Fairy Land quickly became a second home to her. It was a culture shock, no doubt, to be thrust from one realm of existence to the next, where magic was abound and every other person was winged. Life with Tracywas more than she'd ever dreamed of. She loved him with everything she had and he returned that love enthusiastically. She lived in an over-stimulated rush of life for the first few months, constantly expecting to wake up, to find that everything was the result of a fever dream or something of the like; it was too good to be true, to have found the love of her life like this. The stuff of fairy tales, ironically enough. But every night, she'd lie down with him, and every morning she'd wake up to him, and it was perfect.
She was able to procure a job at Fairy, working a along side other wingless fairies as a receptionist or a secretary as needed. She spent her days filing papers and sorting teeth. Tracy was concerned for her as she did this, knowing that some fairies weren't particularlynice to those in her line of work, but she never seemed to mind any offhanded comment made about her. It was something she knew they would have to adjust to, having a human permanently among their ranks. Reversely, it would take her time to adjust to living outside of The Human Plane. Often times, when asked her name and age, when being introduced to a new fairy, she would reply the way she knew how, warmly and with a smile, telling the new acquaintance that her name was Rae and that she was 29. The first time this happened, Rae wasn't sure why she was suddenly given strange looks, she wasn't sure why they asked her if she needed to go to the ward and rest a bit, if Fairy was a bit overwhelming, and it took several minutes for them to come to an understanding, that fairy years and human years were completely different in their implication to age.
Still, newly wedded bliss aside, Fairy Land was a peculiar place for a human to live. She'd spent her entire life on another plane of existence, with different social structure, different life ideals and different customs.
Tracy helped her, explaining the various events and customs, coaching her through fairy society every step of the way and, eventually, she became accustomed to it, the change of culture. They spent the fairy holidays with Tracy's family, human holidays with Rae's family. It took her some time to pronounce and retain the names of his holidays, though, as fairies had used their own language millennia ago, before English was introduced to them through human interaction.
It was the first day of spring – the mark of the New Year in Fairy Land– and they were gathered for the day, though Rae had little idea what they were actually celebrating. It was called Guld Fethel, not quite as a mouthful as some of the other holidays, easier to pronounce. The little that Tracy had told her on their way to Diana's home gave her the impression that it couldn't be too different from New Year's Eve.
When they weren't cooking in preparation for the night's meal, they sat around a large rectangular dining table, chatting and laughing and waiting for dusk. Rae sat close toTracy, the backs of their chairs touching as she leaned against him, sipping the sweet, clear, nectar-like liquid. It was colorless, odorless, and for all its practicality looked and acted exactly like water.
She inquired about the liquid, and was told that it was water. She'd merely laughed and asked again. "No, really. What is this?"
"Oh, ah, not water like you're thinking, honeybee," Tracy interjected hurriedly. "See, we've got this place, called The Waters. It – it is water. Just not your water, right?"
She sloshed the liquid around in the glass, watching as it swirled in a rainbow of translucent colors, like mother of pearl. She saw it, now, really concentrating on the drink and it was startling and beautiful and brought all kinds of questions to her mind, but this was neither the time nor the place to ask them. She had a whole life time ahead of her to answer the numerous questions posed by her new home. Today, though, she merely shrugged against her husband and took another sip. He laughed, holding her closer around the shoulders.
Oberon, Tracy's father, clapped his hands together and stood. "I think it's about time to start, don't you? If we don't get a move on we won't be finished in time!"
"True," Tracy said lightly, more of a hum than anything. He knew what this event entailed, knew that it would take a long time with how meticulously the ceremony was. There were other noises and agreements around the table.
"So who's the guest of honor this year?" Tracy asked; his time at work and on the Human Plane had kept him more or less out of the loop the last year. His mother smiled and Iris laughed, and many of the other fairies around the large table chuckled. "What?"
"Well, Rae, of course!" his aunt exclaimed, and he gave a groan of realization.
"Do you think this is a good idea? After all, I mean, this is her first Guld Fethel. I don't know if she's up to it, you know…" and was rather dismayed when Rae laughed, seemingly happy to go along with his family's plans.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be fine, sweetie," she reassured him, taking another sip from the cup.
"Wonderful!" Mab said, standing, rounding the table to meet Rae and pluck her from her seat.
His wife stood, and allowed his mother to pull her hair back from her face and tie it with a silver ribbon.
"Did Tracy tell you anything about Guld Fethel, dear?" she asked, lifting her chin.
"Just… just really the basics," she said, laughing lightly.
"Perfect!" Mab exclaimed warmly. "Let the sacrifice begin!"
The smile left Rae's lips and her face paled, her eyes flicking over to her husband, who smiled slyly and shrugged. Her mouth hung open and she looked around the room for any sign of a joke.
The woman at her side led her from the kitchen to the back yard, and everyone, including her husband, followed. She was led onto a white terraced platform, where she stood alone next to a pedestal holding a stone bowl and paintbrush once her mother-in-law retreated to join the rest of the fairies on the ground below. Her husband stood at the forefront of the small crowd, looking up at her with his sleeves rolled up and hands buried in his pockets. He smiled in the dying sunlight and she began shaking. "You allright up there, honeybee?"
She was at a loss for words. Sacrifice? "I think you might have left something out!" she growled.
There was a roar of laughter from below her that made her face burn and Tracy ascended the steps to join her. He stepped up to her and bent his head, kissing her. "You did say you were up to this," he joked, earning a stern look from his wife. "Oh, don't be like that. It's not like it's an actual sacrifice. Just go along with it," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling it from her side, holding one of her dainty hands in his as he removed the lid from the bowl at their side, dipping the paintbrush in and swirling around the contents. It was a deep black, she saw when he withdrew the brush, the fine brown hairs at the end dripping with ink. He wiped the excess off on the side of the stone bowl and brought it to her hand, tracing a symbol on her skin in expert calligraphy. Her fingers trembled, unsure of what it was, exactly, that he was doing. As he painted, dipping the brush back into the bowl to replenish the ink, he talked to her. "The story of Guld Fethel is, admittedly, a little long, so I'll explain later. For now, this," he said, touching the cold ink to her hand again. "is the symbol for unconditional love." With one last stroke of the brush, he finished the symbol, something that looked like an overzealous, sideways question mark with the dot in the curve. "Each one of us will take a turn and paint a symbol onto your hands. They're our wishes to you." He bent and whispered in her ear, smiling lightly. "And you know I'm going to make sure my wish for you comes true." He turned his head and gave her another quick kiss, replacing the bush in the stone bowl and leaving her on the platform. The moment he left the platform, she looked at her hand and saw the ink dry; when she ran her finger over it she couldn't feel anything, no difference from her own bare skin.
Diana wasn't far behind, flitting up the steps to join her and using a quicker hand to draw out the symbols, her own calligraphy work no less perfect.
One by one, Tracy's family came to her, taking either hand and painting a symbol on any space available from the bases of her wrists to the tips of her fingers. Before long, the suns had dipped below the horizon and she could barely see her own hands in the dark, so blackened with ink they were in the night. Small patches of white peeked between the symbols, fragmenting her hands and giving them a ghost like quality.
When the last person had finished painting on her hands, they led her from the platform, down the set of steps opposite from where she'd gone up, and everyone filed back into the house, around the table and she took her seat back next to Tracy, her body losing the chill of the night in the warm dining room. It was a surprising contrast, the stark difference in temperature once the warmth of the twin suns had disappeared.
She snuggled against him, enjoying his warmth as she examined her hands. "I have no idea what any of this means," she said, at length. It was a simple statement that she hadn't meant to mean very much, but the family seemed to think it was very funny. She felt the heat involuntarily rise to her cheeks. She wasn't at all versed in the old language of the fairies, like they were. They must have thought it ridiculous, seeing her as any human might see an adult who couldn't read or write English.
Sensing her embarrassment over the accidentally blurted statement, he took her hand in his and raised it between them, brushing his thumb over a symbol. "This," he said, showing her something that looked like a backwards three, "is the symbol for safety. Protection and preservation," he said, thumbing over another, "Smiles and peace; faith; acceptance and recognition for all you do well," he said, turning her hand over so that he could see the symbols on her palm. "That's a wish for a guiding hand to help you through any trouble." He pointed, this one looking like a six with two loops, one on top of the other.
"What's this one?" she asked, pointing to a double arc with a strikethrough that was painted on the base of her wrist by her thumb.
"Oh, that's mine," Mab bubbled. "That's the symbol for fertility, dear."
"Mam!" Tracy scolded, the heat rising to his cheeks.
"What? You name me one mother-in-law who doesn't want grandchildren, go on!" she exclaimed happily.
Ignoring his mother's challenge, Tracy cleared his throat and moved onto the next symbol, noticing how his wife's face was almost the same shade of pink as his. "That, that there," he pointed, "is the symbol for dedication and communication." Let's see the other, honeybee," he said, releasing her and allowing her to raise her left hand, reading each symbol off and telling her what it meant.
"So, how does this represent sacrifice?" she asked when he'd finished, almost dreading the answer. He laughed at her nervousness.
"A long time ago – millennia, actually – we, as a race, didn't know about collecting teeth. Even in your culture it's a fairly new concept. Still, that pool of magic at Fairy has been in this world long before us Tooth Fairies. That's what keeps FairyLandalive, and our ancestors were willing to do whatever it took to make sure it stayed that way." He said as her hand dropped back to her lap. He slung an arm around the back of her chair, around her shoulders and leaned back. "Now, humans have known about fairies for almost as long as they've existed – the humans, that is. They used to believe in us a lot easier, though, I'll tell you. But something that the humans noticed about us was that… well, we took their children." The words fell heavily from him, dragged out and none too proud. "I'm sure you've heard of fairy Changelings. Fairies would come and take human children and leave fairy children, the Changelings, in their place. It was… a fairly common practice in our world, perhaps up to two, three thousand years ago. Of course, a lot of humans still accused their children of being Changelings, but it wasn't us. We'd take the children and… we'd, uhm…" he rubbed absently at his face. "We – we'd basically toss them in the pool. This went on for quite a while, and eventually we started drawing symbols on them before we did, sorts of wishes to the magic. 'Please be appeased until next year, happy Guld Fethel.' Of course, it wasn't very happy for the children, as you can imagine," he laughed nervously. "But it worked, for us. We realized that we didn't need the whole child, and we started taking little things. A lock of hair, a tooth, whatever without having to take the child. Some fairies left compensation, an apology for taking so many children. And eventually, the children started leaving things for us to take, willingly! In turn we'd leave little gifts under their pillows, and… now we have Tooth Fairies, as it happens."
There was a roar of laughter from the other side of the table, one of the other conversations going on. She looked up, startled, and Mab leaned in to pat the human girl on the knee. "You looked so nervous up there," she smiled. "I'm sorry you didn't know about it earlier. I thought that Tracy would have told you," she shot a look at her son, then back to her daughter-in-law. "Sorry for the scare; no one here would hurt you, you're far too precious," she smiled, crinkling her eyes and nose. "But that's only half of the night, you know!" She pulled Rae from her husband's arms and led her down the hall, to a half-bathroom that held only a sink, guiding her in and shutting the door to give her some privacy. "Go ahead and wash that all off, dear."
Rae turned to the sink and turned the one faucet, watching as Water spilled forth. Fascinated, she noticed that it was the same iridescent liquid she'd seen earlier, what was in her glass sitting on the table. She frowned slightly, touching a finger to it. Upon contact, the ink at the tip of her finger vanished, swept away with the Water and flowing down the drain like fresh ink. She stuck her hand under the stream and watched, mesmerized as the ink fled from her skin, leaving behind no trace.
She washed her hands free of the ink, watching all the well wishes vanish, carried with the Water to somewhere else, to be communicated there. She dried her hands and went back to join the rest of her new family, reclaiming her seat next to her husband. He took her hands, now free of the black ink, in his and pressed his lips to her fingertips. "Happy Guld Fethel, honeybee," he said. She laughed with an energy that, for most people, would only be possible in the super-charged atmosphere of Fairy Land. But for her, he knew, such levels of life were normal, they were what made Rae herself, and she was happy, indeed.