Work Text:
It shouldn't have been possible.
It shouldn't have been possible, but the Fae woman in red — hair a wild bush of grey streaked with white — still managed to punch a hole out of Faerie. On her own. When it wasn't an equinox or even a solstice when the barrier was thinner. And she even brought a mortal girl with her, wide-eyed and marveling at the pixies lighting the path.
The mortal would discover the darker side of Faerie soon enough, and Five couldn't spare more than a moment of pity for her naiveté.
It was time to run.
It was time to run and never look back.
(She would look for Three and Four by the Barrow at summer solstice.)
The wind welcomed Five with a gentle caress, and her eyes were dazzled by the shining moon and twinkling stars against the deep black of the sky. The sky! After a life locked away deep underground, Five was finally tasting freedom.
Still, she shouldn't have let herself get distracted.
There was a woman on the Barrow. A mortal woman.
That shouldn't have been all that surprising; most of the people outside of Faerie were mortal. It was just that this was the second mortal Five had ever seen.
She resembled the mortal girl — dark hair and warm eyes and brown skin — and Five wondered if this was just how all mortals looked like.
But then the woman spoke — calling anxiously, "Luz? Where are you? It's time to come home!" — and Five's heart dropped.
Of course the mortal girl belonged to someone. Had belonged to someone — she belonged to Faerie now, and Faerie held tight to those in its grasp.
Instinctively, Five started to fade into the tall grass — even most Fae would have trouble seeing her, and it was her understanding that mortals had weaker eyes, especially in the dark — but then a new thought occurred to her.
There was a long tradition of the Fae stealing away mortal children and replacing them with one of their own, and Five had been bred to be an excellent mimic.
She could take the girl's — Luz's — place.
It would be a kindness, she tried to tell herself. The woman's daughter — probably daughter — was lost forever, but there was no need for the woman to mourn. Five could simply slip into Luz's life, completing the exchange. (And incidentally finding a safe haven where she could hide from Titania's Regent.)
The physical transformation would be easy as breathing. Emulating Luz's mannerisms and personality would be more difficult, but Five started to prepare a story of falling and hitting her head.
She needn't have worried. After crushing Five until she squeaked, the woman admonished her for wandering around the night before her journey instead of sensibly going to bed at a reasonable hour. Apparently, Luz was being sent far away to learn a useful trade; Five just needed to fool Luz's mother for one night before being entrusted to strangers. And if "Luz" returned "home" changed after a few months — well, that seemed to be the whole point.
The sun wasn't quite fully up when Five was rushed outside to meet the wagon, but she still found herself squinting in the unfamiliar light.
"Be good, be well, eat your vegetables, and write sometimes," Luz's mother told her with eyes that were overbright. "And focus! I don't want to hear that you've been away with the fairies instead of doing your work."
Five suppressed a flinch. "I won't be," she promised, and she hoped it would be true. For her, if not for the real Luz.