The Virgin and the Fae

Charlotte pushed her chair back and stood.

She had nothing left to say and felt the gesture had a sense of finality about it

“I’d like to go to bed, please.”

Garrick could hear the repressed emotion in her voice and sighed. When would she ever let go?

He turned, looking over his shoulder. “Locke, we will discuss the Day of the Fallen tomorrow. Remind Kaelyn that she is to join us.”

“She’ll want to bring Hugh.”

“Fine. But she is to play with him afterwards. It upsets Charlotte to see him in that condition.”

“Garrick,” and then, in a rather sardonic tone, “Human,” he said with a slight nod to each of them. And then Locke was gone.

“What’s Day of the Fallen?” Charlotte asked.

Garrick looked thoughtful.

“How much did Jove explain the Great Battle?”

“Minimally, I suppose.”

“Are you too tired to hear the full story?” Garrick knew, even if she were at the point of exhaustion, Charlotte would say no.

“No, I’d like to hear it.”

“Then I suggest we retire to my library.”

Charlotte stretched out her hand willingly, waiting for him to transpose them. She was prepared to accommodate almost anything in order to learn the story.

But instead Garrick took her hand and with a gentle pressure began leading her towards one of the two exits of the dining room.

“W-what are you doing?” Charlotte asked, halting, looking down at their joined hands.

“Taking you to the library. I thought you wanted to walk,” Garrick commented archly.

“I do.”

“Then come with me.” He still held her hand.

She followed him through corridors, some narrow and others wide. Most of the walls were stones layered atop one another and she could see the light grey mortar that held them in place. But there were a few corridors, mostly the narrow ones, with wood paneling like that in the dining room.

This was her second walk in the castle and Charlotte was only just beginning to conceive how truly large it was.

It took them a full five minutes of brisk walking to reach the library, she thought.

They stopped at last in front of large double doors. Affixed on each were the grotesque heads of metal gargoyles, each with an identical large metal ring clutched in their mouths.

Garrick tugged on one of the rings and the door slowly creaked open.

Charlotte’s breath caught when she entered. Whereas the outside had been dark and ominous, this room felt warm and safe.

Light streamed in from the French windows. They looked out over hilly pastures where Charlotte could see sheep grazing. In the distance, almost at the horizon, she could see the ruins of an old castle atop a hill.

“Oh my God…” she whispered, rushing to the windows to fling them open.

It was so beautiful, so oddly familiar. She could already smell the fresh air, the scent of grass and earth.

“Charlotte, you shouldn’t open the—“

But it was too late. Smiling broadly, Charlotte opened the doors with the intention of stepping outside, but beyond the doors was stone; more of the same stone and mortar that had been in the corridors. Where were the sheep? The castle?

“What is this?” Charlotte asked, turning to Garrick, the look of betrayal clear on her face. She’d been tricked.

“I made this place for you. The windows are enchanted to show you what I thought you’d most enjoy seeing. It is the view from your window at the hotel you stayed at in Scotland. I remember how much it pleased you.”

Charlotte remembered that trip. Her sophomore year of high school she had travelled with school mates on a choir trip around the UK, singing at various venues. The trip on the whole had been pleasant, but Charlotte had fallen in love with the Scottish countryside while there. She’d always meant to someday go back.

Today was not that day apparently.

“But then why is there stone here?”

“We are in the heart of my castle. I don’t have the kind of magic to create a sustained self-contained world for you, only the image of one. But if you truly wished, I could maintain one for a short time. Would you like to go out onto the moor?”

The prospect of venturing out, though alluring, was too frightening. What would it mean to walk through a place created by magic?

She shut the windows and immediately the pastoral scene was restored. Childishly, Charlotte was tempted to open them again, just to see if the stone really was there after all. It just all looked so real.

She turned away from the windows, examining the rest of the room. Bookshelves filled with books lined the walls.
And there was Austen, she noticed. The Brontes. Darwin. Einstein. Euclid. Novels, biographies, science books, even math books—she noticed one labeled “Advanced Topics in Algebra—Algebraic Number Theory.”

“How do you have all these?” she asked in awe, her fingers running over the spines. Books she had loved, books she had always meant to read, obscure books whose titles intrigued her.

“I have been collecting them for quite some time,” he said, moving to stand beside her.

“These are yours?”

“No,” he said quietly. “These are yours.”

It was like Christmas morning. The pleasure and amazement overwhelming her, Charlotte turned and flung her good arm around Garrick’s neck in a hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered against his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Surprised at the sudden closeness, Garrick stiffened for a moment before allowing himself to relax. A hand rose, tangling itself in her unbound hair, pulling her closer to him. She felt his face pressed against her head and heard the slow measured breaths as he took in her scent.

Charlotte began to pull away and for a second she felt his hand tighten but then it was gone.

Warily, she took a step back. It had felt like he had been about to yank her back to him. Charlotte knew there was violence inside of him. But what she wasn’t sure of was how it would come out.

“Will you tell me about the Great Battle now?” she asked at last to break the tension.

Garrick nodded and gestured for her to sit down in the armchair by the windows. She did so.

“I will try to be more precise than I imagine Jove was. Despite being the heir to the North kingdom, he knows little of our history and no doubt even less of yours. So I will attempt—as best as I can—to explain.

“Despite our similarity in appearance, the Fae are not human. Nor have we ever been. The elders debate our origins regularly, but the answer is—ultimately—unimportant. We are an old people. And as we aged, we developed certain needs--“

“Sexual?” Charlotte asked with an almost comical look of discomfort.

“No,” Garrick laughed lowly. “Not sexual. Not then. We wanted palaces, rich foods and fine clothes.”

“Slaves. You needed slaves,” Charlotte interjected, beginning to understand.

“Yes. There were many races we enslaved first, most of which are now dead. The elves serve as our main source of labor now—they were the hardiest of races. Before them, it was the goblins, though they were much more difficult to control. Most of their kind was eradicated centuries ago and the rest live in caves and forests, mostly in the North.”

“Then why did you need humans?”

“At first, we didn’t. Your world weakened us—Jove explained to you about the iron within your universe, correct?” Charlotte nodded. “And the humans, if they could be called that were half-formed, ugly creatures, with little sense enough to walk upright. So they went ignored until the goblins began to rebel. The rebellions were isolated instances with little effect, but the Fae decided that the time might have come to make use of the humans. But when we looked again, your kind had changed remarkably. There was writing and reading, even some music. It was amazing the progress that such short time had wrought. And you had tamed creatures. Wolves, cattle, goats, but the most impressive coup of all was that humans had managed to tame the unicorns.

“When we first attempted to capture and enslave your kind, we had no idea what the beast was capable of. To your kind they were worshipped, beloved even, as gentle creatures; but they are vicious when threatened. That first failed campaign was when we realized the beasts’ power.

“I was not truthful when we first spoke of death. The Fae can die. To be wounded by either iron or the horn of a unicorn is fatal and then when we reach a certain age, we die as well. But iron does not exist within our world and the unicorns no longer hunt us nor we them. Life stretches out as a nearly limitless expanse before us so it is easy to forget that we too are subject to Death.

“I tell you only to convey the surprise and horror experienced by the early Fae when they saw others fall beneath the unicorns.

“A retreat was called by the three kings and the remaining Fae returned to our world. The humans forgot the battle quickly as they had played so minimal a role in the fighting and lacked a proper system of record keeping. But my kind has a much longer memory.”

“Why did they go back then? Wasn’t once enough to learn to stay away?” Charlotte asked.

“Humans had done so little fighting in the first battle that the Fae believed the failure of their campaign to have been fully because of the beasts’ protection. As your people grew, expanding outwards, they fought for dominion over one another and over Nature herself. The rugged brutality of the humans drove the unicorns away from the tainted people and the Fae believed that as a result the humans would be easy to enslave.”

“The iron,” Charlotte breathed, remembering Jove’s explanation. “But we had iron weapons by then.” My God, she thought, these battle would have taken place...millennia ago. First during the Bronze Age at least—wasn’t that the era when Mesopotamian writing began? What had her social studies professor said again? And then the Iron Age. But that put these battles at least many thousands of years apart.

My God, she thought again, oh my God.

“Your people do advance quite rapidly,” Garrick conceded. “Whenever I read the records of those times, I often think that had it not been for the virgin, both our peoples might have been destroyed.”

“The virgin?” This had not been part of Jove’s story.

“A girl, younger than you, sought out the unicorns and begged them for help. Her tribe had been mostly destroyed and she begged them to save what remained of her people and the other humans. She was quite a general too, according to the accounts, when she led the beasts. Clever but vengeful.”

“She sent the unicorns back to your world, didn’t she?”

“Yes, I believed she hoped that once here, they could eradicate the Fae”

Charlotte marveled at the hatred that would take.

“Do you…hate her for what she did?”

“How can I? My kind would have inflicted far worse things than death on her. They did inflict far worse things than death on her.”

“What? They punished her?” Stupidly ,Charlotte imagined the girl standing before a black-robed and white wig-ed Fae, looking sternly down and holding a gavel.

“She was the first human that was taken back to our world. We came to learn that taking a few humans at a time, for amusement purposes, was manageable. But our numbers are too depleted from the Great Battle to ever try to enslave the humans again. Especially not now after you have dredged the earth of its iron, bringing so much to the surface as those buildings. To even be in a city for more than a few minutes means death for a Fae.”

“What happened to her? The girl, I mean.”

“She was subjected to various…tortures until finally she succumbed to death. The Fae who were in attendance later recorded the events as the single happiest moment of their lives.”

“Oh my God…” Charlotte rose. “That’s when you began to believe that you could somehow take happiness away from humans, isn’t it?”

Garrick looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“How stupid you all are. You didn’t take her happiness and make it your own; it was the act of depriving her of happiness, of punishing her, that pleased you. That isn’t happiness. That’s revenge.”

“Charlotte,” Garrick reminded gently, “this was before even my time. I told you, I don’t blame the girl for what she did. I admire her for defending her people so thoroughly.”

Charlotte rounded on him.

“Why didn’t the unicorns protect her? Why didn’t they rescue her?”

“She was no longer a virgin when she was taken into this world.”

“So the unicorns just abandoned her to the Fae?”

“They are not noble creatures, merely animals. They forget easily.”

“And so she died without anyone...” Charlotte looked away, deeply saddened at this.

“But she did not die quietly. She gave a prophecy before she died that has inspired fear in the Fae since then. I wonder if I can remember it fully.” Garrick closed his eyes, thinking.


“Soon a girl, virgin pure,
Will come and purge this land,
Call the Beasts and bind them close
‘Till Fae blood stains the sand.”


“That’s why all the Fae were so frightened, isn’t? They think I’m the ‘virgin pure.’”

“Naturally. Following her death, it was prohibited to bring a virgin into our world.”

“So what is Day of the Fallen?”

“A festival in which the Fae like to celebrate their victory over the humans.”

Charlotte stared at Garrick dumbly for a moment.

“But they didn’t win,” she said at last, as if speaking to a child.

“The Fae like to pretend otherwise. It is a celebration in honor of the Fae who died in the Great Battle, but mostly it is to celebrate our control over humans—our humans.”

“So you torture them for a day in honor of those who died trying to enslave us?”

God, what a world this was.

“Not exactly. Many of the humans actually get a bit of a respite for Day of the Fallen. Its more like…” Garrick paused searching for the most delicate way to put it.

Charlotte knew it was going to be bad. It had never taken Garrick this long to find the right words for something.

“Its more like…going horse racing.”

“What?” Charlotte began to pace.

Horse races made her think of enormous ladies’ hats and jockeys in bright colors.

“So they ride the humans?” And then she colored at the double entendre.

“No, there are a series of competitions in which the humans take part in. The Fae then place bets on who will finish first or last or in what time.”

“You’re going to race me?” Charlotte could barely get the word ‘race’ out. Her eyes were widened impossibly large. But she brightened after a moment, “You’d better bet on someone else. I am a terrible runner.”

Garrick laughed. It was true laugh, full of amusement.

She looked back at Garrick. She’d always known how attractive he was but somehow seeing him smile like this—like a human—took her breath away. He was the most stunning man she’d ever seen.

And for the first time, Charlotte felt the stirrings of desire.

Her eyes lingered on his upturned lips and she remembered his kisses….

What was she thinking? Charlotte snapped her eyes away from Garrick and back to the bookshelf.

War and Peace. That ought to cool her ardor. Russia in winter. Think of Russia in winter.

“They aren’t really those kinds of competitions.”

“What are they then?” Russia in winter, Charlotte thought again. Do not look back at him.

“I will tell you as I know more. They change yearly.”

Charlotte picked War and Peace of the shelf. It was heavy, “weighted with knowledge” she supposed.

“Its alright. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, its not like I will have to race in this thi—“ The words died on her lips. “Oh my God, I am going to have to race in this, aren’t I?”

“I am meeting with Locke and Kaelyn tomorrow to see if we can determine a way to exclude you from the competition, but as it stands, yes. As King of the Central Kingdom it would be an affront if my human did not take part in the competition.”

“I’m not yours.” Somehow that seemed to be the most important thing to Charlotte. Not the competition or the Fae politics, but his continued, nonchalant acceptance that she was his.

“And we were getting along so well,” Garrick smiled, unconcerned with her insistence.

If she had dared, she would have thrown War and Peace at him.

It was like waking up from a pleasant dream, the initial stirrings of consciousness filtering in through the haze before cold understanding took its place.

How foolish, how catastrophically foolish.

Only moments ago, she had been comfortable with him, even attracted to him. And she had forgotten what he was. For all his attractiveness, he was her captor. Jove had been right. She could not trust him.

Soon—as soon as possible—she would have to escape. To what or to where didn’t seem to matter, but perhaps…perhaps she could find the unicorns. It seemed as if that was the last place the Fae would want her, which in turn made it exactly the place she needed to be.

Garrick didn’t know what Charlotte was thinking, but he saw the change it had on her.

Her brown eyes—so warm and inviting only moments ago—became guarded and warily flicked from side to side as if evaluating their surroundings. It was not the same look of pleased appreciation as before.

This look searched for allies and enemies.

“Charlotte,” Garrick breathed, the slightest trace of pain in his voice. “Why won’t you just accept that you belong to me now?”

Charlotte felt her hand curl into a fist. She wanted to punch him and yet she couldn’t.

Her hand unclenched reluctantly.

She was too smart to provoke him.

“Maybe it would be best if I went to bed. I’m feeling very tired.” Her voice sounded a little too shrill to her ears.

Garrick's expression darkened.

“As you wish.” Garrick moved towards her and took her hand firmly.

The world whirled out of focus and then back in. And suddenly Charlotte stood in Garrick’s bedroom.

So Garrick had transposed them.

She understood the gesture’s meaning quite well. It meant ‘I don’t give a damn about your autonomy.’

A/N: Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed!

Lilu: my thoughts exactly......

Mireasa1714: thank you! that was so nice of you to say! I will definitely try to incorporate more physical descriptions of the characters in the subsequent chapters.

Horny_Virgin: The "secret" probably won't be reveled for a long time, I'm sorry to say, but if it helps with the cliffhanger aspect of the last chapter, I don't envision using it as a plot point so much as a further development of Charlotte's character. BUT I am hoping that I can gradually build up to it in the next two-three chapters, so hold on! :)

Further A/N: I am not a poet. I have never wanted to be a poet. And, well yeah, you guys get the idea. but I felt like a "deathbed prophecy" warranted a rhyme so I tried my best :)

Thanks so much for reading guys and please please please review!