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lonely--shine · 1 year

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*Fandom: Ta Daoine Maithe | The Good People *Rating: Gen *Characters: Éireannach | MC Alaine *Chapters: 1/1 (One Shot) *Pages: 3,5 *Wordcount: 1.538 *Summary: Three days King Flannán gave her. Three days after which she'll become friend or foe. Alaine carefully ponders her options before tying the strings of fate into a knot. Any fool knows eating Fae food traps you in the Otherworld... But aren't they trapped already?

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Three days. That’s the time the King of the Fae —well, the Unseelie Court, at least— had given her to make up her mind, after which it would be decided if she was friend or foe.

Well… Maybe ‘friend’ was too strong of a word. Helper? Ally? Useful asset?

Alaine sighed and pushed those thoughts aside, shaking her head. How to call it didn’t matter that much. What mattered is they were trapped. There. In the Otherworld.

The room she was in —or maybe she could call it the cell, given the circumstances— was small and plain, but did to keep her warm and dry. It was all stone and wood, with a bed, a nightstand, and a chest. And from the window one could see the red-golden light of evening bathing the trees changing colours that surrounded the castle.

Right, Murias, the Province of Autumn, from what she had peeked on that map on her arrival. Unfortunately, a way out wasn’t marked on that map. At least, not that she had seen.

Alaine shifted on the edge of the bed where she sat. There was a mirror too on the room, right behind her. She pointedly didn’t look at the mirror.

‘You’re starving yourself,’ the King of the Unseelie had said. ‘You’ll die.’

And right she was starving herself. Any fool knows eating Fae food traps you in the Otherworld. But really, hadn’t she been slowly starving for long before that? What, with the crops disease, everyone was suffering from the famine. Her body had already turned to all skin and bones, her once shiny brown hair now thin and dull, her dark eyes sunk in its sockets.

She didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like.

Alaine’s hands curled around the fabric of the fancy green dress of the Fae, black lace more expensive than she could really imagine decorating it with flowery shapes, her skin standing golden pale and freckled against the clothing.

Focus, Alaine, she told herself. Maybe she could sell the dress… That is, if they could find their way back. The robber that had taken her horse and valuables was also the one that quite literally pushed them into the Otherworld. Well, at least she found her horse and bag there. Not a robber after all, then? Why did they trap her in there?

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? She might have not eaten anything Fae, but she was still very much trapped in the Otherworld, with no clue of how to get back and no clue of what was going on.

Oh, sure, she’d gathered a thing or two since her arrival, mostly from King Flannán, who told her a bit about the history —and had his eyes looked as broken as hers when he did? Alaine shook her head. That didn’t matter. What mattered, is the Otherworld was at war. Or, a delicate, barely-there truce between Seelie and Unseelie, she supposed. Still war-torn, though. And it felt more like war than it felt like peace, that was for sure.

Then there was the matter of everyone knowing her face in there. Well, maybe not her face, but this Daonna, whoever they were, that shared a face with her. Which has made everyone mistake her for them, apparently the Court Druid of the Seelie. So everyone assumes they know what’s going on, and nobody is gonna let them sneak out that easily.

Alaine dared a glance to window, frowning. Da and Mam will be so worried…

She needed to get back, but how? And when they did, what would they do? Darby, her horse, had already munched on Fae flowers, she wasn’t sure she could bring her back with them even if they could manage to escape. And if it turned so, then what? Make their way back home on foot?

And starving, she added to herself, clutching at her stomach. With her bag back, she’d recovered the potato and the wineskin filled with water, but her stomach was still hollow. Could she really make it home in such a condition, with such obstacles in the way?

I’ve been robbed, become lost, left them without the horse and the valuables, and they will think me dead.

Nausea overtook Alaine, and they didn’t know if it was because of the hunger or the distress anymore. Maybe it was both. It probably was both.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and curling her fingers around fabric of her dress until she could feel her nails on her skin, grounding her. Focus, Alaine…

She needed to get back to her family, to get the money to keep them housed and fed. But for that she needed to get back to the human world. And for that she needed to be alive… and for that she needed to eat.

Alaine opened her eyes again, focusing them on their pale, bony hands.

Any fool knows eating Fae food traps you into the Otherworld. But weren’t they trapped already? Not eating was not serving them to escape, and being trapped meant she couldn’t go back to their family and get the money needed to survive, but so did being dead.

Which brought her to the matter of King Flannán’s offer. Her freedom. Well, in all fairness, Daonna’s freedom. Explained the history of the Otherworld in brief he might, even when she —Daonna— should have known, but he still thought she was them. And it was in exchange for their help, their skills, their intel that he offered freedom. Skills they hadn’t.

It was not that she didn’t want to help. After what King Flánnan had told them… Death. Starvation. Being confined to Autumn and Winter while Summer and Spring are sure to be plentiful… That was something she could understand. That was something she wanted to help with. Alas, how could she when she’s not who he —who they all— thinks she is?

Alaine shook her head once again. She would help in any way she could, in exchange for freedom. King Flannán had seen honest —and a little bit brokenhearted, perhaps?— when he offered freedom in exchange of help, so that she could keep her life.

The question was, would he so willingly offer them freedom knowing they are not Daonna? Would accepting his offer and then clear the mistake that she is not them count as tricking a Fae? And in that case, which fate would befall her? Good lord.

Cad é an diabhal a fuair mé f��in isteach? What the devil did she get herself into indeed; it all was supposed to be just an easy trip to Galway and back… Well, maybe not easy, but she was never meant to ponder her fate in the Otherworld.

Step by step, Alaine reminded herself, getting up from the edge of the bed.

It didn’t matter right at the moment in which manner they would explain to the King of the Unseelie that they weren’t who everyone thought they were, not what this news would mean for them, nor if the King would accept the help of a poor lost soul instead, and keep his promise for freedom through mistaken identity all the same.

The first step, all that mattered first, was to keep herself alive… and that meant food. Fae food.

Resigned, and trying to steel her nerves, Alaine turned round and fixed her gaze in the small bowl of fruit sitting atop the wooden chest at the feet of the bed. Her stomach growled at the sight, but a lifetime of warnings against what she was about to do had her frowning all the same.

Cautiously, as if the mere action of getting close might be dangerous, Alaine walked to the chest and picked up a pear from the bowl, levelling it with her eyes.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t trap yourself with a bite when you’re already trapped. It doesn’t matter that you don’t trap yourself if you don’t make it out alive anyway.

Alaine took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and took a small bite from the pear. It was ripe and sweet and her mouth watered at the taste of it.

She could still spit out the bite of pear. Any fool knows eating Fae food traps you in the Otherworld…

But starvation might as well trap you in death. She could not die yet. Not without making sure her family would be well. And King Flannán had promised freedom. If she kept her life, she might yet find a way to make him keep his word, even when it was not for her.

Slogtar an piorra. Swallow the goddamned pear, Alaine! And, with an effort, she forced herself to do so, without even chewing it first. Fortunately, she didn’t choke on it, but it settled on the bottom of her stomach like the strings of fate tying into a knot.

Alaine opened their eyes again and looked at the pear, now missing a bite. And like so, it was done, the decision taken an irrevocable, their fate sealed. Sealed into what, however, was something that they didn’t yet know.

But perhaps, she still had the power to shape it.

#just a little something I did to flesh Alaine out after palying the demo! :D #I could've posted it before but I needed a cover to post it on dA xD #the good people #na daoine maithe #ndm #ndm fanfic #ndm eireannach #ndm mc

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