The Fae World: Kalinia: Meriel: The Arrival of the Fae

[k_a_webb]

Everyone had been warned. That was the good thing about there being a Seer within the {race}. Unfortunately they had been told, more than once, there was no way of stopping the arrival of the fae. It was going to change their world, but that was something they were just going to have to find some way of dealing with, no matter how hard that turned out to be. Of course it wouldn’t be long before the fae started putting doors all over the place, because that’s what they did. Some would take them to world that they knew, where they traded, while others would take them to world entirely new to them, due to the position of Kalinia. On those worlds they might be able to start trading or they might do the same thing they did with Kalinia: create the door, check out the world, and then leave it.

The thing about the fae was that they’d never worked together. When they lived on Shadur, the world they’d just left behind, there were seventeen different groups. Each had allies, enemies, and groups they felt neutrally about, so it was likely the same thing would happen on Kalinia, once they started feeling comfortable again. If it did… Meriel didn’t like to think of what might happen. She just wished she could have stopped them from travelling to her world, especially as the Seer had told them what was coming. Often Seers were cryptic, so they didn’t change too much, but their current Seer was different. Finding out that the fae were coming to their world had changed things for everyone.

Meriel stood alone, keeping watch. They were unlikely to start exploring for a while, but she was going to be ready for them when they came, because her people needed to be kept safe, at least to begin with. She didn’t doubt that they would ally with one or more of the fae groups, in the same way she didn’t doubt that they would find enemies there too. Yet she still wished she could have stopped their arrival for happening. Having such a magical race on Kalinia would bring magic back to the world and that was something she was beginning to worry about. Even though they hadn’t been there for long she could already feel it.

Although magic wasn’t dangerous often the people who wielded it were. For a long time Kalinia had been a low magic would, but it had enough for the fae to want to call it home, and they had no idea what would happen. The fae, sadly, knew very little about their own abilities, which actually wasn’t their fault. She knew that. Being there for their creation meant she had to, especially as she’d told them then that creating the fae was a huge mistake. Giving them magic was an even bigger one. Dumping them, alone, on another world… Meriel sighed. It was a surprise they’d survived and yet she’d had a horrible feeling that they would. Now they were back where they’d originally come from, even though they didn’t know that. Unless one of them felt the urge to ask the right questions none of them would.

It was probably for the best. Telling them where they’d come from would just lead to more questions that Meriel wasn’t ready to answer, not after everything that had happened since then. She sighed. Had it not been for her people she probably wouldn’t have survived and she still couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or not. As she stared out into the forest she couldn’t stop herself from thinking of a past she was trying her hardest to let go of, only to find that something had happened to bring it all back in such a way that it hurt all over again. When a tear trickled down her cheek she scrubbed it away. No – she wasn’t going to let herself think too much about it, not when she had done so much to get herself through it, and she had.

Unlike the rest of her race Meriel had survived. She was going to keep surviving. Her life wasn’t what she’d planned in it being, she was going to have to learn to work alongside the fae, but that was possible. It was going to happen. Unless she left Kalinia behind she wasn’t going to be able to get away from them and she was not going. Kalinia was her home. Not only that it was the only thing that had stayed the same, which was something she still desperately needed after everything that had happened. Biting hard of her lip she pushed the memories away again, telling them to stay gone, because she didn’t want to deal with them, she didn’t want to think about it, and she really did not want to start crying, because then she’d have to explain why she was crying…

Breathing deeply she tried to calm herself. Meriel was going to be able to cope with everything. The changes were something she wasn’t entirely ready for, but being warned in advance had helped a lot. She brushed a hand through her hair, letting the scent of the forest help to push away as many of her worries as it could. Letting it all get to her so much wasn’t helping at all, although if she was going to be ready for the fae she might have to permit herself to cry over things she thought she’d moved on from long before. Maybe she was being too hard on herself, though. It was something she knew she could be and the things that had happened weren’t exactly easy to just get over, not when… she shook her head. No going back. Not yet. Eventually there would be time for that and she would let herself remember everything, but until that day come she was going to focus on the present as much as possible.

Of course there was also the future. It was a future Meriel had never been able to imagine happening, which might be a part of the problem. If she had been able to see the return of the fae maybe it would be easier to cope with. She wouldn’t feel so much like her entire life had turned upside down, because at that moment it really did, even though she was home. The fae being there changed it, made it into the world she had hated, and if she could let go of that hate things might be easier for her, although she doubted it. Even though she tried to stay as unemotional as possible she often failed, especially when things made her sad or angry.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.