Finding Fae

I didn’t know how to react. Should I be angry? Sad? Should I deny it? Embrace it? I mean, what does one do when the man they thought, for their entire life, says that he isn’t actually their father? I can tell you what they shouldn’t do. They shouldn’t get up, throw both of their shoes at him, and then run away.

Well, I tried to run away. Nando may big a little on the hefty side, but that boy could move. I was lifted off my feet and I yelled wordlessly as I kicked my feet around, trying to get free. Nando wasn’t as tall as the others so I almost managed to get away. Until Blaine came and tossed me over his shoulder.

“Blaine, if you don’t put me down right now, I swear, I will make your life miserable,” I shouted as he carted me inside.

“There is nothing you could do, little Pixie, so stop squirming,” he said and flopped me down in one of the mismatched chairs at the kitchen table. “Stay. Do not make me chase you down, because I will tie your skrawny behind to that chair. Got it?”

“Ugh! Why are you people so freaking nuts?!” I yelled.

“You have to hear what he has to say,” Zane said, crossing his arm and leaning against the counter by the sink. “What happened last night... I can lead to very dangerous things if you don’t know what you’re doing, and you obviously don’t.”

“I’m curious when the heck you were planning on telling her?” Ben asked Dad. Well, I guess he was just Gary now. “Her birthday is when? What was the idea going through your head when she went through her Awakening?”

“April,” Gary said quietly as he took the chair across from me. “I had hoped that it would be subtle, like her mothers.”

“Wait,” I held up my hand. “Is the woman in your wallet my mother, or was that a lie, too?”

“She’s not your mother,” he sighed heavily.

“Oh this is going to be a blast,” Nando rolled his eyes and started making some tea for us all.

“Start talking, or so help me, I will break every bone in your body, old man,” I snapped and he flinched.

“My wife, Ricca, was a maid. One night, she comes home with this bundle of blankets and said it was going to change our lives,” Gary shook his head. “It was you. I asked so many times where she found you, but she never answered me. She only said you were a gift. A few weeks later, she started getting nervous and paranoid, like she was looking over her shoulder for someone or expecting something bad to happen.

“When she came home from the market out of breath and frantic, I started putting the pieces together,” he hung his head. “Ricca didn’t find you and you weren’t given to her. She stole you. I didn’t know where from and I was a different person back then. I didn’t care. I just knew that Ricca truly believed that you were the answer to every problem there was.”

“Did she say what type of fae she is?” Ben asked from the pantry, his mouth full of chips.

“She just said she was different,” Gary shook his head.

“But you know how my real parents are,” I said. “You said that you hoped the Awakening would be subtle like my mothers. Who are they, Gary?”

“I will never tell a soul that,” he said firmly. “If anyone found out, I’d be worse than dead.”

“If you know who her parents are, you know what type of fae she is,” Zane said.

“I’m not saying that either,” Gary glared.

“So this is real?” I asked. “Like, it’s actually happening and I’m not having some sort of very vivid hallucination because of the drugs last night, right?”

“What drugs?” Gary narrowed his eyes at me.

“It wasn’t drugs,” Nando said handing out tea. “It was Elixir. The drink were spiked with it.”

“You took a human to a fae party?” Dad nearly bellowed.

“Apparently, I’m not human and since I was kidnapped, that makes you my abductor, not my father, so pipe down,” I yelled at him and he blinked.

“You’ll be Awakening before your birthday if you keep that up,” he said, glaring at me. “I’d be careful. You don’t know how to handle the things you do and the results could be... messy.”

“And whose fault is it that she is wholly unprepared for any of this?” Blaine slammed his cup to the table. “If you don’t start saying things that are actually helpful, we’re have no choice but to take this to Council.”

Gary glared hard at Blaine and I saw, for the briefest of moments, that Gary looked nothing like Gary. He looked like one of those horrifying paintings of a demon. Horns, red skin, face pinched together in a permanent scowl, yellow whites surrounding black iris with a red pupil for eyes. As soon as I saw it, it was gone, just like Ben looking like a fox.

“Hold on,” I looked at every person in the room. “Are all of you fae?”

“Yes,” Zane said. “We’re all fae. How do you think we know so much about this?”

“And you’ve all had the Awakening?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Nando said. “I’m not eighteen.”

“Ben isn’t either,” I pointed out.

“I’m a fox demon. We’re a little different,” he winked as he raided the freezer and found some ice cream.

“So this thing. It happens at eighteen?” I asked.

“Usually. Sometimes, the nature of our blood comes through before then,” Blaine said looking at Zane. “His was three years ago. Mine only a few months, on our birthday. Without proper understanding and control, Gary is right. The Awakening can get... messy.”

“Like exploding jello messy?” I asked, knowing better before I even opened my mouth.

“More like exploding person,” Gary guffawed.

“Oh. That’s all?” I asked, feeling lightheaded.

“Crap, Blaine! Catch her!” Nando shouted as I slipped away.

---------

I cracked my eyes open to see I was in the living room on the old, worn out couch with a blanket over me. I looked around and only saw Nando, sitting in a chair staring at the floor by the window across the room.

I moved to sit up and he looked at me a smiled.

“Welcome back,” he said and got up to bring me a cup of some hot cocoa. “With marshmallows.”

“Did I seriously just faint?” I snorted and took a sip of the warm liquid.

“I’m impressed it didn’t happen sooner, to be honest,” he smiled wider. “It’s a lot to take in and I grew up this way. I can’t begin to imagine what your going through.”

“Would it be rude to ask which type of fae you are?” I asked.

“I’m a mix breed. A little of this, a little of that, a whole lot of confusing,” he chuckled. “My family is mostly brownies and garden imps and gnomes. Useful and timid, great with herbs.”

“You weren’t so timid last night,” I remembered.

“I said we were mostly useful and timid. I didn’t mean we always were,” he winked.

“An Ben is really a demon?” I asked.

“Fox demon,” he corrected. “Don’t let the “demon” part put you off. They’re not evil. Tricky and mischievous, but typically good natured. They’re also incredibly promiscuous.”

“That explains a lot,” I laughed.

“The others are still grilling Gary to try and get something else useful out of him, but Demi’s are incredibly difficult,” he said and sat down on the edge of the couch.

“And a Demi is...?”

“Kind of like what you think of as a demon. Brutish, combative, stubborn, can have a wicked temper,” he answered. “They’re seen as evil because of their nature, and most of them can be pretty nasty, but not all of them are like that.”

“And no one seems to know what I am?” I asked as I sat the cup down.

“Fae, when you were in that pool, just before Malachi jumped in, you did something,” he said, looking at me. “It’s not something done easily and not lightly, either.”

“Wha-at did I do?” I asked slowly.

“It was a Call,” Ben said from the doorway to the kitchen. “It’s not something Nando would have been able to feel full force, because his Awakening hasn’t happened yet. It’s kind of like your spirit, or your soul, calls out for the parts it’s missing.”

“My soul is missing?!” I exclaimed.

“Dude,” Nando gave Ben a scathing look. “You suck at this.”

“Your soul isn’t missing. It’s just not complete,” Ben said. “No one’s is until they find the parts that are missing. Humans would call it “soulmates” but that’s a load of bull.”

“It’s not always about sex,” Nando said. “And there’s not always one. Rarely is there only one.”

“I’m confused,” I frowned.

“Have you ever been around a person and just felt like you were supposed to meet?” Ben asked. “That’s kind of what we’re talking about. You have a round hole. Someone is a round peg. Not all round pegs will work. Some will be too big, to small, not quite round enough, too round. You’re looking for that perfect fit.”

I thought about it for a moment before I nodded. I didn’t have many friends before meeting these four goofballs. Keeping myself from being noticed meant having friends wasn’t easy. Even the ones I did have before were more like fond acquaintances than actual friends. I didn’t have the luxury of hanging out after school or going shopping on the weekends. I didn’t stay at any ones house and they never stayed at mine. But these nut jobs? Yeah, they were meant to be part of my life. Round hole meet round peg.

“Well, we aren’t going to get a thing out of him anymore,” Blaine huffed as he stomped into the living room. “Good to see you up, Pixie.”

“So, did you get anything at all?” Nando asked as Blaine took a seat on the chair Nando had vacated a while ago.

“Nothing we couldn’t have guessed already,” Zane groaned and leaned his elbows on the back of the couch between me and Nando. “When you were in that water, and you did your Call, all four of us felt it.”

“Ben said Nando couldn’t,” I said.

“I said he couldn’t feel the full force of it,” Ben held up his finger to correct me.

“Because we were so close to you, and we already know one another fairly well, there was no other option but for us to answer,” Zane said. “Which is why we all ended up at Ben’s house last night and why, this morning, none of us could stand the thought of not being nearby, in case you needed us for something.”

“I am not dating any of you loons, so get that thought out of your heads right now,” I scolded and Blaine laughed.

“Ben explained,” Nando said and Zane rolled his eyes.

“That’s not the- Jesus, you suck at this, Ben,” Zane shook his head.

“Humans had the general idea right,” Blaine said. “It was just modernized as times changed. It’s not really soulmates so much as soul bonds. Physical attraction isn’t always a part of it. Some times it’s more about the mental state.”

“Think about it, Fae. What do we do for you as individuals? There’s a reason why you seem to prefer one of us over the others from time to time,” Ben said. “Some thing we have, you need, just like we all get something different from you.”

“You make it sound like a disease,” I snorted.

“Yeah, well, as of last night, we’re your diseases,” Ben said then made a sour face. “And that came out very wrong.”

I couldn’t help laughing at the matching looks of “how stupid can you be?” that Ben got from the entire room. It sort of felt right. Complete, in a way, but still missing something.

“What is it?” Nando asked.

“Nothing,” I shook my head and replaced the smile that had fallen. “Just... it’s a lot. I’m not sure how to react to all of this.”

“That’s probably why I can’t seem to leave the room without feeling super anxious,” Nando nodded. “Guess that makes me the emotional support.”

“Lucky,” Ben grumbled and Nando grinned wide and full of cheer.

“I’ve lived my whole life thinking one thing and now, all of a sudden, I’m not that at all. I dunno what I am, and no one seems to want to answer that,” I said. “My parents were never my parents, but my kidnappers, I’m some sort of freak of nature, even to the other freaks of nature, no offense.”

“That did sting a little bit,” Blaine grimaced.

“I don’t know who I am, where I came from, or even what I am,” I huffed as I got up and started pacing in front of the couch. “I did this freakish thing that no one is supposed to do untrained, for some reason or another. Why is that, actually?”

“While the Call brings you closer to those meant to be bonded to you, there are also others that are the opposite. They’ll break you in ways that aren’t easy to fix,” Gary said gruffly as he walked from the kitchen to the stairs at the edge of the living room. “Demi’s call them Breakers.”

“Fractures, for us,” Ben raised his hand.

“Shards,” Zane, Blaine, and Nando said.

“Just like those bonded to you, a Breaker will be drawn to you, should it be within reach during the call and the following few weeks afterwards,” Gary said. “They’ll feel important, just like the real deal, but it’ll be off a little, if your instincts are sharp, and yours are very sharp. I made sure of that.”