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Official human-fairy negotiations were settled over a hundred years ago with the Disciplinary Agreement of International Relations Encircling Extraterrestrials, otherwise known as DAIREE. The three hundred and twelve page document was drafted to outline the relationships between humans and the small populations of supernatural creatures, although there was a particularly large focus on vampires, and like, werewolves.
Fairies were given one and a half pages of what was essentially a glorified description of They’re nice. Leave them alone.
Which was sufficient, surprisingly. With minimal pushback from the government, fairy forests were established across the world, resembling small nature reserves with heavy entry restrictions. Other species tended to steer clear of fairies, fearing their potential for murder and overall unpleasant demeanors in spite of their attractive outer aesthetic. Humans were banned. Invasive species were banned. Government officials were banned. Fairies continued to live in peace, largely separated from the rest of the world save for the few council members who dared to venture outwards.
Those past progressions have led to Kohane living a life so mundane that its mundanity is almost shocking. She wakes up at the exact same time as her other fairy friends, eats from magical berries like the rest of her fairy family, sits by the water and talks to deer just as she’s expected to. She has a canopy made of thick, bristling leaves to protect her from the rain, and translucent wings sprouting from her back that grant her flight. She enjoys her life, even with its mediocrity and routine.
Unfortunately, she does not enjoy the fact that she’s probably about to die.
Fairies are supposed to die gracefully, like from old age or from a mortal sacrifice or from accidentally getting mauled to death trying to save a deer from a wolf. That’s what Kohane’s been preparing for her entire life– she’ll go with dignity and not from a fucking hunter in the woods. She’s already out of breath by the time she reaches a tree thick enough to scale safely– when she jumps, her wings are a fraction too weak to lift herself off of the ground and she falls back down, dirt smudged against her arms. “Oh my god,” she curses, scrambling to pull herself up onto her knees. “Oh my god, oh my god.”
Her left leg is seized with pain, a piercing throb pulsing around the circumference of her thigh every time she tries to move. Even when she manages to stand up against the tree trunk, she can barely move again, much less fly up into the safety of the canopy. Her wings flutter behind her, weak and desperate, a mirror of the lightheadedness she’s trying to get through.
In this condition, she won’t make it out alive. Her only option is to try and fight.
Fairy hunting has been illegal for decades, but that hasn’t stopped pathetic freaks from trying, too hungry for money or glory or sick satisfaction in simply killing. Kohane’s never had a run-in, and she’d planned on living that way for the rest of her life. Clearly life isn’t on her side.
I should have stayed home, she thinks to herself. Shouldn’t have left the pond, should have holed myself up the second it turned to midnight. God, oh my god, I’m dead.
Her ears twitch. A hundred meters away, a branch cracks and a thick-soled boot crunches against the ground.
Kohane freezes up. Her arms are stiff as she rounds the corner and scrambles into the shade of the oak, shrinking into herself. She stares off into the distance, past the hundreds of trees and into what might be safety, what might also be an open field and consequent danger. Her heartbeat picks up. She hears another crack, a curse under the hunter’s breath, and all hopes of fleeing the scene are gone. She’s stuck– with one choice left.
Her left hand drifts to her side, splayed over the sleeved dagger in her pouch. She has a fraction of a chance to survive. Hunters are quick on their feet, armed, dangerous, always ready to strike in deadly silence–
“Uh, hello?”
–and apparently completely stupid.
The fear fades into caution, and then confusion, and then blatant disbelief as she sees a human– not a hunter, just a regular human– fight a flurry of falling leaves, sputtering to themselves as they bat at the offending objects. “This place is freaky as hell,” they murmur, angling a branch away with their arm. “Christ, is the Big Mac even worth it?”
Definitely completely stupid, Kohane decides. And as she slowly peeks forward even more, she gets a clear look at the stranger’s disgruntled face and she realises that oh, oh, she’s–
The mud on the side of her face isn’t the greatest accessory, but that barely matters. The stranger has scruffy blue hair and a messy shoulder-cut, bangs that fall out of place on her forehead, a nasty bruise on her lower lip– she’s as much of a mess as Kohane would expect from someone lost in the woods. Her shirt is well-loved and her jeans are ripped around the knees. There’s a plastic bag in her hand and heavier bags under her eyes. She looks miserable, honestly, and exhausted, worn out, and–
Kind of really gorgeous.
Dirt-girl (she must have a name, surely?) stumbles forward, hair tangled up in a few stray leaves that weren’t shaken off. “Hello?” she calls again, patting the dust off of her legs. “Anyone here? I got your fries, dude.” She shakes the plastic in her hand and glares into the darkness of the forest. Kohane flinches. It could be a weapon. She could be here to hunt after all, despite her apparent mediocrity and inability to shut up. Kohane shouldn’t have let her dirt-faced charms distract her, she needs to get out of here and warn the others and run for her life like right now.
She takes a single step right. Crunch.
Would you fucking believe it.
Dirt-girl jumps and flails her arm in front of her in a mere suggestion of a punch, and it’s pathetic enough that Kohane stops moving and stares at her because really, really? She’s given up on hiding and stands right in the middle of two trees instead. Her eye twitches.
The branch under her feet snaps in half. Dirt-girl trips on pure, thin air and falls onto the forest ground, staring up at Kohane with piercing eyes. Panicked, distressed, golden. Very, very gold. Warily, Kohane takes a step forward, drawn by her stare. She’s curious, struck with the urge to see her up close.
She squints, but Dirt-girl’s eyes don’t waver, don’t dull even for a second. “Who are you?” she asks, tongue heavy with her words.
“Uhm,” Dirt-girl says, gripping onto a handful of clovers beside her. “I’m An. Your UberEats driver.”
Kohane blinks. “What?”
“What?” Dirt-girl An repeats.
“No– wait.” She frowns and furrows her eyebrows. “Who are you? Why are you– what are you doing here? This is protected property.”
“God, you sound like my landlord.” UberEats driver An runs a hand through her hair in frustration, which is really not fair because she’s not the one whose house is being broken into, but humans are inevitably very emotional creatures. “Your UberEats, dude. Happy Meal? Big Mac on the side? Ten extra packets of ketchup– kinda weird, by the way, but I don’t judge.”
“What the hell is UberEats.”
UberEats driver An’s mouth drops open, stunned into silence. “You’re joking,” she says. “Just take your order, maybe think about driving out on your own when you live in the asscrack of nowhere–”
“ You’re joking,” Kohane replies. “This is– I’m a fairy. This is a fairy forest. You’re in a fairy forest.”
“No you’re not,” An says. Kohane expends the leftover energy from her previous rush of adrenaline to extend her wings, to which An’s jaw unhinges and drops even further. “Holy shit you are.”
Kohane wonders if humans are dumb on purpose. “That’s why,” she continues, clearing her throat, “I must kindly ask you to leave. Unwarranted visitors are strictly prohibited in protected forests and perpetrators are subject to a fine of up to sixty thousand dollars–”
“Holy shit, you really are,” An says. Her voice is smaller, a little more gentle just as her expression softens into muted curiosity. She doesn’t move from her place on the ground but leans forward anyways, peering into Kohane with those bright, gold eyes, struck by poorly disguised awe. “I’ve never met a fairy in person before.”
“Because you aren’t supposed to, ” Kohane hisses. An tilts her head like she pretends not to understand– unless she really doesn’t. “Please leave the premises before I have to physically remove you from the area.”
“Okay– yeah, sorry–-” An chokes up on her words, stuttering at the tip of her tongue. “I just. Yeah. Oh my god. Can I see your wings?” Her eyes water at the corners, so disgustingly pure and harmless that Kohane can’t help but melt just a little. “Please?”
Caught by her demeanor, Kohane lets her wings unfurl for a split second. And then they shoot right back up, folding into stiff creases behind her because God, what’s wrong with her? A flush spreads across her cheeks, uncomfortably hot in the humidity of the night time dew. “No,” she replies, voice wavering through her attempt at rigidity. “Now please lea–”
“That was sick, oh my god,” An exclaims, eyes sparkling in adoration as she stands with renewed vigour and– all of a sudden she’s right in front of her, plastic bag with her Happy-What delivery dropped by her feet as she clasps Kohane’s hands in her own. “Sorry. Can I see them again? Please, pretty please? Sorry. Please?”
Kohane sputters and takes a step back, but An follows, fixated on her face with a scrunched nose and pout on her lips. “N-No,” she repeats, which is not useful at all given how An is still there looking scruffed up and mangled by the wild plants and still unfairly pretty. In this proximity, Kohane can see everything– the nasty bruise on the corner of An’s mouth, the clumping coat of mascara on her lower lashes, and her eyes, her eyes, her goddamn eyes.
Kohane’s wings flutter against her will, and at the sight, An gasps, visibly lighting up. “They’re so pretty,” she murmurs under her breath. Her gaze flickers up from her wings to her, again, thinking. Wondering. “You’re so pretty, too. Are all killer fairies this pretty?”
She swallows a lump in her throat. “You– I–”
“Hey, if I give you that Happy Meal, will you let me see you again?”
“What,” Kohane says, finding the strength to push An’s hands away, “are you talking about–” She sees the bag in the corner of her eyes and glares. “I don’t want your Happy Meal. I don’t even know what that is. And that’s not yours, is it?”
“Nope,” is An’s reply, annoyingly relaxed given her situation. “But they’ll probably cancel anyway. Their fault for living in the middle of a forest and not telling me which one.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I want no part of it.”
“What about the McFlurry? What if I give you that instead?”
“I don’t want that either–” Kohane wears the most intimidating face she can make. Which is not intimidating at all, as she’s been told, but maybe the effort will make her meaner and finally put her foot down and chase this human away. “I have rules to uphold, and you have laws to follow. As per the fairy-human relations chapter of DAIREE–”
“Oh, you’re lactose?”
“What is– is that an insult?” She crosses her arms. “I’m not. And you’re banished. Leave before I call security.”
An raises an eyebrow. “Would you really?”
The answer is no. No, she wouldn’t, because Kohane’s soft-hearted and fairy security doesn’t actually exist and An’s still looking at her with eyes that are too pretty to be human. She can’t figure out what it is, why it’s so hard to look away, but all that matters to her is that she doesn’t care (she does) and she wants An gone (she doesn’t). “Yes,” she finally says. “We’re a very small community, and the forest is important to us. If you were to have met one of the other fairies, you could have terrified them to death.”
“Oh.” An scratches the back of her head, chewing at the corner of her lip. “So if I promise not to come back, can I see you again?”
“Wh– of course not.”
“But I mean,” she continues, tapping a finger against her chin, “I know how to get here now. And if you weren’t here to stop me, who knows who I’d run into?” With a satisfied smile, An hums in feigned thoughtfulness. “What if I decided to blow something up? A tree, or something. Since you know who I am, only you could stop me, right?”
The tone of her voice is innocent, but her face is anything but, overwhelmingly cheeky as she waits for Kohane’s response. Kohane bites on her tongue. She could call her bluff, but the worst part is that she thinks An might be the kind of human to actually do it. She can’t risk the safety of the forest, is what she tells herself– it’s for the community, for their home. Not for herself. She’s not doing it for herself.
Cautiously, she holds her pinky out. “I’ll meet you one more time.”
An’s wary smirk bursts into a wide, bright grin, stretching across her face in blatant excitement. Her hand wraps around Kohane’s pinky (and An’s palm is big enough to cover the rest of her fist too, Kohane notes to herself) and holds it tight, coarse fingers pressing against Kohane’s own skin. “Next week, same place, same time,” she blurts out, smiling so hard her eyes crinkle, moles disappear into her dimples. “I can’t wait.”
I don’t think I can either , Kohane thinks.
But the promise has been made, and An seriously has to go before someone else finds them and takes her much less kindly than Kohane did. Kohane shakes An’s hand off and pats her clothes down, straightening every crease and correcting every misplaced fold. “You’ll go now,” she says, wings beginning to flutter as they draw her backwards. “And please use a map next time.”
“A map?” An says, dumbfounded. “We don’t use maps. I mean, usually I have Google Maps open on my phone, but it died on the way here. Which is how I got lost, you know. They really need to start naming these forests–”
Kohane doesn’t understand half of what she’s saying, and she’s sure An has more gibberish to say, but it doesn’t matter. She waves her hand towards the trees around them and watches as leaves begin to float up from the ground into a makeshift whirlpool, catching onto the plants nearby. As the wind picks up, the small opening they’d been standing in disappears along with it, flurries of muted green obscuring her vision until all she of An is an outstretched hand and the lingering stare of her golden eyes, watching. Always watching.
The forest will guide her home. With her last bit of magic spent, Kohane’s wings fall limp once more, and she trips on her step as she falls back to the floor. Eventually, the wind settles into a gentle breeze, leaving the opening bare once more. There are two dark footprints where An was standing, and a few more that head towards the edge of the forest, and Kohane sighs with relief knowing she’ll make it back safely.
Something rustles to the side. Kohane looks over and finds An’s plastic bag leftover, slumped against the trunk of a tree. She thinks of An’s strange vocabulary– lactose, Happy Meal, Google Maps– and decides to leave it be.
Her hand burns where An had touched it. She looks down at her own palm, soft and smooth like all fairy’s hands are, and wonders if An’s rough hands had once been smooth too.