Discovering Fae
Puny Magic

Ben

I stared at the liquid in the glass in front of me, wishing it was something other than water. Things have been different since we came back from the Sidhe. Blaine and I could still feel the bond with her, and her turmoil was bothering both of us, but she didn’t need either of us. We weren’t the ones that could calm her down and help her heal. Mal, as much as he tried, couldn’t do much either, since the bond between them was so damaged.

No, she needed Nando. Hell, we all needed him. He was the one that saw reason in chaos and solid ground when the world was falling apart. I’m no stranger to death and loss. Being a demon, even if only a lesser one, you tend to see death often enough. None of them were my friends, though.

I scoffed. Friend. How insulting. Nando wasn’t a friend. He was my brother in all but blood. Losing him hurt more than I ever thought one person can stand. I couldn’t even begin to understand what his poor mother went through. It still hurt, too. I thought, hoped, that it would be getting better by now. Gods, I was wrong.

I sighed when my phone started ringing and pulled it out of my pocket to check the ID. Mal. Fae probably wanted to visit again. I could use the distraction.

“Hey, I’ll be over in a bit. Just make sure there’s something to snack on besides stale crackers this time,” I said and downed the water.

“Fae’s gone,” Mal said, and I choked, shooting water from my nose as more went into my lungs. “Blaine’s in the Sidhe. Can you replace him?”

“What do you mean Fae’s gone?!” I yelled, stomping through the house, grabbing my keys and slamming the door behind me.

“I mean she’s gone!” he shouted back. “She was with Mary. She said she was there, then gone. Like, poof! Gone! Dammit!”

“Well, sniff her out, lover boy,” I snapped.

“You think I haven’t tried?” he cursed a few more times. “It’s not like before. She’s not just gone. Not that way. She’s on earth. I can feel her, but it’s so far away, I can’t tell which way to go. Just get Blaine and call me when you get back. I’ll let you know if I can figure anything out by then.”

“Why is it she keeps disappearing on us?” I said and slammed my car door. “I can’t promise I’ll replace Blaine, but I’ll do what I can. If I don’t replace him in two hours, I’m coming back, and we’ll start looking for her without him.”

“If you replace Blaine, take him to see Jacob. He was talking to Fae when she freaked out,” he said, and I got a cold shiver down my spine at the menace in his voice. “He won’t say what they were talking about. Let the hellhound deal with the hellcat. The two of us can do the searching.”

I sped off as Mal hung up and I tossed my phone in the back seat. I really didn’t want to be Jacob when Blaine heard about this.

Fae

Termites weren’t that bad, once you got past the whole eating a live bug thing. They tasted earthy and woody, like their primary food source. Still, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I swear, I could still feel them moving as they went down my throat.

I shook myself to get rid of the lingering creeps as I dragged another large broken limb towards the incredibly shabby shelter I was making. I would not make it on any of the survival shows. Not with this insult to the craft, but it would serve a purpose. I just didn’t know what that purpose was, since this thing wouldn’t keep out a thing.

I had found a landslide some distance away and some of the exposed rocks were quite sharp and jagged. I used some of the vines to make a bit of a handle on one of the rocks and made a kind of knife. There was no way I was going to do any damage to a predator with this aside from maybe a bad scratch and a wicked bruise, but it was enough to hack a few saplings down.

I had decided it would be wise to build off the ground, since I did eventually see a very large snake during my adventures in Termite Town. I used vines to tie everything together and built a small frame. I couldn’t replace any trees small enough and close enough together to tie it to, so I made it a swing, hanging from a branch about a dozen feet above me. I wasn’t about to spend what little calories I got from eating bugs on hacking at trees only to end up making my swing too heavy, so I decided a few thin branches woven together with the longer vines I had would be lighter and easier to make, since it was starting to get dark already. The current branch was the last I would need in order to, more or less, enclose my little swing. It wouldn’t keep much out, but it was the sense of security that helped.

I still didn’t have a fire, which worried me more as it got darker, and I didn’t replace any water that I felt comfortable drinking without boiling it first. I was sweating like crazy and knew I would be needing to replenish soon or risk dangerous dehydration issues.

I pulled the last of the vines tight and took a good look at what I had made. I had to laugh at it. It was a piece of crap, floating pyramid looking thing that looked like it would fall apart if I so much as sneezed wrong.

“Note to self, no reality shows for me,” I snorted as I tested the strength of the braided vines that I had used to suspend my hovel off the ground.

Once I was convinced it would hold me well enough, I looked up then back to the stack of firewood I had failed so horribly on lighting. I wouldn’t be sleeping any tonight if I didn’t have a fire, not that I held out much hope of sleeping anyhow. If the strange jungle didn’t keep me up, the nightmares would.

If I could make sparks of electricity, would that possibly be enough to make a fire? It could work, but what if I focused on trying to make fire and not electricity. Even if all I could do was make some heat, if it was hot enough, it could be enough.

I made a nest of tinder and shook my hands as I tried to focus on that pressure that builds in my chest. Mary said it was what my magic felt like when it was building up. After some time, I growled and flopped to my butt on the ground. This wasn’t working.

I could make sparks easily enough and electricity was supposed to be a more advanced form of fire, right? So why was I not able to make it happen?

I stared at the kindling and thought hard. Maybe I was going about it the wrong way. Mary had said that my uncertainty was choking the energy inside of me. And if the pressure in my chest was magic building up, what if I was trying to make a lake when there should be a river?

Well, I was certain that if I couldn’t do this, I was going to be eaten tonight, so I used that as motivation to let the river flow.

I put my hands over the tinder again and thought about how it would feel to let the pressure flow through my body and out of my hands and thought about fire. The heat, the light, the way it sounded as it burned.

I smelled smoke and peeked down. That’s all there was, but deep in the nest of tinder was a teeny ember, burning away. I’ll take it.

Once I had a fire burning, I got up and shouted for joy, sending several birds flying as I danced around like an idiot.

“Puny magic for the win, suckers!”