Story based on and inspired by @charminglyantiquated‘s fantastic Elsewhere University. Seriously check it out, they are an amazing artist and a wonderful person!
Ive also included some other peoples OC’s, namely Jimothy and Feathers. I think that that’s it though?
I would very much appreciate some feedback.
The lady had always loved the Between. She had always found the people and places of between so fascinating, not quite Fae, not quite human. She liked to think of herself as ‘not quite’ sometimes too. She liked the idea of not being quite like the other Fae, though none of them are really too much alike, they all followed the rules and customs of elsewhere. There were precious few of the Fae who, like her, dared to set themselves apart. Changelings mostly, befriending the humans, Jimothy too, always a pleasure to see around, and of course precious Ms Anna, she was one of the ladies favorites.
She’d watched the others interacting with students, most of them just human to begin with, and had watched as they became what the others called ‘Fae touched’. She loved the handful of students of the between, both the natural borns and the Fae touched, perhaps the former a little more, but they all held a special place in her care. She wanted her own. Like many of the changelings had their humans, and the crows had the girl Feathers, she wanted her own.
Hers had to be special though, had to have the touch at least a little already, had to appreciate what she had to give them. She had already gone through a few who had been promising at first, but they all failed her some way or other.
The cottage had been difficult, it had taken a lot of work before she was satisfied it was worthy of her Between. She’d found a smith running from the hunt, and had offered him a safe return to his dorm in exchange for his services. So the bones of the cottage were iron, hard and cold, and protective for her precious between. The daughter of a builder had found herself captivated by the dancers, and in exchange for her freedom the walls of the cottage were constructed. The girl had been good, choosing stone with salt and twists of metal in, placing a hearth in the middle of the small cottage. So the heart of the cottage held flames. A student lost in the library, agreed to help if they were safely escorted out. They had dug the path up to the cottage, and a circle all around it, burying salt and ash beneath cobble stones. She had hunted down books to fill the personal library, traded favors for students to work on the cottage. Found herbs and plants, now rare in these parts, to plant around the windows and grounds to keep away various members of the Fae. Even she couldn’t enter the property any more, it was safe, it had to be.
The iron key had been a special touch, she’d laden a smith with gifts for a week in return for it. She always wondered how far a human, even a between human, could be pushed before their protections turned to curses. How much a body could take before the salt in their skin and the iron in their blood began to burn them. Before they were no longer between, but too far gone. The key was a way to make sure her precious one, when she found them, hadn’t been pushed too far, and a way to take some safety with them out of the cottage.
Everything she could do to keep her between safe, she had done. It wasn’t always enough. The last one had gone about destroying her protections as soon as they’d arrived, pulling out her precious herbs first. They’d lasted only a week before a lord of the gentry saw it funny to steal them away. Perhaps it was their own fault for shunning all the protections and insulting the lord, but it was still a loss.
This time she’d made sure the right one would be chosen. This time would be different. This time she even had some help.
