Advent Story 2012: The Fae World: Willow: On Earth (part 9)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

“Is that something you found out recently, when you found the book,” George asked, “or is this something you always knew?”

“We found that out recently,” Willow replied, with the same feelings she had when she first found the book welling up inside her. It was another reason she was angry with her father, because he’d known that it had happened before and still chose not to push the council. “The only person who could have known was my father and he chose not to share the information with anyone. I don’t even think my mother knew about the book.”

“So it must have been passed down from ruler to ruler since the fae travelled from the home world to the world you just left.”

Willow nodded. “That’s the only thing I can think happened.” She sighed. “None of them seemed to have shared what they found out with the rest of the fae, but that’s not something I can know for certain. Our history is…” She looked at Alder, at a loss for words again. “At the very best it’s confusing and at the worst…”

“Most of the fae appear to have very little interest in our history, as though it doesn’t matter, but once you start trying to study it there are problems,” Alder explained. “The fae live for a long time. We have what could be called batches of children.”

“I was the youngest of my father’s third batch of children,” Willow said.

“Keeping family trees is one of the most important things for the fae to do,” Alder continued, smiling at Willow. “There’s a tree keeper in every family. My father was the tree keeper for our family and I was always fascinated by what he was doing. When I was old enough I decided that I wanted to start studying fae history and, stupidly, I expected our history to be as well documented. It isn’t.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Some periods are well documented, like the reign of Willow’s grandfather, but others… There are huge gaps in our history and it’s not something that was ever taught to us.”

“We don’t have schools,” Willow said. “There are tutors who often take on groups of children, but they mostly teach us how to use our magical abilities, and I was never taught any of our history. My eldest brother and sister might have been, because they were the two who were the most likely to rule, but I wasn’t and I know that most of my siblings weren’t.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t particularly interested, until I found the book in my father’s desk, which isn’t something I’m proud of now.”

“It’s not something we’re encouraged to be interested in,” Alder said, and Willow felt him gently touch her arm as if he was telling her not to reproach herself. “My father, although he was fascinated by our family’s history and how our family’s blood mixed with the blood of other families, didn’t care about the history of our race as a whole. It seems illogical, but studying the family was more about magic than it was about anything else, and how he could mix our bloodline with others to gain certain abilities. I think he was possibly contemplating taking another wife before he died.”

“Are you polygamists?” George asked, still scribbling in his notebook.

“We don’t have marriage in the same way humans do,” Willow replied. “A handfasting between two of the fae normally has a specified end date that’s decided in advance and then it leaves them free to marry again in the future. Some do choose to extend that time if there’s some reason to, like falling in love.”

“A lot of it is about magic, again,” Alder continued, sounding exasperated. “Magic is everything to the fae and I know that my mother was chosen specifically by my father because of her family’s magic abilities.” He sighed. “He was trying to convince me that it was time I should marry and he had a list of possibilities.” Willow felt his eyes on her. “One was the youngest fae princess, I think because of Willow’s ability to create doors, and that was one of the abilities my father wanted his grandchildren to have.”

Hearing that Willow turned to look at Alder. She could tell he was embarrassed by what he’d just admitted to and she couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable, but she knew that her father would have been doing exactly the same thing as Alder’s father. Everything was about magic and she knew that the choice would have been made based in part on magic abilities as well as what her father could get from the family he handfasted his daughter into. Her eldest siblings had already been handfasted and one of her older sisters, one she hadn’t seen in years and hadn’t been able to get in contact with, had been handfasted to a prince from another sect.

Willow had a horrible feeling, from notes she’d seen on her father’s desk, that he’d wanted to handfast her outside their sect of the fae too. He’d been thinking about the possibility of handfasting her into the thirteen families, which was terrifying, but now she had different options. If he didn’t wake up then she’d have to choose her own partner and for the first time it was something she hoped for, because she no longer really trusted her father’s judgement.

“That is simply the way things are in fae families,” Willow continued. “It can be difficult.”

Alder nodded. “One of my eldest sisters fell in love and wanted to handfast someone that my father felt was wrong for our family. She tried to convince him that the fae she’d fallen in love with would bring something to the family, but he didn’t want to listen to her reasons, because he had someone in mind.” He sighed. “In the end she ran away with her lover, because she didn’t want my father to make the choice for her. She felt it was her choice to make and I agreed with her.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.