Wind Meets Fire

My name is Caleb. I'm 23, 6'1, 225lbs, fair skin with freckles, scar above my right eye, dark red hair that hangs around my ears and shaved on the sides, no facial hair, and with my father's green eyes that my mother says could set a person on fire. Oh... and I'm not human... well not completely. This world is full of things that normal people know nothing about, and I just happen to be one of them. But this story isn't just about me, so let me take you back to when I met him and this adventure started.......

I felt him before I saw him. His energy swirled... no fluttered like the wind. Like a warm breeze trapped in winter. Like a comfortable danger. There I stood in a crowded room full of men in suits and women in gowns, and all the conversations just melted away. My hands started to tremble and I willed them to stop. My mouth ran dry and I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was fear or excitement. I reached up and loosened my tie, bringing the glass to my lips and taking a long sip of my scotch. I still couldn't catch my breath.

Scanning the crowd furiously I explored every pedestrian person and oddity, but none were him. And then my eyes fell on the entrance and I swallowed hard - what was this feeling? He entered the room of posh mostly white society members with confidence. He knew he belonged and he stared at everyone with a bearing that dared them to say otherwise. A dangerous inviting smile across his lips - a jovial nature in front drawing some people close, and an unsettling nature behind keeping others away. Tall, unconventionally handsome, broad shoulders, strong yet chubby... skin the color of milk chocolate, and hair cut into a fade with a tight beard. My heart raced as I continued to watch him, ignoring everything around me.

Someone approached him, whispered in his ear, and solicited a real laugh, baritone and heady - his concentration slipped for the smallest of seconds and his energy swirled through the room. It ran up my spine, tingled my balls, and pulled at my heart - what was this feeling? I gasped, and my own concentration waivered... he looked straight at me. Eyes as dark as night. In an instant, I felt his defenses go up, but he still smiled at me. A smile that reminded me of the poem we had just read in class. Theresa Songbirds, with the line "you so black when you smile the stars come out".

I took a deep breath, popped my back, and took back in the crowd. I rejoined conversations and made good on my obligations to entertain and charm various members of the society. All the while, his energy fluttered around mine, and my energy gently brushed against his - both testing, keeping a watchful eye. As the night wore on we grew bolder, getting closer and closer to each other until we entered the same conversation. This close I knew exactly what he was. Fuck.
Fae's weren't meant to mix with modern man - man had long lost the true spiritual connection needed to nurture and grow Fae blood. So their bastard half-breed offspring were unstable on a good day and very dangerous on a bad. They usually burned bright in their early teens. Star athletes, gifted scholars, tear-inducing singers and actors... but by 16 they'd go from burning bright to burning out.

Unable to control the blood coursing through their veins they usually met a tragic and painful end. Most would lose their minds, the Fae blood exacerbating any mental illness they inherited from their parents - often leading to suicide. Others, well their rapidly developing powers mixed with their unstable emotions usually tore them apart in one way or another - many natural disasters across the world were started this way. For the rare few powerful and gifted enough to make it through all that... well as they say "there are stranger things in heaven and earth". Either way most of these half-breeds are written off to normal people as missing, but the rest of us know they met a fate far worse.

I'd only seen a hand full of them, all insane, and never one over 18. And yet here he stood... defiantly, at least the same age as I, with the slight flecks of grey I could now clearly see in his beard. Eyes guarded but shining, scanning me, and smirking when they met mine again. I spent the rest of that conversation simply nodding and laughing on cue as I took him in. The way he licked his full plump lips before he was about to speak. The way he tilted his head slightly when someone said something he didn't agree with. The creases in his eyes that deepened when his smile grew larger - what was this feeling?

The conversation like all conversations eventually ended and he moved into another circle, one of the elites whisking him away. I again refocused my mind and somehow lost track of him. As the night wore on I received envelopes from various members for my mother and then instead of heading out the front like most of the guests, I headed out the back with the other... oddities as I described them earlier.

Fully removing my tie I breathed a sigh of relief and that's when I felt it. It was back, it was him - energy fluttering around my own. The wind picked up through the home's garden courtyard and everyone visibly reacted. Some tensed, some became aroused, some looked hungry and others angry... but I was excited. I centered myself, and closed my eyes - 'vestigium' - when I opened them a slight thread hung in the air leading off to the left of the courtyard and around a large hedge, into the dark.

I knew better and yet something inside didn't care. I fully removed my tie letting it hang around my neck and headed off. As I turned the corner I entered a small covered pathway with white flowers woven into the ivy covering the arches... it was gorgeous, and I could feel the subtle energy coming off of them - old and deep. I stepped out of the path and came to stand in front of a large tree, branches spread out and roots gnarled and plunging into the earth. A moth fluttered across my vision and as it passed he entered. Leaning back against the tree, black vest open fluttering in the slight breeze, arms at his side slid into his pockets.

Against all reason I walked closer to him as our energies continued to dance around each other, growing more comfortable and yet still unsettled. Inches from him I met his gaze once again, but unlike the first time his guard was down a little and I stared into the eyes of a man - scared and questioning, lonely and longing. 

There staring back at me was a Fae Born...

"Hi, I'm Ezra."