Woodland Faeries (Ratiorine AU)
Mar. 3rd, 2026 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3oclockcoffeeBased on one of Havanillas' AUs.
Woodland fairies, out of all the fae creatures that inhabited the world, are one of the more numerous. Veritas should know, he is one of them.
Fairy clans and lineages are not traced by blood but by origin: fairies are “born” out of flowers and grasses and trees, out of abandoned cottages and forgotten castles; out of bogs and reeds and marshes. Take himself, for example: His conscience awoke and his wings unfurled amidst a cocoon of encyclopedia entries and dictionary pages: a tiny sample of a much larger trove of knowledge that had once, long ago, been carefully curated and hoarded by humans: something now lost to those short lived and mortal creatures; reclaimed by the woods. It was the home and fabled treasure trove of the Intelligentsia faeries, high up in a mossy tower, accessible only to those who could barter for knowledge and guarded by armoured silverfish.
And while the larger group of Intelligentsia fairies deals in trading and recording knowledge; Veritas Ratio belongs to a clan that focuses on learning and teaching. All manners of wisdom, facts and insights are of interest to his clan. Most of its members are interested in learning from the books contained within their tower and deal exclusively with other fey creatures: goblins, ghouls, those luminous beings of the Seelie Court on occasion.
And while Veritas doesn’t decline these sort of transactional deals…well, he is also interested in other things. He explores far and wide, wandering further and further away from the tower; learning everything he can about the world, collecting and spreading the kind of wisdom his peers tend to overlook: the rituals of velvet-winged moths, shared under pale moonlight; the musings caterpillars as they spin their cocoons, the exquisitely balanced arithmetics of spiderwebs and wasp’s nests. Not to mention, the comings and goings of humans and their animals. For Veritas, all living creatures have something important to say, and are able to partake in the process of learning that his clan values so much. And it is because he is curious and quite fearless that he is now hiding inside a discarded, hollowed out apple, on the edge of a meadow, watching a golden haired fairy devour a strawberry.
It is mid-spring. He’s been following the convoluted map that a honey bee traced in the warm sunshine two days ago, a mesmerizing little dance meant to tell the bee’s hive about the existence of a new kind of flower, so laden with golden pollen it almost bends over its stem. Veritas was certain it was some sort of new human contraption, meant to attract honey bees to their well-crafted, sturdy wooden hives. And he wasn’t entirely wrong, for there was a meadow full of lovely flowers, none of which were wild; and in the middle a large, plush daisy standing tall amidst the others. And in the center of the daisy, sleeping without a care in the world, was a fairy with gossamer wings and a lovely, blue-green flower hat.
Why was he there? What kind of fae was this one, to sleep so brazenly on a human construct? A million questions swirled in Veritas’ mind, his antenna twitching with curiosity. He hid away, and observed the strange fae for hours.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Aventurine knew he was being watched.
He was here as a good luck charm, part of a deal with Lady Bonajade of the Diamond kingdom: he would cast his magic upon this meadow, and its flowers, lure the swarms of priceless, picky honeybees that had abandoned the kingdom in favour of better, brighter flowers somewhere else. It was easy, for someone like him.
He was on the third week of this - bored out of his mind, napping away the days on the lure, basking in sunshine and artificial safety for hours - when a most curious thing happened.
Another fairy entered the meadow.
Aventurine was immediately on edge.
There was a magic barrier that had been cast around this place, to keep him safe from any harm and make sure none of the honey bees could escape. No magical creature, no matter how small, could enter without the spellcasters knowing about it. And yet, there it was: the shadow of wings, the sound of rustling clothes, the scratch of a quill on parchment.
Oh, he was curious.
He could feel a gaze on him, not hostile, but intense. Somebody was watching him very carefully.
Who could it be?
Aventurine, still sprawled out on the lure, yawned and stretched, faking a wake-up, the perfect picture of a drowsy, meadows-born fairy waking up from a deep nap. Something moved just outside of his field of view - just around the corner, just on the edge of the magic barrier, within the hollowed out apple that served as a linchpin for the magic. Aventurine itched to fly over and see who it was. He had been living with humans for years and years, ever since he was taken from his desert oasis, the sole survivor of his clan’s destruction.
Could it be, that he would finally meet another fae?
Ah, but if it was one of those skittish woodland faeries, he had to be careful. Most of them were soft little things, used to sleeping in tulips and bathing in calm ponds, never having faced tragedies bigger than mischievous tadpoles who would swim away with their clothes. He rose from his human-made flower, and meandered about the place, slowly, oh so slowly, making his way towards the apple. He picked up one of the many snacks that were laid out for him: a ripe, sweet strawberry - almost as big as him, obviously picked from some farmer’s field and not from a wild bush somewhere in a forest - and sat right by the apple, enthusiastically chewing into the sweet fruit.
His ears were sharp: he could hear someone breathing, he could hear wings moving. If he turned his head, he knew he could look at his visitor. But he didn’t want to, not yet.
Let the other fae watch and draw its own conclusions first. Let it approach him first and that way, Aventurine would know how to act around it. Right now, this mystery visitor was the most fun thing that had happened to him in ages, he intended to enjoy this little game of hide and seek to his heart’s content.
