Pixie Dust
I’ve got a backpack full of dead fairies packed in sugar like a fisherman would pack fish in ice or like a butcher would salt beef.
It’s been a tough night of collecting but I should get a good price for these. Risk versus rewards. I paid through the nose for the glamour that lets me go back to the field and have the little people not recognize me and so far, it’s paying off.
Two minotaurs and a slorilla eye me up and down at the door before I carve tonight’s blue password into the night air. The minotaurs pull their double headed axes apart from each other to let me through. It’s tough walking between them like they don’t scare the shit out of me. My sneakers squeak on the floor but it’s barely audible over the music and buzz of the deals going on in tonight’s blistermarket.
I take a place in line with other boys my age with backpacks like mine. The sun is tasting the edge of morning’s horizon and I’ve only got a few minutes left to haggle before tonight’s bazaar is shut and burned. I try not to remember that they really don’t care if the humans are out before the torchmasters start to tread.
Siamese snaps his fingers as the boy in front of me leaves the tent flap. Siamese looks down at me with his huge eyes and motions me in to the tent. I nearly jog in.
Angels is there. Or is it Angels are there? Angels is a pair of conjoined angel twins joined at the shoulder and down the side of their body. They each have one wing. They have one enormous leg in the middle and two withered ones on the outside. It’s hard for them to keep their balance.
They look like a birdfight when they walk. They are flightless and terribly bitter. They are the main supplier of pixie dust to the Realm.
I shrug my pack off of my shoulder and unzip it. Sugar spills out with tiny bodies. Two angels smile at the same time. I’ll get a good price for these.
That was two seconds before Angels screamed twin kettle-whistle girl screams and I bolted out the door in instant fear. I found a back door in the confusion. There were many boys there running around and we all look alike to the otherkin.
I found out the rest in bits and pieces later.
Angels died a few hours after I ran out from the market. It took a long time to kill the two of him. I’m sure he gave up my name and the names of every boy he hired in the last six years in the first ten minutes, shouting to be heard over the screams of his twin.
I’m sure of that because that’s what I would do, what anyone would do down here. There was no loyalty, especially to borderhumans like myself. They kept him alive for hours after that, though, and made sure his death was slow.
The other boys that collected for Angels are turning up eyeless and dead now as well. In fact, you might say that there are only a few left. In fact, you might say that I will very soon be the last one.
For a while, I thought I was cleverly hiding well. Then smarter and more devious boys than me died. Boys that called in favours to powerful beings died. Boys that had strong invisibility glamours put on them died. Boys that fought with strength died. Boys that killed themselves were brought back to life and killed.
They’re savouring this. They are saving the best for last.
In my bag of sugar and fairies, I had the body of the only daughter of the Queen. The daughter than only comes once every hundred years to restart the bloodline. The daughter that had not had the chance to beg me for her life. The daughter that had foolishly been playing in the field with her friends when I caught and killed her.
This accident is filling me with a holy dread. I know it won’t be long now I’m the only one left. They will stretch my death out until the birth of a new daughter. It will be a century of pain. I will become a cautionary legend.
tags
It’s been a tough night of collecting but I should get a good price for these. Risk versus rewards. I paid through the nose for the glamour that lets me go back to the field and have the little people not recognize me and so far, it’s paying off.
Two minotaurs and a slorilla eye me up and down at the door before I carve tonight’s blue password into the night air. The minotaurs pull their double headed axes apart from each other to let me through. It’s tough walking between them like they don’t scare the shit out of me. My sneakers squeak on the floor but it’s barely audible over the music and buzz of the deals going on in tonight’s blistermarket.
I take a place in line with other boys my age with backpacks like mine. The sun is tasting the edge of morning’s horizon and I’ve only got a few minutes left to haggle before tonight’s bazaar is shut and burned. I try not to remember that they really don’t care if the humans are out before the torchmasters start to tread.
Siamese snaps his fingers as the boy in front of me leaves the tent flap. Siamese looks down at me with his huge eyes and motions me in to the tent. I nearly jog in.
Angels is there. Or is it Angels are there? Angels is a pair of conjoined angel twins joined at the shoulder and down the side of their body. They each have one wing. They have one enormous leg in the middle and two withered ones on the outside. It’s hard for them to keep their balance.
They look like a birdfight when they walk. They are flightless and terribly bitter. They are the main supplier of pixie dust to the Realm.
I shrug my pack off of my shoulder and unzip it. Sugar spills out with tiny bodies. Two angels smile at the same time. I’ll get a good price for these.
That was two seconds before Angels screamed twin kettle-whistle girl screams and I bolted out the door in instant fear. I found a back door in the confusion. There were many boys there running around and we all look alike to the otherkin.
I found out the rest in bits and pieces later.
Angels died a few hours after I ran out from the market. It took a long time to kill the two of him. I’m sure he gave up my name and the names of every boy he hired in the last six years in the first ten minutes, shouting to be heard over the screams of his twin.
I’m sure of that because that’s what I would do, what anyone would do down here. There was no loyalty, especially to borderhumans like myself. They kept him alive for hours after that, though, and made sure his death was slow.
The other boys that collected for Angels are turning up eyeless and dead now as well. In fact, you might say that there are only a few left. In fact, you might say that I will very soon be the last one.
For a while, I thought I was cleverly hiding well. Then smarter and more devious boys than me died. Boys that called in favours to powerful beings died. Boys that had strong invisibility glamours put on them died. Boys that fought with strength died. Boys that killed themselves were brought back to life and killed.
They’re savouring this. They are saving the best for last.
In my bag of sugar and fairies, I had the body of the only daughter of the Queen. The daughter than only comes once every hundred years to restart the bloodline. The daughter that had not had the chance to beg me for her life. The daughter that had foolishly been playing in the field with her friends when I caught and killed her.
This accident is filling me with a holy dread. I know it won’t be long now I’m the only one left. They will stretch my death out until the birth of a new daughter. It will be a century of pain. I will become a cautionary legend.
tags