How Not to Date a Fae

by Stephanie Burke

  Cailte went to stand up and instead found his limbs shaking and too weak to support his weight. “The hell?” he muttered, trying to force his limbs to move. “What have ya done to me?”

  He struggled to stand again, but all he succeeded in doing was straining himself to the point where he was visibly shaking. He allowed himself to fall back to the pallet with a groan, and almost immediately the odd young man was at his side.

  “Don’t move so much,” the young man scolded. “You’ve been dead for a long time --”

  “Dead?” he squeaked. “If I was dead, I would know it!”

  Then he took a good, long look around the room and suddenly felt the urge to rethink that statement.

  There were lights on in the ceiling. The ceiling was smooth and painted a pale, clean white. There was glass at the window, but he couldn’t hear anything through it. The walls were also clean and white, looking as if they had never been used at all. The floors… He had never seen such glossily polished floors in his life. Although there was not a lot of furniture, the small dresser across the room looked to be high quality indeed.

  “Where am I?”

  “My home.” The strange young man reached out and poked him in the arm.

  “Who are you, lad? And can ya please stop that?”

  “A-Ario,” the man finally stammered. “Please, call me Ario.”

  “Ario.” The name rolled off his tongue and answered but one of his many questions. “Ario, then. This is your house?”

  “Yes.” He seemed to relax some as he settled back on his feet. “This is my home and I found you… you were entrusted to my care.”

  “Entrusted, you say,” he mused, sighing and settling back into the soft sheets.

  “Merrick, the pixy,” Ario added, still looking at him with a dazed expression. “He left you in my care.”

  “Pixy.” Cailte nodded. “I think I can recall them…”

  “You can?” This seemed to relax Ario further. “What else can you remember?”

  “I remember Finn,” he said after a few seconds of silence.

  Where was his friend? He could recall… The last thing he remembered was his friend and leader, Finn. Finn and the rest of his most trusted… They all lay down deep in the cave provided by the pixies after they ran the treacherous wee-fae from the land. They had all lain down on their stone daises wearing their best, holding their weapons, filled with a feeling… What were they feeling when they decided to take the big sleep?

  Yes, he remembered it all, how he was the last to venture to the Cave of Sleep because he wanted to experience what remained of his life with his beautiful consort, Scathniamh. And he remembered watching time change, watching as the magic disappeared from the land, how the English had come and taken over, how his people were being beaten back and the old ways forgotten to make room for the new religions. Yes, he remembered that it was almost a blessing to join the rest of his fellow Fianna in the deep sleep that would last until they were needed again.

  So why was he awake? Where were his leader and the rest of the Fianna? Was there a war?

  “Are you okay?” Ario asked.

  “Is there war?”

  “What?” Ario looked confused.

  “Is there war?”

  “Several.” Ario sighed. “Religious or political?”

  “Many wars?” Cailte shook his head. Maybe the Fianna had been dispatched to aid in several different war efforts. He sighed and accepted his fate. It seemed that he was destined for the task of warfare yet again.

  “Where am I needed?” he asked, preparing himself once again to see the blood of men shed and the screams of the dying.

  “Needed?” Ario looked confused again.

  “Yes, where is my sword arm needed?”

  “Nowhere.” Ario shrugged.

  “Nowhere? Are ya daft, man? My sword is needed. Where am I to go?”

  “Sword?” Ario looked to the dresser where the elaborate sword rested and shrugged again. “What good is a sword against a bomb?”

  “Bomb?”

  “Bomb.” Ario rose to his feet. “The destructive power of a bomb is more damaging than a million swords. I get chills when I think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

  “A million swords?” Cailte scoffed. “Try taking the piss out of someone else.”

  “Remain here,” Ario stated, then turned and left the room.

  “Like I can verra well get up and roam on my own, lad!” Cailte shouted at the retreating back before he settled down for some good grumbling. “A million sword arms,” he scoffed.

  But Ario soon returned with a metal box of some sort in his arms. It was small and silver and had an odd-looking mirror on the bottom of the lid.

  When Ario sat beside him and presented the box, he saw a very detailed painting and a lot of small squares that had the King’s Letters printed on them. But he almost choked on his tongue when Ario pressed a button and the pictures began to move.

  “What treachery is this?” he gasped, unable to move away from the thing. Surely this was black magic!

  “This is a computer,” Ario explained. “It is a way to access information from around the world.”

  That made Cailte curious enough to peer closely at the “computer.”

  “Is it magic?” he asked as Ario’s fingers danced on the small black squares and a line of letters spread across the pictures on the bottom of the lid.

  “Technology,” Ario corrected as he worked. “And this is a bomb.”

  Ario turned the computer more toward Cailte and pressed a key.

  The bright lights and the loud boom that emerged from the computer box would have made a lesser man wet his pants. As it was, Cailte found himself wide-eyed as a callow youth, staring at the box as bright colors flashed and the land that the computer picture showed was decimated with the force that he figured was Armageddon. What was this? This was not honest, honorable war. This was… this was madness!

  “Cover me up,” Cailte stammered, oddly enough realizing that he was still naked and exposed before this man. Suddenly, he didn’t feel his arousal anymore, or curiosity about this place. Suddenly, all he felt was nausea.

  “What?” Ario asked, closing his computer box, his eyes holding concern. “You are not looking so well. Is there anything --”

  “Cover me up!” Cailte bellowed, feeling desperate, like he wanted to run and hide away.

  Not only didn’t he understand this world, he suddenly knew that he was obsolete. What good was a warrior who fought bravely when so many could be destroyed without mercy or valor? Were there any people left? Was his land a devastated mess? Why was he here?

  He felt the sheets being pulled up his body but was too lost in his musings to really care. “What year is it?”

  Ario paused and looked at him, consideration in his eyes. “It is the year two thousand and ten.”

  Cailte felt himself pale further. “Four hundred and sixty,” he breathed sadly.

  “Excuse me?” Ario asked, chewing on his bottom lip.

  “The last date I remember… four hundred and sixty. I was the last to take the big sleep.”

  He fell silent, contemplating the years that had passed. It was almost too much!

  “Are you hungry?” Cailte blinked as Ario’s words penetrated the fog his mind had become. “I have soup?”

  “No,” Cailte found himself saying, his voice gone flat. “Not hungry.”

  Ario stared at him again, his green eyes seeming to understand a little of the turmoil his mind had become.

  “Shall I leave you to rest?” he finally asked, and Cailte nodded numbly. He really wanted to be left alone now.

  Ario was as good as his word. He nodded, picked up his computer box and rose to his feet. “If you need anything, please do not hesitate to call for me.” He gave a short bow and then he was gone.

  Cailte suddenly felt his losses and all of his years. He closed his eyes and prayed to the old gods, the new gods, to anyone who was listening to please, p
lease put him back to sleep.

  Chapter Four

  Ario felt a thoughtful mood taking over as he moved to the kitchen. He was beginning to understand what had so unnerved his guest. He could attest to how such feelings of displacement could make you want to die or at least hide away.

  But this had to be much worse, he reasoned as he opened jars and banged pots to make a hearty miso soup thick with green onions, silken tofu, mushroom, thin slices of tuna, and seaweed. He could not imagine losing over fifteen hundred years. It was staggering.

  “Ario,” he concluded. “You have made a muddle out of things.”

  But there were things he could do to help make it right, and chief among them was feeding the living-dead man. So even though Cailte said he was not hungry, Ario decided to bring him up a tray. It might not solve all the problems of such a major time shift, but it would make him feel better.

  “You are taking this extremely well,” he praised himself for a moment. Pixies, living-dead men, strange animals… Well, he decided, being something of a magical being did have its advantages.

  With that firmly in mind, he made a tray with a huge bowl of miso and some other tantalizing snacks, and carried it up to the giant’s room.

  Cailte was still lying there, he noted with a frown. The man was looking up at the ceiling, trying to pretend that the world didn’t exist.

  Ario could relate. “I brought you something.” He spoke softly as he entered the room and made his way to the bedside of the red-haired giant. “I know that you aren’t hungry, but I thought it best that you have something.”

  Cailte said nothing but he turned his head and quietly observed him. Taking that as permission to move closer, Ario walked to the bedside and gracefully dropped to his knees. “I have brought you miso soup. It is a great comfort to me and is a dish from my homeland. I have also brought you monju and mochi. They are really a cake but whenever I am feeling down I have some to make me feel better.” He placed the tray beside the futon. “Have you gained use of your extremities once again?”

  “If you are asking if I can lift my arm, then yes.” Ario watched as one long arm lifted, the whipcord muscles flexing under the pale, freckled skin. “But I do not have great control of them.”

  “It is to be expected.” Ario spoke softly, reaching for a trembling arm. “You have been lying in one place for a long time.”

  Cailte stiffened as Ario began to massage the muscles, paying close attention to the callused palms and the thick wrists. After a moment, Cailte began to relax, his breathing coming just a bit easier than it had been before.

  “That feels very good,” Cailte muttered, still not looking him in the eyes.

  “I have been trained in the art of massage. For a time, it was part of my duties.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Cailte now sounded a bit suspicious to Ario, so he turned his head and stared into deep purple eyes, the likes of which he had never seen before.

  “That is correct,” Ario said with pride. “It was a chore in which I excelled.”

  Cailte said nothing, but Ario could almost feel those eyes traveling down his bare chest, to the long expanse of leg and thigh that showed below his cut-off shorts. And with that look he could almost feel the giant’s disapproval and disgust.

  “A whore, then?” Cailte asked, arching one eyebrow again.

  “Never.” Anger made Ario’s body flush beneath Cailte’s gaze. “And if you ever again name me thusly, I will slit your throat.” All the feel-good feelings he found developing for the man, all the pity and understanding, went out of his mind like a puff of smoke.

  Cailte frowned as he again examined Ario’s body. “Then why are you dressed like that, lad?”

  “I am dressed like this because it is cooler for when I have to work.”

  “Forgive me. I meant no insult.” Cailte spoke sincerely, his eyes open and honest, and Ario felt himself relent a little.

  “I have no idea how society was in your time,” Ario began to lecture, “but right now, in this time period, it is considered a grave insult to refer to someone as a whore.”

  “Whoring is an honorable profession,” Cailte offered. “But I ken what you are saying, lad. No insult was meant, but I woke with me naked and your hand upon my tackle… False conclusions were drawn when ye came in to serve me.”

  “Nevertheless,” Ario insisted. “I am not a whore. If I choose to perform, it will be because I chose to do so, not for payment of any kind.” And that settled the matter in Ario’s mind. “Now, you need to eat.”

  “Not really hungry,” the stubborn redhead insisted.

  “So you are just going to stare at the ceiling and pity yourself?” Ario crossed his arms and glared down at Cailte. “That is not the way of an honorable warrior.”

  “What would you know of it, lad?” Cailte sounded like he was growing cross again, and Ario was too damn tired to put up with it.

  “I know of loss, old man.”

  “Who are you calling old?” There was some fight in his voice now, something that Ario approved of whole-heartedly.

  “I am calling old the one who has dust in his ears!”

  Ario reached out and pulled Cailte’s hair back, for the first time really focusing in on his ears, and then he paused. “Do you know your ears are pointed?”

  “Pointed? Of course they are pointed. All the Fianna have pointed ears. We are fae.”

  “Fairy?” Ario tilted his head to the side. “I have never really heard the term before.”

  “Fated to die, lad. We were all fated to die so we made an agreement with the Old Ones. We would fight for what is right and good in the world, and we would have our times extended. As a show of agreement, all of our ears are thus, to mark us as fae.”

  “I have never heard of such.” Ario was fascinated. “Tell me more.”

  “Are you not afraid, lad?”

  “My ancestor is said to be a great white wolf who created mankind and protects us.” Ario paused, not really wanting to reveal his past. “Magics are not new to me, old man.”

  “Hmm.” Cailte wrinkled his nose as he stared at Ario.

  “What?”

  “You know, one of my gifts is the ability to speak with animals? All animals?”

  “And?” Ario felt a queer thrill run through him.

  “I just thought that you should know, descendant of a wolf.”

  At his words a wave of arousal rushed over Ario, making him curse softly under his breath. But he struggled to maintain his façade of composure. What was it about this man that was making him behave so oddly? He had to get himself and his reactions back under control, he decided. And that meant falling back to formality.

  “I am just Kato Ario.”

  “Kato?” There was a question in his voice, and Ario felt no harm in answering.

  “Kato was… is my family name. Ario is my given name.”

  “Ah!” Cailte nodded as if in understanding. “I am Cailte mac Ronan. Ronan is my father’s name. Cailte means --” He wrinkled his nose again. “-- thin man.”

  “Keel-ta!” Ario smiled, finally getting a pronunciation he could understand. “I freely admit I was having some trouble pronouncing your name correctly. Ario means --” He forced himself not to roll his eyes. “-- belligerent.”

  “Really? I never would have guessed.” Cailte chuckled.

  “And now I can call you old thin man.” Ario sniffed, a smile playing at his lips. “With dusty ears.”

  “I am not that old,” Cailte groused, then paused. “Well, I do not feel that old, and that is the truth.”

  “Are you feeling anything at all?” Ario was still concerned about his extremities. Before Cailte could answer, he was bending over the other man and pressing a finger into his thigh, watching as the muscle jumped in response.

  “Oh, I am feeling something, lad.” The breathy quality of Cailte’s voice made Ario look up into his face and then down into the neat tent that was forming at his crotch.

  Instantly, h
e snatched his hands back, the fading blush resurfacing rapidly. “Please excuse me. I meant no… It was not my intention to…”

  Ario pulled back and glared down at his hands. It was not his intent to arouse the man! He had just woken up after a fifteen-hundred-year sleep. Ario had not actively drawn his powers, though he could feel them thrumming through his system.

  That was the odd feeling he’d had before, he realized. It had been so long since he had actively called on his powers that he no longer knew what they felt like rolling through his body.

  “Any man inclined to like beautiful things would rise to the occasion, lad,” Cailte said, chuckling. “And I find you quite attractive.”

  “You do not understand…”

  “Are you not inclined, lad?”

  “I like the male body as well as the female form.” Ario tried to think of a way to tell Cailte that he was sexual crack and that he was accidentally plying his powers on him, but was at a loss, and Cailte kept interrupting him…

  “Well, then, I see no problem with it, lad. There was a time when my blessed consort Scathniamh would have tried her hardest to get you into the furs.”

  “Consort?” Ario squeaked. “You have a consort?”

  “Had.” Cailte sighed, and Ario noted in relief that the other man’s erection was subsiding, too. Maybe it wasn’t Ario’s Komiko powers that were causing his arousal. If it had been him, then no force short of actual climax would have relieved the swelling.

  “Had, lad. Had.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “She passed long before I took the great sleep. I lingered the longest, wanting to know that my sons made a good match and produced fine children. I promised Scathniamh that I would look after them.”

  “You had children?” Ario smiled. “And they had children?”

  “And I will assume that their bairns had bairns and so forth and so forth.” Cailte sounded happier now in his suppositions. “And I am sure that the blood has not died out.”

  “So you have fulfilled your duties to your bloodline?” Ario asked, relaxing more. Family duty and responsibility he could understand.