October Prompted Fiction: Fae School Collection: Autumn - Talking about Fireworks Night: 510 words

[k_a_webb]

Written for forgottenspirits' prompt about what the fae think of Fireworks Night.

The separation between the two races meant that the fae knew about Fireworks Night but very few truly understood the meaning behind it. Autumn had seen plenty of fireworks from her window, on Fireworks Night and other nights, so she knew what they looked like. To her fae eyes they were pretty and she understood that humans didn't have magic to create pretty lights so they had to use explosives. If she compared the lights the fae created to fireworks she knew without any doubt which of the two were safer. Of course, they were very different things with origins that had no connection with each other. Fireworks had existed long before the fae arrived and humans would never let go of something that they loved so much. 

It wasn't until Tamara entered the fae school that Autumn finally had the meaning of Fireworks Night explained to her. “There is a historical reason for Fireworks Night,” Tamara said as they watched fireworks through the window of their dorm room. “It has several different names but I've always called it Fireworks Night. In 1605 a man named Guy Fawkes tried to assassinate the King of England at the time, James the first, by blowing up the House of Lords. He failed, do he and has associates were executed, and then a law was passed so that people would celebrate on the fifth of November every year. People may have a bonfire on which to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, or anyone else they happen to dislike.”

“You have a long and bloody history,” Autumn replied, as they'd had many conversations about human history during the three seasons that Tamara had been at the school.

“Yes, we do.” Autum felt Tamara's eyes on her. “What do you think a fae King or Queen would have done if that had happened to her.”

“It depends on the King or Queen.” Autumn thought for a moment. “You know that before we came to Earth there were several different Royal families.”

“River taught me about the Royal families in depth, because I was interested in how it all worked.”

“That sounds like River.” She smiled. “Each Royal family had a different way of treating people who attempted to assasinate them. If you take our current, and only, Queen Willow's family then they would have been likely to imprison the person who tried to assassinate them. That could be more dangerous that execution, especially if there was someone who truly believed they should be on the throne. On the other hand, if you were stupid enough to attempt assassinating the Dragon King then you would have been executed. None of the Dragon Kings believed in mercy.”

“I'm kind of glad the dragons never made it through,” Tamara said.

Autumn nodded. “So am I.” She couldn't help feeling slightly guilty because that could mean that the Dragons were trapped on their dying home planet. “Just hearing stories about them used to terrify me, so I can imagine what it must have been like to live with them.”

© K A Jones 2011


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

Feedback

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>He failed, do he and has associates were executed<<

I think that should say "so he and his" above.

This story is eerie and fascinating. Human history really is bloody.