Portal to the fae

👨‍🦰Chapter 12 Leonfrir👨‍🦰

A/N Picture drawn by me, I have not drawn in about 25 years so please don't hate it.

Leo and Glory had been secretly working on a project for the past 11 years, well ever since Leo had gone to the human world and had seen cars. He had actually spent a fair bit of time wandering the human world that day before heading back and running into Sasha.

Leo had never thought that the humans would come up with things that operated almost like magic. Flying machines, fast travelling ground boxes in all sizes, even bicycles fascinated him. He came across a bicycle shop and discovered how tyres worked, the shop he went into had heating in it with no fireplace, lighting with no fires or gas lamps, people talked and played on little rectangle flat things one of which he took back with him and was able to replicate it so people of the fae used phones now rather than magic.

Someone showed him how to use a computer and he looked up blacksmithing and metal working, coming across metallurgy as a result. Learning also the metal flying things were called planes and he had a brief look at how they were made before moving on. "

He couldn't find out what the rectangular prism looking things were called so asked a passer-by who looked at him as if he was insane, but answered anyway. "Cars, Utes, trucks or road trains dude, depending on the size and shape."

"Thank you," Leo said, "I just wondered what they were called in this language, as mine is considerably different."

"Oh?" The passerby said "What language do you speak normally?"

Leo thought about it and used a dialect that might be recognised as a language, "Duergan."

"I see, well see you round dude!" the passer-by said as he went on his way.

Leonfrir, found a garage servicing car and asked politely "May I watch you work on the car?"

The female mechanic looked him over and thought "Why not? He's cute and harmless looking." before saying "Sure!"

Leo just followed the girl around watching everything she did in relation to the car, it gave him a fairly good idea on how it ran, but running on gas was not an option in the fairy realm. He wondered how he might solve this. He decided after about 3 hours that he had seen enough on how this strange beast, the car, worked. It was time to head home.

On the way he came across a steam engine train "Oh?" He thought "This might work, after all we smelt metals. This just runs on heated water." He looked at in analytically in a small space of time as the train driver was wanting to head off to the next station on the historical travel route.

"Thanks for allowing me to inspect the steam locomotive," He thanked the driver, who had explained what the train was and as much as he could in the short space of time allowed at that stop.

"You're most welcome" The train driver said, "Feel free to drop by again!" as he had liked the polite young-looking man.

"If I am ever by this way again, I will!" Leo responded, knowing that it was unlikely to ever by in the human world again. It had changed so much, there was next to nothing left of the magic that once saturated this part of the world. Leo wondered if any portal would open again once he left. There was just no magic here, that the fae needed to survive. He could already feel sick from the lack of magic and it had only been half a day.

He decided he had enough, it was time to go home. So, he headed back to the circular maple Grove with moss and liquorice ferns near the grave that Grandma Lee would visit regularly. She said it was the grave of one of her husbands, Ruaidri Ua Conchobair, the last high king of Ireland. Leo had gone there out of curiosity without her with him.

As he walked towards the grove, he heard this most enchanting singing. It was a song he hadn't heard for along long time as Grandma Lee had stopped singing allowing the younger people to sing instead.

The singer was dancing and singing at the same time. The sight so enchanting he knew that she was the one he was looking for. When he got to the glade, he sat on a stone that had fallen into it at some point from the mausoleum, and watched. He did not realise he had stood and started singing until he was in front of her inviting her to dance.

She accepted his offer and they danced like they had been doing it all their lives together, looking deep into each other's eyes. When the song had ended, he asked her "Would you marry me, beautiful stranger?"

Sasha had responded, "Yes!" and wondered at her reaction, they had just met and here he was proposing to her.

"Then these are my gifts to you in promise of this proposal," Leo said, putting the marriage beads in her hair and gifting her the precious dagger he carried with him always. He had been carrying the two since he had become a man because he reasoned if he found the one, he had the feeling of being destined to be with he wanted them on him to offer straight away.

"One day we will meet again, wait for me, my love!" he said, giving her a chaste kiss.

"Who are you?" She asked "Where are you from?"

Leo felt the portal begin to close so he answered "I am from the fae, a dwa..." was all Sasha had heard before he left her there alone. She could not deny that he was from where he claimed.

"Wait!" she cried, "You did not tell me your name!" she sat there snivelling before heading home, touching her hair where he had placed the beads. "I am not ever going to remove these!" she thought to herself, "and I am going to find a way to get back there to my fiancé. Nobody will believe me though, that I am engaged to the fae. I'll just be quiet about that!" and from there her weird ways grew, finding that the druids had the closest methods in their history to open portals there, it's just none had been opened in quite a while.

Sasha knew that if she tried, one day a portal would open, so she made it a matter of course, whenever she told a story, or felt that she was in a 'magical' feeling area, she would do the portal opening chant. She had been all over the world telling stories as it turned out she was quite a gifted storyteller, and children loved her. So, when she was babysitting her brother's children, she never expected the spell to actually work - it had never worked previously in the 11 years of trying.

Leonfrir, however, once he returned to the fae, tried everywhere he knew of to get back to her. He knew he had to get back and bring her here as soon as possible as there was little to no magic left in the human world, and he needed her. After trying every portal, and not succeeding, he gave up. He did not give up completely as he believed another portal would open again, hopefully this time he would be able to retrieve his bride. In the meantime, however, he would work on building a machine suitable for travel in the fae to carry the masses of goods, rather than the carriages they had been using for years.

Glory became interested in his project not long after, the pair Qi burning and coming up with different designs and theories on how to build such a thing. None of the other designs had worked properly to this point as they needed independent suspension and the ability to carry heavy weights, still go forward up and down hills and turn corners. Something had always failed to this point. Glory and Leo believed that they had finally gotten it right when Sasha had arrived.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to use the prototype steam engine truck, built with a forge workshop and sleeping quarters that folded into the wall when not needed, when the group had decided to head back to the portal to at least get a letter through to the parents. In animate things had more luck than animate, well that is what they had hoped anyway.

🍀A/N Please vote if you enjoyed this chapter. If you see any errors please let me know as this is unedited.🍀