Fairies and nymph — all mythfolk, truly, but Lance himself is half each fairy and nymph, so that’s for whom he speaks — are wary of humans. Individual humans are often quite charming, but in groups, or even alone and startled, and humans become prone to hysteria and panic. Their fear of what they do not understand makes them unpredictable. Dangerous.
It is for this reason that no fairy is encouraged to speak with a human. If you see one in the wild, you’re advised to fly quickly in the other direction, to flee. No one is expressly forbidden, but may the gods help those who are stolen by greedy humans, because no fairy will risk their wings.
Lance’s mother has banned him from even gazing at a human since he was a child.
Lance has never followed a rule he doesn’t like.
Lance has been enamoured with humans ever since he heard the first whisper about them, late at night by his oldest brother. The story had been meant to scare him, surely, but it instead lit a fire in young Lance’s veins, a curiosity that burned so bright that no amount of fear could quell it. He spent and spends most of his time exploring, observing humans at a distance. A distance to close, his mother would say — but any distance would be too close for her. Lance knew to keep himself safe, to keep more than a stone’s throw away.
But he could not stop himself from watching them.
He could never fully understand them. Their language seems to change from person to person, and is so deeply and personally contextualized that any attempt to discern the foreign sounds is ludicrously futile. He has tried, more times than he can count, to repeat the strange sounds to himself, discover their meaning, but has never found success. Instead he memorises their mannerisms. Humans gesture and act very similarly to each other; enough that after years of careful observation, Lance can often understand their intents and desires, the fruits of their conversation. Never details, nor stories, but feelings — he knows their emotions, and the way their bodies display them.
Most humans who enter the forest where he lives do so in pairs, or individually. Rarely does he see groups of three, and rarer still any more than that. When he sees large groups, though, they almost always have the same goal: to hunt. This group is no exception. There are at least a dozen of them, that he can see. All wear strange clothes and carry strange weapons. All walk in a cautious, particular sort of crouch, constantly searching for game.
Despite their strange attire, Lance is no more scared of them than any other humans. He trusts himself and his own ability, and he trusts to humans to act as they always do. Humans are creatures of habit, after all.
Except… these humans are not acting as Lance has watched hunters act. One by one, they seem to separate from the group, picking a direction seemingly at random and rushing off into it. They continue this strange pattern until the last of them runs off, turning abruptly around a tree until they are out of Lance’s sight.
Confused, Lance gently lands on the ground, standing on a soft patch of moss. He spins in a slow circle, looking as far as he can into each direction of the forest, but no hunter makes themselves visible. Lance’s wings flutter in perplexion. Of all groups who traverse into the forests, hunters carry the most camaraderie. They rarely leave each other’s sides, preferring instead to corner game together and congratulate one another for a succession shot. This behaviour is strange, even for humans.
A sudden, barking yell pierces the air, and before Lance can take for the skies, a net falls right above him, entangling him and throwing him to the ground. Only, then net is nothing like the ones he weaves to fish. It’s heavy, the lines thick, and sharp barbs dig into his skin and catch onto his delicate wings.
He cries out, in fear and in pain, but the sound is drowned out by the dark laughter and merry congratulations of the many hunters who have revealed themselves from behind a ring of tries.
Lance feels his eyes well with panicked tears. While it’s true that he’s not infallible, and it’s possible that he’s been spotted before by the humans he observes, he’s never been — tricked. Hunted.
Betrayed.
Lance wrenches away from the first rough touch in his skin, but in seconds the rest of the humans have a hold on him, scratching and pinching and gripping, in some places. He feels a fist wrap around the delicate skin of his wing, and screams in terror. He begs them to let him go, but they cannot understand him, and only laugh at his tears. Lance begins to realise that they would not release him, even if they could understand his words. He is their prize.
In a desperate attempt to escape, Lance summons all his energy, rapidly changing his shape and size to throw the humans off. Many of the humans startle, their yells of elations turning rapidly into those of fear and anger, and most hands pull away.
But one does not. One hand remains steady, clenched tight around his wing, no matter Lance’s size.
Lance, it seems, has a choice to make.
If he stays, his energy will fade. He will quickly lose any upper hand he has, succumb to his exhaustion, and these humans will have a hold on him completely. But if uses the last of his energy to wrench himself away now, he will be free. Whatever the cost.
Lance makes his choice.
He gathers the last of his strength and throws himself as far away as he can. He hears a horrible ripping sound before he feels it — the excruciating pain of his wing tearing off his body. His skin, too, scratches and tears, the barbed wires of the net ripping from his flesh as he pulls himself free.
But he escapes. Bloody and half dead and never able to fly again, he escapes.
He stumbles home in a daze, quickly at first, but slower as he gets farther from the humans and closer to the village. He’s barely conscious by the time he collapses into the cobblestone street of the village circle, can barely hear the gasps of terror and desperate calls for the healers.
It’s true that no fairy will brave into the human world to save one that has been lost. But no fairy will turn him away, refuse to treat him. He is healed, to the best of the healer’s ability; ripped flesh sewn together, blood washed away.
But there is nothing that can be done for his wing. Or rather, the tattered stub that remains. He is treated with care and pity, as he heals. As his wounds close and every step slowly decreases in agony.
But in the years after his… incident, people stop being able to look him in the eye.
‘The foolish fairy,’ mothers whisper to his children. ‘Snuck away to dance with the humans, and was blind to the grip they had on his wings. He escaped, but will never truly be free.’
Lance is safe, with the other fairies, but is never without shame. His community — his family — think him daft, an embarrassment. His back may have healed, but this pain never will.
Shunned from his people, Lance returns to his wanders through the forest. He knows it’s witless, stupid — but he cannot bear to stay and waste his life among those who will never see him as equal. Although he still sleeps in his bed in the village and shops in the shops and listens to the stories shared in the circle, he is on the outskirts. So he finds his peace again among nature, although the peace will never again be so trusting.
Eventually, Lance starts to notice some sort of company, in the forests — never too close, of course not, but always on the fringes: a man. A human man. He is not dressed as a hunter, nor does he walk like one. He often even strays far away from where Lance spends his days. The human’s mannerisms are distracted and aimless — Lance doubts the man would see him if Lance were to dance in front of him. This man, it seems, is here to escape just as much as Lance.
As foolish as it is, Lance can’t quell his curiousity. He begins to trail the main — carefully, this time, always from the highest perches in the trees, even though he must climb to reach them — watching him.
Sometimes, the man sings.
The man is never armed. He is not destructive, even, like many humans can be. He simply wanders around the forest, sometimes sitting by brooks or streams to paint, or to hum. oOnce, he even brought some sort of instrument, plucking idly at the strings.
Lance decides, although he knows he shouldn’t, that this human is safe.
He lets himself become more and more obvious in his trailing. He hides among the lower branches of the trees, intentionally leaving the tip of his wing visible when the man paints. Slowly, he watches as curiousity begins to spark the man’s demeanour — no longer do his eyes look vacantly before him. Now he is searching, for answers to the strange sights he has been seeing.
For the first time, Lance is pleased by the attention. the scrutiny. This man searches for glimpses of Lance like one scours the desert for water after days of baking under the sun. It’s been a long time since lance was… sought after, in a way that was not malicious.
The second time the man brings the instrument to a forest, he sits by a bright blue pond, and sings a song he has never sung before. Lance is intrigued by the lyrics — he cannot understand them, but the words seem to shape themselves in a manner that speaks almost of an enchantment.
The man visits the next day, again with his instrument, and sings the same song.
And the next day.
And the next.
By the fifth day, Lance can suppress his curiosity no longer. He waits for the man by the pond, watching him warily from a rock. The man’s eyes widen when they land on him, tracing disbelievingly over Lance’s wing, but then a soft smile graces the man’s face, and he settles down and begins to play. It’s a different song, this time. A happier one. One of satisfaction.
The man plays for hours, singing until his voice runs hoarse. He smiles one more time at lance before standing. He speaks directly to Lance, looking at him expectantly. Lance does not understand the words, but he feels as if he may understand the question: ‘Will you be here, tomorrow?’
Lance swallows. He reaches carefully behind him, brushing the frayed stubs of the wing that was stolen from him.
He knows what the wise choice would be.
But he knows the choice he wants to make.
Lance nods.
The man comes the next day, as Lance knew he would. He brings paints, this time. He spends hours focused intently on his art and on Lance in equal measure. When he finishes, he carefully flips the painting so Lance can see, and Lance gasps when he sees it: a portrait of him, surely, but not a version of him he recognises. The version of lance in the painting is etheral. Non-mortal.
Beautiful.
Lance is not beautiful.
But the man seems to think so. In the days, weeks, months he meets Lance at the pond, he paints countless portraits of Lance, each more breathtaking than the last. Sometimes Lance is smiling, sometimes he is laughing — although he doesn’t understand a word the man speaks, his mannerisms are amusing, and he has found ways to joke and play without using his voice. He even paints, once, Lance as he cries, from a day Lance caught his own reflection in the water, wingless and broken, and could not suppress his tears. The man makes him look beautiful even among his sorrow.
The man gestures to himself, one day. “Keith,” he says. He looks at lance expectantly.
“Keith,” Lance attempts to repeat, but the sound is foreign on his tongue. It sounds closer to ‘Keet’. The attempt makes the man smile. He gestures to Lance, asking for a response.
“Lance.”
The man smiles and repeats it. After this, they begin to slowly teach each other words from their native tongues. Sometimes Keith draws the meaning his words, either on paper or in the mud. Lance often must mime his out, which amuses them both. It takes months of practice, but eventually they learn to understand each other.
“I’m happy I found you,” keith says, as he plucks the strings on his guitar.
“I allowed your discovery of me,” Lance responds. Keith laughs.
“That’s true. I’m happy it happened, regardless. My world is brighter with you in it.”
One day, Keith arrives at the pond before Lance; something he’s never done before. He’s — nervous. Lance has never seen him nervous.
“What troubles you?” Lance asks gently.
Keith won’t look him in the eye. Lance’s heart pounds — in fear or anticipation, he cannot tell.
“I have something I’ve wished to ask you since I saw you sitting by the pond that first day,” Keith whispers.
“For so long?”
“Yes.”
“That was years ago, Keith.”
Keith swallows. “It was.”
“Why are you afraid to ask me?”
“I’m afraid of your answer. if the change it will bring.”
“You’re so sure it will bring change?”
“Questions always do.”
Lance hums. He watches Keith’s hand twitch, as if he’s suppressing its movement.
“You may as well ask me,” he says. “I will always wonder, now.”
“I’m not sure if I should. It might be better, to simply wonder.”
“You’re scaring me, Keith. Tell me. Please.”
Keith holds the breath in his lungs, as long as he can. When he exhales, he forces the fear out with it. When he blinks again, the only thing left in his eyes is resolution. Surety.
Lance smiles. Keith is a brave man. Lance loves that about him.
“I want to ask for you hand,” Keith says, then pauses, shaking his head. “No. I want to beg for it.”
His eyes, dark as a winter violet, look intensely into Lance’s. “Marry me, Lance. Please.”
Lance’s eyes widen. His heart pounds, faster than a river’s rapids. His wings — wing — flutters.
“Marry you?”
There’s hardly any voice to his words. He speaks with so much breath that he can feel his question almost flutter away in the breeze.
But keith catches it.
He always catches lance.
“Yes. There is nothing more that to life than you, Lance. You are the stars in my sky and the beat of my heart. If you’ll have me, I want to share my life with you. I never want to spend a day without you.”
“We already spend every day together.”
Of all the foolish things to say. Lance flushes redder than he’s ever been before, from his chest to his hair.
“I — I meant —”
But Keith only laughs, softly and kindly. He takes Lance’s left hand and squeezes it tightly. “We do spend every day together,” he agrees, bringing Lance’s hand up to his mouth and kissing it softly. “I should have been clearer. I never want to spend a moment without you, my heart. Every minute without you by my side is a minute wasted.”
Lance breathes deeply, although his lungs shudder. “You truly want me? Broken as I am, inhuman as I am?”
“You are everythint to me, just as you are,” keith says fiercely. “I have never seen anything but beauty in you, Lance. You must know that.”
The truth is that Lance does know that. He knew from the moment Keith first painted him. The moment he first sang to him, even, before they had even met. It was why Lance’s heart chose to trust him, before his head agreed.
“Yes,” Lance breathes.
Keith smiles so widely his eyes crinkle. “Yes, you know, or yes, you’ll marry me?”
“I’ll marry you. I —” Lance swallows around the emotion caught in his throat. He lifts a shaking hand to rest on Keith’s shoulder, the other still firmly entwined with Keith’s.
“I’ve never wanted anything more.”
