Introduction

Fairies aren't born. We're made. It's not a lovely process like you'd think. I find it rather disgusting really. About the time that some charming little boy or girl matures and loses their last childlike impulse, we stem into being. We are what’s left of their innocence. Ironic that we aren't more saintly. We hatch out of cocoons like butterflies. Only, we don't come out all colorful and pretty. We come out pale, our wings still wet and translucent. It takes days for them to dry enough for us to fly, giving us adequate time to stew over our existence. Dodging birds and beasts with no way of fleeing can make one awfully bitter. My creation was unusual. In fact, I know of no other fairy like myself. My donor was still a child when I was born. The adult world called to him and he refused to answer. So it passed him by and went on its course. I came to think of myself as Fate's cruel joke. Until the boy decided to grow up, I was bound to him. It was like an umbilical cord. No matter how often I tried, I was unable to break its hold. Because of this I lived most of my life at someone else’s disposal. I had no adventures of my own, only his. Some of it was fun, like watching pirate fights and listening to mermaids sing at night. But mostly it was demeaning. The boy, Pot (or Pan or Kettle) as he liked to be called, would sometimes stuff me in a discarded bottle and use me as a lantern. He once threw me in a crate and made me fight off a spider. His friends cheered and placed bets on the spider to win. He was a cruel little boy. I think by eluding age he doubled his amount of mischievous youth. I knew it had to end at some point. Two hundred years had passed since my birth and time had done nothing but make circles. I saw other fairies in the distance playing and carrying out their lives and I envied them. I bided my time. The boy eventually took on a female friend. I thought perhaps she would save me. Then I realized that her intentions were not to pull him into adulthood, which is where she was going, but rather to have fun and be done with him. So I tried to have her killed. It’s what any sensible fairy would do. “Shoot the lady bird!” I told Pot’s friends. I wasn’t all black hearted, as you might think. It was the years of being a captive that made me go a little insane. That day I was also a bit drunk. The pirates made a mighty fine mead back then, 98 proof. I’d taken to stealing a nip every once in awhile to calm my nerves. I sharpened the Lost Boy's arrow and watched as he cast it, true to its mark. But alas, Pot’s girlfriend was not so easily murdered. Had I known that it would be her daughter that would pull him through that window and set me free, I wouldn’t have been as hasty to kill her. Jump ahead a little bit to the night the boy gave his future wife a “kiss.” I waited on bated breath as he fumbled with that stupid thimble. “Do it you fool!” I hissed. The moment Pot made up his mind to stay, the open window I had been watching from slammed shut. I thought maybe it was a gust of air that sent me sailing that night. Now I know that it was my own compulsion to be free. My happiness didn’t last long though, for soon I came across a witch, a witch that liked the taste of living things, of thinking things, and magic things. As if a normal witch weren't bad enough.