Thanks for reviews! I'm sorry that this story is slow: I'm ridiculously busy at the moment, but I will keep updating at intervals I promise...
Liath touched the petals one last time, gently, and stepped back, well pleased with her work.
It was only a daisy, but seeing it whole and pretty once more gave her an odd sense of happiness. It had been crushed by a careless foot, belonging to a heavy-stepper no doubt, and its air of helplessness had caused a dull anguish somewhere in the region of her chest. Now it was standing erect once more, its pretty starred petals bravely upturned to the sky.
"Liath!" called one of her sisters, and with one last look at the daisy, she tripped lightly to her side. It was her favourite sister, Seren, who had hair so black it was almost blue and golden eyes. "Come, Liath, we're going to the green." Her unearthly eyes glimmered with mischief. "What have you been doing?"
"Nothing," said Liath quickly. Fairies did not have secrets from each other – the concept was alien to them: but for some reason she could not have explained if she'd wanted to, her obsession with flowers was one she did not want to discuss. It was something different, something that set her apart from her sisters, and recently signs of this kind had begun to appear with alarming frequency. "Do we have to go?"
She would have bitten the words back if she could, but it was too late. Seren, who was usually so absentminded that she usually appeared as a blur, suddenly became sharp and focused. Even her fly-away hair stilled for a moment and revealed her features. Liath automatically blurred her own features slightly in self-defence. "What is wrong with you, Liath? You've been behaving very… oddly lately. You love going to the green."
Around them, in the shadowed trees that surrounded the meadow, Liath sensed her guardians suddenly on the alert. They had seen it too, she knew they had. Of late, their ominous presence was more pressing than ever, a tension at the back of her mind. She kept trying to dismiss it, but when even carefree Seren had noticed something then it was time she came to terms with the fact that something within her was not right.
All the same, she was not going to admit it. She tossed her long gossamer hair teasingly and flickered to a tree branch on the other side of the meadow. "Nothing is wrong," she called quietly, her voice floating through the air as if on a gentle breeze.
Seren immediately flickered beside her. "Nothing?" She was still in focus. It was almost frightening. Liath couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to see her sister's freckles.
"Just some midsummer madness," she returned. "Catch me if you can!"
It was all it took to distract Seren. She blurred and darted forwards, her misty hand only just missing Liath's wrist. Liath hovered air-borne directly behind her, giggling as Seren flickered in and out of view trying to catch her. As they raced through the forest with screams of laughter – now almost touching, now so far apart that they could only just sense each other's presence – Liath realised, with a sense of relief, that the guardians had relaxed once more. Even the thought could arouse their suspicions, however, so she threw herself into the chasing game until they reached the place in question. It was a large space in the centre of a village, where the humans often gathered at the end of a day to play games or to sit together. Sometimes there were dances there, too, which Liath secretly rather enjoyed watching.
Their other sisters were waiting for them, sitting in the top of a lilac tree and watching the people around them. Going to the green was one of their favourite pastimes, though Liath's guardians disapproved if she went too often. It was an excellent chance to cause some trouble – for there was nothing the fairies enjoy more than causing trouble for mortals. And, of course, there was the added edge of the risk of being seen. Though their invisibility was more or less assured by their very nature, occasionally there were some humans who were perceptive enough to pierce the veils between fairy kingdom and the mortal world and see the fairies even when they chose otherwise.
They spent an enjoyable evening playing their usual tricks: pulling people's hair, causing them to trip, calling names, whisking clothes around as if in a breeze, and so on. Harmless enough games, but hugely entertaining to a fairy. To their perception, the humans were slow and stupid. It was fun to see their confusion when a fairy tweaked their nose or whispered their name in their ear.
Liath joined in with as much enthusiasm as the rest of them. Mischief was, after all, the chief pleasure in a fairy's life. And there was something very satisfying about having the power to confound whoever she chose to tease. There was a group of children at the edge of the pond who were floating various 'boats' on the water, much to their delight. Liath dipped closer to have a look. Most of them were hastily constructed out of straw or sticks, or even leaves, but one was a little carved wooden ship that floated beautifully. It seemed to belong to one freckled, rather unattractive little boy who was crowing about how wonderful it was compared to the other children's 'rubbish'. One of them protested, saying that hers floated just as well, and the boy made a nasty face and pushed her over; she promptly burst into tears. Liath, cross with the bully, executed a swift revenge by pulling his boat out to the very middle of the pond and piling stones into it until it sank, and then laughed till she was breathless at the consternation on the boy's unattractive countenance.
"Liath! Come and look," giggled Seren, appearing behind her. "Just look how funny they look." Liath glanced over to where her sister was pointing.
Sitting on the grass under a tree were two mortals, a boy and a girl. He had his arm around her and she was leaning back against his shoulder with her eyes half-closed. Seren laughed again. "See how silly they are? Come on, let's go and drop acorns on their heads."
Liath almost said yes, but something held her back. They were both plain and ordinary-looking; the girl had very thick, very red hair and freckles to go with it and the boy had a rather large nose, but these small defects were unnoticeable compared to the utter happiness shining from both their faces. They were so comfortable with each other; the boy's hand gently tracing patterns on her arm, her head resting in total trust against his neck. As Liath watched, the words she'd been about to say caught in her throat, he murmured a comment to her and she flushed and smiled, a slow deep smile that made something go funny somewhere in Liath's middle.
"Liath?" Seren had noticed her silence again. "Why are you staring like that?"
Liath made herself laugh lightly. "You're right, they look ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as that boy over there trying to stand on one leg. If we just gave him one good push – "
"You're right!" she whooped, the boy and girl already forgotten, and she flickered over to the poor child Liath had pointed to. Liath should have followed, but just for one short moment she continued to stare at the couple, sudden questions flowering in her mind as they never had before. Why were they so happy? They were mortals – slow, greedy, heavy things that couldn't dance lightly along a breeze or drink deeply of honeysuckle-flavoured dew. What was it that had given them that glow of contentment? Why was there this queer ache inside her? Why did she suddenly feel as though there was a wall of glass between her and them, and that no matter how hard she tried she'd never be able to pass through it?
She looked down at her hands as if they would provide her with the answers she sought, and saw with a vague sense of surprise that they were more solid than she'd ever seen them; suddenly she was aware of a feeling of heaviness throughout her entire body, as if she was being pulled down towards the ground. In panic, she glanced around at her sisters: none of them had noticed the change, but her guardians moved a little closer. A feeling she'd never known broke over her head. She felt as if her chest was constricting, growing ever tighter, making her lightheaded and dizzy. Right at that moment she would have given anything to flicker out into the middle of an ocean somewhere and just be in the middle of all that space, but when she tried, something went wrong and somehow she didn't go half as far as she'd intended. Instead, she found herself only a few hundred yards away from her previous location, in the midst of the woods surrounding the village.
Something very strange was happening to her. For the first time since she could remember, the ground had a hold on her, just as it did for humans. It pulled her down to her knees and she pushed against it in terror, trying to float up into the air as usual, and whimpering when she realised that it wasn't working. Only the rational side of her brain, one that she'd barely known existed, stopped her from descending into complete panic. Her guardians had yet to find her: she had a few seconds to pull herself together. Feeling her limbs shake with the unaccustomed heaviness of gravity, she managed to get to one knee; crouched in this cramped position she looked up desperately, afraid that one of her sisters would see her.
"Are you all right?"
The voice made her jump and it felt as though her whole body was exploding through her skin with shock. Fear – an emotion she'd never felt before – zigzagged all over her body like electric currents. She raised her eyes, and saw him.
A human.
A human was looking at her.
A human could see her.
She whimpered again and tried to blur herself, but nothing happened.
He was bending forward with a look in his eyes that later she would learn was concern. It was alien to her, this kindness. She had always been taught that humans were to be feared, even in their stupidity. Humans ruined everything. They broke cobwebs and destroyed the fragile natural habitat of fairykind. But this one did not have a threatening aspect. Her terrified gaze took in his brown hair, flopping down over his forehead, and a forehead creased with that unfamiliar concern. But his eyes – there she stuck. Why did his eyes make her feel like that? They were a colour far too bright for a fairy: blue-green, vivid, though one had a slight brown smudge as if by mistake. His lashes were almost too long for a boy's. Altogether they were the most beautiful eyes Liath had ever seen.
In that moment when she was frozen, he offered her a hand, and she cringed away from it. Suppose he was going to hit her? To break her? Wasn't that was humans did?
But he only took hold of her hand and pulled her to her feet. He was far taller than she'd realised; even standing at her full height, she was only up to his shoulder. "Are you hurt? Is something wrong?"
It took her a second to realise that he was speaking again; his voice went right through her, warm and comforting. Quickly, frightened, she shook her head in one sharp motion. His eyebrows pulled together. "Are you sure?"
Nod. Her guardians were back – she could feel them at the fringes of her vision, and their surprise and anger at this new development. She had to get back. To her astonishment, the boy seemed to feel something too; he glanced round uneasily, apparently sensing the change in the atmosphere. She seized her advantage and ran on feet that were finally becoming lighter. When she was at the edge of the clearing, she hesitated for just a second and turned round. He had turned his head just in time to catch her, and those eyes pierced her.
Swiftly, before another strange fit could take hold of her, Liath blurred herself out of his view and flickered back to where her mother would be waiting.