Fey Stature
The hill was locked in eternal twilight, forever fated to straddle the line between a sun that never sank and a moon that never rose. In this fey homeland, alfar drifted to and fro without a care in the world, only acting in whatever manner caught their fancy.
However, as infinitely free as these fairies were, there remained some semblance of organization in their ranks. Only the alfar could know of this hierarchy, both because it was a secret of the highest degree and because none who stumbled upon it could ever grasp it. Making up a part of reality itself, these living phenomena required organizing principles. This role was filled by the strongest—the kings and queens.
“Waaaugh...”
Countless formless entities mingled with their less abstract counterparts and beckoned in their visitors—whether they were there of their own volition or not—as they danced without rest. Amidst the giddy laughter, a lone alf weakly floated along, looking as sad as could be.
The palm-sized personification of a gentle spring breeze drifted by, a large bead of water welling up in her pink eyes; everything about her body language wailed in melancholy. True to themselves, alfar perennially relished in their emotions: they cried like the world was ending when sad, and celebrated like they were welcoming a new brother or sister when happy. Such was the key to their fulfilling lives.
Today, the little sylphid’s grasslike hair was shriveled up. With a name and a sense of self, the wind fairy was remarkably powerful for her kind. When an alf presiding over growth, change, and weathering glided by in a mood like this, she brought a chilling breeze with her. Like a gust in early autumn, her overflowing state of mind chilled the skin of those around her. Yet she had only just been freed from her prison and had tied her fate to a cute little mensch she was fond of. What reason could there be for her sorry state?
Some of her compatriots came to speak to their long-unseen sister, but she shrugged them off with a tired wave. Finally, the sylphid landed at the base of a large tree—more precisely, she crash-landed, her stamina depleted. Like a puppet with cut strings, she collapsed so lifelessly that she could disappear at any moment.
“My, my. It seems I’ve found myself a melting fairy.”
The wind alf heard a voice from above, but she was too haggard to look up and respond.
“Hey! Would you not ignore me like that?”
“Hrrghh... Heavy...”
The voice seemed a tad irked, and before the sylphid knew it, someone had sat on her. With her guts crushed, the tired fairy grew weaker still.
“How rude. I’ll have you know I’m as light as a feather, Lottie.”
“Ursula, you meanie! We’re both light like feathers!”
The girl clad in grasses was Charlotte, and the one sitting on her wearing nothing but her own hair was Ursula. This pair had known each other for a proper eternity, and the svartalf showed no signs of getting up, despite her friend’s complaints. She merely peered at her squashed companion and asked what had happened.
Lottie groaned for a while. Her voice was neither angry nor pained, but something about it seemed to amuse Ursula, so the sylphid stopped. Instead, she began to explain what had happened in her characteristic childish speech.
Cutting to the chase, Lottie had gotten chewed out. A lot. In fact, the lecture she’d received had been of legendary proportions.
First and foremost, the fact that she’d gotten herself into a situation where she couldn’t even return to the twilight hill—not to mention the fact that pitying a sister was not just cause to go and get oneself captured—was unacceptable. Yet what came after was even worse. Alfar were known to bestow gifts on those they favored—yes, that much was fine. In fact, Lottie had been allotted a fey prize to present to the pretty boy or girl she fell for, and doing so was acceptable.
However, Lottie was not meant to offer one of two choices, and she had bent her own rules for the sake of her own amusement. Naturally, she had been bounced around to all kinds of greater alfar, who each subjected her to an endless hell of lectures.
“How foolish,” Ursula said with a laugh. “I told you you ought to have offered an unreasonable choice like me.”
“But! What if he picked the bad one?” The sylphid knew well what the seed of change could do once grown—it could weather away at the very shape of a soul.
Ursula knew just how sensitive an alf was to the concepts over which she presided. Thinking that Lottie had a point, she considered what would have happened if the boy had chosen to take on her fey traits with a giggle.
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful in its own way?”
Possibilities were just possibilities, but the svartalf grinned thinking that this hypothetical timeline would suit her just fine. On the other hand, the flattened sylphid had just received an earful about how her overindulgence could have warped the very nature of the child she’d found, and could only groan in response.
Perhaps the night fairy’s laughter transcended the veil between dimensions; far away, a young boy was overcome with the sudden urge to sneeze.
[Tips] By the most rigorous of definitions, the twilight hill does not “exist” in the same way or on the same plane as physical reality. Those who call it their home have views unfathomable to the human mind.
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