by brett hicks
Faerey Normal: A Modern Teen Fae
One:
Laughter fills the forest around me as the buzzing and singing cacophony of insect life surrounds me. The world is a swirl of greens and earthy tones, brown and various shades of red. Echoes of human laughter fill my ears, overriding the natural sounds. Foot-falls clomp through the brush and I dart off towards my left, hunting and seeking me out.
My heart is racing and hammering into my ears. The rich heady scents of earth, musk, and flowers tickle my nose. The world around me always seems to softly embrace me like a gentle faithful lover’s gentle caress.
Foot-falls sound from my left and I swing the plastic muzzle of my paintball gun up to greet the camouflaged streak of humanoid mass. I squeeze the trigger lightly three consecutive times. Then, two of the red spheres spatter against the chest and shoulder of a muscular mass of man now right in front of me.
He grunts and looks to me in annoyance. I probably have a very cheesy grin plastered to my face. After all, I’m the only girl my age that can seem to hold my own into the late rounds of these paintball contests.
Leaves rustle off to my right-south flank and I drop to one knee as four balls of blue splash harmlessly into the tree right behind me. I hold my trigger and four swift shots spray ahead of me and I hear the sound of the other person crashing into the brush.
I take the time to find a secure spot behind my blue dotted tree. Three more shots pepper the bark and I grumble in annoyance. Risking a quick peek, I see my gunner crouching low and only his muzzle peeking out at me through the bottom of the bush.
Off in the distance, I can hear more clacking sounds of paintball fire. Other participants in the local tournament grunt and grumble as they are being steadily eliminated.
I can’t just turtle up here!
I think to myself and I begin to run through my options. Several more paintballs splatter harmlessly above my head, and I feel the oozy blue paint run into my hair.
Great, I am going to look like a Smurf at this rate!
I quickly unhook my backpack and set my grey paintball gun down into the grass. I clutch my army-green backpack in my left hand and I pick up my gun again in my right. I begin to swing my pack towards the bush and I see the quickly rising male form hulking eight-feet ahead.
Oh dude, he totally took the bait!
I pop out with my finger already squeezing the trigger and I see five splatters of crimson paint coating his torso. The shots are not military neat, but I’m still only fourteen—fifteen at midnight!
The nearly six-foot boy looks at me with wide eyes and a pained expression. Paintball hurts when you’re on the wrong end of the gun. I smirk triumphantly at my conquered prey and that is when I feel the three stabbing thumps against my back, between my shoulders. All tightly clustered and I yip in pain and shock.
I turn around long enough to see Danny Anderson, Skip Anderson’s twenty-two-year-old brother who is a Corporal in the US Marines.
“I call shenanigans on bringing an actual soldier to the field of battle!”
I might sound a little bit sulky, even to myself! Danny had just come home from his third deployment in Iraq. He cut me an easy smile and his ocean blue eyes laughed at me in silent amusement.
“Son of a…”
I heard a yip and two more taps of the gun, and Danny had taken out the last remaining contestant. Teen and young adult laughter can be heard around the woods now as everyone stands and marches over to the edge of the woods.
We were utilizing the light forest area behind my neighborhood and all the adults had managed to clear the field of battle of small kids. This was my choice of birthday parties, tonight I was turning fifteen and in about a month I would be entering high school!
While I am not some cliché girl who rolls around acting like she is above being a girl, I love outdoorsy activities and sports! So, my father only managed to look mildly surprised when he asked what I wanted to do for my birthday this year. My dad tries to keep me balanced, but I am hopeless, sometimes!
Soccer and track are my two hobbies during school. I have been competing in each for years. I started playing kids league soccer at five. By seven I was consistently a starting striker. While I am a short girl, my legs are powerful and thick with feminine muscle. My five-three stature makes me one of the smallest girls that manages to start on every soccer team.
I lick my lips and I spot the adults all eyeballing us for any signs of permanent damage from the back fence. My dad, Maris Ethan Edwards, is laughing as he flips a grilling burger and then a steak. My stomach rumbles like a ravenous wolf in the wild, complaining to me that I’ve been neglecting my duty to a bodily need for too long.
My dad flicks his eyes over to me and his bright smile turns to a one-hundred-thousand-watt laser-like brightness. His dark gemstone green eyes widen and his parental adoration beams at me.
Like a lot of modern people, I only have one parent, my goofy father. Maris is like the sun and the moon to my world. He is strong and muscle-bound and tall, but he is also gentle and considerate. Maris and I do not share much in way of appearance; he is raven-haired I am dirty-blonde. He has green eyes and I have amber eyes that are nearly blood-red when I am angry. We do have similar slim button-like noses, and my high-cheekbones and my uncanny strength are all him! We smile the same cocky and knowing smiles, and we have the same musical sounding laugh.
For all we differ, I would never need a paternity test to know Maris helped birth me.
Dad seems to be completely oblivious to the other soccer parents around him. He is young to have a fifteen-year-old. He maybe looks thirty on his worst day, but dad is supposedly thirty-eight. I say it this way because if you threw him in a frat house and gave him a football jersey, you would think he was a student without a second thought! It’s a bit freaky, really!
Watching the moms of my friends make eyes and fawn over my dad is cringe-worthy! I try to keep the revulsion off my face and I jog over to my father, who is now scanning me for blemishes.
“Hey, daddy!”
Yes, I am a total daddy’s girl, so sue me!
Maris seems to have already forgotten the three women crowding his space. He sets down his spatula and he trots over, pulls me into a tight hug and kisses my temple. When he steps back, I notice he is examining my hair and his green eyes are dancing in laughter.
“How’d it go, Amy?”
I gave him a cheesy grin and a thumb’s up.
“I would have won if Danny wasn’t playing with us.”
His head nodded sagely in agreement.
“Indeed, that is why a game is only fun if you have another predator to compete against.”
I frowned in confusion.
“I really don’t understand like half of what you say, dad!”
He shrugged and he leaned in and pressed one more kiss to my temple.
“Go talk to your friends sweetheart, this is your party.”
I nodded and I turned but no sooner had I left his side, did the hot divorced vultures descend on my dad like he was the last male on the planet with a steady income and decent looks.
Skip was shooting his brother baleful looks as I returned. Jazzy and Heather were also coming over now that the shooting had stopped. My female friends mostly had declined to join us in our two hours of paintball fun. Apparently being stung by bees hurts less, or so I’m told. I’ve never actually stepped on a bee, but I can handle a paintball sting, it just smarts for a few days.
Skip’s expression instantly brightened as I came to stand beside him. His cheeks were pink and his eyes were slightly dilated. We were entering high school now, so I was not oblivious to my best friend’s massive crush on me, I was just trying to ignore it out of existence.
“Amy, how the hell
do you just get shot three times in the back and just zip around like a freaking ninja?!”
Jazzy asked, she sounded bitchy, but Jazzy is just very blunt. She’s a fierce person by nature and an amazing dresser! She was tall, dark-haired and had legs for days, and her boobs were more adult-sized than mine by far! Basically, she had me beat in every department, except for my blonde hair! I love my hair, it reaches to my butt with I have it down. I tend to keep it up in braids a lot, due to my hefty sports life.
“Hey Jazzy, you should try it sometime. You get to shoot the boys and they can’t yell at you for it either.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Honey, you really need to check your priorities before school starts.”
I grinned and her and shrugged off her comment. Jazzy was always trying to get me to be more girly, not that I minded much, but I just did not have the sense or personality for such a life.
Jazzy is all about boys, and pushing her limits, but I’ve just not really grown past the stage of casual observation. Like Danny, he is hot, spell that with a capital-H and add in a W for good measure, that hot! But, even if I had the guts and the chance to do anything with him, I would totally chicken out! I am just not interested in more than window shopping yet!
I’m sure my father sleeps soundly thanks to my slow growth in this department!
“Music? We should dance!”
A chorus of excited noises and “yeses” followed my question.
“Let’s go hang in the basement while the food’s cooking, so Amy doesn’t have to watch all the hit-and-runs being done on her dad.”
I flashed Jazzy a feral smile and a red-tinted gaze.
“Thanks for reminding me of that future therapy session!”
Chortles and laughter rose up as we began to make for the side entrance into my basement level. Being a two-member family, my basement was a bit of a girl-cave of games, speakers and a pool table. I might be a practical midget, but I am a bit of a pool hustler! My daddy taught me when I was nine and I’ve been playing ever since! I love games, what can I say, they excite me!
***
We laughed and partied until a little past eleven. My dad had finally herded the last of my friends home. I helped him clean up and do the dishes. We talked for a while and he even shared a single glass of sweet red wine with me, saying, “You’re adult enough to celebrate with some moderation.”
I had not paid the wine much thought, even though my dad was far from a drinking man. But, when you dear-ole dad is offering you a taste of adulthood, you take it without question. Every teen likes it when their parent acknowledges their growth.
I felt extremely sleepy soon afterward and I crawled into bed just before midnight.
Two:
Fathers are generally your very best friends unless they are currently attempting to rouse you in late August, five hours too soon!
Incoherent groaning and grumbling into my pillow seem to do nothing to dissuade the man I cherish more than life itself! Today, he sounds extra adamant for some reason.
“Go-way!”
I mumbled towards his general direction and I clutched my pillow tightly around my ears. My dad poked his index finger into my side and I practically hop to the ceiling in surprise.
“God, daddy!”
That sounded somewhere between groggy and full-blown petulant. His green eyes danced with mirth and the expression seemed to hold for a moment longer before it died out. My dad stood beside my bed with a firm look on his face and his jaw set with some form of grim determination.
He looked like his best pig had just died, but I was still too groggy to dive into any of this.
“Get showered and meet me downstairs as soon as you’re done, Amy.”
I frowned and spared my father one puzzled glance before I marched into my small bathroom. Our house was not big, but it at least had two full bathrooms. A girl does not want to share her bathroom with her dad after a certain age! Besides, men are freaking filthy creatures of habit!
“Ummm, there better be coffee!”
My tone was what I would describe as sternly sleepy. While I often did wake up early for my track training, I was currently running on my summer break hours—AKA sleeping into the afternoon most days.
Showering while you’re still sleeping on your feet is not a fun task! I nearly slipped and fell on my butt a few times. I’m pretty sure I could have given a very convincing drunken impression right now.
After I finally managed to shower and rinse some of the cobwebs off my brain, I dried and wrapped my hair in another towel to dry. I was much too tired to try to comb through my long hair right now. I would have to do that once I got some java into my system.
My mirror was extremely foggy, but I could have sworn that my ears looked way too long this morning. I wrote that off to my continued state of sleepiness.
My father was finishing up the fourth pancake and scooping bacon onto two plates. Smart man! You must give your hungry, grumpy teen daughter a proper offering for penance when you wake her way too early!
“Coffee…”
I grumbled and my father gave me a bright smile and nodded towards the steaming cup sitting at our small dining table on the other end of the kitchen. After a cup and a half of coffee, I was beginning to feel less like a zombie. My dad sat down and he slid my food over to me and we ate in relative silence.
To say I was burning with curiosity at my father’s dodgy behavior would be gravely understating matters! After I performed a vanishing act on the delicious bacon and thick pancakes, I looked at my dad and crossed my arms over my chest. He looked properly intimidated, or at least he looked perturbed about something.
“Daddy, what’s going on? You’re acting like Jazzy’s mom does every time she tries to quit smoking.”
His dark brows arched up in question, or perhaps intrigue?
“Guess there’s no easy way to do all of this, so just try to stay calm Amy, and remember that I’m your father and I love you.”
Nothing good or even okay ever started with a statement like that!
“Daddy, you’re scaring me…”
My father snapped his fingers together loudly and it was like a layer of glass shattered around our home. Every surface and every object seemed to become more vibrant with a multitude of new colors. Green and blue mist swirled in the air and my breath caught in my chest when I looked up at my father.
He still had black-blue hair, but he looked maybe mid-twenties now and his ears tapered to long slender points. He had swirling green-golden eyes with a haze of purple glowing mist around his body. He smelled differently too, more like fresh roses and strangely the smell was somehow masculine, despite the common association to all things feminine.
I blinked and I noticed the red swirling around my hands and rolling off of me in waves now. I jumped to my feet and my father rose and planted me back in place firmly with his large hands. His tone was soothing and musical, even more, musical than it usually was.
“Shh, easy there, child. I had to show you, for you have now grown out of the glamour that coats the eyes of our children. The mists and the doors are open to you now, as are your own powers.”
My eyes were bug-wide.
“What the hell is all of this?!”
My voice was shrill and I felt my heart thumping in my chest as if I were running a 10k. My father sighed and he gave me a look that said, “You know.”
“What do I look like to you my daughter?”
I blinked and I looked at his high-cheeks and sharply angled features again.
“You look like Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings.”
He sniffed indignantly and managed to look very offended.
“I’m no elf! Blast that idiot and his bloody elves!”
I nodded dumbly and my father caught himself and managed to look sheepish. He seemed to glow as if he had his own private source of light.
“We are Moch Sidhe, a noble race born of the Under Hill Clan.”
/> My brows furrowed and I tried to remember where I had heard any of what he just said before.
“Irish folklore dad? We’re not wee-people living under the earth.”
His lips twitched in amusement and he sighed.
“We’re not wee, no, but what is “under” in one place, could be “over” in another.”
I pointed an accusing finger at him.
“You’re doing that freak cryptic riddle-master thing again dad! What the…”
I sighed and slumped back in my chair.
“Oh god… do I have long pointy ears too? How could I?”
As if from thin air, a mirror appeared in front of me. The girl looking back was about three shades lighter blonde and less brown mixed in. Her eyes were like bloody rubies and the ears, the ears were even loner and pointier than my father’s!
I did the only sensible thing a girl could do, I punched his crazy magical mirror and I ran to my room. I could hear my dad calling out to me and I was too frozen up in my shock to care. I buried myself under my covers and I closed my eyes as if I could pass out and wake up, thus hitting the restart button on this insane morning.
“Amelia Erin Edwards, open this door this instant and talk to me!”
I felt this strange sensation as he invoked my full name like it had some power over me. I found myself walking to my door and unlocking it in the next instant, all the while fighting to stop moving. Freaky no longer covered this! It’s almost like he hit me with some kind of compulsion! Like I had to obey!
“What. The. Hell?!”
I ground out and I felt the compulsion to obey, snap. My father staggered back and sucked down a long breath.
“Bloody hell, you’re way too much your mother’s daughter…”
He muttered and I stopped moving as if he had frozen me in place. Dad never spoke of mom, not even once in my whole fifteen-years of life! Now he tossed that comment out willy-nilly.
“What does that mean?!”
He sighed and shrugged.
“That your mother was far stronger than me and so are you.”
I blinked at him and my eyes widened.