Page 9 of The White Stag
“Calm down, Finnan. While the iron is still in her system, you’re going to give her diabetes,” Cyrus said.
“Love, I know you’re feeling shitty about what’s going to happen when you start detoxing off those pills, but once your Fae side is fully awakened, you won’t get any of those pesky human diseases. So I’m going to show you how the Unseelie cook,” I said, slicing her a gigantic piece of cake.
“I have so many questions. Even some of the people I went to school with knew stories about the Fae. Some just knew Tinkerbell, but some knew about the two courts. So how did they know, and why do they all think the Unseelie are the bad ones?”
Oh, man. Iwas notletting Cyrus handle this one. He got the point across, but he lacked panache. Cyrus liked to get straight to the point, but he left out some of the finer details that left out the sheer fuckery of people. Some of these bitches had sheer audacity, considering they were utterly mediocre.
“The Seelie and Unseelie used to take a more active role in the mortal realm, and they didn’t have to use glamours like we do now,” Oisin said.
I’d been pondering people's utter stupidity so long that Oisin bogarted my story. That, I didn’t mind. We played off each other. We used to double-team her telling stories when she was younger to teach her about the Fae without telling her the whole story. Looking back at it now, we should have been honest from the start.
“That was ages ago. Back when humans didn’t fear magic and try to kill it, or like now, where they’d want to put it in a cage and dissect it so they could find a way to sell it to wealthy people,” I said.
“We weren’t so much in the business of exports back then, but more in the realm of making deals. A little magic for something that benefitted our courts. It started out small. Hobgoblins and brownies were helping out around the houses and ensured people didn’t starve because their crops failed. It was a beneficial arrangement. They’d usually take a few seedlings or things they learned from mortal households back to the court, and we would benefit from it. Our prices were always something they wouldn’t miss.
“But some of them got greedy. They saw what our magic could do and wanted us to use it against mortals they were feuding with. The Unseelie drew the line there, but the Seelie didn’t. The Seelie knew it wasn’t right, so they manipulated the humans into telling everyone it was the Unseelie,” Oisin said.
That wasn’t even the start of the fuckery when we mingled with the mortals.
“I thought the Seelie couldn’t lie. That’s been bothering me since I saw how that tea worked. Alastair would have had to lie to manipulate my thoughts like that.”
Oisin wasn’t taking this from me, so I butted in before he did.
“The Seelie like to use the fact that they can’t lie to get what they want, but they are masters of doublespeak. They will twist the truth in a way that you believe something different. As for Alastair, there’s a simple explanation for that. There’s not some omnipotent Seelie god out there whose sole purpose is sensing a lie and zapping their brains if they try it.
“The lying thing only works when they know what they are doing is wrong. Alastair fully believes everything he does and says is the absolute truth.”
“What kind of absolute Fae horse shit is giving a loophole like that to sociopaths?” Reagan yelled with a mouthful of cake.
“It’s utter shite, but that’s not the full story. The humans wanted fertility magic too. We agreed to that at first, but it was a disaster. Their bairns were entirely human, but most of the mother’s never accepted them. Since we used magic in the conception, if the bairn was too loud, too quiet, stared at something too long, or didn’t stare at all, they thought something was wrong with it. They thought normal baby stuff was something unnatural, and some of them hurt the bairns. We stopped making deals with magic with them after that and focused on selling. Humans can’t be trusted with magic.”
“The Seelie eventually learned that too,” Oisin said. “Humanity changed after a time. While they were in the process of fearing anything magic or different from them, they also became utter prudes.”
“The Unseelie have never thought of women as property. Dowries were never a thing for us. If she didn’t like you, no money would change hands to force her to marry you. LGBTQ and trans people have always been a thing with us, but we had different names for it. We don’t care what goes on behind closed doors as long as everyone is consenting and of the right age to do that thing.
“The Seelie wereverydifferent. The only relationships they approved of were between men and women. Daughters were how you got power, money, or land. Even during times of truce, they thought the Unseelie were degenerates. Humans were a little more open, but things changed. They started adopting many things from the Seelie Court,” I said.
“They started feeling the same way about us as the Seelie, and it wasn’t safe for us anymore. The Seelie thought they had won and turned the humans into this compliant little race who adopted their ways. They thought it would be this new era in their kingdom, but the humans turned on them too. That was when the witch hunts started, and they weren’t satisfied with burning innocent women. Anyone Fae was their enemy. It blew up in those Seelie bastard’s faces, and they had to flee too.”
“Not everyone felt like that,” I said. “The homophobes and misogynists always seem to yell louder than most people and insert themselves into positions of power to force that on other people. Plenty of people were helped by the Fae and were grateful for it. Stories got passed down through generations. All Fae are known to be a little tricky with their deals, but the Unseelie got the brunt of all the shit told about the Fae because we can lie and the Seelie can’t.”
“Well, you’re the only three Unseelie I know, and Alastair is the only Seelie I’ve met. I don’t care that any of you have the ability to lie to me. Iknowyou won’t.”
Oisin better tell her because it wasn’t my secret to tell. Yeah, Alastair was the product of a shitty system, and no one checked him because he was the crown prince, but there was plenty of good Seelie. It didn’t matter if you were human or Fae. There were always going to be good and bad people. We had them in the Unseelie Court too.
“Alastair isn’t technically the only Seelie you’ve met,” Oisin said.
I was glad he just offered because if he didn’t, I was going to hobgoblin the shite out of him until he did. I wasn’t a snitch. However, I had no problem providing some gentle mayhem until someone told on themselves.
“No, I’m pretty sure I haven’t,” Reagan said.
“White Stags are Seelie creatures. The Seelie Court is just like every other place in history. The elite make the rules. They work for some people, and others are utterly miserable. In most cases, the people rise up and make a stink about it until they change things for the better. Humans did, for the most part, though it’s still a work in progress, and there are still people who would love to return to darker times.
“That never really happened in the Seelie Court. They’ve never really made any progressive changes. There have been some concessions, but it’s still like the dark ages for many people there.
“People defect to the Unseelie Court all the time. My parents were two of them. They were childhood friends, and that developed into love later. My father was a servant in my mother’s home. Her father would never have allowed the marriage because he gained nothing from it. When she tried to broach the subject with him, her father essentially locked her in her bedroom and fired my father’s entire family.
“His entire family came together to break her out and fled to the Unseelie Court. My Seelie grandfather made a huge stink about getting his property back, but the Unseelie queen told the Seelie ambassador to go fuck himself and that women weren’t property. I’m Seelie, but I grew up in the Unseelie Court.”
