aldersprig | The Stories Tell... a story of the Fairy Town for the Giraffe Call

To flofx's prompt

Once upon a time, they told people to be good to their children, or the faeries would take those children away. And they believed it.

Looking back on it, looking at the paperwork, the faded clippings, I must have been almost two when it happened. I remember being cold, and alone, and crying. Then I remember Mother and Father, and not being cold or alone anymore.

Snowfall showed up a year later. I wasn't there when we took her, but I remember Mother bringing her home. When we took Rainy Night, two years after Snowfall, I was old enough to help.

I got Tornado on my own. I remember Father looking at me and asking me why, why him.

I remember, too, telling Father that I had always wanted a big family. And that Tornado had been wandering around on his own, wearing nothing but a diaper. Father laughed, and we had another sibling.

Mother is dark and Father is fair, so the range in our complexions is often thought to be the vagaries of genetics. There are a lot of neighborhoods in the city, and we have lived in many of them, so there is little question as to whence come the children with no pregnancy; they are with us when we move. Although we never move too close to where we have found our family. Mother is stern and Father is kind, and they raise us, love us, the way the places we came from never did. They love us as their own, and we love each other as kin.

My parents say that some day, when I'm older, we will find me a wife, dark like I'm fair and stern as I am kind, and we will carry on Mother and Father's work. But today, I am looking for a little brother.

The night is silent, and clear, and cold. I will name him Clearness, or perhaps Silent Night. His father has been sitting in that bar for hours.

Once upon a time, people were warned to take care of their children, or the faeries would take them, and they believed it.

They will believe it again.