When a humble farmer decided to live on the outskirts of town right next to the forest he did not expect to make friends with a small temperamental creature from the forest.
It was a pretty good deal you had going on, you help his plants grow with fairy magic and he gives you a safe warm place to sleep and home cooked meals. Most days are spent with you doing your best to annoy the poor farmer as he tries to remind himself that you're the reason his produce sells for such high prices.
You fly around his head making little jingle noises and he tries to ignore you and go on with his work. You steal little things like spoons, screwdrivers, pencils and put them in places he can't reach like on top of the cabinets and shelves. When you get mad at him you grow weeds in his crops until he apologizes or gives you a gift to your liking. Despite this the farmer has grown to truly enjoy your company...for the most part.
His loneliness is getting to him and he's tried to have company over but it's kind of hard to explain to guests why there's a little, scantily clad fairy staring daggers at them the whole time. It definitely ruins the mood as he tries to convince them you won't bite (you will and you have).
One day the farmer comes home from town looking more excited than usual. You plop yourself on his head as he walks around his little cottage.
As he sorts through all the items he bought you get impatient and decide he's not paying enough attention to you. You fly right in front of his face and pose for him, showing off the new outfit you made out of flower petals in his garden.
"Not right now, Tiny."
The farmer rolls his eyes and gently shoos you away with his hand, focusing back onto his apparently very interesting haul from the market. The very rude gesture gets you all fired up and you're in his face again this time with your hands on your hips and an angry expression. The farmer sighs and gently cradles your tiny body in his hands.
"Look, I'm busy. Alright?"
He walks over to the windowsill and gently plops you down onto the little pincushion he set aside for you. You sit there with your arms crossed, glaring at him as he puts away his items.
While you're sulking you notice a little bottle of purple liquid poking out of the farmers front pocket. You quietly flutter over and sneakily inch the tiny thing out of his pocket.
"Hey!"
The farmer tries to stop you but you're much faster than him and fly up, out of his reach. The glass bottle is a little bigger than you're torso and when you inspect it the label says "Growth serum"
You let out quite a dramatic gasp and look down at the farmer, betrayal written all over your face.
"Now Tiny, don't jump to conclu-"
The farmer starts but is interrupted by a very angry fairy yelling things he doesn't understand right in his face. All he can hear is jingles but he's sure he's getting severely cussed at. He understands why, you helped this man grow his crops bigger and better than ever and now you think he wants to replace you for some stupid, probably overpriced serum?
You angrily throw the bottle to the ground and the farmer dives down to clumsily catch it before it smashes onto the floor.
As you feel tears fall down your hot cheeks, you flutter back to your windowsill and sit with your head between your knees.
"Hey, don't cry now."
The farmer sheepishly leans against the windowsill next to you.
"I promise, it's not for the plants. You already help me out so much with that and I appreciate it a lot. I don't need anything else."
You peak your head out from your arms and look at him skeptically.
He holds his hand out to you and you hesitantly flutter onto his palm, enjoying the warmth of his touch despite the cold wetness of your cheeks.
"Truth is, it's lonely for me out here... and I know you get lonely too."
You scoff at him. Obviously, the whole reason you were upset in the first place was because he was ignoring you.
"I uh... I got this for you. So we could....uh well only if you want to, I mean... I don't know."
You stare at him dumbfounded as he fumbles his words, you've never seen the farmer like this before.
You shoot up to hug his cheek, jingling in excitement. You give him tiny kisses and he laughs at the ticklish feeling. You float to the counter in front of him and bounce on your heels waiting for him.
"Alright, alright."
He chuckles at your stark change in mood and uncaps the tiny bottle of magic liquid. You brace yourself as he carefully lets one single drop fall onto your little head.
Nothing happens for a moment but before you could feel disappointed the world blurs and you're suddenly face to face with your farmer.
He stares down at where you sit on his counter, now perfectly human sized. Your cute dress didn't survive the quick transition but you don't seem to mind as you jump the poor farmer.
You grab his face and kiss him deeply. Finally feeling his lips on yours makes your wings flutter and your heart sing as you lock your legs around him to pull his body closer.
"Alright, slow down."
He says through kisses and huffed laughs as you kiss all over his face and neck.
"Now why don't you let me show you how much I appreciate you."
He mumbles in a sultry tone, bringing his hands down to grip your ass and grind your hips into him.
He laughs at the way your wings violently flutter and takes that as eager agreement.
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Rowaelin Month 2025, Day 21: "What If...?" @rowaelinscourt
Word count: 2.1k
Warnings: swearing, references to violence, Maeve
*pokes head up from the trenches* once upon a time, for a Rowaelin Month long ago, I wrote a What-If piece based on "What if Aelin and Rowan's ages were flipped?" and it was SO MUCH FUN that I've been meaning to write more for....a while. and (finally lmao) here's more! enjoy!!! ok anyway i've got midterms next week so i'll disappear again
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Aelin had stood in plenty of audience halls during almost four hundred years of her immortal life, and yet she'd never stepped foot in one so tangibly unwelcoming as the hall of Maeve, the Fae Queen of the East and her far-removed aunt. The columns of ivory marble and the ebony-and-ivory tiled floor looked normal at first, and the high, arched windows running down both long sides of the hall let in broad beams of sunlight, but Aelin felt chills dance down her spine as she stood at the entrance of the hall, looking across the yawning space to the jet-black throne at its head.
The Whitethorn prince was all but prostrate on the cold marble floor in front of his Queen. When they entered Doranelle, Aelin had cut the ropes off his wrists and then tied a length of spare rope from her wrist to his, allowing him to put up the illusion that he had captured her and brought her to Maeve. In reality, she had bested him back in that alley in Varese, and the brooding young male knew it. She could hardly fault him for stewing in silence on the ride to Doranelle---after all, she had once been a Fae fresh into adulthood whose carefully laid plans for her first solo mission had gone completely off the rails.
Movement from Maeve's throne snapped Aelin's attention back to the front of the hall. Although the figures were somewhat hazy due to both the immense length of the hall and the limits of her human eyes, she made out the shapes of at least four more males standing around the Fae Queen's throne like good little dogs. That must be the little cadre Rowan had grumbled about during their ride.
Approach. Maeve's voice, silky-smooth and serpentine, slipped into Aelin's mind.
Aelin pulled her spine straight, tossed back the hood of her cloak, and strode forwards, her boots echoing off the tiles, the sound louder than it should have been due to the utter lack of people in the grand hall. That was the unsettling part---every other throne room she'd been in had been stuffed full of courtiers, servants, nobility, and any other person who could manage to sneak in through a side door.
This hall was eerily silent.
"I have waited near twenty years to finally meet you, my dear niece," Maeve said when Aelin stopped a few paces away from the raised dais upon which the throne sat. "Evalin was clever enough to keep your family away from Doranelle all that time."
Aelin smirked. "Twenty years should seem little more than a few minutes to an immortal like you." It was a thinly veiled insinuation at Maeve's legendary lifespan. Even the most powerful full-blooded Fae rarely lived longer than a thousand years; Maeve was nearly twice that.
Ire flickered briefly across the Fae Queen's moonstone face. "I have been very patient, Aelin. I have waited ages for the line of Brannon Fireheart to re-emerge. I see now that my waiting was not in vain."
Aelin let her gaze sweep lazily over the other males gathered around the ebony throne. Two were mirror images---one golden-haired and grinning, the other dark-haired and solemn, both no more than a century old, if that. Twins. The one behind Rowan was more mature, faint lines of age radiating out from his eyes, and the tattoos coiling around his throat gave him away. Gavriel, the Lion. Six hundred years old and one of the few Fae who had come to Brannon's aid in the Great War. And then there was the one towering behind the twins, thick arms folded across his chest, a permanent scowl etched into the otherwise handsome planes of his face.
Aelin grinned at the hulking, dark-haired male. "Salvaterre. It seems the centuries still haven't taught you how to smile."
"What...the fucking hell?" If Rowan's jaw dropped any lower, it would fall clean off his face.
"Pull yourself together, little prince," Aelin said. "Salvaterre and I met a few times---what was it, a hundred years ago? Two hundred?" She exhaled a tight breath and shifted into her Fae form, and the unsettling silence of Maeve's throne room bore down even harder on her pointed ears. "You remember Sollemere, don't you, Salvaterre?"
"Not much to fucking remember after you trashed the place," Lorcan Salvaterre grunted. The naked shock that had washed across his face when Aelin first spoke to him was gone, wrestled back behind his scowling mask.
Aelin chuckled. "'Trashed' is a rather strong word." She raised a brow. "I don't recall being the one who cracked open the earth to swallow the place."
"Orders." Lorcan flicked a sideways glance at his Queen, whose violet eyes had first widened with shock and then narrowed in wrath.
"I cannot seem to believe that a twenty-year-old mortal princess has any memory of a city that was razed over one hundred years ago," Maeve said softly, venom lurking beneath the satin of her tone.
Aelin shrugged off her cloak and rolled her shoulders, shooting a sharp-fanged grin at the ancient Fae Queen. "You have the honor of being the first ruler to know that I am not mortal, then." She sketched a graceful, mocking bow. "Terrasen has been my dwelling for the last few decades; it was time that I finally returned home."
"I see." Maeve tapped her fingers against the polished armrests of her throne. "It was my intent to send you to Mistward to train with Prince Rowan until you learned mastery of your gifts. However, it seems that such training is not necessary."
"Perhaps I might be of service in another capacity," Aelin offered, flicking a dispassionate look at Rowan.
"My thoughts exactly." Maeve smiled, and Aelin felt the Fae Queen's oily power reaching into her mind, prying at the layers of shields she kept anchored around her innermost self. A hint of irritation wrinkled Maeve's smooth face for an instant when she failed to bore through Aelin's shields. "Mistward sits near the shore. Recently, there have been reports of soldiers in Adarlan's colors sneaking into my lands in the caves by Mistward." Her fingers stilled. "What do you know of such a scheme, King's Champion?"
"Nothing." Aelin allowed Maeve to see that she was telling the truth. "The King of Adarlan only trusts his Champion with information regarding her targets."
"Very well." Maeve folded her hands in her lap. "You and Prince Rowan will go to Mistward to investigate Adarlan's presence. You will inform me of whatever you discover. Once you have discovered adequate useful information, you will remove that human king's weak attempt at an invasion." Her crimson lips curled upwards, a snake's smile. "If you prove yourself useful, I may consider offering you the blood oath."
Aelin chuckled without mirth. "There is no world in which I will be blood-sworn to a self-proclaimed higher ruler. If you want Terrasen, Maeve, you'll need to try harder."
"Take caution, little princess." Tendrils of shadow curled from Maeve's fingers, and at the jerk of her chin, the five warriors of her cadre surrounded Aelin. "One misstep, and your usefulness will expire."
"One thought from me, and your city will burn," Aelin returned, holding herself perfectly still.
"It is stone," Maeve snapped.
Aelin's smirk broke free in the same instant that she coiled slender, white-hot bands of living flame around each of the five Fae warriors. "Your people aren't."
The ancient queen stared down the burning queen, both aware of the wildfire that blazed behind a paper-thin screen of control.
"Very well." Maeve broke first. "I give you my vow that I shall not attempt, in any fashion, to force the blood oath upon you, Aelin Galathynius."
"Nor will you coerce me to accept it," Aelin added.
"Nor will I coerce you to accept it," Maeve repeated.
"Then we are agreed." Aelin closed her open hand into a fist, and the ropes of fire vanished. The crimson flames burning a circlet around her head remained, a blazing crown to rival the Fae Queen's dark one.
"Begone," Maeve commanded. "Prince Rowan will take you to Mistward."
"As Your Majesty wills it," Aelin purred, dropping into a curtsy. In her assassin's leathers, with the wildfire crown on her head, it was less a gesture of respect and more a show of defiance.
~
"You're godsdamned lucky to be walking out of this palace alive," Rowan muttered under his breath. He was two steps in front of Aelin, and she could practically feel the irritation rippling off his broad body.
"Your Queen is too wise to kill me," Aelin replied coolly.
Rowan huffed. "You could do well to imitate some of her wisdom."
"A bit infatuated with the one who holds the leash, are we?" They had arrived at the courtyard that opened to the stables, and Aelin swept past Rowan as he spluttered for words.
"I---I am---my Queen---I am not a dog on a leash!"
"And yet you ran off to Varese to play fetch." Aelin reached for the stable door, but the handle froze over, ice encasing her outstretched hand as the air around her went frigid.
"Recall which of us is the stranger in a foreign land," Rowan hissed, the anger in his gaze as hot as his power was cold. "You could simply disappear in the forest before we ever reach Mistward."
Aelin tipped her head back and howled with laughter.
Smothering what sounded like a screech, Rowan pushed the ice farther up her arm. "I don't take kindly to being mocked, Princess."
Blue flame melted Rowan's ice into hissing steam. "Nor do I take kindly to tantrums," Aelin said quietly, an assassin's deadly sincerity in her words. "Recall which of us knows over a thousand ways to kill, some of which have long since been forgotten by this world." She pulled open the stable door and turned to face Rowan head-on. "You may know Doranelle's roads now, but I knew this land before Wendlyn and Doranelle were names in the language."
"Then I suppose you can lead the way." Rowan brushed past her, stalking into the stables.
"Certainly not." Aelin strolled down the row of stalls, stopping in front of a beautiful bay stallion and settling her palm against the horse's snout. "You know the fortress and its lands, and Queen Maeve named you as my guide."
So now she cares about my Queen. Rowan's mouth didn't move, but Aelin heard his cranky thoughts all the same.
"There's no need to get your feathers ruffled," she crooned.
Rowan jerked around to face her so fast she thought his head might fly off his shoulders. "You heard that?!"
"Even the strongest shields wouldn't block out that sort of shrieking," Aelin said, deadpan. "Look here, little prince. I'll offer you a deal. I will let you lead the way to Mistward and I will match your pace, so long as you swear that you will not report every little detail of this mission back to your Queen."
"I am bloodsworn to follow my Queen's orders." Rowan scowled. "I cannot willfully act in defiance of her command."
"No, but you can interpret the language of her order," Aelin returned. "All I ask is that you let me keep some semblance of privacy." For a brief moment, her gaze went foggy, pulled back to a distant memory of her every move being watched. When she snapped herself back into the present, Rowan was looking at her with a gaze too deep for his youth---a gaze that saw too deep, that understood too much.
"Fine."
She cocked her head to the side. "You'll need to be more specific than that. I know how Fae promises work."
He huffed, but she caught the flash of a grin behind it. "I accept your bargain precisely as proposed. Your privacy will be honored."
"Thank you." Aelin turned back to the horse to finish securing the saddle and the simple cloth pack of supplies. As they led the horses out of the courtyard, she noticed that Rowan kept glancing over his shoulder at her, pressing his lips together like there were words straining at the tip of his tongue. Just past the outer gate, she stopped and raised her brows at him. "Something to say?"
"If you ever need to let go of it, you can trust me to listen." His words jumbled together in a breathless rush. "I will listen." Something like compassion echoed beneath his words.
An eternity ago, someone else had whispered those same words. And he'd been lying.
Aelin's face hardened to granite. "I don't need your pity." She swung herself up onto the horse and fixed her gaze forwards, willing her callous mask not to crack as betrayal bled across Rowan's face and he spun stiffly around in his saddle, away from her.
And silence yawned between them as they began the trek to Mistward.
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