Welcome to a new world of Mr. Faire’s Children of the Night Carnival! You can expect more for this place and the character within. I really hope you all enjoy it.
It appeared one night, seeming to just rise as the sunset. The high peaks and arches of the big top filled the horizon, and the lights of the ferris wheel made it look as if the sun had set it all on fire. Come morning, everyone was abuzz talking about the mysterious carnival that had appeared.
Flyers had been posted in the dead of night, and people were collecting them like they were treasure. You were lucky enough to snatch one before they were all gone. It was printed on black paper with vivid red ink, it was actually quite beautiful. It was advertised Mr. Faire’s Children of the Night Carnival. It advertised live shows, games, and everything you would want to ever see.
“Sounds grotesque,” you heard one woman say while you were working. “Perverted.”
You’ve been working at the botanical garden for about a week when it dawns on you that you’re about to make a serious mistake.
You know it’s wrong. You know all the arguments against what you’re about to do: they’re good ones. They’re persuasive. But you can’t help yourself.
At some point in the next few months, you are absolutely, 100% going to fuck your boss. Your married boss.
His name is Hebryvyth, he’s five hundred and sixty eight years old, and he’s a sylvan elf. His hair is mossy green, his skin the crinkled brown of old-growth bark. His eyes shimmer like dewdrops left behind by the retreating night. What are you supposed to do about that? When he speaks to you, his voice is low and calm and patient, even when you’ve just badly mangled a cutting that was supposed to be grafted this week. Even when you’ve ripped a bag of fertilizer or tripped while carrying a tray of samples, scattering them across the floor. When he shakes his head at you, his huge crest of horns– velvety, like an elk’s, because it’s still barely midsummer– sways like a metronome, and you find yourself hypnotized by it.
You had graduated only a month ago, the ink was still practically wet on your diploma, and finding this job this soon had been a coup. You loved the city and didn’t want to leave it, but there were limited opportunities to use your degree in such a tightly-packed urban setting. There was hardly any greenery left here. But the botanical garden in the Commons had an opening, and your labwork had always been excellent, so two phone calls later you were sitting in front of Hebryvyth in your best (only) suit and trying not to stare.
“So, Y/N,” he’d said in a voice like the wind sighing through the branches, “what is it that draws you to nature? If you love the green, why live in a city that has so little of it?”
You’d stammered something out about preserving what little beauty remained, making sure everyone got to enjoy it, and some cliche about dirt under your nails. You could hardly hear yourself talk. Your pulse was pounding in your ears as you took in every detail: the smooth lacquer of his fingernails, the tiny leaves poking out from under his starched collar. Whatever you said must have impressed him, because a week later you were getting the full tour.
On those occasions when you reflect on your misfortune, you suppose the trouble started on your second week. You arrived at your workstation– a standing desk in the corner of the lab, next to the trash can– to find something resting there already. A flower crown, woven from wire-thin branches and covered in blooming lilac. The scent of it filled the air around your desk with heady sweetness. You picked it up in trembling hands and noted without surprise that the plants all looked alive and blooming. It fit your head perfectly. You walked around with your head in the clouds for the rest of the day, even when Rachel two desks over came back from her lunch and saw it. “Oh, that’s a pretty one,” she said without a trace of surprise. “He makes them for all the new employees. Kind of a ‘welcome aboard’ present.”
That may be so, but this one was special. You knew it. This one was yours. And someday, Hebryvyth would be too.
By the time you had met his wife, your crush was terminal. It was at a gala celebrating some important anniversary for the garden; you’d been assured that you didn’t have to show up, but you weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to dress up for Hebryvyth. You squeezed into your sea-green dress and spent an hour looking at makeup tutorials on YouTube. The few sylvan videos you found were rather heavier on wood stain and varnish than blush and concealer, but you eventually settled on a look that seemed “foresty.” At the gala you’d clung to Rachel, one of the few people you recognized, until Hebryvyth came by to say hello. He wore a tuxedo tonight and his horns were hung with ribbons and little tinkly bells. Every movement was accompanied by a windchime carillion.
Behind him was another sylvan elf: tall, with high cheekbones and long, flowing locks like the branches of a willow tree. She wore a simple, sleeveless chiffon gown that clung to her like cobweb. Her bare arms looked like tree branches in midwinter. She smiled down at you– God, she’s tall, you remember thinking– but there was no warmth in it. It was as though in one look she had pierced your deep and secret desire and it amused her. Go ahead, try, her eyes said. I’d love to see it.
“This is my wife, Eliatiss,” Hebryvyth had said. “Elia, this is Y/N, our newest employee.”
“A pleasure, dear,” she’d said, and extended one hand. What could you do? You shook it with a big, fake grin on your face. Her touch was surprisingly warm and gentle, though it still felt like shaking hands with a scarecrow. “You look lovely,” she added, and turned to her husband. “Come, dear, there are some people here from the Academy that you have to meet.”
Meeting her, you realized now, had been the start of something new. Before that, it was a crush. Now, it was a competition. You had always been a bit shy at school, and your few attempts at flirting had been painfully awkward. Now you studied seduction the same way you’d crammed for an Organic Chem final. You went out and bought an array of new tops, some scandalously low-cut. Well, it was summer. There was nothing wrong with that.
At work, you found excuses to spend time with Hebryvyth. This, you realized quickly, was more exhausting than you’d expected. With a title like Director of Operations, you’d expect him to spend most of his time in the office pushing paper around. He leaves most of that to his secretary, a faun named Glorianth, and instead spends his days wandering the park. As often as you can, you join him on his rounds, sweating and toting your watering can and your pruning shears.
His technique is not like any you’ve studied. He’s touchy with the plants, getting down on his hands and knees and plunging his fingers into the wet soil. He presses his ear up against the bark of a tree and listens to it. He carefully plucks a single petal from a blooming rose and places it between his lips.
Then he tells you to cut here or trim there or take a sample from this bush. And you obey, but you’re careful to bend at the waist and hold the watering can two-handed in a way that pushes your breasts up and out. Is he looking at you? You don’t dare check. When he makes a joke– and he does, often, in the same soft deadpan that he always uses– you laugh and laugh. You find excuses to touch him, to draw his attention to areas of new growth or worrying patches of blight. When you find a small cluster of orchids growing wild in a rocky cleft, he actually compliments you, and for the rest of the day your feet barely touch the ground.
One day in mid-July you call him over to your station to ask about an unusual pattern you’ve noticed on some of the elm bark you’ve recovered. You stand at his shoulder as he turns your samples over and then peers at them under the microscope. When you lean in to look, your boobs press against his side and you feel his breath in your hair. You don’t dare say anything. He doesn’t respond to your touch at all. He just waits until you straighten up, then nods at you and tells you you’re doing a great job. As he leaves, Rachel scurries over to your desk.
“What the hell are you doing, Y/N?” she hisses as soon as Hebryvyth is gone. You look around before answering. It’s just the two of you and Glorianth in today, and the faun is bopping her head with some poppy music video and playing Solitaire on her work computer.
“I’m just looking for elm-leaf beetle eggs,” you say, as nonchalantly as you can. “They’re a real pest, you-”
“Don’t play stupid!” she says. “I’ve seen the way you act around him. Jesus, everyone’s seen it. You’re not exactly being subtle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you reply, but your heart’s not in it. Damn! You thought you were being subtle.
“Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes. “One, he’s like… more than ten times your age. Two, he’s married. Three…” she bites her lip and trails off. “One and two should be enough. You gotta stop this, Y/N. This is a bad idea.”
“What’s three?” you retort. “You want him yourself? Are you actually jealous?” It’s just a clumsy misdirection, but to your surprise, she blushes and looks away. Is she really?
“No,” she snaps, then softens. “Look, I’m just trying to help you. This is really not a good idea. You have a good job here. You’re a smart girl. Don’t mess it up for yourself.”
“Oh, should I be thanking you for your wisdom?” you say. You don’t mean to bite her head off, but you’re suddenly so angry. Her jealousy is leading her to sabotage your burgeoning romance. And she’s only three years older than you! Maybe she tried what you’re trying herself, you reflect. It didn’t work for her, but it must be working for you. Otherwise, why would she warn you off?
“Thanks for the advice, Rachel,” you say as sweetly as you can. “I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.” You turn back to your bark samples and bend over to look in the microscope. With a last shake of her head, Rachel stalks back to her desk.
After that, she doesn’t come around nearly as much, and she must have spread the word because nobody else does either. That suits you just fine. Hebryvyth still seems to enjoy your company. In fact, he’s started to request you accompany him on his rounds of the park. You walk as close as you dare and breathe deeply, inhaling the woody scent of him. It’s like stepping into an old-growth forest. Once, when the two of you are walking through a little valley, a hidden grove at the center of the park, you take his hand. He starts slightly, but doesn’t pull away. All you can hear is the thudding of your heart. You stare straight ahead, back ramrod-straight, sweat beading on your forehead. When you reach the end of the valley he gently pulls his hand back, but his fingers caress your palm and you nearly faint.
The two of you exchange numbers, ostensibly to communicate when you’re at opposite ends of the park. You haven’t gotten any kind of official promotion– certainly not a raise– but you’re his deputy now, and he often sends you on little errands. Let the others grumble. This is love, now you’re sure of it, and love must be free to bloom. It would be wrong to hide your feelings. You haven’t discussed any of this with Hebryvyth. In truth, you’re not even sure how to bring it up. But in your moments together, you can feel it pouring off him, a desire as strong as yours. A yearning, like a seed’s yearning to grow and flower, to become a tree. The same primal force that pushes saplings up through six inches of soil.
You’re just as clumsy at flirting by text as you are in person, but you fill your messages to him with emojis, smiling and winking and occasionally blowing a kiss. You call him Hebry, and he never corrects you. You send ribald jokes and innuendos that would make a sailor blush. He’s more subdued, but sometimes he surprises you. You didn’t think people his age even knew about the eggplant emoji.
Finally, the moment you’ve been working towards arrives. You knew this was all building up to something, but it still shocks you when it arrives. Friday, you’re getting ready to go home and enjoy a solid weekend of Netflix bingeing, when you sense someone behind you. You sigh and ready yourself to politely tell Rachel to mind her own business.
It’s not Rachel. It’s Hebry. He’s standing there, tall and solemn, staring at you with his dewdrop eyes. His horns are magnificent. Most of the velvet has peeled away, leaving arcing spires of what looks like ivory. The tallest tines are wrapped in flowers and their petals rain down gently like confetti.
“Y/N,” he begins when he sees you looking at him. “Would you like to join me for dinner tomorrow?”
“I…” you begin. All of a sudden the reality of your situation crashes onto you. Is this what you want? Is it really? Last chance, an inner voice tells you, and to your annoyance it sounds like Rachel’s. You brush it aside. “That sounds lovely,” you say. “Where?”
He hands you a slip of paper with an address on it. It’s in the suburbs, but you figure you can catch an Uber. You accept it with shaking fingers. “My house,” he says. “Six pm.” His eyes linger on you for a moment and then he’s gone in a trail of falling petals and floral scent. You clutch the paper to your chest and sigh.
Your barely sleep at all that night. You toss and turn for hours, eventually reaching into your bottom drawer and retrieving the vibrator stashed under your socks. You buck and thrash on top of your sheets until they’re soaked with sweat and you’re breathing hard. Finally you drift off, but your dreams provide no relief; in them, you’re a forest nymph, a tiny creature draped in diaphanous silks. You skip through the forests until a looming, horned shape chases you down, pins you to the ground, and ravishes you slowly and thoroughly.
You wake up confused and tangled up in the sheets. A shower sets you partially to rights, and after a bowl of cereal you set to work. Makeup first: foundation, concealer, blush, highlights on your nose and cheekbones and forehead. Lipliner and lipstick and your stubby eyebrow pencil. You throw open your closet and try outfit after outfit. They’re all wrong for some reason or other: too dowdy, too gaudy, too slutty, not slutty enough. You wish you had prepared better. You finally settle for a dark blue cocktail dress long enough that you’d be ok with your mom seeing you wear it. You put your hair up in a bun and admire yourself in the mirror. Now that’s a good look. It’s still early afternoon, so you lounge around on the couch watching a Netflix comedy special. Your roommate comes home and gawks at you. “Damn, Y/N!” she says. “You look hot! Going out tonight?”
“Yeah,” you say, trying to sound indifferent about it. “You know. Might be fun.” You gently deflect any questions about “the guy.” “Just someone I met online,” you insist, and though you don’t think she buys it, she’s polite enough not to dig into your business. Finally, it’s late enough for you to call your car.
Your driver drops you off at five minutes of six, and you catch your first sight of the house. It’s impossible to mistake it now that you’re here. Most suburban houses don’t have a tree growing right up through the middle, its broad canopy spreading like an umbrella overhead. The neighborhood is pretty toney, and you wonder just how much the Director of Operations makes. A ripple of doubt twists your tummy. Is this a mistake after all? You get the feeling that you are terribly, hopelessly out of your depth. No, you tell yourself. This is what you wanted. This is what you’ve been aiming for the whole time.
Your heels click off the stone path that leads to the front door. You ring the doorbell and wait politely. The door is mahogany and carved with a bas-relief pattern of leaves and twisting vines. Just as you think you should maybe knock, it swings open. “Good evening, Heb–” you begin, and stop. There’s nobody there.
“Hello?” Your voice echoes in the anteroom. You step inside and peer around the door. Beyond the little entrance room, the center of the house is open, revealing the massive trunk of the tree at its core. It must be ten feet across. Smaller plants are everywhere, sitting in pots or in little hanging troughs. It’s warm and humid in here, almost like a rainforest. A spiral staircase leads upward, around the tree. You step further inside and close the door behind you. The house, as far as you can tell, is still and empty. The only sounds are your footsteps and the fading echoes of your voice.
“Hello?” you call again. You look left and right, and a horrible thought grips you. What if he’s changed his mind? What if he’s gotten cold feet? You knew this was a mistake, you knew you shouldn’t–
Footsteps fill the air. Is it Hebry, come to tell you to go home, it was all a mistake? Or is he here to apologize and usher you inside for a magical evening? You look around frantically, then look up in time to see the figure descending the spiral staircase. Your heart sinks. It’s worse than either of those options.
Ten years after the world suffered a nuclear winter, life was finally beginning to bounce back. You had lost your family, your friends, but you still breathed. And that had to be good enough, in this harsh world.
Human society wasn’t the same it once was. Only a fraction of the population had survived, and what little remained was bound together in settlements of various success. Your home city was once bustling, but now it was a scattered facsimile of order. You numbered amongst the mere-thousand population. Sizable, yes, but still a miniscule percentage of what life once was.
But it was safer together, rather than risking the wilderness alone. The nuclear fallout brought about a population of mutated life – insects, distorted into monstrous beasts that shared human intelligence, but outmatched mankind in strength and durability. At first, humans fought against these terrifying new lifeforms, but were quickly outmatched. So nowadays, most tried all they could to avoid contact with them.
They called themselves ‘Phyle’, a dark play on the concept of evolution. What few scientists remain hypothesize that the Phyle evolved from vespid wasps, still in their larvae stage, when the first bombs fell. Those insects did not become the Phyle, rather they infected humans with their eggs, or venom. And from those humans came a horrifying breed of half-insect, half-people. Phyle.
You had seen them, but rarely. They truly looked like monsters, towering 10-feet-tall in height, slim but terrifyingly muscular with exoskeleton shells covering their shoulders, back, and limbs, giving them the appearance of natural armour and bulking up their silhouette further. They had wings, too – membranous, and flapped rapidly when they were agitated. One time, you managed to take a close look at their faces, and caught a glimpse of something vaguely human-like in proportion, but with massive black compound eyes, and the lower half of their skull taken up by giant mandibles flanking a star-edged pincer mouth.
in which a seemingly harmless blackout proves to be an experience you have never considered existing beyond horror films: a monster ensuing a morbid game of tormenting you while vulnerable.
* * *
Nichole has taken the liberty of your phone passcode to snap an atrocious selfie and appoint it as her own contact portrait. Truth be told, you don’t have the heart nor incentive to change it. It had taken time to ignore the scrutiny thrown your way, many times which consisted of ducking out of vicinity and of the like. At least her ringtone compensates for the source of embarrassment and entertainment. The wistful chorus of Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind” echoes through the wood of your nightstand, a patterned vibration joining the melody. It’s tempting to ignore her call, especially since it’s already 11 p.m. on the night before a breakfast date with Mom.
More cuddly fishman goodness 😀 This one is my take on a cute short story by the amazing @momolady surrounding her character Levi. Go check her out if you like stuff like that!
You babysit Zach, the son of a family friend, and become increasingly disturbed by unnatural occurrences playing out when he insists his imaginary friend is real.
* * *
“Again, thank you so, so, so much for doing this, even if the call was last minute,” Lucy breathes out, tugging on her coat in a messy haste from her husband’s ushering. For a second, you watch her struggle to get her second arm through its rightful sleeve before snatching the other end that keeps escaping the older woman’s grasp. The display earns a harmless chuckle from Samuel who snaps around to tap in his shoes when his wife tosses a glare his way. Their dynamic is so endearing to a level of admirable envy that you can’t help but smile a little. “You’re a lifesaver; I don’t know what we’d do without you,” she says.
The music, thumping; the lights, flashing and shimmering overhead; the press of bodies all around you, the smell of a thousand people dancing and laughing and eating and drinking and crying and living. The floor beneath your feet jumps in time with the boosted bass pouring out of the amps. It’s Friday night, you’re in the Grove, and you’re ready to party.
Your friends are here too, of course: Cindy and Micaela and the pixie Willow-bark. Willow’s flitting around by your shoulder. You have to keep an eye on her– she ordered a thimble-sized rum and coke, but when you came back from the bathroom, your own cocktail looked a little shrunken and her flight path was noticeably more erratic. You’ve had to fish your six-inch friend out of the bottom of enough eight-inch glasses to know what to look out for.
Later for all that, though. Right now, you’re feeling the beat from your head to your toes. You didn’t come to the club to hook up– though that’s always an option for later– but you’ve been ogling plenty of the goodies on display. A muscular ichthys, bare from the waist up except for his breathing apparatus, is bopping away at the center of a crowd of admirers. A creature made of shadow and bone with the thickest ass you’ve ever seen is twerking its heart out. Literally– an ephemeral ruby heart orbits the frenzied dancer at a distance of about two feet.
Sidhe clubs are wild.
You’ve seen a few of the proprietors drifting lazily through the crowd. They’re easy to spot– tall, elegant, humanoid but for the elongated proportions of their limbs and their curiously smooth heads. Their faces are masks. That’s not a figure of speech, either; gleaming porcelain interfaces smoothly with hairless flesh, and the expressions that pass across them have the exaggerated affect of the classic sock and buskin masks. Wherever they go, the crowd parts with a whisper and an awed stare.
Cindy left about five minutes ago, giggling and hand-in-hand with a handsome satyr. You know she can take care of herself– you’re not worried. Micaela, though– you were just talking to her, before the bass dropped and the music lifted you off your feet. Where is she? Your ecstasy momentarily forgotten, you look left and right. She was just here. Should you text her? Has she even got her phone? Maybe you should go back to the table…
You turn, and nearly run directly into someone. You stumble back a foot or two and start to stammer out an apology. You’re staring at a well-tailored waistcoat about a hundred years out of date. You look up, and up, and up, and there, at the top of a slender neck, is the face of the person you just bumped into.
Well, the mask.
Oh, shit.
“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry,” you begin, and he winces. That’s right– the trappings of the Church burn and bind the Sidhe. You curse inwardly. You’re really fucked now. If you leave the club in a hurry maybe they won’t take your name down and ban you. You try to apologize, to explain, to beg forgiveness, but you’re trying to do all three at once and it just comes out in a jumbled mess. You’re aware now that you are standing in the middle of an expanding ring of people, all staring stonefaced at you.
“Oh sor, I’m so sirry… I mean, oh sir, I, oh I never meant to, please don’t–”
He hushes you with one long, graceful finger, and you’re so surprised that you actually shut up. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, but you can still hear it somehow even over the pounding beat.
“Please do not furnish me with your apologems. I misconstrued you in the crowd. Truly, the faultline was my own; I do not wish to emburden your person with further maladies.”
You squint. What? It occurs to you that you’ve never heard a sidhe speak before.
His mask looks down on you with an expression of infinite patience and infinite kindness. “Allow me to make introducement,” he says, bowing. “My name is Thousand-Silver-Stars-Falling-Like-Rain-Unto-The-Fallow-Earth. But you may name me Star.”
“Uh, I’m Y/N,” you manage awkwardly, and hold out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Star. If you don’t mind, I’ll…”
“That is why I have emblazoned you, my dear. I am well approached of your misfortune.” He pauses. “Your erstwhile friend.”
“Micaela?” you ask. “Where? Where is she? How?”
“Allow my to rend the veil,” he says, and turns. One finger crooks over his shoulder, beckoning you to follow. The crowd parts before him and closes behind, not quick enough to cut you off but quick enough to ensure you any number of stubbed toes, bruised shoulders and dirty looks. He leads you to a corner booth, where Micaela is sitting propped up against the corner. At your ear, Willow draws in a shocked gasp. Mic’s eyes are open, but they’re glassy. A line of drool trickles out of the corner of her mouth.
“Mic?” you ask. Willow buzzes over towards her and waves a tiny arm inches from her face. She pinches Mic’s nostril, always a surefire way to get someone’s attention. Nothing.
“It appears that she has undertaken incautious imbibement,” Star says. “I do again profoundly apologize. Our wards are normally proof against such unwholesome adulterants. It appears that some miscreant has pierced our countermeasures.” The mask now shows a wrathful grimace. “He will be soundly punished, once ferreted out. This club is a sanctum.”
“Will she… be ok?” you ask. You swallow. What if it had been your drink? Or Willow’s?
Star waves a hand. “Of course. But she will be insensate ‘til dawn. Do you have a conveyance? She would recoup with more alacrity in a familial setting.”
“I don’t… we took an Uber, and…”
“The club can provide a car. Would that be to your satiety?”
“Of… of course.” You feel a little lost. There’s a burp by your ear, a brief fluttering sound, and then something lands on your shoulder. You reach over and gently scoop up Willow, who appears to have passed out. She’s snoozing peacefully in your palm with the occasional hiccup. “Maybe for her, too?” Star suggests.
He waits with you while the club’s floor manager– a put-upon human man in a dark suit– dials a car. When it arrives, you hesitate. It’s barely midnight. Normally you’d just be getting started now. But you really should see your friends home…
Star seems to sense your distress. He presses something into your palm. You look down in wonder– it looks like a little silver leaf, its surface faintly glittery. “Go,” he suggests. “This token will secure your renaissance, should you still wish to partake in our gaieties. Another night, perhaps.”
You nod. “T-thanks, Mr. Star.” His response is a deep and sweeping bow; he seems to hinge at the waist and fold up like a puppet. When he stands again, his mask is looking down on you with a smile so plain and cheerful that it warms you up inside.
“Until that night, Y/N,” he says, and vanishes into the crowd.
–
It takes you two weeks to go back to the Grove, and when you do, you go alone. Cindy had a great time– she always does– but when she hears about what happened to Micaela, she sounds appalled. “Oh God,” she says, “that’s horrid.” ‘Horrid’ is a bit of a fairy-tale word, but you have to admit that the whole experience has you shaken up. The next week, the four of you just meet up in your apartment for cocktails and Mario Kart.
The week after that, though, you get the dancing itch. Micaela flatly refuses any more clubs (and, frankly, you don’t blame her,) Cindy’s with her current boyfriend (human, for once), and Willow-bark sounds enthusiastic enough on the phone but stops responding to your texts around 9pm. You’re not too surprised– she was slurring when you got off the line with her. She still hasn’t adjusted to everything in the city coming in human-sized portions. She’s with friends, at least.
That leaves one. You could just stay in, but… that silver leaf is still sitting on your dresser. It’s not made of metal, but it’s definitely not paper or plant material, either. It feels like silk, but it’s far too heavy, and the way it catches the light… something about it calls to you. And you barely got to enjoy the Grove before.
You make a decision. You’ve got a great new dress, you just cashed a paycheck, and you’ve got a ticket to the hottest club in town. There’s only one option, really.
The line for Grove stretches around the block, but you stride confidently to the front, ignoring the angry side-eyes from people waiting. The orc at the door clears his throat and you can see the words “back of the line” forming on his lips, so you pull out your leaf and flash it like a badge. It takes him aback, and he turns and whispers something to someone just out of view. You’re left standing there awkwardly for a moment or two, then a tall and spindly shape materializes out of the darkness of the club and favors you with a painted smile. It’s Star.
“Welcome, Y/N,” he says, and ushers you inside.
The layout of the club is totally different from last time. Much of the furniture has been cleared away. The ceiling seems higher, too, though maybe that’s just you. The air is full of rainbow light… and bubbles. Tiny ones like kids might blow at the park, big ones like at a circus or museum, and gigantic ones that hover far overhead like flying saucers. A couple of them have people in them. You gawk in astonishment. There are figures up there dancing without a care, suspended in shimmering translucent spheres. “How…” you ask, and Star’s mask grins at you.
“Glamour,” he says, as though that’s an answer.
The music is hypnotic. A female ichthys in a dazzling green dress is standing on a dais in the center of the room singing in her own language– you can’t understand it, but the warbling words put you in mind of whalesong. It’s incredibly tranquil, even over the electronic beat. All around you people are dancing in their own little worlds. More bubbles float by from somewhere behind you; you expect them to pop, but they settle all over you like snowflakes. They feel gauzy and not-totally-real, but when you burst one, your finger gets wet. You look up at Star with awe in your gaze. “This… how…”
“That is a sufficiency of questions,” he says. “Please. Will you feign to dance?” He begins to move, and you have no choice but to join him.
He’s incredibly graceful. More than once it seems as though he’s about to fall over or hurt himself, but at the last second he always twists into a new and perfect position. Watching him dance for too long makes your head hurt. It seems as though sometimes his arms pass through each other. It’s probably the club lights– they flash in all the colors of the rainbow, vibrant patterns of dots and lines that meld and intersect and split apart again. You find yourself falling into an easy, regular pattern. You’ve always been a bit self-conscious about your dancing, but at the club nobody really pays attention to other people’s moves anyways. Now, though, you’re moving with the grace and confidence that you always wished you had. And you’re not even drunk!
Star dances faster and faster. He loops around you and you spin yourself dizzy trying to keep up. His mask flickers through a catalog of expressions– joy when the music soars, sorrow when it plunges, anger when the bass comes in heavy. As it does, shadows of those emotions stir in your heart. It’s as if the feelings that he’s feeling are too big to be contained by one body. They’re spilling out all over you.
All too soon your breath starts rasping in your chest and your limbs begin to feel weak and wobbly. You’d want to dance all night if you could, but your body is betraying you. You stumble back a step, and like a flash, Star is there to catch you. “Please, Y/N,” he says, his voice like honey in your ear. “Let us repair to a more privileged locale,” he suggests, and you nod dumbly, too tired even to smile. He leads you to a corner booth and helps you into the chair.
“I hope tonight has in some small measure recompensed for your most dreadful misadventure of before, Y/N,” he says. “You look exhaustive. If you wish to retire, that is your prescription… but if you are not ready for this night to conclude…” He dangles the sentence out like a fishing line, and you bite eagerly.
“I’m not too tired,” you manage, suppressing a yawn. “What else do you have to show me?”
“This,” he breathes, and kisses you.
You expect to feel cold porcelain against your skin, but to your shock, the lips that press against yours are warm and soft and welcoming. You taste honeysuckle and nectar in his kiss, the taste of summer evenings in the country as the day spools closed and the sunset sets the grass aflame. You taste fear and exhilaration, yours or his you can’t tell. You taste desire. Your nostrils fill with the scent of him, a sweet and piney smell, as your tongues tangle and intertwine and melt into each other. You can feel something passing from yourself to him, some energy or emotion, and something else jumps back along the same bridge: a buzz, a crackle of joy and anticipation, a delicious little frisson of pleasure that tingles all the way up your spine and lights up your brainstem like a Christmas tree.
“I think we should get out of here,” you purr as the kiss breaks, and he nods. His face is just porcelain again, but the expression on it is the devil grinning in His pew.
A new vampire enters! I’m so enjoying building up my new vampire breed. I hop eyou guys are liking them to. @fivesecondmemory commissioned this story. You can commission your own story too if you’d like, just message me!
Also! This story features sex while the MC is on their period. Just a heads up.
Working nights isn’t all the bad. You only really have to deal with your coworkers, and even your boss is over an intercom. Sure, heavy lifting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for you, this couldn’t be better. You’d much rather be dealing with heavy cargo than the cumbersome burden of customers. Working freight has been a blessing in disguise.
Your boss, or at least the overseer for everything, usually keeps to himself. He stays back in the central office, keeping tabs on the trucks that are coming and going as well as checking up with everyone’s progress. He’s not a bad guy just kind of…weird. Ok very weird. He was extremely pale, almost looking like an opal gemstone. He had long limbs like a taffy pull had stretched him. You hadn’t seen him often, but he left an impression, especially his hands. His fingers were super long, and you almost expected them to have extra joints. He’s worked for the company for a long time, but whenever you or your coworkers see him his appearance doesn’t match the age you expect him to be.
“I wonder what sort of skin care he does,” you coworker Amber says. You’re all crowded around the vending machines when he stepped out of the office. His hair is silvery and pale and falls before his eyes, nearly blending with his skin. He looks young but the way people talk he sounds like he should be in his fifties or sixties.
The music, thumping; the lights, flashing and shimmering overhead; the press of bodies all around you, the smell of a thousand people dancing and laughing and eating and drinking and crying and living. The floor beneath your feet jumps in time with the boosted bass pouring out of the amps. It’s Friday night, you’re in the Grove, and you’re ready to party.
Your friends are here too, of course: Cindy and Micaela and the pixie Willow-bark. Willow’s flitting around by your shoulder. You have to keep an eye on her– she ordered a thimble-sized rum and coke, but when you came back from the bathroom, your own cocktail looked a little shrunken and her flight path was noticeably more erratic. You’ve had to fish your six-inch friend out of the bottom of enough eight-inch glasses to know what to look out for.
Later for all that, though. Right now, you’re feeling the beat from your head to your toes. You didn’t come to the club to hook up– though that’s always an option for later– but you’ve been ogling plenty of the goodies on display. A muscular ichthys, bare from the waist up except for his breathing apparatus, is bopping away at the center of a crowd of admirers. A creature made of shadow and bone with the thickest ass you’ve ever seen is twerking its heart out. Literally– an ephemeral ruby heart orbits the frenzied dancer at a distance of about two feet.
Sidhe clubs are wild.
You’ve seen a few of the proprietors drifting lazily through the crowd. They’re easy to spot– tall, elegant, humanoid but for the elongated proportions of their limbs and their curiously smooth heads. Their faces are masks. That’s not a figure of speech, either; gleaming porcelain interfaces smoothly with hairless flesh, and the expressions that pass across them have the exaggerated affect of the classic sock and buskin masks. Wherever they go, the crowd parts with a whisper and an awed stare.
Cindy left about five minutes ago, giggling and hand-in-hand with a handsome satyr. You know she can take care of herself– you’re not worried. Micaela, though– you were just talking to her, before the bass dropped and the music lifted you off your feet. Where is she? Your ecstasy momentarily forgotten, you look left and right. She was just here. Should you text her? Has she even got her phone? Maybe you should go back to the table…
You turn, and nearly run directly into someone. You stumble back a foot or two and start to stammer out an apology. You’re staring at a well-tailored waistcoat about a hundred years out of date. You look up, and up, and up, and there, at the top of a slender neck, is the face of the person you just bumped into.
Well, the mask.
Oh, shit.
“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry,” you begin, and he winces. That’s right– the trappings of the Church burn and bind the Sidhe. You curse inwardly. You’re really fucked now. If you leave the club in a hurry maybe they won’t take your name down and ban you. You try to apologize, to explain, to beg forgiveness, but you’re trying to do all three at once and it just comes out in a jumbled mess. You’re aware now that you are standing in the middle of an expanding ring of people, all staring stonefaced at you.
“Oh sor, I’m so sirry… I mean, oh sir, I, oh I never meant to, please don’t–”
He hushes you with one long, graceful finger, and you’re so surprised that you actually shut up. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, but you can still hear it somehow even over the pounding beat.
“Please do not furnish me with your apologems. I misconstrued you in the crowd. Truly, the faultline was my own; I do not wish to emburden your person with further maladies.”
You squint. What? It occurs to you that you’ve never heard a sidhe speak before.
His mask looks down on you with an expression of infinite patience and infinite kindness. “Allow me to make introducement,” he says, bowing. “My name is Thousand-Silver-Stars-Falling-Like-Rain-Unto-The-Fallow-Earth. But you may name me Star.”
“Uh, I’m Y/N,” you manage awkwardly, and hold out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Star. If you don’t mind, I’ll…”
“That is why I have emblazoned you, my dear. I am well approached of your misfortune.” He pauses. “Your erstwhile friend.”
“Micaela?” you ask. “Where? Where is she? How?”
“Allow my to rend the veil,” he says, and turns. One finger crooks over his shoulder, beckoning you to follow. The crowd parts before him and closes behind, not quick enough to cut you off but quick enough to ensure you any number of stubbed toes, bruised shoulders and dirty looks. He leads you to a corner booth, where Micaela is sitting propped up against the corner. At your ear, Willow draws in a shocked gasp. Mic’s eyes are open, but they’re glassy. A line of drool trickles out of the corner of her mouth.
“Mic?” you ask. Willow buzzes over towards her and waves a tiny arm inches from her face. She pinches Mic’s nostril, always a surefire way to get someone’s attention. Nothing.
“It appears that she has undertaken incautious imbibement,” Star says. “I do again profoundly apologize. Our wards are normally proof against such unwholesome adulterants. It appears that some miscreant has pierced our countermeasures.” The mask now shows a wrathful grimace. “He will be soundly punished, once ferreted out. This club is a sanctum.”
“Will she… be ok?” you ask. You swallow. What if it had been your drink? Or Willow’s?
Star waves a hand. “Of course. But she will be insensate ‘til dawn. Do you have a conveyance? She would recoup with more alacrity in a familial setting.”
“I don’t… we took an Uber, and…”
“The club can provide a car. Would that be to your satiety?”
“Of… of course.” You feel a little lost. There’s a burp by your ear, a brief fluttering sound, and then something lands on your shoulder. You reach over and gently scoop up Willow, who appears to have passed out. She’s snoozing peacefully in your palm with the occasional hiccup. “Maybe for her, too?” Star suggests.
He waits with you while the club’s floor manager– a put-upon human man in a dark suit– dials a car. When it arrives, you hesitate. It’s barely midnight. Normally you’d just be getting started now. But you really should see your friends home…
Star seems to sense your distress. He presses something into your palm. You look down in wonder– it looks like a little silver leaf, its surface faintly glittery. “Go,” he suggests. “This token will secure your renaissance, should you still wish to partake in our gaieties. Another night, perhaps.”
You nod. “T-thanks, Mr. Star.” His response is a deep and sweeping bow; he seems to hinge at the waist and fold up like a puppet. When he stands again, his mask is looking down on you with a smile so plain and cheerful that it warms you up inside.
“Until that night, Y/N,” he says, and vanishes into the crowd.
–
It takes you two weeks to go back to the Grove, and when you do, you go alone. Cindy had a great time– she always does– but when she hears about what happened to Micaela, she sounds appalled. “Oh God,” she says, “that’s horrid.” ‘Horrid’ is a bit of a fairy-tale word, but you have to admit that the whole experience has you shaken up. The next week, the four of you just meet up in your apartment for cocktails and Mario Kart.
The week after that, though, you get the dancing itch. Micaela flatly refuses any more clubs (and, frankly, you don’t blame her,) Cindy’s with her current boyfriend (human, for once), and Willow-bark sounds enthusiastic enough on the phone but stops responding to your texts around 9pm. You’re not too surprised– she was slurring when you got off the line with her. She still hasn’t adjusted to everything in the city coming in human-sized portions. She’s with friends, at least.
That leaves one. You could just stay in, but… that silver leaf is still sitting on your dresser. It’s not made of metal, but it’s definitely not paper or plant material, either. It feels like silk, but it’s far too heavy, and the way it catches the light… something about it calls to you. And you barely got to enjoy the Grove before.
You make a decision. You’ve got a great new dress, you just cashed a paycheck, and you’ve got a ticket to the hottest club in town. There’s only one option, really.
The line for Grove stretches around the block, but you stride confidently to the front, ignoring the angry side-eyes from people waiting. The orc at the door clears his throat and you can see the words “back of the line” forming on his lips, so you pull out your leaf and flash it like a badge. It takes him aback, and he turns and whispers something to someone just out of view. You’re left standing there awkwardly for a moment or two, then a tall and spindly shape materializes out of the darkness of the club and favors you with a painted smile. It’s Star.
“Welcome, Y/N,” he says, and ushers you inside.
The layout of the club is totally different from last time. Much of the furniture has been cleared away. The ceiling seems higher, too, though maybe that’s just you. The air is full of rainbow light… and bubbles. Tiny ones like kids might blow at the park, big ones like at a circus or museum, and gigantic ones that hover far overhead like flying saucers. A couple of them have people in them. You gawk in astonishment. There are figures up there dancing without a care, suspended in shimmering translucent spheres. “How…” you ask, and Star’s mask grins at you.
“Glamour,” he says, as though that’s an answer.
The music is hypnotic. A female ichthys in a dazzling green dress is standing on a dais in the center of the room singing in her own language– you can’t understand it, but the warbling words put you in mind of whalesong. It’s incredibly tranquil, even over the electronic beat. All around you people are dancing in their own little worlds. More bubbles float by from somewhere behind you; you expect them to pop, but they settle all over you like snowflakes. They feel gauzy and not-totally-real, but when you burst one, your finger gets wet. You look up at Star with awe in your gaze. “This… how…”
“That is a sufficiency of questions,” he says. “Please. Will you feign to dance?” He begins to move, and you have no choice but to join him.
He’s incredibly graceful. More than once it seems as though he’s about to fall over or hurt himself, but at the last second he always twists into a new and perfect position. Watching him dance for too long makes your head hurt. It seems as though sometimes his arms pass through each other. It’s probably the club lights– they flash in all the colors of the rainbow, vibrant patterns of dots and lines that meld and intersect and split apart again. You find yourself falling into an easy, regular pattern. You’ve always been a bit self-conscious about your dancing, but at the club nobody really pays attention to other people’s moves anyways. Now, though, you’re moving with the grace and confidence that you always wished you had. And you’re not even drunk!
Star dances faster and faster. He loops around you and you spin yourself dizzy trying to keep up. His mask flickers through a catalog of expressions– joy when the music soars, sorrow when it plunges, anger when the bass comes in heavy. As it does, shadows of those emotions stir in your heart. It’s as if the feelings that he’s feeling are too big to be contained by one body. They’re spilling out all over you.
All too soon your breath starts rasping in your chest and your limbs begin to feel weak and wobbly. You’d want to dance all night if you could, but your body is betraying you. You stumble back a step, and like a flash, Star is there to catch you. “Please, Y/N,” he says, his voice like honey in your ear. “Let us repair to a more privileged locale,” he suggests, and you nod dumbly, too tired even to smile. He leads you to a corner booth and helps you into the chair.
“I hope tonight has in some small measure recompensed for your most dreadful misadventure of before, Y/N,” he says. “You look exhaustive. If you wish to retire, that is your prescription… but if you are not ready for this night to conclude…” He dangles the sentence out like a fishing line, and you bite eagerly.
“I’m not too tired,” you manage, suppressing a yawn. “What else do you have to show me?”
“This,” he breathes, and kisses you.
You expect to feel cold porcelain against your skin, but to your shock, the lips that press against yours are warm and soft and welcoming. You taste honeysuckle and nectar in his kiss, the taste of summer evenings in the country as the day spools closed and the sunset sets the grass aflame. You taste fear and exhilaration, yours or his you can’t tell. You taste desire. Your nostrils fill with the scent of him, a sweet and piney smell, as your tongues tangle and intertwine and melt into each other. You can feel something passing from yourself to him, some energy or emotion, and something else jumps back along the same bridge: a buzz, a crackle of joy and anticipation, a delicious little frisson of pleasure that tingles all the way up your spine and lights up your brainstem like a Christmas tree.
“I think we should get out of here,” you purr as the kiss breaks, and he nods. His face is just porcelain again, but the expression on it is the devil grinning in His pew.
This was a request, but unfortunately I have lost the screenshot of the message where the users name was so please dearie if you read this, send me a pm and I’ll tag you! ❤️
The request was for a monster boyfriend falling for a tall curvy reader.
***
They descended on Earth one summer day, causing panic and
confusion. Their fleets hovered above cities for days until the first
contact found place. Their race called themselves Aldeans, and humans
learned very quickly that there was nothing to fear from them.
Their home planet was destroyed after their sun imploded, and for
generations, they’ve searched the vast universe for a new home,
that would be as hospitable as their previous one, and as they
arrived on Earth, they signed a treaty with humans, allowing them to
build their cities in exchange for their technology and knowledge.
Months passed and they integrated so well into the human society
that after a while they started to leave their advanced, isolated
cities to live among humans. You saw them every day since they
started showing up on the streets. First they started working at
schools, that hired some of them as teachers, to start educating
human youth about other planets and species, about their customs and
origin. It eased the transition and helped humans to accept them much
faster. They worked with humans, formed friendships, and after a
while, some of them found mates on Earth, which maybe wasn’t at
first something everyone felt ok about, but with time It wasn’t
uncommon to spot a interspecies couple on the street and after a
while everyone just stopped staring at them.
Monsters and Villains 