[WP] Fairies (Faeries if you please) do exist. Some are good and helpful. Some are not.

....

Ever since the Goblins had been dealt with and I starting working in the fields, Old Nan had been a lot nicer to me.

Among all those in the village of Red Stone, it was mainly Tom and Nan who would have me over for lunch or dinner. At times I might tag along to visit others in the area after a day's work, but more often than not I found myself visiting those closest to my humble abode by the forest and hills, and that was easily half a mile in the old couple's favor.

Usually it was under the context of work- with some excuse of needing an able-body to help with the chores around their home or field, but I could read well enough between the lines. Although I was certainly not yet quite to the level of a well-loved Grandchild (where I could expect to be spoiled with candies and far too much to eat at every visit) Old Nan did actually smile in my presence when she thought I wasn't paying attention. Apparently, the credit for returning her husband unharmed from the Goblin attack had fallen to me. From the look on Tom's face when the subject arose, I knew better than correct the misunderstanding.

So I guess I had that going for me, which was nice.

"The Scones are wonderful today Nan." I spoke up from my place at the heavy wooden table beside the window of their cabin. To the far side of the room, flour-covered hands worked bread beneath a roller as small wicker basket of berries waiting for their selection. Those looked mostly like blueberries, but tasted like strawberries, and they were called role-berries. Blueberries and strawberries apparently didn't exist in this world, though there was another regional species of berry that happened to be blue in color- and they apparently tasted like straw.

The irony was not lost to me, palpable as the flavor of honey-coated scone on the plate beneath my nose.

It was the topic of such little things, such as fruit and flavors was just one of the many strange intricacies of life I was still mostly ignorant. Human life in this world reminded me much of those along the Old West Frontier, or perhaps medieval Europe. Villages and neighbors worked together, and beyond the general respect and knowledge of the distant cities along the continent's coast, persisted to survive and thrive on their own accord. Since the last great war, life in the region had apparently remained mostly unchanged: A tough but peaceful existence that seemed content to carry on just as it was, inching forward progress by inches instead of strides.

"Them' Fairies touched the wheat this year. That'd be why." Nan's reply came with a puff of flour, as the bread she worked flipped over to resume the press of a rolling pin of dense wood. "Good ones o'course. Not the bad uns', not this past season anyways."

"Fairies eh?" I cut away another piece of the scone with the side of my fork. Unlike the kind I was used to back before reality dumped me here, the metal piece only had two prongs, and not four. It still worked just fine though. "I don't think I've ever met a fairy."

"Don't be silly Jake. I tell' you, most everyone has met a fae at some point or another. They just' don't let themselves be seen easy, so most folk don't notice."

I took another bite, considering as I watched Nan crease the flattened dough down over a cast iron piece before dumping in the role-berries atop it. Another flattened portion of bread soon found itself added to the surface, thin cuts poked with a short steel knife. Role-berry pie: According to Old Tom, this was Nan's seasonal specialty. It apparently won the village contests every other year or so, though Nan wasn't the type to brag about it.

"You ever seen one then?" I asked, carefully taking a sip from the wooden cup of Cider. Apples were apparently a thing in this world, but not blueberries or strawberries; that was something that irked me to no end. There didn't seem much rhyme or reason to it. "I'm not certain we had fairies where I'm from."

"Oh, I've seen them alright'. Got the gift ever since I was a girl: Out in the orchards, the fields or the kitchen. They're quiet little things mostly. Sometimes not, but mostly'."

"Do you see any of them now?" I questioned, as I finished the last of the cider with a final bite of the scone on my plate. Nan gave me a stern look from where she stood beside her readied pie, cloth slowly wrapping about her hands as she prepared to lift it into the cast oven beside her. "I'm just curious." Her eyes softened before she set the rags back down.

"Unfortunately, there's always one in this house." She replied. "Tom's at fault, he is."

"Really?" I asked, "So there's one here right now?"

"Aye, and no matter how hard I've tried to be rid of the damned thing, it stays put. Just' as cold, sharp, and quiet as it was when it first came through that door. Barely ever moves lately but I can see it when it does." Slowly, her hand rose to point towards the wall beside the bed, and my eyes followed to the object that hung on mounted spokes. Tom's sword sat quietly in its leather sheath, immobile. "Ever since he came back from the North, that fae is always sitting there. Settled in well and good."

I stared, comprehending as the intended meaning formed. "In the sword..." The words came out more as a question than a statement: It was a foreign concept, but I often had to remember that this was a foreign world. Where there be Goblins, there might as well be faeries. "So the fairy lives in the metal?"

Nan nodded, lifting up the pie once again and pushing it into the over with carefully practiced ease. "Lives in the soul of it, in the purpose of an object." She continued over her shoulder, "That's not always bad you know, for food or tools- things of value, a fae can be helpful. A blacksmith's hammer will last' longer if it's loved by the fae. Food will taste better, wood will be stronger- a home that is especially loved by the faeries is protected in some ways. Spirits have that' nature about them." The iron hinge closed shut, sealing the pie to the heat within it as she rose. "But a weapon... A blade like that has no use for good folk, and neither does that being which inhabits such a piece."

Walking slowly towards the wall, I stared at the weapon with interest. Worn but polished guard, faded grip of carefully sown leather over wood, with a perfect pommel of rounded edge. The sword didn't seem to glow with magnificence or wealth, but it held something towards itself. Something outside the ordinary of a normal object; the closer I looked, the more I felt as though something were looking just as closely back- prickling the hair on my neck with a quiet chill. Time seemed to slow as I watched: Like an invisible layer of color, slowly churning in motion, I could see something there. If I could only look closer-

"It knows you." To my sudden surprise, Nan was standing beside me, flour-covered hands holding her roller tightly. "Seen what' you can do, the violence in you- what you did to those Goblins an' what it helped you to do when Tom brought it to that field." Her eyes narrowed on the weapon, stern and harsh as they held on the sheathed blade. "The fae in this sword has tasted death. Tasted more than it should have."

"I think... I think I can see it." I spoke quietly. "Like a serpent or something close..." As I reached my palm towards the sword, Nan's hand caught my wrist. Her seemingly frail grip was like iron and steel: As if woven metal pulleys lay beneath her wrinkled skin, in place of muscle and tendon.

"Aye, you see what it lets you see."

Slowly Nan drew my hand back, eyes never leaving the sword for an instant as she stepped away, and I followed.

"You can see that small portion of it, but I can see the rest. The fangs that reach from hungering jaws an' eyes: Those black pits of dark shadows that hold no love for any man but Tom, an' Tom alone."

We stared a moment longer as the feeling faded, harsh bitterness in the air that I'd not realized present slowly slipping back to the familiar scent of scone and pie until it was all but replaced. In place of whatever had existed before was now rising bread and warming fruit, a quiet whine from the aging hound by the bed, and the chirping of far-off birds. Beyond the windows of the room, the sun had risen far more distant than I'd realized.

"Things touched by the fae can change." Nan whispered quietly as she went back to her work by the fire, roller in hand. "For better or worse, they can change."

Quietly I picked my dishes from the table, washing them carefully with a rag of wet cloth before I headed out for the day, a single nod and thanks to Nan as I passed back out beneath the open sky. While I went about my routine, no matter how hard the work or how tired my muscles, I thought of the sword often. Between friendly waves and passing conversation of the others in the village, those thoughts of cold steel haunted in the back of my mind like a moth drawn towards a candles flame.

It wasn't until the sun did set and the last hours of evening faded into night and starry skies, that the final hints of lingering bitterness were gone and forgotten.