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Male triton Fae (Kaerio) x female character (Ellen) (sfw)

This was a commission for someone who appears to have infinite patience, so thank you very much for hanging on in there for so many months. I’m sorry, and I hope you enjoy this at last… It’s been up on my Patreon on early release, and now it’s time to put it up here.

It's the 'prequel' to the story with Adan, the Argonian-inspired marine iguana, and which you can find on Tumblr here. I don't think you really need to have read it to enjoy this one, but it might help a bit.

You can catch up on all my Fae Realm related posts and stories here on Patreon, but again, you don't need to in order to enjoy this. I hope.

Jaerhin - Prince of the Court of Fire aesthetic and info

Inikeira - Princess of the Court of Air aesthetic and info

'Poster boy' for the Fae Realm doodle

Fae Courts - 'wiki' style info post

Ystlynn - younger son of the Court of Spring, aesthetic and info

Cirdan - Prince of the Court of Winter, drawing and Fae Realm info

Fae seer/priest aesthetic, ideas, and fae world concepts

Content: serious injury to male character towards the beginning but it’s brief and not described in too much detail. Fluff, a dose of angst, and some more fluff. Sfw, with the odd touch/kiss. Word count: 9,385

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The tranquillity of the waves lapping the shore always soothed her on a level she couldn’t quite articulate. Moving away from the city in her early twenties, leaving it all behind for a quieter life atop the cliffs where she could gather herbs and tend to the folks who needed it had been rewarding, for sure, but the sharp ache of loneliness did still lance through her every now and again.

Perhaps if someone came along one day who caught her eye, then she might go along with it, but for now Ellen was content enough with her books and her herbs and her remedies. The small flock of chatty chickens, all too fond of the sound of their own clucking voices, and the near-silent stray black cat who had more recently adopted her, were enough company for the time being.

Gathering samphire in the wake of the retreating tide one early summer morning, just as the sun was starting to peek above the glass-perfect horizon, a splash from a rock pool up ahead caught her attention and she stood up straight from her task to see a figure slumped on his front over a rock in the shallows.

Her eyes widened and her heart leapt into her mouth at the sight of him, and she thought for an awful moment that he was dead. His skin was glacially pale, like finest marble, and his hair was long and dark, spilling down over his shoulders and back, sticking to his skin like seaweed. He was completely naked, but as she stared openly at him, shocked into a stupor by his beauty and his unexpected presence, she noticed the harpoon sticking out of his back and she covered her mouth with one hand.

The basket of freshly-gathered seaweed completely forgotten, she raced over to him, the toes of her bare feet digging into the wet sand as she flew to him. He tilted his face up a little at her arrival, his gaze vague and his irises so black that she almost couldn’t make out his pupils. The harpoon was lodged in his back, mercifully well clear of his spine, but it was obvious that he’d been shot from behind. It had missed everything important but was still lodged in the muscle of his back. The water had washed a lot of the blood away, but from the looks of him, he didn’t have much left in him.

“Easy,” she said, trying not to panic. “I’m going to help you, alright? I’m a physician. Stay put, and I’ll be right back.” With that, she didn’t linger long enough to hear if he made any response, and turned and ran at full tilt back towards the cliffs and the winding, switchback path that would lead to her wooden hut.

Her lungs burned as she scrabbled up the last stretch, her muscles searing and cramping from the sudden exertion, but she pushed herself on, only daring to catch her breath when she reached her front door and burst inside. Grabbing the necessary supplies from various cupboards and shelves and stuffing them into another basket, Ellen took a few steadying breaths before hurtling back down to the beach.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” she chanted over and over as she ran back to him.

He hadn’t moved and for a horrible moment she thought that he had slipped away, but when he gave a shuddering gasp, his fingertips just twitching slightly, relief washed through her.

It took a long time to tend to him, and in less than ideal conditions. The water and alcohol she used to clean the wound would have to be sufficient, and mercifully he passed out when she had only just begun to remove the harpoon’s barbed tip. It was a cruel weapon, made for latching into the flesh of dolphins and sharks which would then be hauled out of the water, and shipped off to where the nobility of the inland cities would consume them on laden tables, attended by servants and entertained by captive fae on iron chains. The sight of the weapon disgusted her but she hadn’t time to focus on that. He needed stitching up, and she was damned if she was going to let him die on her now.

It should have occurred to her that any ordinary human being would never have survived such injuries, but Ellen was so focused on the immediate task of saving his life that the thought never crossed her racing mind.

When she could do no more for him, she leaned back, exhausted, and glanced to her right and saw that the tide was creeping back in towards the wide, sandy cove.

“How the hell am I going to get you up the cliff?” she mused aloud, stroking his long hair back from his beautiful face; the long strands were encrusted here and there with salt and she picked them loose while she mulled it over. He looked tired and strained, with dark circles under his eyes, and he looked more than a bit undernourished, but he was undeniably beautiful. Ellen removed her thick woollen cloak and laid it over his slender shoulders, spreading it down his back to try and keep him warm and give him a bit of dignity for the time being.

As if summoned back to consciousness by her touch, his eyelids fluttered, long lashes dancing like butterfly wings on his pale, bruised-looking skin. He looked up at her from where he was still slumped over the smooth rock beneath him and tried to move.

“Shh, steady,” she smiled, easing back a little so that he didn’t have to strain himself to look up at her. “That was quite the injury… Don’t move too much just yet.”

“Where am I?” he croaked, his rough voice like a handful of grit in his mouth. “You’re… You’re…” but whatever he was going to say, he cut himself off and looked around apprehensively, his eyes wide with obvious horror.

“Easy,” she said, trying to reassure the strange man. “I’ll need you to move in a minute because the tide is coming in. Do you think you can stand?”

He took an experimental draw of his lungs, winced, but then nodded.

“I’ll help you.”

It took… a long time.

Even with his light frame, he was unsteady on his legs to the point that a newborn deer might have fared better than he did. She clasped her cloak around his throat with a beautiful silver brooch - the only treasure she’d really kept from her life in the city before moving here - and slid her arm around his torso. Together they staggered and slipped up the path to the hut, and it was testament to her skills as a physician, trained in the city with the finest doctors and surgeons, that he didn’t rip his stitches open again. The wound was bleeding through the bandages, but when she inspected it briefly after taking the cloak off him, she found that it was just weeping after the exertion.

Ellen then laid the stranger down in her bed and he slid into sleep in a single, harsh exhale.

Exhaustion washed through her like a riptide and she staggered slightly, suddenly dizzy and weak after the frantic rush of racing to save his life and hauling him up the cliff path to her home. She parked herself in the chair beside the cold fireplace and took a moment to steady herself. The day was heating up now, and she had chores to attend to. Taking a deep breath, she rallied her strength and said, “Well, those chickens won’t take care of themselves…”

The stranger slept for the rest of the day, though she continued to check up on him in between her jobs. After retrieving her basket of samphire from the grasping foam of the incoming tide, she fed and greeted her slightly disgruntled chickens and collected their eggs. That done, she set about drawing some water from the well she’d had sunk when she’d first moved in by two very friendly minotaurs who lived only a mile or so away.

By the time Ellen had caught up on the day’s chores, the sun was sinking low behind the wind-blasted trees atop the cliffs, and she had just begun to grill some fish for their evening meal when she heard a grunt behind her in the one-roomed hut. She’d thought about asking the minotaurs to help her extend the small building, but it hardly seemed necessary. Maybe one day, but for now, this was enough.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, lifting the fish away from the heat, and the man blinked, staring around at the hut with wide, fearful eyes. “It’s alright,” she smiled. “My name is Ellen. You’re safe here.”

He gasped softly as she spoke her name, but other than that, he barely reacted. He still looked too surprised to find himself in someone else’s house. She supposed that was natural.

“Listen, do you want something to eat? You should try and start to recover your strength…”

He looked warily at the grilled fish and the small, charcoal cooking fire in the corner of the room, but unmistakable interest flared in his dark eyes and he licked his lips almost unconsciously.

She returned her attention to the meal, not wanting to overwhelm him. When she turned back to him, she found that he was sitting up and was making no attempt to cover himself whatsoever. He just sat there, gazing around at her home as if he’d never seen anything like it before.

“It’s not much,” she said, blushing. “And I wasn’t exactly expecting guests when I found you this morning.”

“It’s nice,” he murmured. “You saved my life,” he added, lightly touching the bandages around his ribcage that held the dressing in place on his back. His fingers were delicate and they trembled slightly as he moved them along the fabric. “You asked no price,” he whispered.

“You’re a tough one, for sure. Just having someone get better is reward enough for me,” Ellen said with a cheery note to her voice. The truth rang through her words, and it seemed to shock the young man.

“You know your craft,” he said. “You have no magic.” The way he spoke in short, softly-articulated sentences seemed odd, but she shrugged.

“Very few of us physicians actually have magic these days,” she said. “I know what I know, and I do what I can.”

He stared at her intently, and it was almost unnerving. “You’re very kind.”

Ellen had to bite her lips together as the blush crept up further her cheeks. “As I said, I do what I can. Now, are you hungry?”

He shook his head, but in the end she managed to convince him to cover up, and to eat something by saying he’d undo all her good work if he starved to death.

Shortly after finishing, he lay back on the bed and was asleep in minutes. She hadn’t even managed to ask him his name.

Deciding not to risk waking him by clattering around any more, she stepped outside into the balmy evening and closed up the chicken coop for the night. The cat slunk out of the shadows of the herb garden and trotted boldly over to her, his one white sock flashing in the dim remnants of the daylight. He butted his head against her calf and meowed a soft greeting, so of course, she stooped to give him a cuddle.

Ellen had no intention of sharing her tiny cot with the naked stranger, so she drew some spare blankets out of a cupboard and laid them down on the floor beside the empty fireplace. It was warm enough that she didn’t need much covering, so she used most of them as padding to lie on, dragged a cushion from a nearby chair, and drew a simple sheet up over her body to keep the chill of the middle of the night from her skin. Sleep was a long time coming, and for at least an hour, she lay staring up at the figure of the sleeping stranger in her bed. It felt so odd to have someone else in the cabin with her, but despite his quirky behaviour, she didn’t feel threatened by him.

As dawn crept through the small windows of her modest hut, Ellen woke with a soft sigh. Sleeping on the floor was hardly comfortable, but she’d got a good enough night’s sleep, and she stretched before turning her gaze up to her bed where the young man lay.

Except that in his place was not the young man she had remembered from the night before.

Lying under the blankets, though with its torso half exposed, was something from a fairytale or perhaps even a nightmare. The creature that lay there had blueish-green skin and delicately webbed hands, each finger ending in a talon the colour of lapis lazuli. Its face was still vaguely humanoid, but its eyes were almond shaped and huge, resting closed in sleep, and its nose was flat with slit nostrils, and thin, dark blue lips were drawn shut in a tight line. It had no hair, and its ears were marked by a three-pointed fin. Atop its head was another fin, like a crest, and each one glimmered softly like the scales of a fish, first seeming green, then blue, then silver as she stared in horror at it.

Larger scales glimmered down its turquoise neck and the skin on its chest was a dusky blue highlighted with paler green. It would have been beautiful to behold had she not been so terrified. “Fae,” she hissed, staggering to her feet and reeling backwards.

The creature’s eyes opened in a flash and when it registered the revulsion and fear on her face, it raised its hand and inspected what it found, flexing its fingers and spreading the webbing that stretched between them. Turning its eyes back on Ellen, it opened its mouth and she saw a row of savage, pointed teeth.

“Oh gods protect me,” she hissed, snatching up the iron fire poker from its hook beside the grate and brandishing it like a rapier between them. Not that she had the faintest idea how to use a rapier.

The creature’s fin-like ears drew back and it hissed like a cat at the sight of the iron. “Please,” it rasped, and she recognised the voice of the man from the day before in the guttural speech she heard now. “You saved me. I will not harm you. I just… I couldn’t hold this form…”

“You’re a… a fae, aren’t you?” she snarled. “Gods, I can’t believe I let you in here. I can’t believe I…” the colour drained from her cheeks as she realised that she’d told her true name to this creature. “Oh gods.”

“Please,” he said, shuffling and wincing as he tried to sit up. “I swear by the magic in my blood, by my connection to the Fae Realm, by the water that is my home, that I will not harm you.” His voice was strange, as though his tongue had difficulties with human speech around the razor sharp row of teeth in his mouth. “I will leave, but… I… I’m not sure I have the strength to shift again so soon.”

Ellen scowled, confused.

With a sigh, the fae lifted the blankets and revealed that his lower half was a powerful, muscular tail; all glimmering scales and soft, delicate looking fin, though she noticed on closer inspection that each fin was tipped with a barb that reminded her of lion fish. Beautiful but deadly like all Fae…

“Please, let me rest a little while longer,” he said, his voice cracking with obvious fatigue. “Then I will return to the sea, and I will attempt to find the fissure between the veil. I will never trouble you again.”

“I told you my name,” she hissed.

“A gift I will treasure,” he said, “And a trust I will never betray.”

“The only way it’d be fair is if you told me yours in return,” she snarled, still clutching the iron fire poker. “And what the hell are you doing here in the Mortal Realm in the first place?”

His shoulders slackened a little and he tipped his head back against her pillow. “That’s a rather longer story than I have the strength for at the moment. I will tell you though, if you’d truly like to know.”

Ellen just stood there, her breathing fast and shallow, her heart hammering in her ears. A Fae, here, in her cottage. In her bed.

The closest she’d come to one was in the bustling city market where there had been one in an iron cage, but that one had been the size of a skinny child and had had wings like a dragonfly and skin like hoarfrost on glass. There was an eerie kind of beauty to the Fae lying in her bed, with his inhuman eyes, vaguely reminiscent of the deep sea fish that sometimes got tangled up in the fishermen’s nets, and the iridescent blues and greens of his scales were almost mesmerising. She had to shake herself. Everyone knew the stories: Fae would trick you into giving up your soul and leave you nothing but a husk; Fae would steal your name and compel you to come back to their home realm where they would do unspeakable things to you…

And here she was with one in her bed who knew her true name. “Fool,” she whispered to herself.

“If I tell you my name,” he said, surprising her, “Will you trust me?”

“Not a chance,” she said. “But it’d be a start.”

“Kaerio,” he murmured. “My True Name is Kaerio. As a Fae, I cannot lie; you know it to be truth.”

And she did. She felt the truth of it hit her in the chest like a physical blow. “Kaerio,” she murmured, turning the sound of it over on her tongue. He shuddered violently under the covers and she looked at him. “What…?”

He chuffed a laugh, raw and devoid of humour. “I never thought I’d ever hear a human call my name…” he said. “We have stories about you too, to frighten our children…”

“Yeah, well, I never imagined I’d have a damned fae in my bed,” she snapped. “I should have known you weren’t human! No one would survive an injury like that if they weren’t… you know… How did you come to have a hunting harpoon in your back anyway?”

Kaerio sighed deeply and rolled carefully onto his side. His fluke flopped off the end of the bed, spreading its full width and somehow looking like hot-folded iridescent glass. It was stunning and fascinating, and she found herself staring openly at it.

When she looked up at him, his glassy eyes were fixed on her face. He had no white sclera - his large, almond-shaped eyes were like polished jet, and just as hard and cold as he gazed unblinkingly at her. She flushed unexpectedly under his scrutiny and he offered a soft, closed-lipped smile before speaking. “There was an attack on the Court of Water,” he said slowly, his gruff voice deep and sonorous as the high tide against the cliffs.

“The Court of Water?” she asked.

He hummed softly as he nodded. “There are twelve Courts in the Fae Realm, each ruled over by a prince or princess of the lesser Fae…” he tilted his head curiously at her. “You know nothing of this?”

“Why would I? We’re not exactly taught the political structure of the Fae Realm at school. We’re taught to be afraid of your kind from birth.”

His grin was lopsided and showed too many teeth. “Likewise,” he snorted. “Well, there’s always been animosity between certain Courts. I serve in the guard of the princess of the Court of Water, and I am also a messenger of sorts. I carry messages from the House of the Sea to court, and do my prince and princess’ bidding whenever a message needs to be taken elsewhere in the Realm. Providing it is reached by waterways, of course,” he added with a shrug.

“I… I don’t fully understand,” Ellen said, and instead she asked, “But… how did you end up here?”

Kaerio sighed. “I was bringing a message from our princess to the Prince of the Winter Court. He has some sway with the Court of Fire, and it was believed that the attack came from them. She hoped that Prince Círdan would be able to convince Prince Jaehrin to call off the attack… I have to go back,” he said, his head drooping despondently. “I never made it to the Court of Winter and… I don’t know what things are like there. The castle could still be under attack… My people…” His voice broke and he bit back a choked sob.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand the politics of what’s going on here, but none of that tells me how you ended up in the Mortal Realm…”

He swallowed his hurt for a moment and looked directly at her. “There were fire-charges and spells raining down from the ships as they bombarded our defences. I dove deep to avoid them and must have found one of the tears in the veil between our realms. They exist all over the place, but most of them are guarded by waystones or some kind of sentry. This was just… there. I’d swum through it before I knew what had happened, and I needed to surface. When I did, there was a fishing boat nearby, and the next thing I know there are spears and bolts hissing down around me.” He shifted his ribs a little and said, “I took one in the back and I must have shifted in panic. I’m not really sure. I rarely use this form.”

“Why not?”

“There’s very little need for legs in my line of work,” he said wryly.

“What will you do now then?” she asked, realising with a jolt that she had lowered her arm and her grip on the fire poker had relaxed to the point that she was almost about to drop it. Taking a deep breath and deciding that while he had his tail he couldn’t exactly leap at her and disembowel her with his claws from where he lay, she set it back down and sank into a chair at a safe distance from him.

“I need to heal,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long, but in the Mortal Realm I’m cut off from the Fae magic, so I don’t know… I… If I were strong enough to swim down to the gateway I could go home.”

“You want me to check the wound then?” she asked.

Kaerio was surprisingly sheepish as he nodded.

“Keep those claws to yourself,” Ellen growled as she pushed herself upright and crossed to him. On the way, she grabbed a pair of scissors from a side table and he went rigid at the sight of them.

He fell completely still as she laid her hands on him, but a second later a shiver ran the length of his body and he gasped.

Pausing, Ellen asked, “Did I hurt you?”

With a shake of his head, he fell still again, jaw set grimly, watching her while she brought the scissors to the bandages. It was only as she realised that these ones were iron and not steel, that she faltered. If she didn’t touch his skin with them, he’d be alright, so she continued, being doubly careful this time, and when he was unwrapped, she set them back on the table, out of sight.

The relief that washed through him was tangible. “Sorry about that,” she said and he gasped as she laid her fingertips on his ribcage, inspecting the wound.

“Your hands are cold,” he half-giggled and half-gasped.

“Sorry.”

“Cold hands, warm heart,” he grinned. “At least, that’s what they say at home. Not sure if you have that saying here. Do you? Have it here, I mean?”

Ellen frowned and snorted at the same time. “Are you nervous, Kaerio?” she purred playfully, overcome with a sudden rush of confidence. Perhaps it was his unexpected burst of nerves that egged her on.

“No,” he blurted, turning his face away, his fin-like ears tucking flat against his head.

“Well,” she said, poking carefully at the edges of the puncture wound with her fingertips. “You’ve healed miraculously overnight. It seems that your abilities have come with you from the Fae Realm. I wouldn’t recommend fighting a war just yet, but you should be able to swim at least.”

His muscles went slack with relief and he reached tentatively for her hand. When she didn’t immediately recoil, he took her fingers gently in his and ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. “Thank you,” he said. “What can I offer you as repayment?”

“You healed,” she said, still not withdrawing her hand from his cool, polite grip. “I told you, that’s all I want from any patient. Especially from a Fae. I don’t want anything else from you.”

He nodded. “That… That is not… That would not normally be… enough…”

She rolled her eyes and stepped back. “I can’t vouch for how well it’d hold up to you changing your form though. And I can’t carry you down to the beach.”

“One more day,” he said, sounding oddly reluctant. “May I trespass on your hospitality and patience for one more day?”

In fact, he ended up staying for two more days. As much as her wariness was still very present, her curiosity about his world surged to the forefront and she found herself sitting in a chair beside the bed while he told her as much as he was able to about the Fae Realm where he lived.

“There are twelve Courts, as I said,” he explained as he rested his weight on one arm, still lying on his side amongst her sheets and blankets. Every now and again his tail would twitch animatedly, his fluke lifting slightly in the manner of someone drumming their fingers on a tabletop while talking. “There are the four Elemental Courts of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, and each of them have their own noble houses - such as the one I serve, the House of the Sea. There are the Seasonal Courts of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and then there are the Solar Courts of Dawn, Day, Twilight and Night.”

Ellen nodded but remained quiet.

“The territory and influence of each court varies hugely. We are all ruled over by the Seelie and the Unseelie Fae, but they trouble us very little. So long as what we do poses no threat to the fabric of the Fae Realm itself, then they let our Courts squabble as we please. Someone is always pushing for more power, more control… it’s…” he waved a taloned hand, the tiny scales on his fingers sparkling in the summer light that poured in through the open doorway and window in an attempt to cool the room a little, “… tedious…” he finished.

There seemed to be something more than what he told her, but she didn’t push it. “And… forgive me, but I’ve only ever seen perhaps one fae other than you… What… What do your kind look like?”

“As varied as there are fish in the sea,” he laughed. “The lesser royalty - the princes and princesses of our Courts - tend to look mostly human… ish… Some have wings like butterflies or moths, while others have bone structure that’s definitely not quite the same as humans, but for the most part, the royal ones are not like me at any rate. Us lower Fae, the kelpies and shrikes, tritons and wraiths, have more monstrous forms. Of course, it’s said that our dear royalty also have ‘other’ forms which they choose not to take very often…”

“Other forms?”

“Monstrous forms, but they pride themselves on their exquisite beauty… No one wants to serve a creature who is anything less than the epitome of perfection after all…”

Ellen scowled at that, but who was she to judge the beauty standards of another culture, let alone an entirely different realm?

She asked Kaerio questions until his voice was hoarse and she eventually realised how long she’d been making him talk. Embarrassed and chagrined, she offered him water and food, both of which he took more readily this time.

As she sat on the edge of the bed to offer him the plate of hot, steamed fish, he gazed up at her, his features considerably softer now.

“What?” she asked, irritated by how unusually flustered she was.

“I’ve never met a human before,” he said. “You’re very beautiful.”

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that. “Oh.”

“Have I offended?” he asked, a playful note in his voice.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You know you haven't. But I am wary of the kinds of stories we’re told about you…”

“Oh?” he asked, pushing himself upright and leaning against the wooden headboard behind him before taking the bowl of food from her. His claws scraped slightly on her fingers as she passed it to him and she fought off a little shiver.

“Yeah,” Ellen muttered, standing up and smoothing out her skirt unnecessarily. “It’s said you’ll charm us into falling in love with you.”

He snorted. “Why would we do that?”

The question took her by surprise. “I have no idea. But whenever someone goes missing, especially in rural communities, it’s always assumed that the Fae took them… More likely the cold or a wild cat or something if you ask me,” she added. “But then again, here you are.”

“And am I making you fall in love with me?” he asked dryly. “Is my unusual body so enticing?” There was a nasty bitterness in his voice that made her brows knit together in a frown.

Instead of scoffing at him the way he obviously assumed she would, she said quietly, “I think you’re very beautiful too.”

Kaerio nearly choked on a mouthful of his lunch.

Satisfied, and a little bit embarrassed, Ellen beat a hasty retreat with the excuse that she should have let the chickens out by now.

When she returned, Kaerio was asleep again, the empty plate resting in his slack hands, and she took the chance to look at him properly. Yes, he was beautiful.

By the time he had recovered enough to shift again, she watched him do it with the fascination of a scientist. His tail split and with a horrible cracking of bone, he twitched and jerked, the scales melting into his pale skin until the figure of the man she had first found lay before her, sweaty and breathing hard and clutching his ribs with one hand. His wound - which was beyond the reach of his fingers - was clearly still painful, even if it had almost completely healed. Winded, Kaerio looked up at her bashfully and wheezed, “Isn't this a more attractive form for you?”

She shrugged. “I’m not going to lie, you’re very pretty like this, but I think I almost prefer to see you as you are. Besides, you’ve got more colour when you’re a triton. You look like a corpse with all that pale skin…” she grinned.

He laughed weakly and sat up.

“Also you have absolutely no modesty when you’re a human,” she added quickly, chucking her cloak at him to cover up his privates.

He grinned but dutifully covered himself and said, “You’re a doctor. There’s no shame in a naked body…”

“No,” she said, “But you’re no longer in need of my help. It’s indecent.”

He stood carefully, swaying a little as he struggled to find his balance. “Perhaps I do need your help still,” he said quietly.

Ellen rolled her eyes at him but didn’t refuse him her arm as she led him down the path towards the beach.

“I suppose this is goodbye,” she said as she stood there at the tide line. Each stroke of the sea against the beach felt like claws reaching to drag him away and she couldn’t explain the lump she felt in her throat.

Kaerio read her expression clearly and stepped close. He brought his hand to her jaw and cupped her cheek, thumbing gently at her cheekbones as her eyes sparkled with unexpected tears. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be pleased to see me gone…”

Ellen found herself shaking her head, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, tugged free by the stiff sea breeze. “I’ve… I’ve been alone here since I left the city…” she said. “I can’t believe I found…” Found what? Friendship? Companionship? “Found… whatever this has been… with one of the Fae…”

That seemed to surprise him. “I never asked you about your life,” he said, shame ringing through his words like a temple bell. “All I’ve done is talk about myself for two days…”

She smiled weakly. “I asked you, remember? I made you talk yourself hoarse with stories of your homeland…”

“I could try and come back,” he suggested and her heart leapt unbidden to her throat.

“It’s too dangerous, surely?” she said without conviction.

Kaerio’s dark eyes - seemingly human but with a strange depth to them that spoke of the fathomless depths of the sea - bore into her. “I think…” he said carefully, as if hardly daring to believe what he was saying, “I think it is you who has bewitched a Fae, human, and not the other way around. For you, I would risk returning. If you wish it of me.”

“Yes,” she breathed, trembling all over, and not from the wind.

“Then as soon as I have done my duty and delivered the message to Prince Círdan, I will return to you. I swear it. As my True Name is Kaerio, I swear to you that I will return to you.”

Something snapped in the air between the two of them and she gasped. The word of a Fae once given was a powerful thing. She nodded. “Be safe.”

He traced another arc across her cheek once more and unclasped her cloak. As he laid it across her outstretched arm, he bowed his head and kissed her hand.

Watching him walk into the waves wrenched strangely at her heart and she drew the cloak to her nose, inhaling the scent of him as he abandoned his human form, becoming little more than a ripple of green and blue amongst the shifting hues of the water. A second later his head cleared the surface again and he waved once at her before disappearing in a flash of sparkling light and a slap of his fluke.

Just when she’d begun to think he wouldn’t return, as she quilted a new blanket together by the light of the fire and in the middle of the worst summer storm she’d yet weathered in her little hut, barely protected by the twisted broom trees that clung to the edges of the cliff, someone pounded on her door.

Ellen leapt from the fireplace in alarm and flung open the door to a face full of rain and wind. Standing there, shivering and completely naked, was Kaerio.

She gasped his name and ushered him inside. “What the hell are you doing here in all this weather?” she chided him, steering him towards the fire and scrambling to fetch a towel to dry him off.

His teeth were chattering so badly he couldn’t respond immediately and she pressed a mug of hot tea into his frozen fingers a moment later. While he was simultaneously thawing out and drying off, she fished out a pair of old work trousers that she thought might fit him, even if they would be a little on the short side, and a linen shirt and round-necked, woollen pullover. Once he’d stuffed himself into them, and a pair of socks with which he seemed completely fascinated, he grinned up at her.

“Better?”

“Infinitely. How are you?”

“Apart from being startled out of my wits by the sudden re-appearance of a certain Fae in the middle of a ferocious storm? Fine,” she laughed, and was answered with a white-toothed smile.

“I’m glad,” he said, turning his attention to the steaming tea in his hands. “I thought of you often.”

“You’ve been gone two weeks,” she said. “I thought you weren’t coming back. What on earth possessed you to return tonight of all nights?”

“It’s the first chance I’ve had,” he shrugged. “And the weather wasn’t so bad on our side of the veil…” He looked up at her with his unnaturally dark eyes alight with concern. “Are the storms always this bad here?”

She shrugged and threw another log on the fire before drawing up a chair beside him. The firelight gilded his pale cheeks beautifully, and while he was hauntingly attractive in this form, she found she missed his even stranger triton form. “Some are. This isn’t unusual for this time of year. How did your wound heal, by the way?”

“Beautifully,” he said, rolling his shoulder and stretching out his previously-injured side as if to demonstrate. “It aches a bit sometimes, but it makes me think of you and your touch, so I don’t mind.” His paper-white cheeks flushed dark at that, and she laughed.

“I missed you too,” Ellen admitted.

They shared a bed that night, though he kept his touches chaste, limiting himself merely to holding her as the rain lashed the cabin.

When they woke in the morning, he had managed to remain in his human form and they walked along the beach together, picking up strange bits of debris that the storm had flung onto the sand. He found her a shell that she’d never seen before and told her that it was from the Fae Realm.

“When we get home I’ll drill a hole in it and hang it up,” she smiled, taking the clam-like lid of the shell from him and turning it in the light to make it glimmer like a pearl.

“They’re said to bring luck and love,” he commented.

She shot him a look and said, “Well, you came first but perhaps it’s a confirmation from the universe…”

Again, his cheeks flushed and he looked away.

“Am I wrong?”

His hands strayed to her hips and he made her halt, gazing at her with those deep eyes. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Court you, fall for you… It’s… It’s madness. But… I cannot deny my feelings for you. You are a magnificent woman, Ellen. You’re smart and talented and I cherish the memories of our conversations, few as they may have been in number so far.”

Her heartbeat hammered against her ear drums and she licked her lips nervously. “So far?” she asked, staring up at him through her lashes.

Kaerio nodded. “I… I hope to return… The conflict at home has passed, much as the storm from last night has eased. The Court of Fire has agreed not to launch any more attacks on us, and in return we have agreed to allow them passage across the widest river in our kingdom. There’s a small finger of our land that extends along their territory, and they wish access to the river… Our princess agreed to let them use our ferries, but not to build the bridge they requested.”

“Is that going to be enough for them?” she asked apprehensively, very aware of his palms on her hips still.

“It’s… For now, it’s enough.” He tilted her chin up with a delicate touch of his curled fingers. “And if you will allow me, I would like to return to you more frequently.”

With a smile, she accepted.

By the end of the summer, as the autumn sea mists rolled in and choked the land in drenching fog that chilled her to the bone for days at a time, she had spent many an afternoon on the sands with him, both in his triton form and his human, though mostly in his triton to save him the effort and pain of shifting.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” he’d asked on one particular occasion as she lay in his arms while he trailed his claws through her hair.

She replied by pressing her hand flat against his stomach and stroking the smooth scales there with fascination and affection. “You’re beautiful. Why would I mind?”

He’d smiled and kissed her head, and had remained as he was.

The winter weather made their visits harder. Shivering and soaked, he would stagger up the path to the hilltop and she would welcome him inside, but it was impractical to say the least.

“Kaerio, you can’t keep doing this to yourself,” she said as snow fell thick outside and chunks of ice floated like scum in the wide bay beyond. This time he’d arrived with a bleeding scalp from a chunk of debris in the stormy water and had needed patching up. “It’s… It’s taking a toll on you…”

The triton had embraced her, his human arms encircling her and holding her tight to him. “I can’t… not come and see you. I need you…” he said. “I… I’m bound to you, Ellen. I’m yours.”

Her heart clenched and she clutched at him. “Unless you take me to the Fae Realm forever, I -”

He cut her off by jerking backwards, eyes wide. “Ellen,” he breathed.

“What?”

“Do you make such a suggestion in earnest?” his gaze darted frantically between her eyes, searching her face for any artifice or deceit. When he found neither, he whispered, “You… You would really do that? Offer… that?”

“I can’t see another way to be with you,” she said. “I have no real ties here. There are other healers in the area, and… well… you said that humans are treated exceptionally well in the Court of Water. I could be free if I came to live with you…”

“You would give up all this? For me?” he whimpered, his eyes glazing with tears.

“Yes.”

Kaerio was clearly stunned, and made her promise to think it over. “I would have to make arrangements anyway,” he said. “I have a small cabin on the edge of the sea, though I don’t use it very often. It could be made habitable - comfortable - for you.” Excitement blazed in his eyes, and over the next three visits, all he could talk about was the advances he had made in preparing it for her.

Ellen, meanwhile, sold her chickens to a young man a few farms across who promised to look after them and asked no questions about why she wanted to sell them. She prepared her few meagre belongings and packed a large sack full of the clothes and items she wished to bring along. Kaerio had promised that she would be provided for there, so she packed only the things that meant the most to her.

Her triton went through the plan for getting her through the veil, how the magic would feel as it encased her and protected her from the water and the pressure, and how she would need to take it easy as she adapted to the Fae Realm. Just as Fae who slipped through the places where the barriers were frail found themselves unable to use their magic, weaker and more vulnerable to iron and rowan wood, so humans often felt dizzy and almost feverish in their first few days in the Fae Realm as ambient magic coursed through them and the strange, rich foods settled into their bodies.

Dancing with excitement on the shore, bag in hand, she waited for Kaerio on the day he had promised.

She waited while the sun climbed higher and the seagulls wheeled around her. The weather was freezing but bright; the winter day clear and still. The waves lapped gently at the sand, and all was perfect for a journey across the barrier.

She waited, fear fizzing away inside her, as the sun passed its zenith and began to sink down.

Tears came and went as she paced the shore, terrified that something had happened to him.

Eventually, near the deepening chill of sunset, a movement in the water caught her eye and she darted forwards, her thick leather boots splashing in the shallows. “Kae?”

The triton powered through the water and she crouched beside him as he hauled himself out of the reach of the waves, sending water splashing.

Ellen searched his body for sign of injury, but he seemed alright. “What happened? Where were you? I’ve been so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and at the sound of his voice she froze. His tone was cold. “You can’t come with me.”

She staggered, mind and body reeling. “What? But… we’ve been preparing for weeks… What’s changed?”

He shook his head and twitched his gaze back to the sea as if something might come boiling out of the waves after him like a kraken from the deep. “You can’t come with me, and…” he choked suddenly but forced himself to go on. “And I cannot come to see you again. You’ll be in danger if I do.”

Ellen’s whole world slid sideways and she crumpled softly onto her knees beside him, heedless of the water and the cold. “What?” she whispered. “No… No, Kae, I love you… We were going to… This… This can’t be happening.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his words hollow. “You can’t come with me, and I don’t have long. I have to go.”

“No,” she cried, grasping for him. His skin was slippery from the water, like a landed fish straight from the ocean, and he rolled away from her, shuffling back into the water. “No! Kae, please! Tell me why! Please, just tell me… Tell me what I did wrong… You owe me that much.”

His fins were pinned back tightly against his body - a sure sign of his own distress - and he shook his head. “It isn’t you, Ellen,” he said. “I can’t explain it and I cannot lie, and I’m so sorry. It’s not worth the risk. I’m not worth the risk for you. I have to go. Do not try to follow,” he added when he caught the light in her eyes. “It’s too deep and you’ll die without my magic. Promise me…”

“I promise,” she repeated numbly. A larger wave washed up the beach and caressed her legs with its icy touch. She barely felt it.

“Ellen…” he crooned, pausing a little way off.

She didn’t hear him. Tears rolled down her cheeks, mingling with the salt water that swirled around her.

Kaerio crawled back up to her and laid his hand on her thigh. She stared at the paper-thin webbing that stretched between his fingers and hissed, “The stories were right after all. You were going to break my heart all along, weren’t you?”

His talons pricked her skin through her soaked trousers as his fingers clenched suddenly. “I’m sorry,” he said again but she gritted her teeth.

“Go,” she sobbed. “Go if it’s so important to you. Thank you for at least coming to tell me.”

The triton backed away into the water but lingered a little longer as she stumbled to her feet and dragged the canvas sack back up the beach. It felt like the weight of the whole world as she hauled it back up the cliff path. At the top of the winding route she paused and looked back just in time to see his fluke flash in the last of the daylight before she turned away. “Should have known better than to trust a Fae,” she spat in a bitter whisper.

The hut was dark and empty, like a shell stripped of life, an empty hive with no bees.

She would rebuild. She would survive the winter and she would put her promises of love to the Fae behind her. Sour thoughts swirled in her head that he’d never intended to take her with him after all, that he’d only wanted his summer fun with her and now that it was winter, he had moved on. She told herself this over and over until she believed it.

Seasons passed and though she looked out at the sea when she gathered the samphire and sea cabbage from the rocks and the shore, she never hoped to see him again and he never came back. A pod of migrating orca spouted spray into the air one calm evening and she half dared to hope that the movement was Kaerio, checking in on her, but they passed on their way north and left the cove still and silent, with only the gentle hush of the sea itself.

Months became years, and while she wrote to her family in the city, she never went back. Her niece came to visit one spring, which brought a much needed rush of life to the old place. Ellen had taken the minotaurs’ advice and extended the hut a little bit over the years, and she turned the spare room into a bedroom in anticipation of the girl’s arrival.

Yes, her joints ached a little more and she had to squint to read things clearly, but she felt invigorated by her lively niece’s presence. It was all going so well until that filthy reptilian Fae had shown up in almost the same state as her Kaerio had done on so many nights, cold and sluggish from the water and in need of some tenderness.

Everything inside her had screamed to chase the Fae away, to stake him with iron and throw him back into the sea where he could never hurt another again, but the laughter in her niece’s eyes at his jokes, the way Adan pitched in to help without expecting anything in return - unusual to say the least for a Fae - made her hesitate.

Between the two of them they even convinced her over time that perhaps things had ended wrongly with Kaerio, that the growing shadow in their land could have made him afraid for her, that perhaps he had done the only thing he could think of to make her stay away. She would never fully forgive him for not just telling her the truth, but she let her hardened heart soften a little at the cocky young Fae’s assurances that he would at least look for Kaerio when he went home.

“Aunt Ellen?” her niece asked as they stood in the doorway after waving Adan off that final time. “Are you alright?”

The reptilian Fae had strode off with the confidence and swagger of a young knight on a quest, and she had to smile. Ellen closed the door and sighed. “No,” she said. “It’s been forty or so years since I last saw Kaerio…”

Her beautiful niece smiled, hearing her unvoiced fears, and stepped close. “He’ll still love you,” she said. “And if he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve your love in return.”

The fact that the girl had seen that Ellen had never stopped loving him moved her deeply. Perhaps she hadn’t even realised it herself until then. She smiled a watery smile and pulled the girl close and kissed her forehead. “You promise me you’ll be careful who you give your heart to, my darling?” she said, throat tight with emotion. “Even this Adan…”

She nodded and Ellen kissed her again before bustling about the hut, clearing up in the wake of their guest’s departure.

When her boots hit the sand that evening and she saw Adan standing there in the water with the figure of a human on his arm, her breath caught in her chest. His hair had turned silver-grey but it was still long - longer than ever now - and his eyes were still the same; still dark and still kind.

Ellen’s heart shattered.

Kaerio looked breathtakingly handsome. He had put on a bit of muscle and weight since she’d last seen him too, no longer the scrawny, half-starved young man he had been. His skin was also darker, as if he’d spent more time in the sun. There were scars on his cheek and neck, and as Adan fastened a cloak - which had been kept dry by magic, she supposed - about his shoulders her feet faltered and she just stood there, mute, afraid to go forward and afraid to go back. Kaerio brought a hand to cover his mouth and tears began to track down his cheeks at the sight of her.

With a gentle push at her back from the hand of her niece, she approached him.

Adan and her niece shared a look, but it was Kaerio who eventually broke the silence by chuckling, “I’m a bit shaky on my legs. It’s been decades since I’ve used them. Forgive me… Ellen…”

At the sound of her name, the spell broke and she fell forwards into his arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks as he caught her up in his embrace and kissed her.

“I’m so sorry,” he chanted against her lips, her cheeks, her neck. “I’m so sorry. I was so afraid for you and…”

“Shh,” she said, drawing back and stroking his own tears away with her thumbs. “Adan told me everything.” She knew about the shadow that had been growing in the Fae Realm, stealing souls and twisting them into vicious creatures that spread the darkness like a diseases. Humans, it seemed, were particularly vulnerable. “I know why you did it. Not that that makes it any easier, but… I understand now.”

“That little lizard,” Kaerio chuckled, shooting a look at the retreating backs of the other couple as they gave them some privacy for their reunion. “I nearly tore him to pieces when he came to my cabin babbling about some human woman…”

She managed a little laugh. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him,” she said. “My niece is rather fond of him for some reason…”

Suddenly breathless, Kaerio gasped, “I want to stay here. I… I’ve left everything behind. Will you let me stay?”

“Yes,” she gasped, clinging to him. The sea was in his hair, in the smell and the taste of his skin, but he was hers.

“I should have done that before,” he said. “I never should have tried to take you away from your world, and I was wrong to leave you the way I did. I’m so sorry, Ellen.”

“Come up to the house,” she said. As she thumbed the new scars on his face, she added, “And you can tell me the full story behind these scars.”

As they made their way up the path, she helped him when he stumbled, his legs shaky with disuse, and he laughed, blushing furiously.

Inside the stillness of her home, he looked around and said, “It’s hardly changed…”

“I might have changed,” she laughed, eyeing the matching creases around his eyes too, “But no, this place hasn’t changed much.”

Kaerio went suddenly still, his eyes fixed on the beam above her bed. “You kept it,” he breathed and she didn’t need to turn and follow his gaze to know that he was staring at the shell they had found on the beach.

“For luck and love, huh?” she said, taking his hand and letting him squeeze her fingers tightly.

“Luck and love,” he murmured, turning to face her with a smile in his dark eyes.

—

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