Lord of the Fairies 1

Lord of the Fairies, Chapter one.

Geniden reached for the pachi berry very, very carefully. The sweet round fruit was nestled in the midst of a tangle of thorns, more tightly guarded than any berry he’d picked today, but it would be worth it when he got it. The berry was enormous, almost as big as his fist.

Well, his palm wasn’t very big yet, but his Da said that he’d grow as big as him soon, so it didn’t matter much.

‘Oh… Taipan, you’ll have to get it, I can’t reach!” The doe-eyed fairy on his shoulder took her thumb out of her mouth and smiled.

‘I know, but I like to get them myself if I can. And it’s bigger than you are, can you lift it?’

Taipan made a determined face and mimed rolling up her sleeves.

Sure enough when she darted into the net of brambles, she hefted the pachi with ease. Taipan had always been stronger than she looked. A flutter of her wings and she drifted carefully back through the tangle to his shoulder. He held up the bowl and she dropped the huge berry towards it.

Something shifted beneath him and his foot slid on a bit of gravel, at the same time he heard a rumble and a soft smacking sound, like rock striking rock.

Everything went quiet, the birds even silenced in their flight from the mountain shake.

Looking down, to his alternate amazement and dismay, the bowl of pachi berries contained only the single enormous fruit. The others must have been thrown out when he staggered, but he’d managed to catch the big one.

‘The old ring,’ Taipan pointed out.

Sure enough, that’s where it had come from, that sound after the shake.

He debated with her in his head whether to go up there or not, but eventually he decided that he wasn’t in a hurry to get back, and the pachi’s were all gone now anyway.

A short climb later he rounded the corner on the road to the old ring and he almost ran smack into Jano.

Jano was the boy his mother called a yob, he smoked that dry tobacco and he bullied all the smaller kids. Jano always picked on him when he knew there was nobody about.

But Jano wasn’t the one who saw him, Jano was looking towards the next corner, the one you went round to get to the ring. It was Tessa who saw him and in a moment her big fairy, Verel, was practically standing on his nose.

Fairies never touched anyone but their people, and you didn’t touch a fairy, it was wrong his mother said, but Jano and his gang always liked to bully kids. Verel was the worst, though, because he liked making you flinch by almost landing on you.

Tessa called him back and Verel gave him a nasty look before flying back to her.

‘Well if it isn’t little Gen-Gen.’ Tessa cooed at him, ‘Are ‘oo lost Gen-Gen?’ Verel flew too close again and tried to give Taipan a punch on the arm, but she dodged.

‘Alright Geniden, what have I told you about bothering us? I told you that we’d put you and your fairy in the well if we caught you sneaking around anymore.’

They would, too, they’d put one of the other kids into the bucket and sent him down the well the week before now, it was hours before his fairy got free and went to tell somebody.

‘Gen-Gen go down-a well? Aw, how sad.’ Tessa sneered at him.

The other two boys there stepped up around Jano, standing too close to him now, and then they grabbed his arms so hard it hurt.

Geniden fought back tears, he wouldn’t cry, he had never cried after that first time, but he still couldn’t say anything at all. They were all bigger than him, and they’d only hurt him worse if he said anything.

‘Who’s the leader?’ the voice came through Taipan’s ears, not his own.

‘Jano, the biggest one.’ Taipan replied, she was speaking to another fairy.

‘Tell Geniden to act surprised, otherwise they’ll think he had something to do with this.’

Geniden had heard it all, but what had they been talking about? Taipan was hovering behind him now, as if she was hiding from Verel.

‘Come on Gen-Gen, we’re going down to the well.’ The boy on his left enthused in a sing-song voice.

‘But what about the ring?’

‘We can always come back.’ Jano grinned at Geniden nastily.

‘I don’t think he wants to go.’