Snippets from Aleyi: a collection of flash fiction

Butterfly Boots (generation after "In the Hands of the Smith")

"Where is my left boot?" The little doddering lady poked stone, wood, and passerby feet alike with her crooked oak cane. No wrinkles marred her shiny grey gown, though some odd stains did. How did someone get grass stains midsleeve without discoloring the hem?

Kurtah Strongman glanced around, but others in the marketplace were avoiding the evidently addled faery. "It be on ye foot, fael," she offered politely, hoping the faery would realize her error from the proper title.

The faery shook her head, still searching the ground intently without looking at Kurtah. "I'm missing a boot, my left boot."

"Beg pardon, but y' be wearing two fine boots." Old and well-worn, yes, but they looked solid enough.

"Nay, lad!" The lady peered around, then poked herself in the foot with the cane. She lowered her tone to whisper, "This is not a boot. This is pretending to be a boot."

Kurtah bit her lip. Humans mistook her for a lad often enough. "What be ye right boot, fael?"

The woman jerked. "Fael?! You dare anger the faeries by using their title on another?"

Kurtah caught a glimpse of herself in the faery's reflective gown: a burly peasant girl three feet tall with an inordinate amount of hair flowing out her ears. She winced. "No human's dress be like 'at, fael."

The faery cackled. "Maybe I'm an elf!"

Elves don't dress like that, neither, she thought, but it would be rude to say so directly, or at least rude enough that the faery might take offense and punish her. "There be embroider magic on ye clothing?"

The cackling stopped. "By my Crystal, you're right!" The faery grinned and pointed. "But I'm not an elf-I'm a dwarf! Look at me!"

Kurtah glanced self-consciously at her reflection. She tugged on her ear-hair, hoping the obviously daft faery would notice what she was speaking with. "Y' say that, fael."

The faery scowled and whacked Kurtah in the stomach with the cane-she gasped as the air left her.

"Not 'fael'! I'm a dwarf, not a faery!"

Kurtah coughed, catching her breath.

The faery squinted at her face and cackled again. "Oh, stop this silliness, lad! Ear-hair's for girl dwarfs!"

The faery grabbed a lock of Kurtah's ear-hair and tugged.

"Ow!" Kurtah caught the faery's hand to try to pry the ear-hair from her grip. "I be a girl dw-a girl!" Some of her village didn't like her reminding them of what her daddy was; her looks did that well enough.

"What?!" The faery went nose-to-nose with her and peered at her. "So you are." She sniffed. "You don't smell like a dwarf."

"I be Kurtah Strongman."

"Kurtah of Strongman?"

The faery's cackle went up an octave. Kurtah winced.

"You lie, lad! No such clan!"

"Kurtah Strongman, fael," she repeated with exaggerated politeness. Any magic could be destructive, but faeries tended to be more powerful than most-and the more insane tended to be the most dangerous. "Me daddy be a blacksmith." A dwarf job.

"So he gave you a dwarf name? How silly!"

"I get me name from me grandmammy." Who was a dwarf, ye fool.

The faery's eyes lit up. "A family of mixed race names? How delightful! Any elvish?"

Kurtah bit her lip, wondering what she needed to say so the faery would figure it out herself, since telling her directly could be taken as an insult worth retaliation. "Me mammy ain't too pretty. Me daddy likes 'er right enough, though."

Another cackle. "You mean you pretend that your father was a dwarf who left your mother in the family way?"

"Me dwarf daddy married me human mother."

The faery shook her head with amusement. "I'm sure. If you're a dwarf, find me my rock."

"Ye rock, fael?"

A somewhat translucent grin answered Kurtah as the faery's corporal form flickered, not that the faery noticed. Dafter than a kobold.

"It's about half the size of your fist."

An' shaped like a boot, Kurtah guessed. If that be what ye need t' believe me, fael.

She frowned and closed her eyes. Cupping her palm upwards, she probed inward for the source of her magic. She mumbled one of the Seeking spells Daddy'd taught her for stone and began walking in a slow spiral outward, still mumbling.

Halfway through her second circle of the spiral, her hand twitched as the Seeking spell pulled on it, stone where stone shouldn't be. She opened her eyes, hefted a nearby sack of grain, and fetched the boot-shaped stone that was underneath.

Kurtah bowed awkwardly as she gave it to the gleeful faery, ignoring the glares of several passerby. One of the old priests had unhinged from using magic not all that long ago and burned half the village.

"My left boot!" Elated, the faery tossed off the left boot she was currently wearing, casting the spell that returned it to its natural form. The butterfly quickly fluttered away from its former captor.

The faery turned her magic on the stone, first removing its false appearance of cheap granite-it was actually an opal-then returning it to boot form. She put it on with a happy sigh. "Finally! Now I can go to the court dinner! Boresome things those, but the court insists after awhile when you don't show, and Alina did promise to make me fish."

Faeries usually didn't like fish. "Ye like the water magic?"

The faery jumped up and clapped, her cane falling aside. "I love it! Some say it drives us insane-I've never seen any evidence of that, have you?-and it's absolutely beautiful! Let me show you!"

The faery spellcast over one palm, producing an aquasphere: a bubble containing what Kurtah supposed were sea things. Others in the market widened their berth.

"Lovely, isn't it? Don't touch! Can't scratch the film; they're hard to keep stable, and if they pop-"

The aquasphere burst in the faery's hand, drenching her. A large finned tail replaced her legs.

Kurtah started making a discreet exit.

The faery hastily restored her legs, but the damage was done. "Where do you think you're going, Kurtah of Strongman? Help me find my boots!"