Discover Top Posts Tagged with #whynotsableye

a short unpolished elsewhere fic

Students who sought out contact with the Fae at Elsewhere University where normally rejected by other students, I was no exception to this rule. The faeries at Elsewhere where the trickster type who liked to steal people, make wagers, and steal people. My first year at elsewhere had been hard for a different reason- people didn’t accept who I was. I very much looked like a typical boy and talked like a typical boy so they all thought I was a boy, this lasted about a week. When I thought people where starting to like me I became more comfortable expressing the fact that I wasn’t a boy, not always at least. You see they had trouble understanding that my gender was so fluid that one day I could be a boy, the next a girl, and one some days both or neither. At least thats what I thought. The real reason why everyone was uncomfortable when I would express this fluidity is because students like me where more likely to be taken by the faeries here, or make deals with them and no one wanted to be friends with someone who would be stolen away, possibly to not return until. During midterms in my second semester people started opening up to me and I made a few friends, this however was an especially hard time for me and I began to want to seek out a faerie that would help me. I began taking my mood ring on walks around the school glancing through it to see the truth and when I would find a faerie I would simply put the ring on and talk to them. I must have talked to a dozen faeries posing as students before I got the answer I was looking for, that if I were able to win a contest with the faerie they would give me the ability to control my voice and then at least I would sound the way I wanted whenever I wanted. This “parlor trick” as the faerie called it wasn’t very costly. I had to wager my second favorite dress (one that I had bought for less than twenty dollars) so I thought the risk would be well worth the reward, the ability to change my voice. This contest was a game of quarters, I became very good at quarters in high school when I would drink my dysphoria away at parties with all the “cool” kids. This was the first of three contests I won with the Fae in two years. The second contest won back a student who had been taken, and the third wager won me a potion that would grant happiness and inspiration for a day (I used this potion to finish my first novel and the short story that secured my A in my creative writing course.) Each wager became more dangerous than the last. For the student me and two others had to put up something with extreme emotional attachment- the teddy bear my grandmother gave me, Hannah’s bracelet their dad gave them before going off to a war they would never return from and Johnny’s blanket (he wouldn’t explain why it was so important to him but the faerie we were dealing with seemed surprised at how much it meant to him.) The potion, well I nearly lost that wager and my voice along with it. But this is nothing compared to the last wager I made at Elsewhere University.

I was on a mission to find the most powerful faerie who would be willing to gamble with me, I knew that was the only way. Even my closest friends told me that they wouldn’t support this endeavor as the risk would be too high. “They’ll take you forever” they warned. I didn’t care anymore, I was tired of the body I was living in and I was going to find a faerie powerful enough to grant me the power to change it. I had seen one student win a wager with a faerie that changed their body once, her name was Ellie and she graduated much happier than I ever imagined she would be, but still not as happy as she deserved to be as her fear of what her parents would think gnawed at her from time to time. But what Ellie had done wasn’t what I wanted, I wanted to be able to change my body, to be the way I felt like I should be on any given day, and that was no parlor trick. That feat was no small task of magic and no complex potion could grant my request. This was strong magic, magic that the faeries only ever used on themselves, I wasn’t even sure it was possible for any Fae to grant my request.

One day though in class room 231- the classroom that time moves the slowest in- I met a faerie who gave off an imposing energy, I knew instantly that if anyone could grant my request it would be them.

“Oh great and powerful one of the fairfolke what might I call you, if you do not mind my inquiry?”I knelt as I said this in sign of respect and recognition of their strength.

“My name is too long and complex, it would get lost on your tongue.” It spoke at me “Humans always did have a way of butchering our words, if they even bothered to learn.” I remained still and silent, eyes fixed on the ground. “You might call me prince, young one.”

I took the offering of the name as an invitation to conversation and stood slowly. Humble in posture and meek in tone I began my request.

“Prince” I started, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I entreat you, I have a desire that I fear only you may make reality.”

“Interesting. And what is this desire, and how would you pay for it?”

“Prince, I would like the ability to change my form, as a faerie would but only between different human forms so that I may have a body to match the way I feel.”

“Phhhuh” the prince scoffed “there is nothing that you possess that could be worth such magic. No human could possess such an item. So you are either offering me your life in servitude or you are seeking to win what you seek in a game. No?”

“Yes, prince” I bowed my head again “I seek to make a wager with you if you win you earn my life, and if I win I earn the power to change my form in any way I wish, when I wish it. I would not be bold enough to choose the nature of this wager, that sir shall be allowed to you.”

He pondered the idea for a moment. He scratched his head and stopped himself from speaking many times before he made his response.

“Human, I will accept this wager if you will accept the game I propose.”

“I will play any game, try anything, I need this.”

“I see your pain, your maturity, your wisdom. This isn’t a childs wager so we will not be playing childs game. This wager is of magic and faeries so we will be playing a game that reflects that. We shall play a game that my people have been playing a long time, you should learn it very quickly as it is much like your human chess or checkers. You will be given a copy of the rules today and in three nights, when the moon is full, you shall come here and we will play, if you win you will have your request. If I win I will own you you will exist in servitude for the rest of your life. Does it sound like a deal?” he held his hand out and smiled at me, he was leaning forward in his chair in anticipation. Hesitantly I reached out to grasp hands with him, realizing I had never touched a fae before. He threw back his head in laughter.

“I haven’t had a good challenge in ages, please do entertain me.” And then prince disappeared. Leaving nothing behind but a packet of papers, the rule book. The game was simply called “kingdom” and it involved several different pieces that both players were allowed to place on their side of the board in any way they wished to start the game, after this players were only allowed to move one piece a turn then they could make an action with one of their pieces and that would be the end of the turn. The object of the game was to capture or defeat all the pieces that an enemy controlled some pieces could capture and others could attack making an infinite variety of strategies that players could make. Prince had left a note for me saying that this was a copy of the abridged rules and that we would not be playing with the more complex set. I thought to myself that the game was already so complex that he had done me a kindness omitting the more challenging rules for our showdown. I didn’t go to class for the days that followed, I stayed in one area or another that would give me more time to study the rules and become any kind of proficient at this game. I left the areas that time moved slowly in only to sleep. And when the day came, I prayed I was ready. I picked out my favorite dress, and put on my most comfortable shoes.

The walk to the room seemed to go on forever, none of the fae in the halls even looked at me as I passed. When I arrived prince was standing next to the chair he had been sitting in when we first met.

“Greetings” he said “I hope you’ve had a productive few days it would be a shame if you made this easy on me.”

“I plan to win tonight, prince”

“Lets commence then” he waved his hand over the table and the game board appeared, he sat in his chair and motioned for me to sit opposite him. “Just remember this is a game, so have fun with it.”

I simply nodded as I laid my pieces. The pattern I had chosen was very daring. I sat my king in the middle of my side of the board with all my other pieces around him. It appeared that he was exposed but the placement of my other pieces just meant that this was a big trap and if he tried to move on my king I could take a large lead in the game. This however isn’t what happened. In actuality he knew what I was doing and instead set about demolishing the defenses I had made for the king taking an offensive strategy that started to widdle down my pieces with minimal gain on my end. I tried to counter his moves by counter engaging with my pieces which proved effective for a few turns until I fell into his trap. The game lasted for hours going forth and back and my knowledge of the game was stretched to its absolute max as I tried to find out what his real end strategy was, and how much of this he had known I would do from the start. Eventually I had nothing but my king as his last few pieces circled around.

“You seem to have lost” he said “now what is it that we agreed upon?”

“That you would have me, own me, for the rest of my days.”

“Yes I see, that was a truly desperate wager you made wasn’t it?”

I only nodded.

The moments that followed are a blur to me now, the next thing I remember clearly happens in faerie castle that prince called home. More accurately in his bed chamber. He showed me his true face. He was a tall, very human looking creature with antlers growing from his head, he was attractive. I found myself shocked at his allure.

“Now you see, human” his voice was like silk as he almost whispered to me “there a few things I didn’t tell you, a few things that you have to do.” I became fearful that my servitude would become more physical than imagined. “In my eyes you won our wager as you won me over, and asking you to do the things I want to ask of you would be very wrong. So instead I brought you here because in this room there is an artifact thats magic I can use to grant your wish and after I grant it I have a request for you but since I will not hold you in a bond of servitude you have no obligation to humor my request. While I was recovering from the revelation that I would be getting what I wanted and that I would not have to commit my life to a faerie, he rummaged through the chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out an amulet. “Take this. Touch it and absorb the power in it and you will have your request granted. But be warned, once you do this, you are one of us, stuck here in our world. You may only leave in limited amounts. My request, if you choose to accept the magic of the amulet, is that you stay here with me, get to know me and perhaps one day, learn to love me as I have come to love you in the years I watched you in that school perform tasks both for yourself and others.”

Without hesitation I touched the jewel of the amulet and started to absorb its power, but soon after I started I stopped, and tested my gut theory. Without absorbing all the power of the amulet I was still able to change shape, but I had to remain humanoid, which was my only intention to begin with.

“The rest of the power in this amulet isn’t needed, I only asked for the power It has already given me, I don’t need the animal shapes. Am I still bound here?”

“No” he hung his head “you are not bound here. You are merely half faerie now, and half faeries break the rules when it comes to traversing worlds. But be warned the point of your ears will not be changeable. That will be the only thing that cannot be changed by the power you have gained here.”

I touched his face gently, drawn to him as if by magic and found myself wanting to kiss him. “If you dont stop with the desire magic I’m never going to visit you again. Then what poor human will you rope into playing kingdom?”

“You mean?”

“Yeah. We can be friends. As long as you don’t keep using that magic on me. Humans find it invasive.”

x

#whynotsableye

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#whynotsableye