April 2022 - headlights in the dark

[Kaje]

What's happening here? Give us your poems, short stories, haiku, any short fiction that you're inspired to share (just keep it YA and LGBTQ)

[Kaje]

In the Blink of an Eye

When the lights hit me, I know I've screwed up. Two cars, idling on the road between me and your house, engines low in the dark, until the high beams snapped on.

For an instant I freeze, pinned in the brightness like a terrified rabbit. Then I run. Safely away from you, hoping they'll follow. Hoping that where they parked was due to me, not you. Hoping they have no idea about us.

It could just be a human bully thing. I pissed off the Cooper brothers, making them leave Emily alone after French class. They have stupid, loyal followers and cars. I can deal with humans. In fact— I grin, teeth bared as I sprint— I'd love to deal with them here, in the dark, with no cameras and no teachers. But I'm afraid it's worse than the Coopers.

I know this route to your house like the back of my hand. Half a block down, I cut between two houses to the alley. They can't bring cars down this one. Not since the shed at the end collapsed last fall. Only six strides down the dark lane, and I know I'm in trouble.

Of course they weren't hoping to catch me with cars. They were herding me. Here.

The dark ahead smells of horses, and blood, and rosemary. I whirl, but there are hoofbeats on the pavement behind me. Not charging, just slow and steady and unrelenting. They know I have nowhere to go that they can't follow.

Showing fear is the worst choice, so I call a light to my palm and cast it in the air, spreading its glow. "Who dares to interrupt my walk?" I'm super-proud of my steady voice.

The horseman in front of me laughs as he rides into the arc of my light. "Now, little prince, have you lost all your senses?"

Of course, I haven't. Rosemary for remembrance. My father's huntsman reeks of it. Alrik. He rides two more steps toward me, stops, and spins a glamour around us. A human passing by will see nothing but the dark, hear nothing more than a raccoon in the alley.

Alrik looks down at me without dismounting. "Your father sent you a summons, Prince Kelso. He should not have had to send me after you."

"I told my father I'd return in the spring." Once school was done. Once I'd figured out some kind of path forward for you and me. You, the only person who makes me laugh. The guy who touches my skin and lays a hand on my soul. But human. So very, fragilely human. "When the leaves turn full green."

Alrik laughs. "Little prince, your father's summons is not an invitation to tea, to be put off at your pleasure. It's a command."

I know that, of course, but I'd hoped I might be overlooked. My father has ten sons. I'm the last and least important of them. I'd hoped he'd let cut me some slack. "What does he need me for? He has Rig and Nyle, Connor and Fridd, Sevris and Declon—"

"I do know your brothers' names." Alrik cuts me off. "Although speaking them here in the human realm is not wise of you."

I curl my lip into a sneer. "Don't you trust your own glamour?"

"Kelso, Kelso." He wags a finger at me like he did when I was seven and stealing cakes from the royal kitchen. "You know the power of names better than that."

"And yet you've spilled—" I need to push the human slang out of my words, for him to take me seriously. "You've shared my name with the wind three times now." I go by Kevin, here in the human world.

"If you come with me, now, all will be well."

"And if I don't?"

Alrik glances over my shoulder. I'd swear he seems uneasy, though I've never seen the huntsman anything less than confident. "Things are stirring. Dangerous things. Your father is calling together his allies, calling home his sons, making alliances. You are needed, for the bond chosen for you."

"What bond?" I've always been too low in the ranks to be a desirable match in the scheming for power. Six brothers handfasted already, five nephews among them. I was sure I was safe. "I'm not bonding to any one."

"Your father needs the goodwill of the Morganti. They have a daughter your age. This is not a choice."

"I'm not going to handfast with some girl to appease her father! Or mine."

"Are you not?" Alrik rides forward. His warhorse isn't a wiry little elvensteed. Its black head towers over me. He puts a hand on his sword.

"My father won't be happy if you injure me," I say, backpedaling while trying not to look like I'm scared or running away.

"Your father has indulged you too long. Playing in the human world, free of responsibilities and cares. Pretending to be human." Alrik spits on the pavement. "Sense-blind monkeys living pathetic little lives. They're for pity and use, not emulation. Time for you to regain your senses and return to the Realm."

"If they're so pitiful, why is all our music human? Why is all our art stolen?" We fae love beauty, but we're not creators. We steal it, copy it, warp and work from it, but don't have the spark to create it anew.

"Art. Hah." He huffs. "We're facing battle. Power is shifting, and the world will be remade. Art is weak, for times of peace when there's nothing better to do."

I suddenly widen my eyes, staring behind him. "Look out!"

Alrik whirls, drawing his sword, and I run. Three steps and a squeeze through the gap in the boards of the old garage. Seven strides, to the back door. A sprint through the neighbor yard, where the old mastiff wakes to bark softly at me, then louder at the hoofbeats behind me. I'm not sure where I'm going, but I know that if he drags me home, I won't escape again. I'll never see you again.

There are a lot of twisty paths here too narrow and low for that warhorse, and not kind to a man in full armor. I take them, bending low, heedless of the way rough boards and low branches snatch at my hoodie. Five blocks away is the park, and the pool sacred to Gersemi. Even Alrik won't do violence on the bank of that pool.

I run the last bit at full speed, sneakers slipping on the frosty grass. With a gasp, I come to a stop, my feet lapped by the frigid water, and turn. Alrik rides across the lawn at a canter, the second horse— I recognize his deputy Mig— at his left hand. They both stop five feet from me.

I stare up defiantly. "I beg the protection of Gersemi, against violence and capture."

"You fool!" I've never seen Alrik so angry. "Freyja consorts with your father's enemies! And you would turn to her daughter?"

Frankly, I never thought there was much to choose between my father and his enemies. I've talked to Gersemi here a time or two. She flits around her realm, concerned mostly with beauty and treasure. I've made it a practice to toss into the pool such coins and precious objects as I could come by, or steal. She has been grateful.

I wait, my feet turning to ice in the dark water. If I step out, Alrik will have me. But I've never called on Gersemi in the dark. She's a creature of comforts, sunlight and featherbeds.

Alrik lowers his tone. "Come, Prince. Return with me and perhaps I'll not tell your father of your defiance."

I don't snort, though I want to. He's my father's hound, as well as his huntsman. That "perhaps" isn't worth the air it's spoken with. Still, best not to infuriate him, in case this plays out badly. I wait.

"Are you going to stand there all night till your feet freeze and you fall in and drown?" he sneers.

I was never more glad to hear a voice than the soft female one from behind me. "Now, Sir Knight, I'd never let our princeling drown in my realm."

"Gersemi." He clearly wants to sneer, but inclines his head a fraction. He's no match for a goddess. "This is none of your affair. The boy's been summoned by his father."

"His father. Ah yes, the one who executed his mother."

I flinch. Of course, the story's well known, but it still stabs me deep inside.

"He had his reasons." Alrik jerks his chin up. "In any case, it matters not. He's the prince's father and the boy belongs to him."

"The boy belongs to himself, methinks." Gersemi turns to me. "What is your wish here, boy? I'll grant you one, for all the pretties you've given me in the last two years. One wish." She holds out her hand with her golden power coiling around it like smoke.

I scramble to think. I could wish her to send Alrik and his man back to Underhill. But that reprieve would only last as long as it took for them to find me again, and my father's wrath would be horrific. I could ask her to send me to a new land, but I'd be leaving you behind, and they might still find me. I could ask her for a glamor to hide me, but my father has powerful magic workers too. Then the answer occurs to me. The perfect way to take myself off the table, and gain a little vengeance for my mother at last.

"Make me human," I say. "Take my power, all that you wish, to do as you wish, and make me human."

"No!" Alrik acts as if he can override me with sheer volume. "Your power belongs to your father."

"It belongs to me, and I choose where to bestow it." I look at Gersemi. "Can you do that?"

"I can." She reaches out and touches my face. "Are you sure, young prince? You will lose half of yourself."

The half I never wanted. The half that makes me a tool for my father, and a pawn for his allies. "I'm sure. Do it."

"So be it." She ignores Alrik's wordless roar to cup my face in both hands. I'm suffused with the gold of her power, wrapped in it, and for a moment I feel warm and safe and cherished, as I have not since the day my father's men dragged my mother away. "Young prince. Brace yourself. This will hurt." And then she lets go and steps back and her magic pulls at me.

Pain slams down on me! My breath rips from my lungs in harsh gasps. My bones want to pierce through my skin, my blood aches to boil out of me and into her. In my core, that wellspring of my magic is torn from me, its roots clinging, clutching, dragging pieces of my flesh with them. Inside my head I'm screaming, the echoes so deafening I don't know if I'm also screaming aloud.

Gersemi winds her hands, like a woman winding wool, and the silver-blue of my power tears from me and weaves around her fingers, merging with hers. "So pretty," she croons. "So silky smooth and strong. Come to me."

When she's done, I wake from the fire of loss to find myself on my knees in the water, my head clutched in my hands, and my throat raw. I look up at her. For an instant, she seems to have my mother's face, but then it's the Gersemi I usually see, lovely and remote with flowers woven in her hair.

"Inspect him if you will." She gestures toward me. "He's naught but human, and of no more use to you."

Alrik dismounts and strides toward me. I want to retreat deeper into the pond, but with Gersemi right there, I take my courage in both hands and don't move. Alrik reaches toward me, his boots safely outside the water, and touches my forehead. A flash of his power, cold and dark as ice, flows into me. I feel it, nosing around inside me, inspecting the empty corners of my soul. After three long minutes, counting breaths, he steps back and that dark invasion is gone.

"As you say, Lady." He glares at her, but still doesn't dare be rude. "Human. Useless. Powerless. No one will want him now."

"He remains under my protection." She moves close enough that I feel a little warmth on that side. "He's of no use to you, and I will not have you damage him in spite or vengeance. Any who harm him will answer to me."

With visible reluctance, Alrik inclines his head. "I will give his father this news." He turns his icy gaze on me. "You weakling. I always knew you were a liability. I told your father so. But no, he had hopes you might be of use. Well, I hope you enjoy your time in human flesh, mewling and in pain, until you grow old and wrinkled and die an ugly death."

[Kaje]

I straighten my shoulders. "Tell my father—" I want to send defiance. To tell him this was for my mother, or that I'd be happier as a beggar than in his court. But the first might make him seek to punish me, despite Gersemi's patronage. And he'd care less than nothing about the second. "Tell him we are quit, he and I, no bond, no claim, no shared blood. He has nine loyal sons now, more than ample."

I actually wasn't sure about Troy. He'd sometimes been kind to me when we were young, and was more fond of books than swords. But if he wanted to get free, he'd have to make his own way.

"I will tell him." Alrik's lips press in a flat line. I hate him, as the man who grabbed my mother's left arm when they pulled her from her chair, but I don't envy him returning to my father with this news.

They deserve each other.

I kneel there in the cold water as Alrik gives his henchman a hand signal. They whirl and gallop off. At the edge of the park they're joined by two more men riding elven steeds. One of the steeds morphs to automobile form enough to blind me with a headlight, before they vanish into a portal to Underhill. The portal closes and the air hums with their departure, then stills.

I blink away the purple afterimages and shiver hard.

"Poor boy." Gersemi lays a gentle hand on my brow. "Humans do feel the cold so badly." A warmth seeps into me, and to my shock, a trickle of my power returns to me, coiling into my empty core. "Just a taste," she says. "Just enough for a glamour, at deepest need. To keep you or a loved one safe. For your mother's sake."

"My mo-mother?" I ask through chattering teeth.

"She was very beautiful, and kind, and she once gave me the ring off her finger."

That sounded like my mother, all right. I wondered if she'd had a sight about how it might save me one day, or whether it was just her being her generous self. "Thank you. For everything."

"Come by the pond now and then, as you used to." She laughs. "Though I'd urge you not to use that glamour to help you steal pretties for me anymore. You're not what you were."

"Am I h-human now?"

"Near enough." She grasps my hand and lifts me to my feet. "Enough to hurt and age and die in your bed. Enough to feel tonight's chill badly, if you don't get warm."

I open my mouth to thank her, but she gives me a light push on the back. "Go on now, Kevin. Run to your man and begin your life."

No good comes from disobeying a goddess. I sprint across the grass, trying to stay upright on the numb stubs my legs have become. The wind plasters my wet jeans to my calves and I shudder. Five blocks, past where the elven steeds first flashed their lights, past the school where I played at being a human student, past the fast food stand now dark and silent but reeking of fried food, past the house on the corner you think is haunted but I know has a trickster Brownie in it.

Then there it is, your house. The old oak at the back is my ladder to your room. You've left the window slightly ajar and I cling to the branch as I work my fingers under and lever up the sash. It slides silently. You greased it with silicone spray months ago.

You're asleep in your bed, when I let myself in and gently slide the window shut. I can't blame you. It's well past the time I said I'd come. I lift the covers, cherishing the sight of your lean body in the moonlight, thin boxers clinging to your thigh and bunched where I want to see better. I pull off my clothes, slide in under, and put my feet against yours.

You wake muffling a shriek. "Kevin! Jesus, warn a guy."

"Sorry." I press up against you, eager to feel your solid warmth against the new, unfamiliar bone-deep chill.

"So you turn around and do it some more?" But you gather me close and wrap your feet over mine. "You're like ice. Is it that cold out there?"

For a moment, I remember the arctic black of the pond, and the ice like dark flame in Alrik's eyes. My frail human body shudders like a leaf in the wind. But I have a chance now, a new start, and I regret nothing. "Yeah, pretty cold. That's okay, I'll warm up soon."

"I wasted study time, writing a new song," you mumble against my neck. "Gonna bomb my math exam tomorrow."

"I'll let you cheat off me, my bard."

You snort and pinch my nipple halfheartedly. "I don' cheat." Sleep slurs your words. "I can prob'ly get a C. Are you gonna be here in the morning?"

I don't tell you how close I came to never being here again. Maybe one day, when we're old and gray, and you'll take it for just one more of my tall tales. "Yes," I say. "I'll wait to sneak out till after your mom knocks."

"Thank God for door locks, huh? 'Cause I'm beat right now."

"Me too," I whisper, as your breathing slows. But I don't fall asleep. I hold you and murmur, "Thank you, Gersemi, for the blessings in my life." And I ponder how to get that silver statue from mean Mr. Norman's desk, to throw into a pond, someday soon.

####

[K.S.]

Ooo, intriguing!

[Kaje]

K.S. wrote: "Ooo, intriguing!"

:) I liked this prompt picture...

[Gene]

This picture gave me goosebumps. The beginning of this story captured that feeling perfectly. Then the story takes an unexpected but equally engaging turn. Nice read.

[Kaje]

Gene wrote: "This picture gave me goosebumps. The beginning of this story captured that feeling perfectly. Then the story takes an unexpected but equally engaging turn. Nice read."

:) Thank you - this picture does raise possibilities; there definitely could be a contemporary version of this with a very different story. (I thought mine was going to be, but my subconscious wanted to run off with the fae.)