#ttsgw

I ; FEAR

little one who cries in the dead of the night because you heard a noise from the cupboard. that’s just your local monster who takes care of the real bad guys. that noise you heard was them fighting it out.

growing up and they tell you not to step in the woods or you’ll be taken by the fae. that’s just them remembering the last time the town chief’s daughter did that and never returned. that silence whenever you bring it up was them reevaluating you.

teenager who stepped into the woods ignoring their cries and you heard a scream. that’s just the ghost of the daughter telling you to go back go back go— you don’t listen, do you? another step, then another, then—

then you fall through and into another world where humans aren’t invited and the High Queen looks you over and just says “fear is born from imagination” and lets you go. you wander the place, you touch the dirt-but-not-dirt walls, you pass whispering people with pointed ears.

fear is born from imagination, but you’re not imagining anything, so you’re no longer afraid, and that’s when they steal you away from that heavenly court and put you in the darkest of rooms, where evil is the most glorious thing to exist, and you realise

fear is born from the imagination but fear keeps you alive.

2 ; INSANITY

and then you disappear and they think: it’s over, they’re never coming back. but then one day you emerge from the woods, a little battered but still whole. still alive.

and they’re happy to see you, but there’s something off that they can’t quite get right. it’s not your ears, because they’re still round. still human ears. they press iron to your skin. nothing happens.

then you speak, and they scream and flee. you cannot hear, for you have been deafened. you don’t know what you’re saying. i am whole, you want to say. why are you running?

they do not hear human words, child of the fae. they hear the language of the old gods, a language so old and powerful mortal ears will bleed. the gods were never meant to be heard, only obeyed.

they refuse to listen to you. you cannot listen to them. insanity comes knocking, and you let it in. all day, you wail and scream, and soon the town is empty, the people escaping.

except for you, fae-who-is-not-a-fae. you don’t notice, though. not with all the blood you see.