FAIRY BLOOD

She lived on a farm as most normal sorts do. She had a few friends. The animals. The trees. And a pig farmer from down the bend named Peter. He was perhaps a little slow. But his heart was good and great things were planned for him. He just didn’t know it yet.

This day started out like any other. Peter and Fran met early to watch the sunrise and catch up on the events of the evening before. But on this day, a stranger rode in from the East and brought with him the winds of change.

This man that stood before them was a knight in training named Stephan from a land far away. He had come from across the great mountains in search of a quest. One look at the raw hero worship in Peter’s eyes and Stephan found himself saying…

For although Fran was not so pretty but not so plain, and would never light up a room, she was the sort of flame one needed to check out what danger lurked in the darkness of a corner. For Fran had a gift. One that you could not see if you only looked at the dirt and grime. It was held in that secret little smile that she held in the leftmost corner of her mouth. Fran had fairy blood running through her veins. And not just regular pixie dust, although it was said a great uncle on her mother’s side may have married poorly and introduced some of that riffraff into the line. No. Fran’s great-great-grandmother had been a full-blooded wood elf. Time and years had banished all the traces of this line, except for that smile. But someone blinded by her plain face and silent ways would never see it. Someone who saw her only when she was loud and leaning towards the pretty would never see it. It could only be seen by someone who took the time to see the small left corner of her mouth. But this was a secret neither Peter nor Stephan were ready for yet.

And so the time past, and the threesome became a part of a close family and their silences began to carry the weight of a thousand conversations.

One night they happened upon a village. But there was something cold that chilled Fran’s blood about that town. Something in the darkness that set her fairy blood to ice.

Entering within the city limits, they found themselves trapped, enmeshed in a darkness that could only be lifted by the three. In the center of the town hidden by a charm was a castle and a king who had a beautiful daughter Alexa. Alexa was fair and sweet and most men who looked upon her were immediately draw to her charms, victims to her beauty, senseless to all else at the sight of her. One day the king had decided to search for a suitor worthy of his darling daughter. He chose instead of judging each man by his merits to judge them by their deeds. He constructed a wily obstacle course out of the whole town that would demand the rigors of brain and brawn, utilizing skills both physically and magically. A powerful sorcerer showed up, not actually wanting the prize, but just wanting to get through the course. Which he did. But when he got to the castle, that princess wanted nothing to do with him. Of course, he wanted nothing to do with her either, but just the same, the thought he would be rejected after going through such an ordeal made him cranky. So he stole the princess and placed the town under the darkness. That maze was kept in place and each night, the villagers transformed into creatures of evil to stop any man or woman from reaching the wizard. For the curse could only be raised if a knight brave and true could make it through the city and into the forest, defeating the wizard before the last sliver of the sun rose above the north mountain.

And thus did the adventure begin. A tale of trust and friendship, of love and betrayal, and the delicate balance of true male and female relationships. And the sad truth that many times things do not end happily ever after. Or perhaps we just don’t know it yet.