Dance of the Faeries

“Thou hast enchanted me, O Faery King,” Gabriella mockingly acknowledged in an ancient dialect of Old English. “Now what do you plan on doing to me?” she asked, switching to the present tongue.

The cobalt eyes of a royal narrowed at his human captive. The mythical, yet real, king of the faeries answered, “A mere human has no right to demand answers of me.” His scorn perfectly matched that of Gabriella’s.

Gabriella’s own eyes flashed, and she spat out, “Well, too bad, ‘cause I want answers, and I want them now!”

King Aiden sighed lightly; he had chosen this girl for her willpower, and it was working against him. He resignedly waved a hand, and a door appeared a few feet from his throne. “You will have rooms there. You will remain there until I call for you, for today only. After today, you shall have free reign about my castle. But until then you are to remain within the given area specified.” Even as he spoke, he could feel her laughter, though she made not a sound; she would do the exact opposite of his commands, which would throw her into his arms soon enough.

Gabriella sarcastically bowed and walked into her rooms. She suppressed a gasp as she realized that the rooms were exactly like those in her own house. She marveled at the paintings lining the walls, exact replicas of the ones she herself had painted not too long ago. Her fingers brushed lightly over the embossed spines of the books filling three walls of bookshelves in the library. She flopped into the midnight blue beanbag with silvered star points stitched into it and let out a whooshing breath. She tucked her hands behind her head and mumbled to herself, “Gab, I think it’s time you went exploring.”

An hour later, she was being ushered back into the rooms by guards with pointed ears, narrowed eyes, and very sharp weapons. She stumbled onto the bed and lay there for a moment or two after the accursed guards had left. Then she pulled herself onto her elbows and began musing aloud to herself. Her musings were interrupted when she heard a door close softly. She leapt off the bed and crouched in a Krav Maga ready position. She had forgotten that she was wearing a faery-issued dress, however, and promptly fell over; the fabric wasn’t at all giving. She blew her hair out of her face and sighed; this was how Aiden found her a moment later.

He snorted, a rather un-royal sound, at seeing Gabriella sprawled out on the floor.

“Are the sitting implements we provided not to your liking, Lady?” he taunted unthinkingly.

Gabriella quickly scrambled to her feet, a light blush staining her features – Lovely, thought Aiden – before she remembered that she supposedly despised the creature before her. Her skin drained of color and she swung what hair had fallen into her face back behind her shoulders. After Aiden was sure she was free of any floor dust, he took her hand and lightly brushed a kiss over her knuckles. A flush again touched her cheeks, and she snatched her hand away as though scalded. She hastily recalled the earlier questions she’d wanted to ask, and began.

“My Lord,” she started acidly, trying desperately to ignore the thoughts his touch generated, “why have you brought me here, to your kingdom? What would king of the faery realm want with a human girl, not yet even twenty?”

A sharp smile creased Aiden’s mouth, and he let graceful fingers trail over the shining silken mass of black hair that covered Gabriella’s head. “I want a companion.”

Gabriella shoved his hand away and said, “But why me? Why not one of your own race? I’m sure you could hire someone to serve as your companion.”

Aiden shook his head and replied, “But that’s just it. If I hired someone, they’d agree with me all the time. I can’t have that; I need someone to match my wits against, someone to challenge me. You are a double enigma, seeing as how you are both human and female.” In the back of his mind, he thought, Of course, I also want you for a lifelong companion, but there is no need for you to know that just yet. Aiden waited for her response, almost apprehensively.

Gabriella absentmindedly brushed a finger across her lower lip as she thought. She finally pulled herself out of her reverie with a slight shake of her head and stated, “All right then. I’ll challenge you.” A wry smile curved her lips and she continued, “And since I don’t particularly like you, you can be sure that I’ll be honest with you.”

A slight smirk touched Aiden’s mouth, and he gently tucked Gabriella’s hair behind her ear. His hand lingered a bit longer than necessary, and he murmured, “Agreed.” After a short pause, he said, “Gabriella?”

“Mmm?” she replied, working on getting her breathing into some semblance of a regular pattern. Why did she feel like this? He was only touching her hair.

“I’m not trying to insult you, but cut your hair. It’ll get in your way here.”

Gabriella glanced down at her hair, which just touched her knees. She shrugged and nodded; his argument made sense. There was no point in clinging to human traditions if she was to live among the faeries. Seeing her agreement, Aiden took a pair of scissors from the desk he had supplied Gabriella and, before she could protest, cut the hair off to her neck.

Her mouth agape, she stared at King Aiden in shock. “You cut my hair.”

“You said I could.”

“Oh, that’s it. I am so going to make you wish I wasn’t your companion.”

King Aiden laughed and iterated, “Agreed.”

----

Gabriella had been residing in the castle and court of King Aiden for a little over two months when she first realized that she didn’t miss her family.

“I wonder how my family is,” she mused aloud. “I do live on my own. They may think that I am in what they call a ‘mood’ and don’t want to see them. Do they even realize I’m gone?”

She jumped, startled, when Aiden’s voice behind her said, “You could always see.”

Gabriella turned quickly and had hardly registered the king’s form with a hand behind his back before she knelt onto her right knee once; it was a habit she had picked up spending so much time in Aiden’s court. She got back up and asked, “Aiden, how could I see? You told me that I couldn’t leave your world.”

Aiden nodded, pleased with her quick memory. “Yes, I did. Even so, I didn’t say that you couldn’t see beyond it.”

Gabriella’s eyes flashed and she practically begged Aiden, “Aiden, please, please, please explain it to me! Can’t you clear my not-understanding-ness up a bit?”

A small grin graced Aiden’s features as he heard her choice of words. He brought his hidden left hand from behind his back and showed her a tarnished mirror. He placed it in her hand and told her what to say.

“Mirror, mirror, in my hand, show mine love from this land,” she chanted slowly, verbatim from what Aiden had told her. Her image dissolved till Aiden standing directly behind her showed, so quickly that she had missed it. Yet Aiden hadn’t, and his smile grew as he realized the implication. The image then shifted to her old home, and she could see her mother kneading dough, her father washing something. She shifted the mirror slightly, and the angle of view into the room changed as well. She couldn’t suppress a gasp when her eyes alighted on a cradle. A soft wail came from it, and her mother went to it and lifted out an infant. Gabriella looked up, a hard, angry glare focused in Aiden’s direction.

“How long have I been gone?” she demanded in a low voice.

Aiden shifted uncomfortably once and asked, “In faery time or in your time?”

“Is there a difference?” she snapped.

A soft sigh permeated the air as Aiden replied, “In faery time, you’ve been removed from your world for less than two months. You’ve been gone more than a year from your time.” Gabriella’s eyes narrowed when she heard this, but let the king continue. “Your parents thought you dead, and mourned. But now that time has passed, and there is another in your household.”

Anger deepened Gabriella’s gaze and she queried in a low, halting voice, “Why was I not told?”

Aiden rubbed a hand over his face and admitted, “I didn’t want you to get upset. Like you are now.” He paused and added softly, “I didn’t want you to leave.”

Her glare softened for an instant, but then she assumed it again. She pulled off the ring she wore on her right hand and threw it at Aiden’s feet; it had been a gift from him, and it was really the only weapon she had against him, emotional or otherwise. She stood there, seething, as he knelt and picked up the trinket. He then approached her and pressed the ring into her hand. He gently closed her fingers around it and brushed a kiss over each one before he finally released her hand. She still stood there, frozen, until his eyes locked with hers, and then they flicked to her mouth, clearly asking permission. Gabriella, her eyes wary, didn’t tell him no since she was still shaken from the feel of his lips on her hand, and Aiden leaned forward.

Aiden cupped Gabriella’s jaw line, lightly stroking her cheekbone with his thumb. He leaned over, since he was a few inches taller than her, and softly brushed his mouth across hers. Gabriella’s eyes fluttered shut, and her fist uncurled, dropping the ring she held. Her arms slipped up of their own accord to encircle Aiden’s neck as Aiden’s left arm wrapped around her slim waist and gently pulled her closer to him.

After a glorious eternity, Aiden slowly pulled away from Gabriella, his eyes reluctantly opening, afraid of finding that this was a dream. Gabriella’s eyes opened just as unwillingly, her full mouth slightly parted. She embarrassedly cleared her throat and offered, “Um, so… that was… different.”

Aiden tenderly brushed the pad of his thumb across Gabriella’s face again and he agreed, “It was.” He leaned in and tried to kiss her again, but Gabriella pushed him away and moved to her bed, where she sat down slightly dejectedly. She buried her face in her hands and said in a muffled voice, “Aiden, what is this?”

A puzzled look crossed Aiden’s features as he sat next to her. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he tucked a wisp of her hair back behind her ear and said, “What is what?”

Gabriella looked up and at him and said again, “What is this?” gesturing at the two of them.

Aiden smiled slightly in relief and almost laughed aloud. He caught himself just in time, though, and said, “Gaby, you can’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.”

Gabriella sighed exasperatedly at his tone. “Obviously I haven’t, or I wouldn’t be asking you,” she replied in a voice that matched the one she had used in the beginning of their companionship. Hatred begets emotion, emotion begets passion, she thought agitatedly.

Aiden leaned over and picked up the ring from where it had landed on the floor. He took Gabriella’s left hand and slid the ring onto the third finger. Gabriella looked up at him, confused, and breathed, “Aiden, I wore it on my right hand before.” She had nearly forgotten her anger, lost in the feel of his hand. Was it right that she got such feelings from a simple touch?

“I know,” he replied. “But now it belongs on your left.”

Gabriella lifted her left hand to study the ring again. When first given to her two days faery time into her stay to bind her to Aiden’s world, it had been an onyx stone set in white gold. Now, looking at it again, it was still a white gold band, but the stone was no longer black; rather, it was a deep blue with flecks of green in the center. Gabriella lifted her head quizzically and inquired slowly, “What kind of stone is this? I have never seen one like it in the human realm.”

Aiden smiled proudly, “I know. It’s a stone that my people created long ago. It is the royal stone that is set in all the rings of my clan. Look, here is my own.” He lifted his right hand and showed her the stone in the ring that resided on his middle finger.

Gabriella furrowed her eyebrows and asked, “But, Aiden, does this mean I am… royalty?”

Aiden responded slowly, “Well, you could be. If you agreed…” He trailed off, thinking hard to himself.

Gabriella jolted him back to the present as she queried, “If I agreed to what?”

Aiden chewed on the left corner of his lower lip, a habit he’d picked up from Gabriella as a sign of nervousness. He finished quickly, “If you agreed to marry me and reign at my side.”

Gabriella’s eyes widened in shock and she nearly fell off the bed. She did not only because of Aiden’s quick reflexes. He caught her around the middle and hauled her back up, instinctively pulling her onto his lap. He shifted slightly to lean against the headboard, and she impulsively snuggled into the warmth of his chest. In answer the non-verbal communication, he locked his arms around her. Aiden’s chin was on Gabriella’s head, and her head was turned towards his left shoulder. She examined the ring again, turning it this way and that to admire the cut of the stone.

It’s certainly beautiful, she found herself thinking.

If you choose on beauty alone, who is to say that this isn’t what drew Aiden towards you in the first place? her inner voice argued. It continued, If you love him, by all means marry him. Otherwise, turn him down. Do not get caught in a loveless marriage.

Do I love him? Gabriella wondered. She listened to Aiden’s strong heartbeat that thudded just below her cheek, and compared it to the one that pulsed within her – the two matched in a perfect synchronized rhythm that she had never thought about. That unity was what she had craved for so long, and what she had yet to find. But now it thudded beneath her, and it was being offered to her; all she had to do was say yes. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she realized that she did indeed love King Aiden, Lord of the Faery Fens. And this love wasn’t based on love of power, expensive gifts, or greed – it was based on the fact that King Aiden had accepted her, when no one in her family, much less her village, had been able to do so.

In an effort to convince herself that the match wasn’t right, even though her heart and mind told her it was, she abruptly stated, “But you will live longer than I. The average human life is shorter than that of a faery, is it not?”

Aiden considered this before answering, “Yes. But there is something I have not said about that ring.” He gestured unnecessarily to the ring on her hand.

“And that would be…?”

“It has an enchantment on it,” he said bluntly.

“Like if I say no, I’ll die a horrible death?” Gabriella asked, horrified.

“No, no!” Aiden hastily replied. “If you say yes, that ring has the power to change you into a faery. You will be a faery, and everything that a faery has – or doesn’t have – will be yours. The life span and the magickal powers will be yours, the human emotions of jealousy and anger will be banished, and everything else that is of a faery can be yours. All you have to do is say… yes.”

Gabriella pulled herself up slightly to look Aiden in the eye. She mirrored what he had done earlier– she let her gaze flick to his mouth, and then gently pressed hers to it. Aiden’s arms first tightened with surprise, but then loosened again. Gabriella’s hands roamed up his arms to the nape of his neck, where she lightly stroked the golden strands there.

When Aiden could finally think again, he asked, “So I’m guessing you will marry me?”

Gabriella affectionately caressed his face and laughed, “Do you really have to ask?”

----

A month later, faery time, they married. The entire kingdom was there, and many disappointed faery nobles discussed how their king would no longer be a prospect for their daughters. Many of the middle class women couldn’t hold their joyful tears in, and the ceremony was punctuated by several sobs and nose-blowings. At the end, when the faery minister said that the newly married couple could share their first official kiss, Gabriella poured everything she felt for Aiden into that one kiss. When they finally broke apart, a great cheer flew to the heavens from the throng in celebration.

That night, there was a grand feast for all subjects. But King Aiden and the newly crowned Queen Gabriella slipped away rather early for royal purposes.

Their wedding night produced two full faery children that could possibly rule after their eventual demise: a son, who they named Cail, and a girl, who they named Aiaya. Their family was a happy one, with few to no complications of the human world.

And so they lived contentedly, making their own sort of Happy Ever After

Author Notes:

A bit trite in some points I know, but this is one of the stories I wrote during school year, when I was brain dead, so... so in some places I used well-established plot points to advance my own plot. No, it's not plagarism, I'm acknowledging it. Silly bunny, plagarism is for losers! Cheers, Lily