Notes: Written for day seven of Reylo Week - Holiday, for which I chose Beltane and which wraps up this week for me! It's been so much fun. I never realised I hadn't cross-posted this installment on FFN, so here it is now, almost ten days later.
Short descriptions of the happenings in this fic - the Sacred Wedding is performed between two members of the community picked to represent the Maiden Goddess/May Queen and the Horned King (bear in mind that this is a simplified and mildly bastardised version of what actually happens but is, for what it's worth, the way I watched it happen). A changeling is a child from the faerie world passed off as a human and the Wild Hunt is an... organisation... of soldiers among the Fay Folk who I picked as this AU's version of the Knights of Ren.
If Rey had had any kind of sense, she would have never followed the Horned God into the forest.
Really, everything about the celebrations this year had felt— strange. Alarmingly so, at some points, and although Beltane was supposed to be a bit of a whirlwind, it had never been quite like this. She would know – she always watched it from afar, taking part in the celebrations when prompted to but otherwise keeping to herself. This year, though, there had been none of that and she had been pulled along for the dances around the bonfire; had not been given a moment to recover from how surprising that had been before she'd been crowned as the May Queen and chosen to represent the Maiden for the night.
The walls between the worlds are thinner at Beltane. It was something that everyone knew and maybe they were thinner still this year if she'd been given this honour. Everyone believed her to be a changeling, after all, with the strange name that she bore as a sole memory from before the time she'd turned up at the village all alone as a child. No one had ever said it to her face, but they didn't need to – Rey had heard it often enough anyway.
So, with all of that taken into consideration, it had made her feel both thrilled and anxious to be chosen and she'd fretted thorough the entire preparations, unable to tear her mind away from the possibility that the kingdom of the Fey had come as close to her own as it always did at this time of the year. Maybe that was it, maybe she was a changeling and someone out there was trying to reach out, make her feel more welcome in a world she had never fully known how to inhabit— but all thoughts of that had left her in a rush once she'd turned away from the girls who'd adorned her hair with flowers and had seen who had been picked out as her counterpart.
All the decoration covering him hadn't been able to conceal the dark hair that fell almost all the way down to his shoulders, curling just under his chin. He was tall, too, far too tall to be the kin of any of the people present here.
Not that she would have ever thought him to be so, even if that hadn't been the case, of course. She couldn't see his face – with the heavy mask hiding the upper half of it and the crown of antlers attached to said mask, it was nearly impossible to make out any of his features – but she didn't need to to know that she had never seen him before. That was alarming, much more than the village's decision to choose her as a stand in for the spring goddess, because while she was an outsider, she was still known. Involving a complete stranger in the proceedings was unheard of, or had been until then.
He hadn't moved from his position, still focused on her as if the sight alone would bring an answer for all the secrets of the world. That was part of the point, Rey knew – it was this symbolic union that all the rites of the day had led up to.
It was definitely the work of the Fair Folk, then, Rey had decided as she'd let her attendants for the night lead her to him and place her hand in his. The sun had almost set already, a sure sign that any magic around them would only grow stronger, and she wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. People's minds were already muddled either from everything they'd drank through the day or from the spells they had taken so many precautions against with the day's rituals, but she'd gone too far to stop now. More things depended on this than she could imagine and she'd never been one to back away from the work she was given, no matter how challenging.
So Rey straightened her back, clasped her chosen King's forearm as he did the same to her and spoke the words expected of her; a prayer for the gods to be merciful and the year good to them all as the wheel of it turned again. She had meant the words as much as she always did, but they tasted heavier now as she stared right into his dark eyes and suddenly, she didn't feel like just any other girl in a mask. It had felt overwhelmingly real when it had started and even more so now and suddenly, she couldn't bring herself to care.
Don't be afraid, Rey heard, the words so quiet that they were almost lost in the crackling of the fire. His gaze was still fixed intently on her and she startled, although no one had really spoken. I feel it too.
She should have let it end there.
Instead, Rey had chased after him as soon as he'd stalked off at the end of the prayer. They'd tied the knot around their arms and had then left it at the altar and the same strange acceptance that had taken over everyone had allowed him to do so – another thing that Rey wouldn't have believed if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. So here she was, in search for answers that she would otherwise likely never receive.
Girls who followed strange beings into the woods rarely made it out, she had often been assured, especially maidens who had only just left the sacred union of Beltane. They could be stolen to be brides for one of the aes sídhe or made to sing and dance for them forever if they were tricked into striking a deal they couldn't retreat from. It was all laced with so much fear and Rey had listened and obeyed even if she'd never been able to quite understand it, but it didn't matter anymore – there was no danger to speak of when all she wanted to do was to find a way home.
With her skirts bunched in her fists, she jumped over the flowers and roots that marked her path and followed the already retreating figure as quickly as her feet would allow. She pushed her hair and the flowers entangled in it back when they got in the way, but it was no use – it was too dark and she was going to get lost if she wasn't careful and somehow, it would be worth it.
"Wait," she gasped when she'd got close enough and watched him come to a halt immediately, as if that single word had been nothing short of an order.
"Yes?" He'd turned around and the inkling that the mask covering his face was no disguise – or at least, that it masked something equally foreign – only intensified. For a long, terrible instant Rey could see herself through his eyes; the life that she was showered with in stark contrast with anything he'd known in the recent past. Everything from the wreath she was wearing and the vines that covered her face to the shivering that the still chilly nights brought with themselves spoke of a living thing with too much power for a mortal and he was well-familiar with the difference, wasn't he, because girls lost in the woods weren't the only thing the Fae took interest in. They would take poets and musicians and sometimes even soldiers, too; the Wild Hunt always needed its new additions, and—
The Horned God stepped back as if she'd struck him, the shock clear in his eyes. Rey couldn't see why. He'd looked into her mind earlier, hadn't he? It was only fair, even if she didn't know how exactly she'd done it and if this could get her what she wanted, then she was glad to pay the price.
The Wild Hunt, then. He had been human once, she supposed, perhaps not too long ago. Rey took a step closer. The Fair Folk had always been such a distant thing, a threat to scare small children with, that she'd never imagined that a brief brush with it could bring so much clarity to her mind.
"I don't understand," she admitted despite herself. "I don't understand how or why you're here or why we were chosen for this, but— I can't stay here." Her life had been fine before; acceptable, even. She'd long since resigned herself to knowing next to nothing about her own past and even less about the future, but it was as if a veil had been pulled off her eyes and the truth was staring her right in the face, forcing her to realise how different it could have been if only she'd dared to look. So many years, and she never had. "I've never felt so alone."
He stepped closer too, the glare softening into something that almost resembled understanding. His hand was reaching for hers again and there was none of the formality of before now. She wasn't sure if he'd come here for her to begin with or if it had been one of the many tricks that his kind liked to play on humans during their festivities, but it was of little consequence now. "You're not alone."
"Neither are you." But he was, had been for a long time and maybe it still wasn't too late for either of them to at least try.
Slowly, hesitantly, Rey took his hand just as he turned around and pulled her along while the world gradually changed around them, growing more vibrant and brimming with a presence that she had never truly noticed before. This is what magic must feel like.
If Rey had had any kind of sense, she would have never followed the Horned God into the forest, but there was so much she wanted to show him and so much that she could learn and for the first time in her life, she didn't bother looking back.