"Lilly", he murmurs, trying out the name on his tongue. Remembering his manners, he bows in a flourish, dramatic and snarky. "It's good to meet you, Miss Lilly."
She keeps troubling her lower lip with her teeth, clearly still untrusting of him. "You're not...not what I'd imagined. At all."
Andras can't help but laugh softly. "What, gnashing teeth and red eyes and a hunger for blood? I think you have your lore all wrong."
Her cheeks redden and she clears her throat, crossing her arms. "No...well...maybe."
He gives her a grin, knowingly showing off those dimples his parents always claimed he was blessed with by the Mother. Those dimples peek through this array of golden freckles; kisses from the Mother herself. His mom always said he was meant for something special. He doesn't know how much he believes that, but his smile does tend to make the village girls flush when he flashes them a cheeky smile. The kind of smile that gets his best friend, Calla, annoyed.
"And am I anything like that to you?"
"I don't know, are you using some sort of spell, fae?", she asks, spitting the word 'fae' like it's a curse.
"I'm not the best at spells, admittedly. As I told you, I don't even have my full powers yet. I can do simple things, but I cannot do glamours or anything of the sort quite yet."
Lilly surveys him carefully from his feet to his face. "I'd mistake you for being human if it weren't for the aura around you—the glow of your skin, the sparkles on your face, or the pointed ears."
Andras furrows his brow. "Sparkles on my face?" He rubs his face as if there's dirt he can't see on it, and the girl lets out a small chuckle.
"I don't think they're going away. They are...gold. Flecks of gold. As if you painted your cheeks and nose with glitter."
"You said my skin glows? I knew that human sight was different when beholding a faerie. But I—honestly, I've never met a human either so I didn't know for sure that all those tales were true."
Holding her breath, she steps forward and very carefully traces a finger along the shimmering dots of gold on his fair face, her eyes wide with awe as Andras goes rigid, not wanting to startle her like prey. Swallowing hard, he forces himself to meet her honey-gold eyes and send her another small smile to prove he has no desire to harm her.
"I-I think those are my freckles. They look normal to me. Well, last time I looked in a mirror."
She steps back and huffs, crossing her arms again, pretending she's being inconvenienced. "Well they're...very shiny."
Andras leans down and picks u her basket, handing it back to her gently. Glancing at her, he takes a step back to the berry bush and concentrates, waving a hand over it. The berries plump up to three times their usual size and her jaw slackens.
"A gift. As an apology for scaring you."
Lilly blinks up at him quietly as she tucks a strand of her short, dirty blonde hair behind her ear and then reaches forward, picking them and putting them in her basket.
"What's it like there?"
"Where?"
"Prythian", she whispers, as if it will summon demon fae like the naga.
"Oh...", he pauses for a moment. "I heard that it was once lovely. Luscious lands, strong magic, lots of kind neighbors, festivals, and fun. But there is a horrific—I shouldn't be telling you any of this."
"Please. I won't tell anyone. I suppose I've always been more curious than most people."
"There is a horrible curse on the lands now. By one very evil faerie queen. There are still three years left of the curse before she takes control of all the lands and all of the High Lords to use their magic for herself. She already drained them of most of their magic. They still have some but...it's scary, honestly. I was born during her reign, so I don't know life without... all the heaviness and sadness everyone feels."
Her eyes flicker slightly, something shifting in them, almost like pity. "Is there a way around the curse?"
"Yes, but it's um...complicated. And not my place to say."
"There are seven Courts and nobody can defeat her?"
"Unfortunately."
What Court are you from?"
"Now you're chatty."
She gives him a look and he sighs.
"Spring. Right over the wall. The curse has a focus on us because she has a keen interest in my High Lord, who would never ever accept her kind of tyranny. So we are stuck trying to find the solution, even if it won't come. That's about all I know of it. The higher ranks know more than I do, they keep things very tight-lipped."
Lilly swallows through the tightness in her throat. "I'm sorry", she whispers, seeming to mean it. "I suppose we spend so much time hating your kind...thinking that you are all our enemy, that maybe it slipped our minds that it is not good to judge all by the actions of the few. Maybe things work differently there, but you are living beings with emotions like us; fae tyrants may hurt you as much as human tyrants can hurt us."
"Really?"
"Meeting you has opened my eyes to my blindness. I would not want someone to judge me for another human who murders. I am not them. And clearly, you are not this evil queen."
Andras blushes and nods. "There are so many good people. In my court, and in all of the courts. There is good and bad everywhere. As many horrid monsters that roam there, there are more faeries that just want to live a good life. Much like here—I would assume?"
Lilly nods and looks him over again. "You said you were looking for your father. That h-he was in wolf form..."
"He's dead", Andras replies dryly. "He was killed earlier today. That, my High Lord felt. He was here as a condition of the curse. And the victim of another failure to break it."
Her eyes well up with tears. "Rough day then."
"Yes", he whispers, looking down as tears sting his eyes. "I was ordered not to ever come to this side of the wall because your kind would hunt us down. And there's much proof of it. But I-I had to see if I could find his body. I didn't want to just leave him here alone. I wanted to bury him. He didn't make it very far. I assume hunters come into these woods often." A few tear fall before he swipes at his face again to dry it.
"Good luck with your berries", he mutters, walking around her and deeper into the woods.
"Wait!", she shouts quietly, running to catch up to him. "You know this forest is full of hunters. Especially at dusk. If they see your ears...I could distract them while you get away if we come across any."
He looks over at her utterly confused. "You would do that...for me? But I'm just a vicious faerie to you."
"As I said, you've proven me wrong about clustering every fae into one category as bad. You didn't hurt me. You still haven't. If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead."
"Hm", he walks with her silently for a while, through trails and clusters of trees and brush, not spotting anything that could look like a dead wolf.
After a while, the sky darkens into night and he shudders with the chilled air. "I have to turn around and go home. The High Lord will be furious with me if I'm not home soon."
"You live with him?", she exclaims, shocked.
"My father was one of his sentries and friends. My mother...she died when I was younger. So he took it upon himself to make me comfortable. I'm grateful to him, but I do miss my parents. But if he or his emissary finds me sneaking back over the wall, I will have one enraged beast to deal with, which I'd prefer not to."
"B-beast?"
Andras snorts a bit. "All the High Lords have a monster form—a beast form. My High Lord is a good male, but when he gets enraged, he can turn into a big and bulking and has sharp claws and teeth, and pointed antlers. Sort of like...a tribrid of a bear, a deer, and a wolf. He would never harm me on purpose. But his anger entices his beast to the surface. Which is highly encouraged to avoid."
She shudders with the thought. "Doesn't that terrify you?"
"Gods, you are full of questions."
"Call it human intrigue."
Shrugging, he slips his hands into his pockets. "He's had a really hard life. His family wasn't in the 'kind' category. He had a devastating childhood and ever since it's been one bad thing after another. I heard the stories from my dad. So while it's not okay that he's so quick to anger, I understand it. If everything was weighing on my shoulders from the day I was born...I don't know how that would feel, how that would make me feel after centuries. So...yeah, sometimes it's scary. But it makes me feel bad for him too. Plus, I know he wouldn't hurt me, so that's something."
"I suppose." Lilly looks down at her basket, then up at the moon, moving over the skyline. "I should get back too."
Andras inclines his head in a polite nod and sighs in disappointment, a look of sadness on his glittering features as she peers over at him.
"I won't forget this. That...that not all fairies are bad."
His green eyes twinkle in the dim light of late dusk, looking back at her. "That means more than you can know. I wish there were a way for our people to be friends, but I know the treaty and everything…ugh history", he mutters.
Lilly giggles. "Long and complicated and full of problems that have become ours because adults back then couldn't handle their emotions enough to be civil apparently?"
"Probably something like that", he smiles slightly. "Well", he bows to her again. "Get home safely and have a great...life."
For a moment he thinks he sees a look of shock on her face before it's replaced with cool neutrality again. Until she steps forward hesitantly. "So then, I'll never see you again?"
"I'm not allowed over the wall. I just sort of snuck through when nobody was looking. Which isn't often."
Making a split-second decision and acting before she can think about it, she steps forward and wraps her arms around his middle. He stiffens and glances down at her, the bright pink of her jacket slightly hurting his eyes. Swallowing, he hugs back.
Pulling away, Lilly flushes pink and clears her throat. "I—I wanted to see if that glow makes you warm. It does."
As he shakes his head, he can't help the smile that crosses his face. "Human vision. Would be nice to see myself through your eyes sometimes."
"You're...ethereal. Lovely. Just...light. The glow around you, the shimmering of your freckles, the gleam in your unusually green eyes. Even the way your curls bounce. It's so...inhumanly beautiful."
Andras can feel the heat pooling in his cheeks. "Er, thank you, Lilly." He turns to speed away, but her voice stops him.
"I collect berries for my mother every weekend as well as Wednesdays." Biting her lip, she shifts from foot to foot. "If you ever find yourself tempted into getting through the wall again."
A small flutter of excitement pools in his belly and he chuckles. "That's good to know. Who knows, maybe one of these days we will meet again."
"Maybe", she grins cutely. "You be safe too."
"I'll do my best." He sends her a wink before speeding off to the wall.
She can't help the gasp that escapes her as the whoosh of air blows her hair back. Where the charming fae male had stood, was now empty air. Her heart beats just a bit faster as she walks the familiar path home with a basket full of the fattest berries she's ever collected.
When she goes to sleep that night, her mind can't help but wander to him again, and those sparkly freckles and deep dimples that adorned a mischievous yet very handsome face.
Sighing, she turns over and looks out of the window next to her bed, glancing out at the woods, hoping he made it back safely and that his High Lord was not too angry at him.
