Day 11: The Fae Wergild

Cute / Cruel

Calm silence pervaded in the forest around the cottage. From behind the walls, however, the muffled sound of men arguing could be heard. Faint, but persistent. Alice burst through the door. Her grandpa was there. He was in an animated discussion with a portly man dressed in black and with a black mustache, his face as red as a tomato.
“Look, my good man.” Her grandpa said firmly but with strained calm, “I know how this works. The cities can collect taxes from within itself all it likes. This ain’t no city, so I don’t gotta pay nothing.”
“Sir, on the contrary.” The man in black insisted, “Ellstone has had official city status for a good fourteen months now, and your house is well within its metropolitan area. Seems to me you owe quite the hefty debt by now."
Grandpa cocked his brow, “This is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Been doing only what I’ve always done for the past forty-five years.”
The man in black snorted, “Yes, yes. I do understand. Believe me, I do. People of your age got trouble keeping up with the times. Which is precisely why I am trying to settle this matter promptly. Without leaving it to escalate. I advice you to keep this very seriously, sir. If you do not honour your debt you may find this plot of land seized as collateral.”

"Stop!” Alice rushed in between both men.
The man in black sneered at her, “Leave yourself out of this, young lady. Grown-ups are talking.”
"I am eighteen-years old!” Alice spat back, “And I’ve got no idea whose money belongs to whom, but you may not talk to my grandpa that way!”
The man in black looked past her, at grandpa, as if certain that such youthful insolence could not be tolerated even on his behalf.
“Mister Conrads, I do think you should listen to my grand-daughter.” Grandpa said, “She knows more about these matters than you or I ever could hope for.”
He scoffed, putting his hat back on, “Fine. I will come back at another occasion. But know that it seldom goes well for anyone who seeks to get wealthy by stuffing the state. Good day, sir.”

He stormed past Alice and slammed the door after himself.
Grandpa slumped back into his bed shortly after, as if his legs had ran on backburner for the past two hours.
“My dear fine good little Alice,” He groaned, burying his face in his pillow, “Coming all the way from Central Ellstone, and you have to see me this way. I am so so sorry…”
“Grandpa, no…” She rushed to him and knelt by his side, “We all love you. Even if mother and father are busy elsewhere, they also love you. If anything, seeing you like this… It makes me think you need me to be around now more than ever.”
He looked up from his pillow, a smile growing on his furrowed face.
“My dear Alice… My head hurts. Having to talk with those kinds of men… It’s more than my old skull can bear.”
Alice stroked his shoulders, “You have nothing to apologize for. I’ll keep it clean around here. You just lie there and rest.”
Grandpa opened his mouth to protest, but the very fact he couldn’t come up with a coherent argument in his drowsy haze had to be taken as proof that she might be right.

For the next hour or so, Alice cleaned up the mess that her grandpa was made to live in, and which he accrued after having to deal with the taxman rather than taking care of himself and his home. It was almost overwhelming. Behind every mess, there seemed to be another mess just waiting around. But in the end, what his homestead really needed was a pinch of love and care. Soon enough, the rooms went from desolate to untidy, and then to cozy. She swept the floor, when the broom slid out from under the cupboard a large metallic disk.
Alice looked down, and found a gold coin at her feet, easily the size of a mouse in diameter. She picked it up, and saw that it had engraved on it a butterfly. One with a the tail of a scorpion.
She hid it in her pocket for the moment. Not like she was going to keep it. Her grandfather simply had more to worry about at that moment. When she rose back to her feet, she saw through the window an old man in a coarse grey coat wandering through the woods in the distance. From top to toe he was covered in various herbs, lotions and tools strapped up against him. The moment he saw that he was spotted, he ran off into the forest with speed not expected from someone carrying that amount.
“Wait!” Alice cried, but he was long gone.

She poured her grandfather some tea, and put the steaming cup on the night-stand.
“I’ll be leaving you for a moment to pick some strawberries.” Alice said, “Will you be all right?”
“But of course." He said with a smile, "I'll be resting here. Have fun out in the woods.”

She took one of her grandpa’s prized wicker baskets, of the type he's been making for the cottage industry, and headed outside.
The woods outside were not foggy, but she was sure if she would tell anyone what she was doing on that day, she would inadvertently recall that it was covered with a crawling mist. So bleak were the woods, and so much did the forest appear to miss the fog.
No sooner had she found a single strawberry between the vast and tall trunks, than it started raining. Some light drizzle at first, but soon it was pouring down.

Alice scrambled between the trees, but there was not a trace of any kind of shelter in sight. She must have waded for hours through the dense foliage before finally she found a burrow of some kind in the ground. Hopefully whatever animal lived there wouldn’t mind a frightened little girl as a guest.
When she crawled through it, soon the narrow hole turned into cavernous tunnels, with vines tangling the cliff ledges above. At the end of the winding passage, she found a barren patch of dirt within a cave dome of some kind. A ring like a meadow grew in its center, where white and yellow and light-blue flowers of various kinds grew in full bloom. She approached the circle, and found the world spinning around her, when a brilliant light flashed her vision.

The whiteness faded almost as quickly as it had appeared, but she was no longer in a cave. The forest she was in was brighter and lusher than anything she had ever seen before. Like something out of a child’s imagination. What’s more, she discovered that the grass upon which she stood was not grass at all. It was the leafwork on a branch of a tree, merely so dense that one could walk on it. From beneath a torrent of fluffy white balls surged upwards.
And most importantly, adorable women with insect wings, tiny enough to fit on the palm of a hand, soared through the air. They dressed in vibrant hot colours while chasing one another about playing and laughing.
She had heard of such creatures before. Fairies, they were called. Friendly creatures for which human worries and resentments were completely alien.

“Hi there, little ones” She cried out, waving at them.
They all stopped in their games and looked directly at her, hovering in place.
But they did not welcome her into their realm. Instead, they soared around her like angry bees. Alice shielded her face as they swarmed her, backing off until her back was pressed against the trunk.
“Ow! Please!” She shouted, “I mean you no harm!”
“Lies!” One of them hissed, “We know you from your smell! You are the offspring of Richard Reinhammer!”
“His sins have tainted his blood!”
“He must pay in blood!”

“Richard?” She looked around, terrified and hurt, “You mean grandpa?”
“So you confess!” One of them points at her accusingly.
"No, no… There must be some misunderstanding! My grandpa would never hurt a fly!”
“Then face the truth! We were there to see it play out before us! He found his way into our realm! We frollicked with him! We played games together! And he showed us his craft! He had made a wicker basket, the most gorgeous thing we had ever seen! He offered to make for us a special wicker basket! We paid him in gold! Gold that he used as dowry to get the woman of his dreams! And yet where is the basket? He left us! He would not make for us what he promised!”

“But…” Alice started, “I had nothing to do with that. I am sure he had his reasons.”
“Oh, really now? Pull out the contents of your pockets in that case!”
Alice turned her pockets inside out. Indeed, there was the coin with a butterfly with a scorpion tail.
“There it is! Even his offspring enjoys his boon!”
“And so they must enjoy the blame too!”
“Let’s make a wicker basket of her entrails!”

She trembled like a leaf, begging for mercy. The fairies swarmed over her, crawling over her body. She sobbed into her palms, shielding herself with her hands in order not to watch the terrible fate they had in store for her.
“Ah, looks like I came right on time.”
The voice was a deep one.
Alice peered between her fingers to see who spoke. The lanky wanderer from before stood before them.

“Looks like you could use a fairy hunter, young lady.”
“...F-fairy hunter” She uttered, still confused.
“Yes.” He said with a smile, “ I earn my keep selling fairy dust. And what better way to make fairy dust than to grind the mummified cadavers of the fairies?”
He raised a cage, such as one that might be used to trap a bird. The fairies shrieked, attempting to flee. But an invisible **** drew them towards the cage.
“Stop that right now!” Alice said firmly, “We are in their realm! And while they might not be perfect hosts, we cannot simply deprive them of their homes!”

“But sweet girl… I saved you from the most deplorable fate. Are you not grateful?”
“That doesn’t mean I will let you do this!”
She rushed towards the wanderer, pushing her basket over his head. She grabbed a fairy, and sprinkled the fairy dust over his head. The basket grew into coiling vines that trapped his body against the trunk.
He was unable to move. Unable to escape. Unable to even speak as the vines gagged his mouth.

She turned to the fairies, “There is your special basket.”
“You saved us!” The fairies started shrieking.
“The offspring is nicer than the parent!”
“Let’s not judge her!”

“I am glad you changed your minds,” She said, “I will still talk to grandpa. Surely there must be an explanation.”
The fairies thanked her again, and swirled around her in a tornado of glowing pink dust.
When it settled, she found herself back in the tunnel. She could no longer hear the rain from outside. She heard the chirping of birds instead.

It seemed like she had a lot to talk about with her grandpa.
“I see.” He said, “So you happened upon them. I’m so sorry that my actions ended you up in such dangers. I never meant to betray them. I even made the special basket for them, and have it with me to this day." He took out a decorative basket with cute ribbons, letting it rest in his lap.
He continued, "But when I discovered the fairy hunter skulking about, I could not risk leading him to their realm. I wish I could at least pay them back somehow. I made a point to be a loyal husband to your grandmother, and a vigilant father to your mother. Looking at you today, it seems my efforts did pay off.”
“I forgive you, grandpa,” Alice said, smiling, as she pushed the coin into his hand, “And I am sure they will forgive you as well.”