice their magic or marry humans or anything of the sort. It simply bans their existence.
It doesn't work of course.
Even though fae can use glamour to make themselves appear human, relatively few bother. Their illegality is simply one drop in an ocean of banal injustices. Saying it's illegal to be fae is essentially akin to a sign demanding people stay off the grass: inefficient and unenforced.
That's not to say tensions don't exist. Each species is generally distrustful towards the other broadly. One may view the fae with distaste on the whole while still loving the eccentrics around them, who more often than not are nonhuman. The fae are a monolith, mysterious and absent enough for anyone to project anything onto them. Thus, it's quite easy for one to vocalize their disapproval of the species while viewing their neighbors and friends with greenish tints to their skin, points to their ears and strange lilts to their voice with fondness.
The conflict arose years and years ago, once humans began growing ill.
This would've simply been brushed off if not for the odd symptoms this disease would display. Initially, the plague as it would come to be known would manifest itself in forms of magic, gifted towards those inflicted. Humans, once powerless, now could fly, could heal, could create. However, these newfound powers soon soured --those who could fly now bled from their feet whenever they tried to walk and healers soon realized the more cured, the sicker they became.
Naturally, humans blamed the fae. The fae were distant enough to accuse without having to directly confront them. Those in charge shifted the blame onto the fae and made minor laws knowing they would never be enforced. The only serious precaution ever taken were the testing facilities quietly spread across the country until there was almost one per town. And if those with the plague began to disappear, no one made a fuss. They were to die soon anyways and besides, cases were always decreasing.
Each group blamed the other for their perceived misfortunes.
Neither ever considered that the curse was neither fae nor human but something else entirely.