What happens to humans who are spirited away to the Faerie realm?
Spirited away? What an interesting phrase. There are three main methods humans have of entering the realm of Faerie. The First, and most unlikely, is that the human knows a direct path, gate, or postern of some kind that will grant them entry into that entirely different world, to cross the boundary into the beyond with full intention and knowledge of what they will find there. They know the dangers, they understand the risk, and yet they will follow their own road, making their own choices. The Second method is accidental. A person wandering in a place where the separation between worlds is thin, and the conditions for crossing are right. Most often they simply wander through, never even noticing something is wrong until it's far too late to turn back, never realizing that somehow they've gone astray until the familiar has twisted into the strange and unknown before their very eyes. An ordinary forest behind their house quietly gives way to a forest with much bigger trees, stranger creatures, and is much much more ancient than anything that should be able to exist still on earth. Or an alleyway you slip down to hide from the cops you know will invent a reason to arrest you because you're black; if the alleyway is covered with vines creeping over an old wood fence, if it becomes dark and hard to see, with the grime under your feet silently changing from pavement and cement into earth rich and green, you might not notice it until you step out from the old ruin of a faerie dwelling and into the light beyond. Stepping from one world to another can be swift, seamless, and easier than crossing a stream of water. Yet sometimes it isn't so easy. It could take many coincidences and pure chance to open a way. Patterns, rituals, stories. These are elements of magic, the persuaders of perception, the interpreters of reality. Much is tied to such things, whether we recognize it or not. Our morning ablutions are a ritual, so is the song and dance a person might play if they work in retail, and so too is the choices of entertainment we make. Ritual and pattern, choices to create reasons, reasons to make choices, and the inability to see when we are caught in a ritual we cannot easily escape. Some stories we tell ourselves, or write in books to tell others long after ourselves, show glimpses of these rituals and patterns, the way we think, the way we understand, the way we create. And sometimes those patterns and rituals will lead us to other worlds, often by mistake, tracing the path unintentionally by fulfilling necessary requirements. Touching certain stones in a certain pattern, filling a certain fountain with water from a certain spring, saying the correct words in the correct order. Coincidences, but not impossible ones, just very unlikely. Yet the unlikely happens more than you could ever imagine.
The Third method for humans to enter Faerie is the one you so whimsically name as being "spirited away". Many humans who come this way would agree with you, it certainly feels as if one is spirited away. But I would call it another name, one with fewer positive connotations. Abduction, kidnapping. Whether they are tricked, or lured past a border. Whether they come of their own will because of false promises and the secret intentions of others. If they are threatened or their loved ones are threatened. If they are simply taken, directly and against their will. These are ways in which they could enter into Faerie. It is, tragically, the most common way to reach Faerie. But your question of what happens to them? Many things happen. Each dependent on the reasons and nature of the Fae being who brings a human into a world apart. Sometimes the intentions are for good reasons, though those can often cause just as much pain as cruelty if you're not careful. But far more likely the intentions are not kind, and do not have anything but maleficent intent. Humans are taken and forced to act as distractions, toys, playthings. They are dressed in fancy clothing, paraded about in front of everyone, and then left in an empty room and forgotten about. They are not seen as people, they are seen as pets, and some are not even afforded that luxury, but are seen as things. Objects to possess, but not anything remotely resembling a person. Other humans are given a less glittering cage, put to work and told directly that they have been enslaved. Even here the language used is tricky. "Seven years and a day" and "You agreed to our deal, now you must hold up your end of the bargain" or " Can't break your word, that would have consequences". Child, the Fae are beings who have had time out of human comprehension to reflect and study the nature of words and meaning. To manipulate, to hide, to pretend... it is second nature to them. They can do it without even a single lie, deceiving you through your own creation of meaning. Every word your captors would say to you in order to convince you that you have an obligation to be there, that you must work for them, that you got yourself into this, that you had free will and choice in the matter... every word is meant to draw you deeper into their deception while still being the truth. They will tell you this, if you ask, and laugh at your expression. What fun their little game. And even when you know the rules, you can't stop playing. You can't leave. You can't break the bargain. Because the truth is what it always was, you never had a real choice to begin with. Even the choices you were offered were those given by the faerie luring you to your doom, options between one bad choice and another. Some rare and lucky few have fought for a different fate. Through the kindness of others and their own inner strength, as well as luck so incredibly unlikely that it's almost its own kind of magic, they managed to create a different way of living with the Folk. These folk live many different lives. Some travel and live with courts, others have found the parents they always needed, some have gained the respect of the fae they knew, others have shown incredible wit and cleverness in somehow tricking the tricksters, and some very very few have somehow managed to find real love and friendship among the Folk.
But these lives, though glamorous, are in no way easy. They are filled with danger at every turn, with disaster and heartbreak and the strain of living in a world and with a people that are not made for humans, that barely even understand what it means to be a human or a mortal in general. Our human world is filled with so much darkness and strife, so much so that many would find the idea of living in another world enticing. I too have felt that, I too dream of seeing something wondrous and strange, something otherworldly and magical. But a life lived in Faerie, especially if you had no real choice in that life, is hardly a life at all. It would be a battle every moment of every day, a fight to maintain anything of yourself or your will, anything of you at all. A fight to survive, a fight to even exist as anything with agency, as a person. We fight many such battles here today, in our very human world, and yet there are moments of rest, moments where we can draw a breath and pause to gather our strength and remember ourselves. No such rests exist for us there, where everything and everyone is alien, where even their culture and way of thinking is so unlike ours. Even though there is much they imitate, and much we share, it would be a struggle that few could truly imagine to break past the differences that would assault you at every turn. Many die. Are killed or simply give up the will to live. Another casualty of Faerie, the land of the deathless, where death waits patiently for those who do not belong. Some go utterly mad, losing their sanity to an untold number of things. Eldritch beings or things their minds cannot cope with, the trauma of cruelty or horrific conditions, or even the inability to tell after a time what is real and what is illusory or imaginary. Some escape, with or without their minds, and a lucky few manage to stay away till the end of their lives, while others are drawn or lured back in. And a few grow. When they faced the horrors of the unknown they simply... would not break. No matter how much pressure or stress, no matter the moral quandaries or the abuse or the fear, they simply would not, could not, be broken. This inner strength shows itself in the most unexpected of people, people you often think would be the easiest to break. If at last it shows itself in a person, they grow, they grow and they will not stop growing. Taking in everything, and telling it that it must serve for their self betterment whether it wants to or not. True, they might die or be killed, they might never escape captivity, but they have what many others never do. They have free will, they have their self that they themselves created. It is... a bright star in a dark and endless sky.
