She didn’t know why she was surprised that when she set out looking for fae that she couldn’t find any. The saying was as old as any she’d ever heard, ‘the harder you search for fae the harder they are to find’. Fae came to you when they wanted to or you were lucky to stumble across them. As she wandered around in the dark she was starting to realize this wasn’t the most effective plan she’d had.


    Not that any plan she made was, honestly.


    She didn’t want to wade into any ponds in any parks again. She was lucky that she got away with that the first time and even more lucky for the water sprites coming to her at all.


    She would have to think of something else.


    She could go rifling through as many gardens as she wanted but so far she hadn’t found a single trace of any treffae and she was getting frustrated by the search. She was trudging down the street, shoulders hunched over, head down, and a foul mood emanating from her. Even if she did stumble across someone else so late in the nente, she''d likely be left alone.


    She had no idea how far across town she’d wandered until she spied the temple on the skyline and she realized she had strayed closer than she cared for. She wasn’t sure how late into the nente it was but she was sure it was later than she’d meant to be out already. When she looked up at the other building nestled around the temple on the gentle slope she saw that many of them were big, old, buildings. They had high peaked roofs and ornate decorated exteriors that created dramatic shadows that cast over the nooks and crannies of the buildings. They were clearly old and they were the perfect place for wirfae and peps to gather and hide.


    It made her nervous to wander closer to the temple but she reasoned that it was late and she was rather unlikely to run into anyone at all, let alone a temple acolyte. Still, it was a risk and she was aware she was taking it.


    That said, she was only going to take a cursory look around and she would leave if she found nothing. She kept this firmly in the front of her mind as she continued up the street toward the outlines of the buildings rising up. When she reached the neighborhood with the grand old buildings she turned down the street leading away from the temple. There were more buildings the other way but there was no reason to tempt fate more than strictly necessary.


    The street lamps that dotted up and down each side of the narrow road were ornate like the houses instead of a plain orb on a tall pole as they tended to be. These were meant to look vintage and match the aesthetic of the buildings.


    The first building she came to had a plaque on a raised stone stand that labeled it as ‘The Museum of Old Temal’. There were entirely too many lights still lit both inside and outside for her to approach so she passed it up in favor of a dark, unlit building on the end of the block.


    Quickly and quietly she stole around the backside of the house on the corner. It was easy enough to stick to the shadows as she padded along the path that took her into the alley that ran between it and the neighboring building. As she got close she was careful to watch her footing as her attention was aimed upwards mostly, into the eaves of the building, into the shadows beneath the second floor deck. The building itself was in a bit of disrepair. It looked like it hadn’t been maintained in some solcen, the windows fogged over with grime and the paint flaking with time.


    It was perfect.


    When she came around the corner of a portion of the house that jutted out, windows all around and old dusty curtains drawn, she looked up into the dark peak of the roof. There in the darkness that her eyes had finally adjusted to she could see them; a cluster of reflective eyes looked back down at her.


    Wirfae had always made her just a bit uneasy. Their slightly too-human faces and their glowing reflective eyes unnerved her. Now with a dozen of those eyes looking down at her she felt her resolve slipping. She could still go look for peps in the dark dusty corners of a place instead.


    She felt the telltale stirring of the creature. It was the first time all day that she’d felt it and it startled her in its sharpness, its clarity in her mind.


    hunger


    She looked up at the unmoving, unblinking eyes looking down at her. She didn’t dare move either, rooted to the spot.


    Well then, go and get it. I can’t reach up there. She told the thing. She hadn’t really considered how she would get to the fae in the high points but she now figured that the monster could get its own food. She’d brought it to the food at least. She’d done her part.


    It apparently did not take any more convincing than that because she felt the sickening oily feeling ooze from her pores, over her body. Long terrible arms stretched out from a part of her she couldn’t see and in the blink of an eye they’d shot up and a cacophony of noise rang out as the horrible oozing hands clamped down on one of the wirfae. Their shrill squawking and the sound of wings flapping filled the silence of the nente.


    At once she panicked over the noise, thinking to herself she needed to quiet them. She had no more than thought it when from the gross elongated hands that clutched the first wirfae, long thin spikes shot out in all directions. They were just like the ones that had appeared in the temple and just like before they pierced everything they touched, immediately slurping down whatever it was that it wanted as if through a straw.


    She found out the hard way that it didn’t take everything though as hot, wet, globules rained down from the peak. She hadn’t been expecting them and didn’t know to step out of the way. She nearly gagged when a blob landed wet and sloppy on her shoulder, then on her arm and in her hair. She quickly jumped back at that point but the damage was done. The nente was silent once again and she felt disgusting, albeit for different reasons than the first time but a shower was still desperately in order.


    “Alright…Are we good now?” She asked into the dark around her. She knew she didn’t need to speak aloud to communicate with the thing but it didn''t feel so jarring now, after all the noise of the struggle. She didn’t get a response so much as she got a tickle across her mind that she could only roughly translate as ‘less hungry’ but otherwise it was quiet. Truthfully she wasn’t even sure that it understood the meaning of many things she asked it. It seemed to respond to her emotional state more than anything, she was finding.


    There came a noise from somewhere around her and suddenly she remembered where she was. How long had she been standing there?


    She needed to leave.


    Surely someone heard the commotion. She needed to leave before someone found her there, covered in gore and only barely in her mind.


    She turned on her heel and nearly toppled right into the ground, barely catching herself on the wall nearest her. Somehow she’d nearly forgotten about the high she’d gotten last time as well. Her movements all felt syrupy and delayed as she tried to keep her feet under her but she kept tripping on them anyway.


    The noise continued, a soft, scratchy sound in her mind, and her panic rose. She promised LoVelly she’d be careful, that she’d come back. She stumbled to the end of the alley somehow and it opened up onto the street. She took a turn and it was sharper than she expected as she felt her body lurch to the side to follow the path she wasn’t even sure she’d decided on.


    When she came to the intersection at the end of the street and the noise persisted she froze and she listened. It was so overwhelming in her mind, rushing like wind and overtaking anything else. There was an underlying, deeper sound beneath that as well that she could now feel in her chest. Her head was spinning trying to decipher the overstimulating sounds and she dropped into a crouch, folding over and hugging her knees to her chest in the shadows of the street. There, curled up with arms like a vice around her legs she realized that she was still moving, just a little bit, just barely, somewhat erratically but still orderly.


    She was breathing.


    Not consciously, not because she was trying to blend in, but out of some deeper, instinctual, need. It was the way she should be breathing, automatically, but now it felt intrusive and wrong. She had no control over it so even if she wanted to stop or hold it, she couldn''t. She should be thrilled by it but she absolutely hated it and she wanted it to stop. The rushing noise she was hearing in her head was actually the sound of air being aggressively pushed through her lungs and windpipe from her ragged breathing. Then she remembered the other, deeper noise and she focussed on that instead and she realized she knew that noise too, a familiar beating she should have known right away.


    Her heart was beating.


    It seemed like such an obvious thing once she started to realize it and yet, like her erratic breathing, this too felt disconnected and wrong. She hadn''t realized how loud the simple functions were until she''d been without them. It was overwhelming now. The persistent rise and fall of her breathing rocked her back and forth gently. Shocks of color and bursts of light ripped across her mind behind her closed eyes. She recognized it as the thing communicating in its own bizarre language.


    you wanted breath yet you are unhappy now


    I want to go home, she thought miserably back instead of an answer. She wasn''t in the mood to explain the difference between wanting to be alive and needing to breathe. She didn’t know now why she’d thought this little adventure would be a good idea.


    When she popped her head up from her knees her vision wiggled like it too was blowing in the wind. The once rigid structures of the buildings wobbled and bowed around her. The air was full of swirling mists that shifted and rushed around on the currents. They were iridescent, sparkling through the air and she was temporarily distracted from her miserable state.


    Suddenly she found herself on her feet, a bit wobbly at first but she was making her way down the street ever so quietly. When her foot caught on a lip in the pavement she nearly went down but a long, oozing arm shot out to stabilize her before she could hit the ground. Just as quickly as it came it retracted the limb back into herself and was gone.


    She had walked so far from the inn she wasn''t even sure how long it would take to get back or if she knew how. She would likely have to navigate to the city center station and then find her way back from there and she wasn''t exactly operating under the best of circumstances. She resigned herself to it, reminding herself the high would wear off eventually just like it had before.


    Would it last longer after a larger meal? She directed the thought into the dark recesses in her mind where the creature had carved out its residence, where it had oozed and seeped into the cracks and clung there. The answer she got was non committal at best, the equivalent of a shrug even.


    Without warning, the heat burst forth from her core and coursed through her like a molten torrent. The breathing ceased and so did the sound of it. Her heart gave just a few last flutters and then it, too, went quiet and in its place the fire in her burned. It burned so hot she thought she might combust and turn to ash herself.


    This was the part she’d secretly hoped for. The heat coursing through her was the closest feeling to being alive she’d felt since…well since dying.


    It was like being in a dream, after that. The heat relaxed her into a trancelike feeling and it almost felt like sleep. She missed being warm almost more than anything else, more than a heartbeat, more than breathing. She could be convinced to keep this up if she could be warm all the time again.


    The last thought that surfaced to the front of her thoughts was that she needed to get back- back to the inn, back to LoVelly. She tried to focus on that, over and over in her head, maybe out loud even, she couldn’t be quite sure.


    Back to the inn. Back to LoVelly.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Back to the inn. Back to LoVelly.


    If she kept repeating it she wouldn’t forget what she was doing. It would be too easy to lose her focus and drift off into a slumber like this, as easy as letting heavy eyelids finally fall closed after a long day, perhaps curled up beneath Sol with a good book…


    She could not though. She must stay awake


    nd away from thoughts that drew her into the trap of slumber. She knew all too well  that whatever passed for sleep for her now only meant giving control over to the monster.


    And she walked, half human, half creature, through the sleeping city, it was impossible to contain the creature entirely when it was active and hungry but she was keeping it in check.


    After it ate she had expected to feel a satisfaction of sorts, a contentedness or something but all she felt now was hunger. Insatiable hunger. If she let it, surely, the monster would consume anything it could. It growled and gnawed at her, begging for more. It tempted her, it really did. With the hunger came the impressions of warmth


    She kept her mantra nearly until the moon rose, when she finally found herself staring up at the newly familiar sign hanging from a bar above the front door of the inn. The lights were all off inside but the sign in the window still said ‘open’ and ‘vacancy’. With a darkness wrapped like a shroud around her head and shoulders she moved like a shadow around the back and up the stairs.


    When she reached out to take the handle she paused. She felt the darkness enveloping her, pressing in from all directions, a thick, syrupy weight that tried with all its might to drag her back down into it. It felt like the only point of her grounded in the world was the places her fingertips touched the handle.


    She had a slow, drifting thought, a memory even. She remembered being in the strange shimmering bubble meant to hold her in the temple. She remembered moving through her retraints, through the barrier and through other physical barriers after that. She could do that again, couldn’t she?


    She let herself sink into the inky wells that held her even as she pressed further against the handle. And then she was pressing into it and then again through it. She let the wet, shifting coating carry her through something as trivial as a door. The thought was pressed neatly into the front of her mind that a barrier was only as obstructive as it was convenient. She wasn’t in the headspeace to consider the full implications of that.


    When she opened her eyes she found herself peering through dizzying monocular vision, the vision of the creature. It peered around at the window and the desk and finally to the bed where she expected to find LoVelly. If she’d been in her own body she’d probably have fallen back in her shock and her urge to jump away.


    The image she saw was so loud in its chaotic and disjointed visuals. Bright colors violently jumped from one shifting shape to another. Like a moving scribble, curled lines swam by like floaters across her eye. It was an immediate headache like a slap upside her brain. She reeled back, shaking her head in an attempt to rid her vision of the awful picture. She felt a dread well up in her and suddenly she was falling to her hands and knees, the darkness receding into her like her body was a sponge soaking up a spill.


    “Mez?” A sleepy voice called out to her. She took a shallow breath.


    “Yeah, Lov’,” she called back. “It’s me.” She chanced a look back over at him and was relieved but confused to find just…LoVelly. Nothing strange, nothing out of place. Just a slow blinking face that for once she felt like she could see. Soft winky eyes peered at her, dark and warm in the low light of the lamp that he must have lit at some point in the nente. He reached a hand up to rub at his face before he pushed the blanket back and swung his legs over the side of the bed.


    “Are you okay? Did something happen?” His voice was thick with concern and sleep.


    “No. No, I’m okay.” She insisted and pushed herself back to her feet. “Just a long nente is all.” LoVelly shuffled over toward her, stopping just short and giving her a look.


    “What’s all over you?” He wrinkled his nose at her. “Smells weird.” She hadn’t noticed a smell at all but then again she hadn’t been breathing, mostly, and when she had been she’d been occupied with other things.


    “Liquefied wirfae leftovers. I think.” she said flatly. She felt as grossed out about it as LoVelly looked. “I need to go bathe myself. Maybe forever.” She looked down to inspect her footwear for any trace of goo but was happy to find none so she leaned down to unlace and remove them. “How are you feeling?” She asked instead. LoVelly rolled his shoulders and sort of wiggled himself in place, thinking about it for a moment.


    “Good. Great even.” He told her, moving back to sit on the edge of the bed when she went to put her shoes by the door. “So you were able to feed it then?” LoVelly was not to be deterred apparently.


    “Yeah. I walked half the city looking though. It took the whole nente,” she complained.


    “Did it help?” he asked. She turned to look at him and met his eyes across the distance between them. For just the briefest moment, half a tes even, she saw a flicker of those overwhelming, color shifting shapes in place of LoVelly. But then in a blink it was gone and it was just LoVelly. Her head hurt.


    “I don’t know.” she answered truthfully. “It definitely did… something.” She put a hand to her temple, applying pressure in hopes it would curb the pulsing sensation.


    “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look okay.” He moved to stand but she held a hand out, stopping him.


    “Yeah. I just need a shower and I’ll feel better. I’ll be back.” He looked like he wanted to argue but he held it back. She grabbed her change of clothes and fled down the hall to the bathroom and she silently thanked  whatever diety would listen that she hadn’t run into anyone else in the halls or the bathroom yet. There were definitely other people staying at the inn. She could hear them through the walls occasionally or passing by outside their room but she hadn’t run into any of them in person.


    She washed the grime from her body with fervor, scrubbing until she was nearly raw in places, her skin stinging to the touch. If she shed a few tears in the shower there was no way to tell except the overwhelming ache in her chest.


    Once she’d let the emotions out, she felt remarkably better again. She stepped out of the shower finally with a renewed sense of warmth that wasn’t just from the water. She felt it radiating from her core sending a heat through her veins into her limbs,


    ‘What is this?’ she internally questioned as she patted herself down and changed into clean clothes. She knew that whatever the feeling was it was the creature’s doing. It didn’t take any time at all for her to feel it stir, slinking on the edges of her awareness like it was tiptoeing.


    leftovers


    She waited a moment for further explanation but none came. That was all it had to say on the matter apparently.


    She toweled her hair before stepping up to the mirror, intent on detangling her hair as best she could while it was still wet and she could easily separate the curls. She dropped the towel to the counter and looked up in the mirror and as she did her eyes caught the light in the reflection and she was surprised when they flashed back, reflecting the light.


    That had never happened before.


    She tilted her head this way and that in the mirror and sure enough, when her eyes caught the light they flashed back at her.


    She didn’t know what to make of that. Was it a side effect of the creature or was it a consequence of consuming fae blood? She had no idea but she wondered if she could see in the dark now too.


    She finished her hair and resigned herself. It was time to deal with whatever was up with LoVelly. There were too many unknowns surrounding the man and she wanted to start getting some answers. She felt the hot rivers of fen flowing through her and she felt like now was the right time to try digging around in his mind again. There was certainly more hidden in his mind than he was privy to and whatever she’d seen…she could barely even picture it.


    She made a detour to take her dirty clothes to the wash but unfortunately the machine was in use so she rinsed what she could in the sink. It definitely wasn’t in any effort to procrastinate, she told herself, it simply needed to be done. Besides, as soon as she was done she dutifully made her way back upstairs.


    LoVelly was more or less right where she’d left him. He was sitting cross legged on the end of the bed, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. He looked…asleep. His eyelids drooped so low they were nearly closed and his stare was vacant, even after she closed the door behind her. She went and dropped her towel over the back of the chair and grabbed a page of paper and the pen. Still, LoVelly did not stir.


    “Lov’?” She said, stepping closer but stopping an arms length away still. She waved a hand in front of him before leaning in to shove at his shoulder. It unbalanced him and sent him into a sputtering shock. She was able to easily lean out of reach as he shook himself out.


    “Sorry. Kinda just dozed off again. I just feel really…sleepy?” He wrinkled his brow and nose, thinking. “Not sleepy but-”


    “Relaxed?” She offered. She slid one knee onto the little bed and sat facing LoVelly, one leg off the side and foot planted firmly on the floor.


    “Yeah. I guess that is what the doctor said would happen.” He punctuated it with a yawn.


    “Here, face me.” She patted the space in front of her. “I want to try something.” He did as he was asked without complaint and once they were face to face, knees to knees, she paused and just looked at him.


    It made her brain feel scrambled, like static on a broadcast box. It made her feel uneasy and she didn’t think it was the creature pushing that thought onto her this time. Still, she could tell that he was looking at her with curiosity and a bit of confusion. She could see him just…not directly, or something like that.


    “I think if ever there was going to be a time to try a fen exchange and for me to get into your mind it’s gotta be now.” She explained and reached over for his hands. She guided him to lay them down, palms up. She tore off two scraps of paper just large enough to draw a circle on each. She placed one in each of LoVelly’s waiting palms before going in to make another mark. LoVelly wiggled and let out a small peal of laughter, jerking his hand back.


    “Sorry. Sorry. That tickled. I wasn’t prepared.” He offered his hand back, slightly crumpled paper. “I’m ready this time.” She quickly made several more marks within the main circle before moving to the other hand and making several shapes that she filled in, somewhat haphazardly, which made LoVelly wiggle just the slightest bit.


    “Alright. Let’s see if this works.” She dropped the pencil to the bed beside them and raised her hands to hover over his.


    “What exactly are we doing?” LoVelly finally asked.


    “Cerebral loop. I’m not sure if we can even do it honestly. It takes a lot of fen. More than most people have these driev’ but I thought we could try.” She explained, pulling her hands back just a bit more. “If it works it should let me pick your brain a bit easier. Maybe we can yank something loose in there.”


    “You make it sound so delicate,” he said sarcastically. “Are you sure you even know how to do it?”


    “Yes.” she defended. “I learned about it in my studies with my Pods elders. And really, worst case scenario, nothing happens.” She shrugged but he narrowed his eyes at her, holding her stare for a moment before relenting.


    “Please just remember that’s my mind you’re digging around in.” Despite the slight apprehension he never pulled his hands back or away, he kept them steady where they rested over his criss-crossed knees. Mezalie said nothing more before letting her palms come down on top of his.


    LoVelly’s hands were so warm in comparison to her own even after the heat of the shower. She tried to use that heat as a way to ground herself, keeping herself focussed on LoVelly, living and breathing in front of her. Then she looked inward, on the fen within her and she pushed it outward, towards her palms. If she was right, and she was pretty sure, then she might have enough fen to pull off something like a cerebral loop.


    Joining two minds, even just temporarily, was not an easy task even with all the right materials. She did not have shech’n paper or fine inks or even just candles. What she did have however was an excess reservoir of fen and nothing left to lose except possibly the man in front of her. She’d never had fen like this before. Most people since the end of the Second Great War had very little fen; a little less with each generation. Of course there were exceptions but it was nothing like accounts of things were like before The Shift. Before all the natural fen wells dried up, the convergence points went dormant and the world was cut off from the other realms.


    Now though she had more fen than she knew what to do with. It felt like it would ooze from her, like she might overflow with it. She tried though to channel it, to focus it on the task at hand. Activate the sigils joining her and LoVelly and potentially allowing her a more intimate look around his mind. She curled her hands around LoVelly’s as best she could at the angle, mostly his wrists. She felt the sudden tingle that began to spark from their joined palms. She quickly looked up at LoVelly, to see if he’d felt it too.


    “Your eyes…” He said with curiosity, tilting his head just a bit to look again. “They didn’t always do that.”


    “No. It’s a new thing.” she admitted.


    A snap grabbed both their attention back down between them to their hands. They both sat, LoVelly holding his breath, as they waited for something more to happen.


    But nothing came.


    LoVelly looked back up at Mez with a shrug and a look before trying to withdraw his hands. Mez held tight where she had been, shaking her head.


    “Not yet. It’s a binding fensa. You have to wait for it to release before you let go.”


    “What happens if you let go?”


    “It hurts.”


    “Oh. Well how do we know? What if it doesn’t release?”


    “You’ll be able to feel it. At the very least I’ll let you know. Sometimes it just takes a dib.” It could take longer than a dib sometimes but she didn’t want him to freak out about it. She took a deep breath in just to be able to sigh.


    “I told you it might just not work.” She was still trying to channel all her fen to her hands, into the sigil paper. It had popped once already. If she could just get it to do it again…


    And then it felt like her face began to melt and her skull fell straight through her feet. She was flying through the ether at light speed as everything became a long stretch of noodle-thin color moving by around her.


    She wasn''t sure where her thoughts were occurring exactly, but the last coherent one she had was a sense of satisfaction that she had been right.