Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

a bellows. Aeron felt around for the source of the magic. Of the voice.
    "Oh gods oh gods oh gods," came a muttering in the mortal tongue. The voice had spoken the language of Faerie for the spell, but it was still recognizable.
    That imaginary freezing wind tore through Aeron again. He wasn't mad. It was real. It was all real, and everyone who'd said he'd end up like his mother, everyone who'd said he was a liar, desperate for attention, was proved wrong. Wings buzzing in excitement, Aeron moved toward the voice, mentally constructing a proper greeting.
    A brown, dark-eyed face peered from behind a tree, half-obscured by shaggy hair and face-fuzz. "Oh gods!" it said again.
    Aeron reached out to him. "I have long wanted to—"
    The man— Aeron assumed that this was a man, though it was quite different from the mortal servants he'd seen at the Court— sputtered a few words Aeron didn't recognize and took off running. He crashed away through the underbrush like a wounded deer.
    For a long moment, Aeron simply stood, amazed that anything should find him the least bit alarming, let alone frightening. But then, mortals were known to be flighty things. Perhaps the idea of meeting destiny took some getting used to.
    Aeron's curiosity and excitement burned too bright, however, to wait around for the man to wrap his tiny mind around the concept. He stretched his wings, then feelers, and walked after him, observing the strange sensory experience of a new forest only peripherally. In a half-mile or so the trees thinned, and the evergreen magic-scent thickened, stationary.
    A small stone dwelling huddled just beyond the tree line. Aeron was so intent on the trail that he hardly noticed the magic-scent was too thick. He put one foot beyond the clearing and was promptly thrown backwards on his ass, his foot stinging as if he'd just stepped on a hornet's nest. Gritting his teeth, he reached out one of his toes that retained feeling. The magic shimmered, threatening.
    Wards. Nothing could move beyond them without an invitation.
    The door to the man-dwelling banged shut.
    Aeron sighed, raised his wings, and leaned back on one hand. He reached out and touched a tree absently. It spoke in much simpler language than he was used to, but it seemed friendly enough.
    At least something here was.
     
    CHAPTER 2
    On the first day, Aeron waited patiently. The trees were very fine and had some first rate branches; they liked his company, and he liked theirs, though he wouldn't have called it stimulating. The man-dwelling belched smoke into the morning sky, smelling of coarse magic and all sorts of sweet and pungent herbs. In the late morning, the man emerged with a sack over one shoulder. The fuzz on his face was gone, and his hair lay down flat and shiny. He glanced up at Aeron's tree.
    Aeron sat straighter, hoping to catch his eye.
    The man ducked his head and moved in the other direction. Aeron smelled him— too much evergreen; he had wards on his person now, so it was no good following. He felt the man circling back some ways behind. He'd gone around simply to avoid Aeron.
    Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone had gone out of their way to avoid him, but it would be the first time he hadn't done a thing to deserve it. Aeron sat and waited, occasionally talking to his tree, wondering if Awela had missed him, feeling certain that his father had not, and trying to guess the meaning of this strange sequence of events.
    His father always said he was too impatient. That he would know what he was meant for when the time came. Aeron hadn't known he'd meant it so literally, but here it was. The voice in his head was real, flesh-and-blood, and, of all things, mortal .
    And if he had to wait, well, he would wait.
    Not because he had to. But because he wanted to.
    ****
    By the fourth day, Aeron was sick of waiting. Every night he sat in the tree and watched the small, round opening in the man-dwelling. Sometimes the man would appear there, and even if his pathetic mortal eyes couldn't see Aeron, he must have felt him. Aeron felt him moving around in that little stone hill, peeking, pacing, fretting, magicking. Worrying.
    So why wouldn't he let Aeron in?
    Maybe it was a mistake after all. The voice hadn't come to his dreams since he'd arrived in this forest, so he couldn't compare. Maybe he'd been wrong, and the man had only sounded similar. Maybe Aeron had heard what he wanted to hear because he didn't want to go mad.
    Awela surely missed him