Never Play Board Games with the Fae

by Sara Jamieson

do. Some of the things that I have heard would curdle your blood to hear. I have one great aunt several times removed who seems more vested in visiting than the others (I suspect it is, in part, because of the enjoyment she receives out of watching me cringe when she tells some of her nastier tales). My earliest memory of her involves being bounced on her knee while she related a story of how she had used a loophole to turn a wager upside down and make a challenger have to pay up to her after he won. I remember telling her (in my very human thinking four year old way) that it was not nice to cheat. She shoved me off her lap onto the floor without any warning and snapped at my mother to do something about my deplorable lack of education.

  You may think that you are up to the challenge. I submit to you that there is nothing that any of the Fae can offer you that would come close to covering the risk. If you are ever in the vicinity of a Fae attempting to coax you into a game, then I strongly suggest that you remember what you have learned and walk away.

  Vampires Want to Eat You

  I would think that this one would go without saying, but that no longer seems to be the case. Thus, I have included it in this collection. The facts are very simple. Please remember that vampires drink blood. Human beings quite conveniently carry a supply of blood around with them in their veins at all times. Logic would dictate that it does not take amazing feats of mental gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion that a vampire is going to view you in much the same manner as a growing teenage boy views the display behind the concession stand at the movies. It makes perfect sense.

  Sadly, logic seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way. I blame popular culture and impressionable tween girls. They sucker you in with tales of the poor, misunderstood vampire who just needs the right person who is special enough to help him away from the dark path while you are still too young to recognize the snow job that you are getting. The story sticks in the back of your head somewhere when you are older and impairs your ability to use good judgment. There is no other reason for an otherwise sensible person to find anything attractive about being considered a walking pantry.

  I confess that I have never encountered a vampire personally. This is, therefore, the only piece of advice that I shall be offering you that does not come from my own, personal firsthand observation. There is a very good reason that I have no personal tale to share in this venue -- I do not go looking for vampires. That seems to me the only reasonable course of action to take. I do not much care for things that see me as a source of food.

  I do not go looking for vampires for the same reason that I do not keep a giant snake capable of crushing me in my sleep as a pet. I am not big on putting myself in mortal peril either (it is a sense of self-preservation thing from which I happen to suffer). It is the same reason that I see no purpose in jumping out of a perfectly functional airplane to send myself plummeting toward the ground with only a scrap of fabric between myself and certain death. Other people may enjoy those sorts of activities. They are not my cup of tea. This is why vampires and I will never be willingly in each other’s presence.

  I have seen the romance novels and the movies. I know the preconceptions from which many of you are building your personal fantasy images. Allow me to deconstruct those for you. You are not so very special that the tortured nonliving will abandon all hope of ever feeding again in order to placate you and bask in your presence for the rest of your days. You just are not. Do not feel badly about that. No one is.

  Likewise, let us not have any sort of romantic delusions about being kept as some sort of sustainable grocery store that will be treasured, coddled, and made the center of some immortal universe. That is not romance, my dears. That is what it is like to be kept as some farm family’s bottle calf or orphaned lamb that the children hand feed and pat on the head. It may seem like a rather nice life on the surface, but such things always come to an end. When the family gets hungry, well, I trust you know how the rest of that story goes.

  You may be convenient. You may be patted on the head and called pretty names. The vampire in question may even be vaguely amused by and fond of you. None of that changes the fact that there is a pecking order to all life forms on this planet. As far as a vampire is concerned, you are a source of food first, last, and always. They will not hesitate to eat you. They will kill you if that becomes the most expedient route by which they can do so. Do not attempt to romanticize it or make it anything other than what it is.

  You may recall some time ago there was a person who made a lot of noise about the majesty and the wonder of bears and set out to live among them. Do you remember what happened next? That’s right -- exactly what anyone with a modicum of sense could have told you was likely to happen eventually. I would suggest that you keep that thought firmly in your head the next time that you are tempted by the popular culture view of vampires. It is always good to keep some perspective on the larger picture of the thing.

  Also, please refrain from beginning a social media campaign accusing me of maligning the poor creatures. I will point out that in the previously mentioned incident no rational person went around in the aftermath blaming the bears. They did what bears do. It was the humans involved that exercised poor decision making skills and paid the price for it. Likewise, I am not issuing an indictment against vampires. I am merely pointing out the facts of what vampires do. It is up to the humans involved to exercise their decision making skills appropriately. You have all the facts. I suggest you use them.

  Werewolves Are Not for Watching

  Werewolves are not in and of themselves a fantasy creature. They are, rather, a human being who happens to have been infected by a fantasy disease. Much like dealings with the Fae -- encounters with fantasy diseases do not generally end well for humans. It is not a pleasant condition to have (although the same could be said for most illnesses). The plight of a werewolf is compounded by their inability to go to anyone for help. An average human doctor would not believe them (and would not be able to offer any meaningful assistance in any case).

  Their only hope of being reliably walked through the early stages is to come under the care of a mentor who has already sufficiently mastered the basics. Given the memory issues involved with the infection, there are high odds that the person who passed the infection on does not realize that they have done so. This complicates matters greatly and often leaves the newly infected at loose ends not realizing what it is that has happened to them until it is too late. Those are sad stories.

  Many older werewolves throughout the years have made attempts at completing registries and tracking in an attempt to better control the situation, but that path is fraught with difficulties. There are many pitfalls involved in such an endeavor and many werewolves resent the loss of personal privacy that such attempts taken to their logical conclusion entail.

  The plus side of these things is that any functional werewolves that you may encounter going about the majority of their days in their natural human form have already reached a point where they have their condition managed and well in hand. It is, after all, a very precisely timed illness which lends itself to appropriate mitigation of spread by anyone who understands what they are dealing with and can manage a basic amount of planning and time management. This means that your average werewolf who has gotten beyond the initial perils can live their life much like a diabetic. They know what to avoid and when to avoid it. They take appropriate precautions as necessary, and they know their own warning signs and what to do about them if they happen to arise. There is no reason to be overly paranoid. There is also no reason to be careless.

  I do not make a habit of sharing glasses with friends who are suffering from a case of mono. Why? It is because that would be a silly, unnecessary risk to take. This is the same reason that we avoid werewolves at the full moon. It is an unnecessary risk to take, so we do not take it. Just think how awful your friend would feel if something untoward occurred when he or she was not in cont
rol of themselves? Think about them if you do not have enough sense to avoid the danger yourself.

  I would also strongly advise that you refrain from prying. You may notice a friend who always seems to be unavailable at certain points on the calendar. You may notice habits and practices that cause you to put two and two together and make four. I would keep my conjectures to myself. Do you enjoy it when acquaintances become overly nosey about your personal schedules and state of health? Use some discretion. Do not go making accusations (because that is how it will sound no matter how carefully you work on your phrasing) or demanding answers. You may view this as intriguing and want to sate your curiosity. They have to live with it as a lifelong medical condition. No one wants to be looked at as if they should be behind the glass at a zoo.

  If your friend wants to confide in you, then he or she will. If said friend does not, then you need to remember that your friend does not owe you any explanations. This can be very difficult. I know that from personal experience. You want to be able to help. The best help you can offer is to not push. Your friend