Secrets of the Fae

3

Now here on my table is a Fae with no colors at all, no affinity, no personality, not even traces of pain or despair along the edges. Never have I seen such crystalline wings, colorless, without life or soul. Never had I heard of such a thing in even the most ancient tales. Fae are the wielder's of Mother's magik, they show their affinities in the core of their wings, their personality in the center, and their immediate emotions at the edge. To see wings on a living fae that have no color at all is, or should be, impossible. Even a newborn fae has Mother’s green coating their wings, marking them as her children. I could only hope that the singular lack of color was due to her closeness with death and her extensive injuries. If this broken Fae can be healed physically, can she be healed emotionally, mentally? If she were never to regain the color of her affinity or personality, would she cease to be Fae at all? I was terrified of these questions, and yet I had to try and reverse the damage, for that was my affinity, my nature.

I hovered above the table a moment, taking a moment to make a mental list of her injuries. The newest ones were angry bleeding welts along her limbs and torso, and a single one across her cheek. Beneath that c*****e, I could make out bruises in various stages of healing, several broken ribs and possibly other bones, as well as an overall lack of nutrition and water. She was kept somewhere, for an extended period, tortured and abused at length, with just enough nourishment and time to heal to maintain life. My healer's mind took stock and began planning a healing regimen while my soul grieved, and basked in the confusion of it all. Only my long years of practice allowed me to concentrate enough to work. My work with animals was not so torturous to perform, Mother’s ways can often seem brutal, such as when a cat tears into a deer, but that is her way. The cat hunts to survive just as the deer runs, but the cat does not torture, or m**m, or play with its meal. It kills and consumes, as must every creature, but it is not brutal in the way that these wounds are brutal.

Layered as they are on her body, I can theorize why her wings are colorless. A few Fae can control their emotions and minds enough to slow or cease the changing colors. One ancient Fae, whom I met only once, could empty his mind and psyche of most emotion and thought, presenting wings as blank as a summer cloud, white and soft. If her captivity was long and harsh, possibly she buried her true self deep within her mind, enough to break the connection to her wings.

“You poor creature,” I muttered aloud as I tended to the deepest cuts. I had cleaned each open lash and covered them in a simple salve to prevent infection and promote swift healing. I covered her freshly stitched skin with the same and laid boiled ivy leaves over them to protect them from the linen I would soon be wrapping her in. I stoked the coals and added fuel to the fireplace, bringing the flames into a bright life. I set the kettle and soup pot over the heat to boil, then filled a clean bowl with cool water and a few herbs to soak. I gathered all my clean linen strips as I contemplated how to move her into a sitting position to wrap her torso. With her ribs cracked and the stitches placed and covered, it was necessary to bind her tightly. If I moved her into a sitting position would her wings stay aloft? They lay limply behind her now that I doubted it very much. Moving her could also be painful enough to wake her which could cause her to thrash about, making the work I had completed moot. Could I give her a drop of the sleeping draught without causing more harm to her mind? Did I have any other options? I ground my teeth in frustration and grabbed the bottle of potent potion. I put a single drop on my finger, then laid that finger on her lips letting the draught slip slowly towards her tongue. As an extra caution, I put on a thin pair of gloves I made of beeswax coated linens. They were slightly stiff and hard to do detailed work in, but I could not risk touching her wings while I bound her ribs.

It took several moments of slow movements to get her properly positioned against me. With her head and shoulders resting on my chest I was able to wrap the linens around her, tight enough to keep her breathing shallow and her ribs immobile enough to heal appropriately. I argued with myself about using more of the sleeping draught to keep her asleep for several days, allowing her body to heal and me to continue treatment. But I have never treated Fae, and certainly not one so wounded body, mind, and soul. Sleep for Fae is uncommon compared to most creatures, we sleep only for a few hours once or twice per lunar cycle, instead of several hours once or twice per solar cycle. And I couldn’t be sure of its benefits for healing her, it would also help to be able to talk to her, to discover if there were injuries I couldn’t see. I had to assume there were, but without the evidence plain on her body, I couldn’t treat the damage within.

As I continued to debate the benefits and detriments of sleep, the kettle began to sing. I stepped away from my charge’s prone figure and took the kettle off the flames, noting that my soup pot was boiling rapidly as well. I set the kettle on my stool and gathered the used linens and silks from tending my patient, dropping them all in the pot to be purified and repurposed. After completing the chore I dropped various herbs in the kettle to brew tea for her then set about gathering food as well. Even with the bare drop of sleeping draught, she would stay sleeping for about 6 hours, which gave me plenty of time to eat while I debated on what more I could and should do for her.