The Fair Folk

The Fair Folk by ChildOfAB
Chapters 1-5 Chapter 6
Discussion

Concerning a young boy named Evan and his dealings with strange, black-eyed beings that seem to have taken an interest in him.

Plot

This article contains spoilers! You were warned.

Chapter 1

Evan is kept awake on the night of a full moon by his yelling parents, and decides to sneak out into the woods at night. He climbs out his window and wanders off to a stick fort he built, only to find that there is a girl inside. She flees at his approach, and he wanders into the fort to find that she's stolen some racy drawings he made.

After some trickery, Evan finally finds the girl sitting on the roof of his fort. She mocks his artistic talents and insists on playing one round of truth or dare for each of the three drawings she stole. Evan agrees.

He bores her the first round with truth, and admits his relative inexperience with the opposite sex. On her turn, she chooses dare, and he dares her to draw him something better than what he drew. She says she can't draw with no light or materials, and convinces Evan to invite her into his fort. When he does so, she somehow appears inside with a drawing of the two of them having sex.

For the second round, Evan chooses dare, and the girl dares him to play her a song on his flute while naked. He strips down and starts playing a song, and almost immediately gets lost in the music. The two of them dance around the candles in his fort, which grows into a much larger place with flaming pillars in the center. Evan grown horns and his eyes turn black, the girl dances back to him, and he ends the song. She says truth, and that it's the only time she'll say it. Evan asks her who and what she is, and she identifies herself as Elle, the shadows in the moonlight.

In the third round, with some encouragement by Elle, Evan dares her to have sex with him. When he finishes, he wakes up in his bed in the trailer, and thinks the whole thing was a wet dream. However, he finds the three pilfered drawings and the one Elle made on his bed.

Chapter 2

On the eve of the next full moon, Evan is at his grandfather's ranch in the country outside his hometown, a half hour drive away from his parents' trailer. School is out and his grandfather is ignoring him to drink and watch the news of an anticipated coronal mass ejection and solar flare.

Evan ventures outside at dusk to go climb a giant tree in his grandfather's woods. He begins to climb and think as the sun sets, but soon realizes he's been climbing far longer than he normally would to reach the top of the tree. Looking out over the landscape, nothing seems familiar. He can't see his grandfather's ranch, the stars are unusual colors, and an aurora borealis starts to form. He finds a strange doll filled with something pebble-like on a branch, and starts to climb down.

A tiny, hovering, black-eyed woman accosts him and tells him to give her the doll back. Evan freaks out and does so, asking her who she is. She refuses to tell him unless he plays a game with her; she chooses hide-and-seek and promptly flies off.

Evan climbs down the tree and finds the environment to be totally different, dotted with huge mushrooms and strange glowing plants. Following the winds, he discovers a campfire with several individuals seated around it. Several of them are black-eyed girls, there are two large things made of cinders, and one boy who looks just like Evan except for the black eyes.

The boy tells Evan to join him, calling him border-walker. Evan denies him. In his fumbling attempts to flee, he bumps into a large mushroom in a moonbeam and finds the flying woman.

She seems surprised that she was found there, then becomes agitated at the sight of the other boy and identifies him as the prince of the black court. She tells Evan to run away, then pushes him.

Evan comes to in his bed in his parents' trailer. He initially thinks he was dreaming, but then realizes that he's at his parents' house, a thirty minute drive from where he started, and where his family is. He sees more auroras outside, and tries to call his grandfather. His grandfather seemingly answers the phone without it ringing and knows it's Evan before he says anything, which makes Evan suspicious. He refuses to answer his questions until his grandfather answers a question, himself. The person on the other end of the line yells at him to tell him about his house, calls him border-walker, and slams loudly against the door. Evan realizes the phone seems to be glitching out and never actually completed the call in the first place.

Evan grabs a deck of cards and tries to challenge whatever's outside to a game, but it does not reply and sets his trailer on fire. Evan runs to the other side of the trailer, breaks out the window, and leaps out with his cat, the cards, a flashlight, and a cast-iron skillet.

As he runs away, something chases him and quickly catches up. It knocks him over, and his cat flees. In desperation, he calls out for Elle, who answers "dare". Evan tells her to kill the monster, and it explodes in a bloody mist.

Elle says that now the three rounds are over, and the game has ended.

Chapter 3

Elle seems surprised that Evan is able to hold the iron skillet without being hurt, and asks him to set it down to try something. When he does, she pushes him, and he somehow falls in a creek a long way from his house.

Gallery

Fanart

By Pudding