Fairy Dreaming

Fabulous Fairies Part Two

Milk Splots, AKA Dairy Fairies

These delicate little feys have pale, almost pure white human-like bodies with droopy puddles of wings that look like a splash or drip of milk. These cunning scavengers hide in piles of straw or camouflage themselves as milk splatters if a farmer walks into the barn while executing their heist. Living in small groups or family clans, many wearing woven straw clothing, these cheeky thieves are much stronger than they appear, stealing half-filled pails of milk or full ones if they can pull off a proper distraction.

This is why farmers want to leave small handled dishes, like broken old teacups or lidless crocks filled with milk, on their window sills to be changed regularly. If the Dairy Fairies are kept drunk and happy, they won’t cause any trouble or pull any shenanigans trying to get the farmer’s pail from the barn. You see, fairies are especially susceptible to certain substances. Milk, for one, gets them in a jolly drunken mood, and these particular fairies are the milk traders of the fairy world.

Even before Human times, they would go about in their crews to the wild goats and sheep of Langrisha’a nestling in their thick wooly hides, collecting the milk themselves and using hollow gourd bottles to carry their prize away, occasionally being sent flying off of a startled ewe. The farmer is a more dangerous creature to contend with in more modern times, but the entire milk pail is a much more worthwhile and coveted prize.

When a full pail is absconded with and flown out to their bower, they quickly send word to the other fairy denizens of the forest of the intoxicating stock. They trade for acorn cap fulls, deep guzzles through cattail straws, or gourd bottle fills. If you have the barter, they have the Milk. Pail parties spring up as the last of the opaque liquid is drained away, and the wooden bucket is auctioned off to the highest bidder to make a new domicile. They are quite sturdy, you know. Farm and Town-based fairies are always in the market for a sturdy bucket to make into a proper set of rooms.

Husk Dancers

These eerie and beautiful fairies are born when the husk of a plant grows, but no edible fruit fills inside. When the husk finally dries and falls off the stalk, a Husk Dancer is born. It could be a tomatillo or gooseberry, which produce the most beautiful dancers, looking like lacy ball gowns with the undeveloped fruit popping up into a cheery bobbing head.

Other varieties include tall and slender corn cobbers with slick green jackets and thin cobs devoid of kernels. Then there are the somewhat bat-like bean pods with their rattly split pod floating on the wind, rustling through the autumn wind, rattling above the beans ripening on the vines.  These slow and uncanny fairies are usually found in gardens, though sometimes they can be seen where wild forage grows in meadows or forest thickets. These beautiful garden dancers bask in the moonlight as they cavort and frolic in the shimmering star shine.

These are the opposite of a garden pest, a real lucky charm to any plot they inhabit. Feeding on harmful insects like aphids and spider mites and dancing around the garden each night, entertaining and distracting local vermin coming over for a midnight snack. It wouldn’t be impossible to see a tomatillo husk dancer twirling a field mouse out the garden gate.

Line Biters

These rodent-like fairies are equipped with a double row of razor-sharp teeth; their compact bodies, nimble limbs, and lack of a tail, wings, or any other protuberance to get in their way make them excellent climbers. Line Biters have long, strong, gripping fingers with broad, leathery grips to avoid rope burns and are covered in dark, oily hair that helps protect them from sun exposure and wicks away moisture when they go in and out of water.

These little critters adore hemp, jute, flax, anything rope is made of. It’s the twisted strands that really appeal to them. Biting through thousands of fibers corded or braided together and held taught is what tempts them up to the top of ships’ masts or church steeples. When the line snaps, they’ve been known to go flying occasionally. The inexperienced among them, who are not prepared, can sometimes be found smashed through a dockside window or made A meal of by a flock of hungry seagulls on a ship deck.

They are far from the most adorable of Langrisha’as fairy inhabitants. Considered a nasty pest by sea-faring and town folk alike, the line Biters proved a much more difficult annoyance to be rid of than first anticipated. The first concerted effort to rid the land of them only caused their population to boom in such numbers that an edict was passed and spread throughout the land. Not a single Line Biter should be killed by a Langrisha’an from that day forward.

Shockingly, their numbers have begun to shrink in the years since. Line Biter populations have not dropped to pre-boom levels, mind you, but the people finally have hope: their ships’ sails and chandeliers will be safe one day.

Bough Sweeps

Somewhat slow and lumbering, a Bough Sweep is born when a human logger callously cuts down a tree at the peak of its health and robust life energy. At that moment, instead of being released, all the energy is concentrated into the heartwood, and the Bough Sweep rises, generating some new sturdy roots for ambulating and begins its life as a keeper of the forest.

Bough sweeps don’t have to be an enemy of human foresters; they can and should be consulted and revered for their knowledge and wisdom in matters of the woods. As long as loggers know not to cross them or question the rules of the woods, they will be blessed with tips on fallen logs and trees ready to be felled. Bough sweeps maintain the trails, keeping their knotty eyes on the health of the forests of Langrisha’a and letting their fairy family know anytime something seems amiss. Such as too many healthy trees being marked, cut, or taken, or in the event of a disease blighting the forest. In these circumstances, loggers hope not to encounter a Bough Sweep in “person” as they will face their woody wrath.

These large fairies have a long life span, but they eventually degrade and mulch back into the forest they were born of. They have no gender or sex and do not reproduce as humans think of it, but they still long for companionship on their endless trek through the woods and tend to pair up. In the case they have not met another bough sweep to pair with, they may be seen with a host of birds in their branches or homing some family of small animals in an alcove on their trunk.

Pinewyn and Elmet, a pair of Bough Sweeps, have appeared in my story Timbre’s Tapestry and are friends with William. As a member of the Fair Folk, Will has grown up in the woods and learned how to harvest and use wood from them. He functions as a go-between the fairies and the human loggers using the Loggers Road.

Starshots

These tiny glowing fairies have huge saucer eyes proportionally for the size of their puny little bodies, at least. They fly high above Langrisha’a over every terrain, their soft white glow blending with the distant starlight. Seeing someone looking blissfully up at the night sky with their impeccable vision sends them into a furious frenzy, diving for the attack.

These enchanting-looking fairies, if anyone could get a close look at one, are similar in appearance to a pixie but with all the bright colors drained away. Their monochromatic palette enhances the soft starry effect their luminosity projects. Their outer beauty is no match for the rage inside. If allowed to collide with a target, a Starshot will explode in a single fey brawl, ripping hair out, kicking and punching the face, likely as tall as they are, and stealing shiny favored objects. An older and more experienced Starshot may even abscond with an Eye or an ear.

Though stories of eyeball stew and earlobe brew abound, surprisingly, they have an all-vegetal diet, eating flowers, seeds, nuts, tubers, and berries. Their temperament is currently inexplicable to the humans of Langrisha’a. Unsure if this is the natural behavior of the Starshot or if this behavior was triggered by the arrival of humans in their land.

Starshots create bell-shaped nests in the tallest trees, woven from thin, flexible branches, where they place their most treasured pilfered objects. The love jewelry with gemstones, the odd monocle, and most trinkets they collect seem round and shiny. Spherical objects are the most highly prized, being placed in the most prominent place at the apex of the dome.

K.B. Silver