A/N: Restarting this story because I realized there was a lot more that I wanted to do with the concept.
So I crafted the mythology and the lore and I have a map in the works, things are gonna be longer and smoother this time around. I'll get it right. We're in a hella ambiguous time period and we're not in Colorado anymore, so asking for specifics will literally get you nowhere because I'm just indecisive (as if rebooting a story didn't prove that enough.) Thanks for either following me over or just joining, and hope you enjoy~
Swept in the tide of the night sky, the waves of the hovering galaxy splashing on their faces in arrays of mottled color, two children hiked through the tall reeds and grass, set to sail on their journey towards the ever-shifting marvel of the stars. A boy and a girl, ages nine and six respectively, tromped through the grass hanging over their heads. The girl rested with her arms swung lazily over the boy's shoulders, his arms bent back to support under her knees, spine curved forward to help her keep her balance. She served as their lookout for the clearing past the field, fidgeting all the while in impatience.
"When'll we be there?" She whined.
He laughed quietly, shifting her again and rolling his shoulders to reinvigorate lost feeling in his nerves. "I don't know, Kare, you're the one who can see."
Her lips twisted into a pout, brown eyes deep and full as buckeyes flickering back up to gaze past the blades rustling in the wind. She reached out a curious hand, fingers swiping along one of them and she winced, the sharp edge like parchment sheering over her skin. Rubbing the damage with her thumb, she turned her attention back forward, thin neck craning to make herself even taller. She squinted in the darkness of the night, still just barely adjusted from leaving the comfort of dying candlelight and stepping into the thick blanket of sprinkled starlight. From past the swaying stalks, she could see a dip, where the array seemed to stop altogether, where if it weren't for the lingering mountains painted in the skyline far past their reach, she could swear that it was where the world ended. From the loss of grass came the gift of floating lights hovering around the void and she grinned, baby tooth gaps littering her profile and letting the gentle breeze rush into her mouth and assault her tongue. "We're almost there," she announced.
Her brother sighed in silent relief, his back beginning to ache, neck gaining a crick from keeping it bent so she could see over locks of thick, disarrayed blonde hair stained grey in the pale light. He picked up the pace just a tad, feeling her arms tighten around him and licking his lips in anticipation for their journey to be over. Feet clothed in thin leather made little impact on the ground, taking down a mere few blades as he pressed onwards. Soil softened from the night prior's rain sank under his scrawny weight, mucking up his soles and forcing him to remind himself to take them off before he entered their home upon their return. With each step the ground turned just a bit harder, raising from pure, rich and moist land ideal for crop production and raising into hardened dirt that dried within the hour, speckles of short grass began to litter their pathway, ignite them both with renewed energy as they began to seep out of the humdrum repetitive landscape into new horizons. Finally, he crossed the threshold of the reed prison into the crisp night air. Karen slid off his back, his knees bending to help her down and he took a long breath. The psychological stifling claustrophobia was finally at an end, nothing but a large stretch of land; flat, yielding, and full of fireflies.
The kids looked at each other with wide grins, their faces dancing in the illumination of the bugs hovering around them curiously. "Ya get the jars, Kenny?" Karen asked. He nodded, reaching into a faded and worn sack tossed over his shoulder and hanging off his hip haphazardly. He grasped around a plain, smooth cylinder, a scrap of cloth tied in place with twine over the top. He handed it down to Karen who gripped at it excitedly, small hands barely able to grasp all the way around the surface. Kenny reached back into his bag and pulled out his own jar, holding it down at an angle for her to see.
"All right, remember, if ya catch one, ya gotta put the cloth back on," he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes dramatically, "I know, Ken." She undid the lazily secured bow of her twine and wrapped it around her wrist, peeling the cloth off the lip of the jar, eyes darting around excitedly for the biggest swarm of lightening bugs to hunt through. She pointed excitedly down the path as Kenny worked on opening his own jar. "That one! I'm goin' for that one!" she declared, already rushing towards it.
Protective blue eyes swept over her, watching for odd shadows in her path that could lead to a fall. "Just don't go t' the woods, Karen!" he called after her. She let out a half-acknowledging sound as she ran into the swarm, sweeping her jar up and down attempting to snag as many bugs as she could in one go. Kenny smiled warmly at her enthusiasm, remembering fondly how their elder brother Kevin used to take him out to do the same thing when he was Karen's age. Kevin would always tell him it'd stop someday, that eventually he'd have to work with their dad to put food on the table, so to enjoy it while he could. Kenny would never tell Karen such a thing, prolonging the adventure for her as much as he could manage, determined to only let it fade when she decided it was time.
He broke from Karen's giggling excitement, choosing his own target in front of him. He licked his lips, bearing his weight down into his toes and getting his cloth ready to smack down and prevent any escapees. Launching forward, he sprang into the fray, wincing at the sensation of the patter of fireflies smacking against his face like heavy raindrops. He closed his mouth, folding in his lips as a tight hold against any that may feel up to wandering towards the warmth of his jaw. Swiftly, his jar soared into a practiced upward arc, snagging four bugs in its path and sending disoriented creatures who missed the mouth asunder. He quickly rounded back, letting the air pressure keep the first round held down as he went back through the mass towards his other hand. He cupped his palm just enough to lightly secure the cloth over the hold before flattening down and holding it snugly in place, raising the jar to peer inside. He counted a good nine bugs, nodding to himself satisfactorily. Not as good as his record-holding fifteen, but a great start nonetheless. He glanced through the dancing lights, watching Karen continue to laugh and swing her jar around in a clumsy but perfected manner that only a child could pull off. He smiled warmly before something in the distance caught his eye as she continued to move forward. A large, silhouetted figure lingered beyond her.
He frowned, pivoting and starting to move towards her as she continued on. "Karen?" he called suspiciously. "Stop movin' away from me."
She paused, turning and staring at him, blinking at the intrusion of being ripped from her wonderland by her older brother's overprotective nature. She frowned just slightly, "I'm not goin' far," she protested. He glanced up as the figure moved slightly, looking towards them and he picked up the pace, running and grabbing around her, swinging her back behind him as she scoffed at the treatment. Light blue gleamed cautiously at the splotched figure blocking out a portion of the night sky.
"Go away," he bit, backing Karen up further.
They laughed, a man's deep chuckle, one of pure amusement without the slightest tinge of malice. Kenny sunk down in the slightest, still wary as he felt Karen grab at his arm, alarmed by the voice she didn't know was there. "It's all right, Kids," the voice promised, the figure stepping closer towards them and Kenny inching them back. Parts of his face became illuminated as fireflies hovered about and he neared them, Kenny's shoulders sinking in relief at recognition at long last.
"Mr. Meryl," Kenny laughed quietly to himself, feeling Karen slackening her hold on his clothes. He gazed up at the elderly artist, a man who'd lived in their village for longer than his parents had been alive. A respected member of the community, grey hair rounding about his skull in a thin line, a mustache always kept neatly trimmed, and the kind hazel eyes of a grandfather to everyone he met. "What are you doin' out here?"
He shrugged casually, looking around at all the bugs dancing around them. "They're something special, aren't they?"
Karen finally came from her hiding spot behind Kenny, looking around with him. "They are," she agreed. "Are you catching them, too?"
He shook his head, "Nah. Haven't done that for years," he said with a sigh, sitting down on a large rock nearby as the kids edged closer towards him. He stared off into the woods, shaking his head in wonderment. "I used to come here to catch 'em when I was your age," he nodded towards Kenny. "Me and my momma. Once a week every week, right after Sunday dinner."
Kenny cocked his head, "But it's Tuesday."
He chuckled, "So it is. Come out here every night now, though. Just to watch, just to see what happens."
"Whaddya mean 'what happens'?" he blinked. "Whaddya think will happen?"
Mr. Meryl smirked to himself, "Depends. You kids good at keepin' secrets?"
They glanced at each other before nodding vigorously. "We're great at it," Karen insisted.
He leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees and looking back into the woods. "Well, sit down and I'll tell ya what I saw when I was 'bout ten years old." They plopped onto the dirt obediently, letting the cloth of their jars loosely hang over top of them, fireflies trying to lift the heavy material and make their great escapes. Mr. Meryl smacked his lips, "Tell me, do you two know about fairies?"
Karen cocked her head curiously but Kenny stared at him wryly. "What? The people with wings?" Karen perked up at the prospect, looking between the both of them for one to continue. Kenny could only vaguely remember hearing a folk song of them when he was five years old and his mother had taken him out to a street show passing through town. He remembered well enough how the man strung his lyre and how a pretty, tall woman with flowing chestnut hair danced down the street, thick skirt flowing across the ground with no resistance. The song sang of a winged man and a winged girl as they flew into the moon on the second verse, meeting as the only two of their kind and wanting to remain as such. The name had struck an odd chord within him, 'The Fairies of Salanda'. Such strange words concocted together that they had stuck with him for all these years even as his vocabulary expanded and the terms never came up in conversation again.
The old man nodded, "Mhm. Now, I can't say for sure it was a fairy, may have been somethin' else entirely. But it wasn't any bug, and it wasn't any bird. Little person, just like you or me, but only as tall as your jars," he nodded down, the kids following his gaze for the scale.
Karen looked back at him, little mind overflowing with the possibilities of what these tiny people could do. "How do you know it was a fairy?"
He smiled fondly, "She glowed purple. Had long, blonde hair," he pointed to Kenny's scalp. "Flew with the fireflies," he gestured to the swarms surrounding them, an addition to his audience and one he was happy to welcome. "Had clear little wings, fast as could be."
Kenny eyed him skeptically, "Are you sure?"
"Sure as my beating heart," he placed his hand over his ribcage. "I tried to catch her, wandered out into the woods, though it was smaller back then," he recalled, remembering the scattering of saplings surrounding him, now all replaced with the thick trunks far sparser in his youth. "Mama called for me but I told her I was safe, to just hang on for a bit and wait for me. I chased her down into the woods, finally caught up to her when she flew against a rock and I cornered her in…" his eyes glimmered over sadly in the flickering light. "She was so scared," he reminisced, seeing that pure panic on a head barely bigger than the pad of his thumb. Eyes too small to distinguish color were wide, a tiny mouth was open with panicked gasps. "I told her I wasn't gonna hurt her," he said quietly. "But I did."
Karen's face dropped into devastation. "Why?!" she cried out.
"Well I didn't mean to, Kid," he defended, though decades-old guilt still lingered in his tone. "My momma made jewelry for all the rich folk that used to pass through," he jerked his head back towards town. "Had me wear a little chain bracelet and a ring to show off to potential buyers," he shrugged. "I reached under her to put her in my hand, little bare feet touched my ring and down she went," he shuddered visibly. "Little face landed right on my bracelet and… that was it."
Kenny blinked, completely enthralled in the tale being spun. "It? Whaddya mean that was it? What happened to her?"
"Melted," he said simply, looking at the damning hand that held a seeping creature screaming in agony, evanescing into a puddle of flesh and blood like candle wax. Just as slow, just as burning. "I tried to get her off of me… but she was stuck to the bracelet. Had to just watch her, try to comfort her while she screamed her tiny little heart out," he winced.
Karen huddled closer to Kenny, grabbing his sleeve for comfort, eyes wide with horror. "Why'd she melt?" she whispered.
"Metal," he shrugged. "Didn't know till I went home, feelin' guilty as sin, and saw the burn marks on my jewelry. Never wore the stuff again, took pocket money from my job helping my teacher paint and gave it to my momma, told her I sold it. Went back to the woods to bury it next to where I buried the little fairy… Well… What was left of her anyway," he said heavily with a sigh. "Been comin' out ever since, hopin' I can see another one, tell 'em how sorry I am for what happened. Tell you what, Kids, I don't regret much of my life, but taking someone else's life, even though to anyone you'd ask here they'd say they ain't even real… You never forget it."
Kenny stared at him pitiably, "You didn't mean to, though."
"Doesn't change what happened," he chuckled humorlessly. He gently raised a hand, brushing a group of bugs from out of his face with a genial touch. "But that's something you just don't forget. If it wasn't for the jewelry, I might've figured I dreamed it all but it was still there a week later before I buried it, just to be sure." The kids nodded in understanding as he let his old, strained eyes focus in and out towards the woods lingering in the distance. "I just keep hopin'," he murmured.
"You never saw another one?" Karen prodded sadly.
He shook his head, "No. Learned a lot though. Stories travel far, even to towns like ours," he gestured back towards home. "But went out a few times for jobs, swung by where I could gettin' any kind of story."
Kenny twisted his mouth, "Nobody asked ya 'bout it?"
Smiling mischievously, he rolled his shoulder in a dismissive shrug. "Told 'em I had a daughter who loved the stories, much easier for people to accept than an old man hangin' on to their words for himself," he laughed quietly.
"Then why'd ya tell us?" the boy asked, voice a hushed, saddened murmur at the prospect of poor, kind Mr. Meryl being ostracized for the experience of his youth.
"Because there's only one group of people that'll listen t' these stories," he nodded at them with a grin. "Only kids can get it. Adults will tell the stories, sure, but they don't believe in 'em. And other kids in this town? They grow up too fast. They try t' get themselves up and workin' with their daddies quick as can be, faster than a bean sprout. How many other kids do you know that come catch fireflies?"
The kids shifted embarrassedly, Kenny looking down at his glowing jar in shame. "We do when we run outta candles for the night. 'Fore Pops can afford to get us s'more."
Mr. Meryl looked at them sympathetically, knowing well enough how very much the McCormick family seemed to struggle on a daily basis, making the tough choices between fresh milk or bread, having to add onto their childhood clothing to accommodate growth spurts with mismatched fabric. Nodding solemnly, he heaved a sigh, "Well, then you're growin' up right. Ya get to be kids and adults at the same time, somethin' not many get the choice of." They smiled meekly and he smirked. "Don't be growin' up too fast," he advised. "Not too many happy grown-ups 'round here, is there?"
Kenny thought to his parents constant arguing, the way that the townspeople gossiped about their neighbors thinking all the kids were out of earshot. He thought of the way adults would leave stores and stands muttering of how their neighbors were cheating them, how the values of old were lost in the sweeping tide of progression. Mr. Meryl definitely had a point.
The old man watched as the two of them leaned against one another, both seeming lost as they considered his words and wished desperately for them to not sing of truth. He glanced down to his satchel over his hip and smiled charitably, reaching into the cloth and pulling out a small, leather-bound journal, handing it down and holding it in front of Kenny's discouraged face. The blonde blinked at the form in front of him, glancing up the man's arm at his amiable expression before grasping the book and bringing it down in front of him. In the dipping and bobbing lights still floating around them, he could make the clear rise of a customized design on the book, running his fingers curiously over four long, slender teardrop shapes spanning from the center, surrounded by two swooping vines of ivy crawling up the length on either side.
"What is this?" Kenny murmured, opening the book and flipping through the pages delicately, unable to read in the dimmed light, but able to make out bold, dark strokes of sketches and calligraphy.
"Been writing in it for years," he explained. "Just somethin' to preoccupy my time. Wrote down all of what I heard from travelin'. Seein' how stories lined up and whatnot."
Kenny continued flipping through, eyes gleaming over in interest and mouth gaping in just the slightest at all the scrawled information fit into the space in neat margins. "It's so pretty," Karen murmured, raising onto her knees to see better as she peered around Kenny's arm, holding onto him for balance as they both stared at the journal.
Mr. Meryl shone with a flattered smile, joyed to see the two of them taking an interest where so few others had done more than called him a liar and laughed, forcing him to half-heartedly join them in the 'joke'. But these two saw more; More than just a tall-tale, more than just what options life had handed them thus far. It was a thrilling change of pace to say the least, on both ends.
From across the field back towards the village, a worried woman's tone carried into the night, "Kenny! Karen! Where are ya?"
Kenny jerked up into attention at the noise, giving a simple shout back, "We're comin', Ma!" When no other noise sprung from over the reeds, he was safe to assume she heard him, letting out a long sigh and glancing up at Mr. Meryl still watching them. "Sorry, Mr. Meryl," he mumbled, getting to his feet and helping Karen up with him, the girl grabbing their jars and their separate strands of twine to twist back around the brims. Kenny held his book back towards him, the man shaking his head.
"Nah, Kenny. You keep it."
The blonde blinked in utter confusion. "But… but you wrote it."
"Exactly," he nodded sharply. "So I know everything that's in it. You hold on to it. A gift for listenin' to an old man tellin' a silly story."
He frowned, "I don't think it's silly."
"Me neither!" Karen declared firmly, moving to carefully set the jars back into Kenny's satchel and let it fall lightly against his side with a tiny clink.
The man smiled, "Well, I'm glad ya don't think so. Some that's in there might seem a bit on the silly side though," he winked. "Now you two get home 'fore your momma worries half to death."
Kenny hesitated before catching the firmness of his stare and sighing quietly, slipping the book into his bag and helping Karen climb back onto his back, wincing as he adjusted to the added weight once again. "Thank you," he said politely.
"Thanks," Karen echoed sweetly. He smiled and nodded, waving them off as they ventured back into the fields, both of them glancing back behind them to watch as he faded behind countless stems in their view as he turned back to watch the fireflies dance.
Walking through the other end of the grass, Kenny let out a long sigh, tired from the events of the night and the prospect of what he was going to have to do to help his mother in the morning with the daily chores. He and Karen had remained silent all their walk back, both of their imaginative minds racing with the conversation prior. Lingering doubt spread across their visions, but that spark of hope didn't seem to want to be doused. Something about Mr. Meryl's tone, something about the way his voice peaked with enthusiasm and deep-seated regret spoke volumes above all the stories they'd heard that any kind of magic was nothing more than a tall tale. Maybe he was lying, they couldn't be sure. But compared to the humdrum activities of their lives, compared to watching their family survive on the barest threads of compassion, it was something nice and exciting and a thrill to envision.
They took off their shoes at the rickety awning hovering above their door, shoddily made by their own father to silence his wife's incessant displeasure with muddy boots being dragged into her home. They tromped inside, seeing their parents sitting in the main room in wooden chairs atop flattened homemade cushions, worn from years of use and countless repairs. Their father glanced up at them from taking a knife to wood, listlessly carving an owl into the surface. A hobby he'd picked up at the insistence of their mother who didn't want him at the alehouse at all hours of the night. He grunted in acknowledgement before turning back to his whittling.
Their mother glanced up, bright red hair teeming with darkness in the fading candlelight, shooting them a scolding gaze from behind her embroidery set. "Where have you two been?" she demanded. "I was worried sick!"
"Sorry, Ma," Kenny replied guiltily, reaching into his bag and pulling out his jar of nine fireflies, setting it beside her. "Not as many out as usual."
She sighed, putting down her cloth and genially stroking through his dirtied hair. "Well, ya made it back, that's what matters. Go on to bed."
Karen stared between her and him, Kenny giving her the look to keep herself quiet and she nodded in understanding. "Night, Momma," she walked up and hugged her leg, Carol sweeping down and planting a soft kiss in her tangled hair.
"Night, Babies," she waved them off as they headed towards the back corner of the house, neither bothering to bid their father a good night as they wandered into their room. They both glanced towards the bed in the far right corner, hearing Kevin's deep breathing and shrugging to each other, knowing he was out like a light with how their father worked him in the fields.
Karen glanced between the two and Kenny smirked, "C'mon, you can sleep in my bed," he gestured, both of them making way towards Kenny's side across the room from the other two beds, straight across from Kevin's. They clambered up onto the thin and torn mattress, Kenny handing her the jar of her own five fireflies to set on a simple table beside the furniture. Ken pulled out the leather-bound journal, turning it curiously in his hand.
Karen stared for a bit, moving his satchel down onto the floor. "Do you think it's true?" she whispered finally, asking the question they'd wanted to prod the other with their entire trip home.
Kenny bit his lip, unsure of how to answer. "I'm… not sure," he finally drawled. "But… I want it to be. Be nice to know there's more t' find out there, ya know?"
She nodded in agreement. "I think it's true," she said confidently. "I don't think Mr. Meryl would lie."
"I don't know, he told Cartman that his art was nice," Kenny smirked, getting a tiny giggle out of the girl. He flipped open to a random page, tilting the book just slightly so the minimal light of Karen's captives reached the parchment. He hummed in thought, flipping through until Karen stopped him, pointing to a picture.
"What is that?" she said, voice hushed and mindful of their slumbering sibling.
Kenny squinted in the darkness, seeing indistinguishable blobs drawn out into a circle. He glanced around the page, the words 'mushroom' and 'ring' both barely catching his eye. "Not sure," he answered, shaking his head and closing the book. "We'll check it out tomorrow when there's light." She nodded in agreement and he shoved the journal down under his pillow, mussed with hair oil and almost a decade of usage. They both slid under the thin linen blanket, sighing tiredly from their adventures.
Kenny's eyes began to droop brought back up only a tad as Karen's tiny voice reentered the air. "I hope they are real," she whispered almost inaudibly, huddling closer to Kenny's body heat.
The blonde creaked his eyes back open, seeing Karen facing away from him. His eyes flickered up and around the dilapidated shack of a house, hearing his parents arguing mindlessly in the other room, feeling cold air drifting in from the poorly constructed windows. He sighed, wrapping his arm around her and squeezing her lightly, trying to shield her from the brutality of their parents' raising voices. He leaned up closer, shoving more blanket over her and nodding softly. "If they are, I'll find 'em," he promised sleepily. "Just for you." Karen smiled, rolling her eyes a bit at his vow but snuggling back against him nonetheless. The world continued to move on as they drifted off into sleep, the fighting and the misery fading into the background as they found themselves both in an endless field of ethereal, multicolored lights.
A/N: Changin' shit up here we go
Thanks for R&Ring and if you came here from the original, thanks so much for following me over!