She looped her fingers around and around his soft curls, pulling gently. He smiled blithely, head in her lap. A gentle summery sun shone down on their small refuge, an empty space left by the sagging branches of a flowering crab apple tree. Small petals, pink as the sky, fell fragrantly around them, sticking in their hair and on their bare skin.
"You want to stay, don't you?" She murmured, her lips close to his ear.
He shivered, but stayed in her embrace.
"I do," he breathed.
"And never leave? Never go back?"
"Never."
"Good..."
She ran her fingers through his hair again, feeling him relax. He felt fragile in her arms, weak. Mortal. She loved it. It made him need her. Need the fruit, the all-sustaining food that had become the only thing he would eat. He'd even learned to tell the difference between the mushrooms she glamoured to look like little cakes.
He was fading, which, for her, was even better. He needed her more. His joints ached, he had less and less energy. Soon, he would be spent. She loved this part, tending to him. It felt so sweet, and she'd long abandoned wondering what her attraction to weakness meant about her character. She did what made her feel good, regardless of cost or consequence. She was Fae.
Here, in these pages, I plan to write what I know about Fae. I am, at present, unable to divulge my sources, which will discredit this entire account, but there you are. The sole reason for my decision to share this with you, reader, is that I feel you should know, lest you fall victim to their tricks.
I, myself, am not immune to their charms. No human is. They are lovely, and dangerous, which, for some, is all the more reason to go looking for them. Those who look for the Folk in order to fulfill some kind of twisted desire for the rush that comes with danger are stupid, to put it plainly. Those who fall victim without knowledge or understanding are sadly, often tragically, ignorant. It is for these unfortunates that I write this guide.
My experience with the Fae began some time ago, during an activity many church-going people find illicit. It was a meeting of Gifted Individuals, or so it was branded. Many of them were simple con-men, unskilled miscreants who used trickery for money. They fooled many, but not I.
I cannot say, though, that I was not entranced by the possibility of magic. I was hoping to find someone who was a true practitioner. I would find only one. I knew her right away. A small corner booth with a simple, hand-painted sign that read "Tarot." A withered but smiling woman sitting behind a round wooden table. I approached, coins heavy in my pocket, when another woman was suddenly beside me, her hand on my shoulder, nails digging into my flesh.
"You are not of this world," she said in my ear. "You are Fae. Changeling."
"P-pardon?" I stuttered, wrenching myself from her grasp.
"Begone, Demon of the Wood!" She pushed at me, eyes wild.
I stepped back a few paces, confused by her outburst. The Reader appeared behind the madwoman and whispered something in her ear. I saw the Reader slip a hand into and back out of her pocket, pulling out a tiny purple plum. She pressed it into the madwoman's palm and she slipped away.
"You'll have to excuse her, she's not well."
"Oh, it's all right," I said