Butterfly Fae Witch

Failing Glamours

I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then. 

-Alice

I am what is called a Fae witch. I can talk to faeries. Or, I am physically capable of it, but that doesn't mean that I actually can. After all, not that all of them want to talk to me. Not all of them like humans, you see. Though they do like to argue with me about if I am truly human as I am a witch and can see them...but that's getting off-topic. Anyway, I have one friend in particular. Her name is Thorn, and according to her family (and my mother) she was born at exactly the same time as me. Her mother and mine laboured together. Both went about delivering us at the same time. Their contractions came at the same time, and both Thorn and I were born en caul. Faeries are always born thus, but in humans, it is rarer and yet another sign that I was "fae-touched" as mother and my changeling mother (as Thorns mum has me call her) like to say. They also delivered us at the exact same moment: precisely at midnight. Although, for some reason, both the faerie minding the Sands of Time that the fae family had to count Thorn's time of birth, as well as the clock sat by my mother and the witch midwife my mother had minding her both say they saw the clocks show the time of 11:11 just long enough for them to see before it went back to midnight on All Hallow's Eve. A switch of time to show and what proved to our families that I and Thorn are linked for some reason. Even more than they had thought when the Queen ordered our grandparents into ensuring my mother and my changeling mother became friends once mother's magic spiked to become one of our most powerful witches at her Magic Awakening.

My mom is a Fae witch as well, the most powerful one that had been around before I was born. The Queen seems convinced I will be the most powerful witch in the world, and soon. She watches me at times and I feel her gaze on me whenever Mother or my changeling mother bring me to the revelry under the hills. I am sure I cannot access my powers yet, no matter what her gaze says whenever she asks about my magic and I reply in the negative about my Awakening coming early. No witch truly can access their magic before the Magic Awakening, though to be fair some do get licks of power every now and then before puberty when the blocks to the power are lifted by our own innate magic in preparation for the magic channels to strengthen and flood with our full power. So, I don't know how true I am being when I talk to her, but while the Fae are unable to lie...I as a Fae witch cannot lie back to them either and I've never stuttered once when talking to her so I am sure that I am speaking the truth.

However, the truth doesn't explain some things... like how I do seem to have magic, or enough bursts of it to constantly draw the Fae to me. Which shouldn't happen until my magic becomes stable...AFTER the Magical Awakening.

Even before my birth, while my mother was still pregnant with me, it was part of the reason that any pregnant Fae close by wanted my mother by them at some point for my magic to "comfort" their own children growing. And it was part of the reason Thorn and I were born in the same clearing beneath a full moon together, hidden and kept safe within a fairy ring of toadstools, with fireflies flying around to keep the area well-lit beyond what the full moon provided. Thorn's mother had, apparently, felt a NEED greater than any she'd ever felt her magic give her before that spelt out for her clearly that she needed to stay by my mother for both of their entire pregnancies. And, stranger yet, though faeries are normally pregnant for varying times from each other, unlike humans and our more stable 9 months, give or take, and despite this varying time...it is still most common for faeries to be born after a year or more of gestation when magic helps to bring them forth. Thorn's birth at 9 months so that she had the exact same gestation time, even down to the first day of pregnancy, certainly was just another bit to add to the list of how she was different from other Fae, just as I seemed to be more like a Fae child than a human child from birth. To start, Faeries are born able to walk, like a baby horse. They aren't like human babies that depend on people constantly from the time they are born until they become mostly able to do things themselves at about two years of age. Nope. Faerie babies are born able to do and think and be at about the same physical and mental capability as a two-year-old. And apparently Thorn took full advantage of that to wander over towards me as soon as magic had dissolved and fed the last of the nutrients within her umbilical cord into her to totter her way towards me, grasp my hand gently enough that her faerie strength wouldn't hurt me, and refuse to let go no matter who asked...even when the Queen of the Fae was called just for that purpose, and her magic is absolute and the ultimate command to any and all Faeries. They physically need to listen to her every request, except for Thorn whenever it comes to me. Thorn refused to leave my side. Always. Growing up, I found much the same problem with other Fae, especially those under 100 years old still in their childhood.