Sword of Stars

1

Fawn sat by the second window in her small cottage. The fluffy, first snow came drifting down from the sky. December was Fawn's favourite month. She didn't know why. It could've been because it was the month of her birthday or that the snow that fell was so beautiful. The snow helped her keep track of the years. When the snow stopped falling, it was spring. Spring was her new year.

Her isolation hadn't pained her in years. Fawn was quite used to the loneliness and the quiet. She had come to like it. Even in the dark and cold nights when she knew she was most vulnerable.

Fawn was human, and in Faerie, it was most dangerous to be human. Fawn knew how to protect herself though. She kept an iron dagger under her pillow, a gift from her mother. A mother who wasn't her mother at all. It had been 10 years now since Ailis left her here in this cottage. What was it she had said?

"Keep your wits sharp, Fawn. Keep this dagger sharper." Ailis held the iron dagger in a leather sheath and handed it to the human she called daughter. When Fawn was but a newborn babe, still swaddled in her first blankie, Ailis had swooped in and switched a changling with Fawn. Fawn's parents were foolish and they killed the changling and so Ailis kept Fawn in Faerie to raise as her own. Ailis, you see, had become very fond of the small human. She kept Fawn hidden from the Faerie King for 11 years until one fatal morning, the Faerie King stormed through his city in search of the babe. He slaughtered hundreds of Fae subjects. In that time, Ailis had snuck out of the city with little Fawn in her arms and brought her to the Dark Forest and the cottage that awaited inside. 

"Mama, why are we here?" Fawn asked Ailis. The cottage was cold despite the warm season. It was cold and damp. It sent chills down Fawn's spine. Ailis set her forehead onto Fawn's and smiled. A sweet and sad smile.

"I have loved you as though you were my own," she whispered. Her slender hands were placed lightly on Fawn's shoulders. Fawn shook with fear, her small body incapable of calm. It wasn't that Fawn was shocked to learn that Ailis wasn't her biological mother. That much was obvious with Ailis' honey brown hair and inhuman beautiful looks, while Fawn had night black hair and honestly looked very sickly. "I never wanted to leave you but I have no choice now, or he'll find you. Do you want him to find you?" Ailis squeezed Fawn's shoulder.

"No," Fawn was very confused. She'd never seen Ailis so scared. Never seen that desperation in Ailis' crystalline green eyes. "Mama, please stay."

"I can't. He could track me to you, I'm sorry, Fawn. I'm so sorry." She pressed a kiss to Fawn's forehead and then met her eyes once more. "Never lose sight of yourself. Maybe one day I'll come back and I'll bring you to the human world." Ailis thought about it for a quick second before nodding, "Yes. I'll do that, I'll return in 2 weeks and we'll leave together."

Ailis never came back. 

Fawn had turned to hunting and collecting to survive. She crafted weapons, including a spear and a few knives. In the warm season, she collected berries and nuts but winter was a dark period. No matter how much she loved December, winter haunted her with countless killing and hunger. 

Fawn stood from her chair and made her way to the fireplace. It only took a few steps until she was on the other side of the cottage. She sat before the cinders and burning logs. The heat was entrancing and she could have sat there for days. Often times in the winter, she slept in front of the fireplace rather than her own bed which huddled in a corner, cold and damp. At least in the cinders, she was warm and dry. 

Fawn laid down, curling into a small ball. She laid for hours, creating stories in her head. She had nothing else to do. Most days she would pace around the cottage or sing to herself. She could chop wood but she had done that all day yesterday and her arms were sore, her fingers had splinters. Fawn was tired. She was tired of surviving. When there was nothing to survive for. Ailis wasn't coming back. She had no one, nothing. She barely had scraps. She pulled at a loose thread in her rags and threw it to the fire but it fell right in front of the flames. It would've been easier to walk out into the snow, into the trees and never return. It would've been easier to freeze. Maybe she'd do it.

Tomorrow.

Sleep welcomed her into a new land. A land with Ailis, when Fawn was a little girl. When it was warm and Fawn played outside in the streets with the Faerie children. The children who had no idea that Fawn wasn't like them. A land where there was no king, only Fawn and Ailis. 

Fawn sat outside of her home and watched the others play ball while Ailis healed Fawn. Her knee was bleeding profusely. Fawn wouldn't cry though, not in front of her friends. "You've got to be more careful, Fawn. You're not like the rest of them. You're not indestructible." 

Fawn wasn't listening. She was watching Anson. The boy who lived across the street, he kicked the ball and scored. Everyone on his team cheered and lifted him up. Anson was handsome, for a brute. No matter how much Fawn wished it, Anson never paid her the light of day. Literally. 

"Fawn, are you listening?" Ailis gripped onto Fawn. She snapped out of her trance and looked at her mother.

"What?"

"Are you listening to me?"

Fawn looked down with shame. She was a good child, never talked back or misbehaved but sometimes she got distracted. Ailis blamed that on her mortality, she'd huff but then smile at Fawn and tell her it was all right. "I'm sorry, Mama."

"You've got to be careful. You're lucky that you're so young and I could disguise this. But soon you'll be fully grown, and it would be obvious that you're not Fae when you get cut or scratched and bleed. Everything would be ruined then," Ailis warned. 

"I understand," said Fawn. She stood and dusted herself off. "Can I go play again?" Ailis smiled at her daughter-She never was able to stay mad-and nodded. She watched as Fawn ran back to her friends and joined back in the game. If only Fawn had known then that in the next few weeks her entire life would be flipped upside down. 

If only.