Note: in this story, "fair folk" refers to all beings that aren't strictly human or which deal with magic - witches, wizards, magical creatures, and the like. I don't just mean "fairy", which I think most people default to when they read the term.

Emil took a shuddering breath and stepped into the woods.

Lukas had given him painstakingly exact directions, to the point that Emil wondered how on earth he could remember information that was several years old. He was already struggling to wrap his head around the fact that Mathias was real, not a figment of Lukas's stories, not a knight but a common person like them. Or uncommon, to have more of Lukas's trust than did their stepfather and stepbrothers.

Emil squeezed his eyes shut for only a second, clenching his basket handle tighter. That was the guise, that Emil was going to picnic outside the village while Lukas sold his potions. Otherwise Aldrich would wonder why Emil was bringing a bag of his blanket and his clothes and his single book and Lukas's letter, and his stuffed puffin that Mother had made back when she was still living. Aldrich couldn't know he was leaving until he was gone.

That knowledge didn't make the basket any lighter.

Emil stepped over roots and leaves and reviewed the stories Lukas had told him about what lurked in the woods. Witches lived in the woods partly to keep magical creatures at bay, but Mother had been dead for years and Lukas had neither the time nor the knowledge to face the trolls and huldre and other magical things that might hurt him.

Or not hurt him, Emil hoped. He'd lived in a cottage in the woods his entire life and never seen a fair folk. And there were, after all, creatures like the Fossegrimmen, which played violins under waterfalls. He could meet a Fossegrimmen.

Or a nokk, which also played the violin, but lured humans to thin ice and then dragged them underwater.

"Well," he muttered to himself, trying to muster up the stony-faced courage of his brother, "then I'd better not meet a nokk."

His basket was getting heavier the more he carried it, even when he shifted it from one hand to the other. He was beginning to wish that he'd brought a sack, just something to carry on his back once he didn't have to keep up appearances. But Lukas had been so insistent that he had to leave this day, and this afternoon at that, and in their haste he'd thought only of what to bring, not how to bring it.

"Would it really have been so bad to stay?" Emil asked himself, trying to keep himself calm with the sound of his own voice. "Oh, who am I kidding, of course it would have been. I'd have to—ugh"—he'd stepped into animal dung—"tend the garden and the animals and the crops and—mmph"—he shifted the basket to his raw other hand—"I'd never go to school, and Lukas wanted so badly for me to go and agh!"—a flock of birds in the distance took flight all at once and startled him.

He inhaled through his nose and took another step. He felt very small in these woods.

"And maybe Mathias will be nice. He has to be, if Lukas made him such a hero in those stories."

Or he's just better than Aldrich, an unwanted thought informed him, which isn't saying much.

"Aldrich's not that bad," muttered Emil. "He wants what's best for the family."

His family.

"And he didn't cast out me and Lukas, especially with Lukas being a wizard."

And you too, now.

"And at least he manages everything."

While you and your brother did all the work worth doing. While Lukas was treated like a slave, and you like someone who doesn't exist.

"Never mind," huffed Emil to himself. He always felt bad for it, but in his angriest moments, he bitterly thought that at least Lukas wasn't kept in hiding like Emil was. Even if it was best that Emil remain out of sight, unused. Even if Emil knew that Lukas worked harder and suffered more than he'd ever deserved.

Had the woods always been this dim?

It was fall, Emil supposed, so of course the sun would set a little earlier every day. Lukas had sent him off in the sunny afternoon, but with the canopy of trees, Emil barely knew where he was going, and was only half sure this was the path he was supposed to follow. Lukas had given him landmarks and signs to look out for, but he hadn't seen a single sign so far, and he couldn't even see the sun to know if he was close to sunset, and his hands were rubbed raw from the basket, and why did he have to leave home and Lukas and everything he'd ever known to live with a stranger and—

Emil dropped the basket, not caring what rolled out as he did, and covered his face with his hands and tried not to cry in the middle of the forest path.

A cool breeze swept past him.

"Are you lost?"

Emil looked up and blinked. There, on the hill to his right, was a boy only a little older than he was. He had black hair and eyes too dark to tell the color from a distance, and he looked mildly foreign. He stood with his arms crossed, calmly examining Emil.

When Emil didn't respond, the boy sauntered down the hill so gracefully that Emil nearly ached with jealousy at his ease. The boy stopped and picked up, of all things, Mr. Puffin. That must have been what rolled out of the basket when Emil dropped it.

"That's mine," Emil said. His voice sounded weaker than he'd have liked.

"I figured," said the boy. Up close, his eyes were dark brown and his eyebrows were admittedly thicker than average. He stared down at the puffin as if thinking, maybe trying to remember something, and then held it out. Emil would have to step forward to take it from his hand.

"So what are you doing out here, bird mage?"

Emil gaped. "I…how…it's a puffin."

"Puffin, then." The boy kept holding it out, but examined it once again. "Doesn't look like much of an effective caster."

Emil took the few steps forward and yanked Mr. Puffin out of the boy's outstretched hand. "I don't have a caster," he snapped, "and I'm not a mage, I'm a wizard."

"Mages can be boys or girls," said the boy with a hint of a smirk. "I feel like that's a fairer name. At least it gives you a bit of mystery until people meet you."

"And I suppose you know so much about wizards."

The boy shrugged.

Belatedly, Emil realized that this was the first sustained conversation he'd had beyond himself and Lukas in quite some time. As he'd gotten older, even the children whose parents bought Lukas's potions had stopped talking to him. "…Why are you in the woods?" Emil eventually asked.

"I wanted to ask you the same, actually," said the boy. He shifted his balance to one leg and held his hands behind his back. "Visiting someone?"

"Moving." Emil looked disdainfully at his basket.

"And that basket was all you had, I suppose."

"It was a surprise move. I didn't want to."

"I could tell," said the boy quietly. He let Emil's moment of weakness linger between them for only a few moments. Then he cleared his throat. "I could get you where you're going."

"You don't know where I'm going."

"I would if you told me."

"What if you don't know?"

"Then I could at least walk with you until you find the right path."

Emil narrowed his eyes. "Why? You know I'm a wizard."

"So?"

"So don't you want to…ignore me, or something?"

The boy shrugged again. "Do you want me to?"

Emil didn't answer.

The boy picked up Emil's basket. "Come on. The path branches off a bit from here." He waited for Emil to start walking, and after a few seconds, Emil did.

"Thanks, I suppose," said Emil, stretching his hands to reduce the rawness left from the basket handles. "I'm Emil."

"Leon."

"Do you live near here?"

"A bit further in."

"In the woods?"

"That'd be the place. There's a nice cottage."

"Do you live alone?"

"I used to." Leon's tone said he was finished with the topic. "So tell me why you're moving."

"You already know. I'm a wizard. Mage. Whatever you want to call it."

"So?"

"So, my brother already is one."

"And…I guess there can't be two of you?"

"One's enough." Emil decides to close this topic too. He's not sure he's ready to think about it.

They amble along the path, Leon nearly making a point of walking behind Emil despite that he'd offered to lead the way.

"You know," said Emil, "most people walk in front when they lead."

"Call me a nonconformist. I'm already carrying the basket."

"I can take it back now."

"It's fine."

Emil eyed him. "You know, I don't have any money in that. Probably nothing worth selling, either."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Relax, it's not like I'm Robin Hood, out to steal your secret money," said Leon, rolling his eyes. "It's just that someone dressed as you are wouldn't be carrying money in a basket. Or at all, probably."

Emil wasn't sure whether to be offended. He decided to follow up on the reference he didn't understand. "Who's Robin Hood?"

"Oh, he's a man who comes from far away. A friend told me about him. He's a robber who steals from the rich and gives to the poor."

Emil snorts. "There's no way someone would do that."

"Oh no? He has a whole band of followers who live in the woods."

"Are you one of them?"

"Me? No. But I like hearing about them. It makes me feel nobler than I am."

Leon talked suspiciously eloquently for being, Emil would guess, only fourteen years old. But he had a good voice and a quiet but clear enthusiasm when he began to tell Emil about some of Robin Hood's endeavors, so Emil happily let him talk as they walked. Leon never appeared to tire of carrying the basket, and it wasn't until Emil saw the sun through the trees on the horizon that he realized—

"I never told you where I was going."

"Relax," said Leon. He certainly seemed as calm as he thought Emil should be. "I had a guess."

"I guess there aren't too many people who live in the woods."

"Not especially. Just your family, and maybe a few others."

"…I never mentioned my family. Just my brother."

Leon was silent for a moment. "…I suppose you didn't."

"You knew my mother?"

"I saw her. She didn't socialize much, though."

"She went out into the forest sometimes."

"I saw you."

Emil turned to look Leon in the eye. Leon avoided him.

"Gardening with your brother every day. I saw when he left you behind. And when he took you with him."

"We never strayed from the path. And we never saw you there, either." Something in Emil's gut is sinking. "Just how far in the woods do you live?"

"Like I said," said Leon quietly, "just a little further in. We're almost there."

"Really? To Mathias's house?"

"Better. Mine."

Emil blanched, and as Leon took half a step ahead to truly guide the way, Emil saw it.

A tail.

"You're a—" Emil gasped.

But he couldn't finish the thought, because Leon offered one toothy grin and shoved Emil into a hill covered with hanging moss, and Emil toppled in.

Leon cleared the moss away and set down the basket as Emil groaned and righted himself. The hill wasn't a hill after all—it was the beginning of a long and dark cave, and Emil had just been shoved inside. Emil whipped around to see Leon slowly lift his tail from his trousers, a thin cow-like tail that was surely the reason why he walked behind or beside Emil all this time.

"What are you going to do?" asked Emil, his voice stronger than he felt. "Is it true that you suck out people's souls? Or just trap us in the caves?"

"Why don't you start with what I am?" said Leon.

"A huldre," spat Emil.

"Huldrekall, technically, since I'm male," said Leon. "One of the last of the forest for hundreds of years. Your mother tried to find me, but she could never quite do it. Not even the newest mage of this forest could manage to find the cure."

"The cure?" demanded Emil. As far as Lukas and Mother had told him, huldre were doomed to their existence. If Lukas were seeking a cure for a magical creature's behavior on top of his other tasks, Emil was sure he'd have heard about it.

"Oh, it varies," scoffed Leon with a clear bitter undertone, "but no matter. It won't be you who finds it, puffin mage."

"What makes you so sure?" Emil wondered where his sudden bravado came from, but a moment later he knew: now he had finally found something to be afraid of, and he could confront it at last. The unknown had worried him more than the known.

"Didn't you hear?" Leon snapped as he began dragging boulders. To seal the cave, Emil knew. "Two mages before you have tried."

Emil wracked his brain. In fairy tales, the third time had always been the charm, the third person the one to save the day. It was a crazy chance, but no crazier than being caught and trapped by a huldre on his first trip alone through the woods.

Would something religious do the trick? No, that was what non-wizards did to make themselves feel better. A spell? But what did Emil know? The only magic he knew was—

Life?

Emil scrambled to the boulders Leon was quickly amassing and placed his hand on the topmost one. The harder he breathed and the more he muttered wordless sounds to himself, the faster it grew—a fine moss that shrouded the boulder.

Leon looked at it, and then at him.

"Right," he said, and set another boulder on top of it.

The boulder slid off the moss and to the ground.

Leon frowned, lifted it, and set it down again.

The boulder slipped again and dropped at Leon's feet.

"That's the best you have?" demanded Leon.

"I'm not much of a wizard," retorted Emil. And as Leon leaned down to pick up the boulder one more time, Emil vaulted over the wall and back into the forest.

"No!" Leon shouted, swiveling around as Emil took several more steps of distance. "Don't you understand? I haven't eaten in a hundred years, and after all that time, even a mage will do!"

Emil stood still, eying the basket and his chances of grabbing it. Inside, he had his book of fairy tales, not that he was going to stop and read it when Leon could very well—well, something.

Leon was one of the fair folk. All the stories of the fair folk involved deals.

"Let's make a deal!" Emil yelled, and the sound of it echoed across the forest.

"A deal?" Leon sounded ready to laugh.

"You're one of the fair folk. You have to honor it."

"There haven't been enough fair folk around here for a long time to justify keeping deals," Leon countered.

"But you're not saying no."

Leon said nothing.

Emil took a shaky breath. "Give me safe passage to the home of Mathias." He wished he knew Mathias's last name so he could be even more specific—the more specific, the better, with these fair folk deals—"and I will…give you my puffin."

"…I don't know where your Mathias is."

Emil deflated.

"But I can take you to the other mage."

"Lukas?" Emil sighed. What a journey, to end up back home, when Lukas had tried to set him free.

Leon shook his head. "Lukas doesn't own this forest. He hasn't come into it. But Arthur has."

"…Take me to Arthur."

Leon scowled. Then nodded.

"And bring the basket!" Emil added as an afterthought.

Leon lifted the basket and walked to Emil's side, where Emil snatched the basket from him. When he looked up, Leon had his hand out to shake.

"It can't be anything less than a pact," Leon said warningly.

Emil looked down at the hand. What else could he do?

He shook it.

They walked in silence until sunset.

"I'm still hungry," grumbled Leon.

"I'm sure I don't taste very good," said Emil. Much of his adrenaline had left him while he was walking.

"Mage souls are too…spicy," said Leon, searching for a human-tongue equivalent. "I wouldn't have liked it."

"But you'd have eaten it."

"Not many people wander through here these days. And those who do know how to evade me."

"Oh? How do they do that?"

"Well, your friend Mathias covered his tracks home, for example. Something his family has done for generations."

"So you do know him."

"But not where he lives. Duh."

"…What's he like?"

"Blond. Loud. Smiled every time he saw you or your brother."

"I don't remember ever—"

"You were a baby. Lukas brought you to meet him a few times."

"…You're old, aren't you?"

"I barely remember my human life, if that's what you mean," said Leon a bit proudly.

"But…you're one of the last of your kind."

The pride deflated out of Leon. "Yes."

"Were they cured?"

"Vanquished, mostly. Killed," he added, for Emil's benefit. "But new mage rules have spread around asking for cures instead."

"Why?"

"Magic is decreasing in the world. Non-mages are developing tools and needing less of you. And suspecting more of you, as I'm sure you've noticed. As mages suffer, so do the other creatures, and vice versa."

"So clearly the best solution is to eat my soul."

"Like I said. I'm hungry."

After a while, Emil could barely see the branches he was supposed to be stepping over, so Leon sighed and set up a fire. When Emil asked if that would attract anything dangerous, Leon simply gave him a look. Emil supposed Leon was dangerous enough.

"Why did you accept my puffin?" asked Emil, once Leon had satisfied himself with the fire's size and settled himself across from Emil.

"Why not?"

Emil didn't want to mention that it might not be of enough value. Leon probably already knew.

"Maybe that'll be the cure," said Leon quietly.

Emil's head snapped up. "I thought you didn't want to be cured."

"When did I ever say that?"

"…You sure didn't act like it."

"And you don't act like you're a mage."

"Well I only just started being one. You've been a huldre—something, for ages."

"Do you know where we come from?" Leon asked abruptly. "I bet you don't."

"Then tell me."

"We're just…children."

Emil said nothing.

"Dirty children. That's all. Cursed by the magic of the woods when we got lost."

"I got lost."

"The woods have changed. Mages have channeled the magic out of their surroundings and into their craft, and magical creatures have stopped forming as a result."

"So instead of being turned into what you are, I was going to be—"

"Would you stop?" Leon demanded. "You act like being eaten is the worst thing that could have happened to you. What if I'd finished the wall but I couldn't find you?"

"I would have found my way out."

"Good luck. Getting lost in those caves is how we became huldre and huldrekall. You either are eaten by one of us, or you live long enough to become one of us. Or, with the increasing lack of magic in those tunnels, you die."

Leon's expression, angered squinting at the fire, shut down the conversation. Emil sighed and huddled a bit closer to the flames.

"…Do you miss it?" he eventually asked. "Being human?"

"Like I said, I barely remember it."

"Do you miss what you remember?" Emil sighed quietly. "I miss Lukas."

"…I had an older brother."

"Me too."

"Much older. Ten or fifteen years. I don't remember. He was nearly an adult when I was still a child. But there were so many of us to look after. He liked to tell me stories too."

"…Do you think his family is still around?"

"They moved long ago. I watched."

Emil didn't know what to offer for comfort.

Emil must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Leon was kicking him awake.

"Up," Leon said. "Arthur lets down the wards at dawn."

"Wards?" Emil asked, wary already. "What else is out here?"

"Plenty," said Leon, "but none of it will get you if you stay with me."

Emil didn't feel especially reassured, but he was happy to be on the move again. Closer to Arthur, closer to Mathias, and further away from Leon and his craving for Emil's soul.

Though, he thought as he walked, he did feel a little bad for Leon. Living alone for so long, being hungry for so long, was definitely worse than his own life. Emil never expected he'd find a life worse than his or Lukas's, apart from being homeless. But being homeless and brotherless had never been a situation Emil had imagined for himself. And Leon lived it every day.

They walked in silence, and Emil slowly became able to distinguish one tree from another as dawn broke. Just as the first rays of the sun began to peek through the trees, Leon stopped at the bottom of a hill.

"This is Arthur's place," he said to Emil.

"Is this the cottage in the woods you mentioned?" Emil asked.

"It used to be mine. And then Arthur came. Come on," said Leon.

The more Emil thought about it, the more subdued Leon had been since last night's talk, and likely not from fatigue. He was certainly less charming than he'd been when they'd first met, but now that there were no (or few, at least) lies between them, Emil almost preferred this version of Leon. His quiet quips felt sincerer than his earlier swarthiness.

And through interacting with Leon, he was learning to be less homesick, more independent. It wasn't the path he'd really wanted for himself, but he would have to take it. Through Leon, he'd learned that—much to his surprise—he didn't have as much to fear as he'd thought.

Leon walked Emil most of the way up the hill, but stopped short of the edge of the garden. "I can't go further," he said simply.

Emil nodded and, with only the slightest amount of hesitation, set the basket down and rummaged for Mr. Puffin. He looked at its worn beak and wings, remembering all the times he'd clenched it as a child and all the times Lukas had had to sew back a piece that had fallen off.

"You know," said Emil after a moment had passed. "We don't…have to say goodbye here."

"I don't suppose you're saying that just so you can see the puffin more."

"Kind of. But also not really." Emil dropped his shoulders and held Mr. Puffin out to Leon, just as Leon had done upon first meeting him. "I could use a friend. Someone who knows about mages and doesn't mind that I am one."

Leon didn't make any motion to take the puffin. "I'm not the kind of friend you need."

"Maybe not. But you're the kind I want. And maybe you'll learn to want me too."

Leon looked between the puffin and Emil's face. Something in his expression became unguarded. "I want that," he said, and reached up to take Mr. Puffin.

Suddenly and without warning, his grip on Mr. Puffin turned into a clench. He let out a sharp gasp.

"Leon?" Emil asked.

Leon fell to his knees, pinning the stuffed puffin to the ground as he panted on all fours. As he gave a low moan, his tail slowly, slowly retreated into his body. Emil watched, enraptured and a little frightened, as Leon's panting resided after what felt like minutes but was likely only a few seconds.

Slowly, Leon rose and examined his hands.

"Well," came a voice from behind Emil, "it seems someone has succeeded where I couldn't."

Emil swiveled around to see a man with sandy blond hair and green eyes that couldn't seem to decide between happiness and jealousy. The man could barely have been twenty-five years old, and he crossed his arms in a way that almost suggested "I told you so". He raised one eyebrow. If Leon's eyebrows were thick, this man's were enormous.

"Arthur," Leon gasped. "He—"

"Broke the curse, yes, I saw," said Arthur in a mild foreigner's accent. "It was one of the reasons I waited so long to come greet you. Congratulations," he said to Leon, "and a second congratulations to my young colleague." He nodded to Emil, now clearly amused. Emil tried to stand taller, knowing that he looked like nothing more than a young boy to Arthur. Although he was.

"I didn't use any spells," said Emil, and whether he was proud or defensive about it, he didn't quite know.

"You don't need a spell to perform magic," Arthur tutted, "but I'm not romantic enough to go on about the power of friendship. Not that I'm sure that's what did it," he said with a shrug. "It could have been the humanitarianism of the act, or maybe a boy surrendering his toy to become a man, or maybe—" His green eyes lit up as he began to consider the possibilities, but then he cleared his throat when he saw Emil and Leon looking at each other and then at him in confusion. "Well. No matter. Tea and breakfast, then?"

Arthur invited the two of them into his cottage and hosted them with eggs and toast and tea. Emil enjoyed sitting at a table—better yet, one where he was welcome, unlike Aldrich would suggest—but even more he enjoyed watching Leon eat his first meal of not-souls in who-knew-how-long. Leon seemed to want to try ten of everything, and his bitterness from their talks last night faded into a contentedness that Emil almost envied.

When Leon caught him looking, he grinned. After only a pause, Emil smiled back.

Once Emil had explained their story and everyone had had their fill (and Leon had been promised seconds of anything he liked once he'd digested a bit), Arthur examined the two of them. "I suppose you'll want to get to Mathias, then," he said.

"Yes, I'm sure my brother will be contacting him later to see if I've made it," said Emil. For the first time since he'd left home, he felt as if he understood just how much Lukas meant to look out for him. He just had to be in danger, and then to accidentally get out of danger, to see it.

"Right," said Arthur. And then his gaze turned to Leon, who was scraping flakes of pepper off his plate with a fork and not looking at either of them.

Emil pursed his lips. "It might be a burden, but…we could ask Mathias if he could take two people."

"You think?" Leon asked. "I wouldn't be very helpful. Having been living in the forest and all."

"I'm sure that's quite alright," Arthur jutted in. "You know your way around, after all. You can find supplies, berries, all that."

"You just don't want me back in this cottage," snorted Leon.

Arthur smiled faintly. "It's a nice cottage. And I sense I'm still needed here, until you"—he turned to Emil—"or your brother comes of an age to handle it."

"What age is that?" Emil asks, more eagerly than he meant to convey.

"Well, I suppose it's not an age so much as a readiness. You and your brother both lack too much of the study you'd need to manage these lands. And since neither of you could take it, that left a dearth of magic that summoned me here. Every woods needs a wizard, as they say."

"Then you'll train us?" asked Emil. At Arthur's uneasy look, he added, "Otherwise why would you be here?"

"Maybe I want this land for myself," retorted Arthur mildly.

Leon snorted. "Oh, please. Before you realized you could kick me out of here, you'd spend every waking moment sobbing about that Francis you left behind in a fight."

"There will be no mention of that frog at this table, thank you!"

"Should I go stand by the bed, then?"

"Will you train us?" Emil pressed Arthur. "Leon's told me about the imbalance of magic. It sounds like you need every mage you can get."

Arthur hummed. "And with Leon's huldre magic reinfused into the forest, I suppose there'll be more magic around for all of us, won't there?" He played with the tea cozy for a moment. "Alright, I suppose I will. But you won't be living here. Come now," he said, lifting himself from his seat to grab his cloak. "It's time we find your Mathias."

The three of them approached Mathias's land only an hour or two before noon. Emil spotted him first, leading a bull and a plow over his field. He had a shock of blond hair that shone like sunlight, like every fairy tale Lukas had ever told.

"Go to him, lad," murmured Arthur. "We'll wait here."

Emil turned around to see Arthur and Leon stopped just beneath the trees, one step away from Mathias's property. Emil had already crossed the border. Leon, with Emil's basket in hand, waved him on.

When Emil turned back to look at Mathias, Mathias had spotted him and stopped.

Not knowing what possessed him, Emil took off running.

He stopped only a few steps before Mathias, who looked more and more like the knight of Lukas's stories and—increasingly—Emil's fuzzy memories with every moment. Mathias looked him up and down, his expression shifting into one of astonishment.

"…Emil?"

Emil nodded. "I, uh, have a message from Lukas. He has a favor to ask." He looked back at the clearing, where Arthur had already left, leaving only Leon and the basket and Mr. Puffin. "And so do I."

Just FYI, huldre being able to be cured with magic is completely something I made up. The original myths had them as anti-Christian entities which in some cultures could be tamed through marriage, but that was all I could find as far as cures. Of course, trying to find out the "truth" about huldre is like asking around about Regina George - you're going to get a lot of varying and conflicting information that nonetheless makes them sound pretty badass.

Next chapter to be posted this weekend at the earliest and next weekend at the latest.