The Fae Who Loved Me Sacrificed Her Memories to Pay My Way Home

The fog rolled in without warning, thick and cloying, smelling of damp earth and something unnervingly sweet, like honey left to rot. One moment, Dawson was flanking Elara, his shield raised against the goblin skirmishers. The next, her war cry was a muffled echo, and the familiar pine scent of the King’s Wood was gone, swallowed by the unnatural mist. He called out for her, for Kaelen and Ren, but the fog drank his words, leaving only a ringing silence.

Panic, cold and sharp, tried to take root in his gut. He stamped it down with the hard-won discipline of a dozen campaigns. This wasn't a natural phenomenon. It was magic, a powerful illusion meant to separate them. His ranger training, a secondary skill he’d picked up from Kaelen, urged him to read the nonexistent tracks, to check the wind that didn't blow. It was useless. Every direction felt the same. He was walking in a gray, featureless void.

Then, a light bloomed ahead. It wasn't the clean, honest light of the sun, but a shimmering, iridescent curtain of color that pulsed with a soft, internal rhythm. It hung in the air like a tear in the world, its edges bleeding violet and silver into the oppressive gray. A way out, he thought. Or the source of the trap. Either way, it was the only thing in this damnable fog.

As he drew closer, a strange lethargy washed over him. A soft, persuasive whisper that wasn't quite a sound echoed in his mind, telling him this was the path, the only path. It promised safety, reunion. It felt so right, so logical. For a fleeting second, his fighter’s instinct screamed that it was a lie, a mental assault demanding he hold his ground, grit his teeth, and resist. He felt his will falter, the mental fortitude he relied upon to shrug off a harpy’s song or a vampire’s gaze cracking under the strain. The whisper was too comforting, the promise too sweet for his exhausted mind to fight. He failed to resist the enchantment, the feeling of his own resolve crumbling like sand.

He pushed through the shimmering veil.

The transition was jarring, a violent wrenching of senses. The gray void vanished, replaced by a world saturated with impossible color. The sky was a deep indigo, streaked with turquoise clouds, and two moons—one silver, one the color of pale lavender—hung in the heavens despite the blinding brightness of a sun that was nowhere to be seen. The air was thick and humid, humming with a palpable energy that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. Towering trees with bark like polished obsidian wept glowing amber sap. The ground beneath his steel-shod boots was a carpet of moss that glowed with a soft, blue light, and strange, bell-shaped flowers chimed with glassy notes as a breeze he couldn't feel stirred them.

He pulled out his compass. The needle spun wildly, untethered from any magnetic north he knew. The constellations were alien. The plants, the air, the very light—everything was wrong. His training, his experience, his finely honed survival skills… they were all worthless here. He was lost in a way he had never been before, a trespasser in a world that was actively, hostilely, alive.

He pushed deeper into the alien woods, his longsword a dull line of familiar steel in a world of blinding color. Every step was a gamble. Thorns like obsidian shards snagged at his cloak, and strange, giggling whispers seemed to follow him from the pulsating flora. He needed a defensible position, a place to rest and think. He found it ahead: a break in the oppressive canopy revealed a clearing bathed in the soft, dual light of the twin moons.

It was a grove of trees with silvery bark and leaves that shimmered like captured starlight. In the center, a pool of water reflected the alien sky perfectly, its surface undisturbed. Large, white flowers, their petals curled like sleeping fists, grew in clusters around the pool. As he watched, one of the flowers slowly unfurled, releasing a puff of glowing pollen that drifted on the air like dust motes in a sunbeam. It was beautiful, but the beauty held a sharp edge of danger, like a perfectly crafted dagger.

He wasn’t alone.

Leaning against one of the silver-barked trees was a woman. Her skin had the pale, smooth quality of polished river stone, with a faint greenish tint that seemed to drink in the moonlight. Her hair, the color of dark forest moss, was woven with tiny, glowing flowers, and her simple dress was made of what looked like layered leaves. When she turned her head, her eyes, the color of polished jade, fixed on him with an expression of pure, undiluted annoyance. She saw him not as a person, but as a pest, a piece of filth that had sullied her sanctuary.

She pushed away from the tree, her movements fluid and silent. A faint, cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp earth filled the air around her. “You are a long way from your grubby little world, mortal,” she said, her voice like the chiming of glass bells, yet holding no warmth.

Dawson kept his shield up, his sword pointed low. “I mean no harm. I am lost.”

A cruel smile touched her lips. “All mortals are lost here.” She lifted a slender hand, and the air between them seemed to thicken. A subtle pressure pushed against his mind, a gentle but firm suggestion. You are tired. So very tired. Just past this grove is a soft, marshy bog. The ground is yielding. It would be so easy to lie down and rest there forever. The command was seductive, a siren song for his exhausted body and frayed nerves.

But he recognized the feeling. It was the same mental prod that had lured him through the portal. This time, he was ready. He anchored himself, focusing on the familiar weight of the shield on his arm, the worn leather of his sword’s hilt in his palm. He pictured a wall of iron inside his mind, the same discipline that let him hold a line against a charging ogre now turning inward. The mental pressure met that wall and slid away, useless. He blinked, the command evaporating like mist.

Myfanwy’s smile vanished. Her jade eyes widened almost imperceptibly, her casual posture stiffening. A mortal, caked in dirt and reeking of steel and sweat, had just shrugged off her will as if it were a mild breeze. He was not some simple-minded farmer who had stumbled through a gate. He was something else, something more dangerous. The air in the grove grew cold, the chiming of the flowers ceasing as the tension between them became a palpable force.

“I seek passage, not a fight,” Dawson said, his voice low and steady, a stark contrast to the chiming quality of hers. He needed to de-escalate this. A direct conflict with a creature of this plane, in her own territory, was a fool’s death. “Just a path back to the mortal realm. I can pay you. Gold, a service, anything.”

Myfanwy let out a laugh, and this time it wasn’t like bells, but like the splintering of ice. “Pay me?” she repeated, the word dripping with disdain. She gestured around the glowing grove. “Does this look like a place that has any use for your heavy, worthless metal? And what service could a clumsy brute like you offer me? You reek of iron and blood and foolish loyalty. You are an offense.”

She took a step closer, circling him like a predator examining its prey. Her jade eyes scanned his dented shield, the travel-stains on his cloak, the exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes. “You speak of ‘passage’ as if it is a road to be walked. You are arrogant, even for a mortal. There is no safe passage here. This land is not a kingdom to be negotiated with. It is a living thing, and it does not like you.”

Dawson stood his ground, rotating slowly to keep her in his sight. “Then what do you want?”

“Want?” She stopped, tilting her head. The little flowers in her hair pulsed with soft light. “I wanted to watch you sink into the Murk-Mire. It would have been a moment’s amusement. You denied me that.” Her gaze was sharp, analytical. “But you are… resilient. Strong-willed. Perhaps a different amusement can be found.”

She raised a hand, not for another spell, but to point past him, towards the oppressive, dark woods that bordered her grove. “I will not harm you,” she said, the words sounding like a formal declaration, a binding statement. “My hand will not be the one that ends your short, brutish life. That is my bargain.”

Dawson waited for the other half of the deal. With the Fae, there was always another half.

“But you will not stay in my grove,” she continued, her voice turning cold. “You will leave. You will walk back into those trees, and you will survive on your own. The twin moons have just risen. If you are still breathing when they rise again, I will be… surprised.” She smiled, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “The Wilds will take you. The ground will swallow you, the beasts will tear you apart, or the despair will simply rot your mind. It is all the same. Now go. You are trespassing.”

He saw no room for negotiation in her eyes. It was not a request; it was a dismissal. He had been offered a single, impossible chance. Clenching his jaw, Dawson gave a stiff nod. He had faced down dragons and liches. He would not be broken by pretty flowers and a hostile fae. He turned his back on her and the serene beauty of the grove, and walked toward the dark, waiting thorns at the edge of her territory. He could feel her watching him, her cold amusement a physical weight on his shoulders. The chiming of the flowers started again behind him, a mocking farewell.

The moment Dawson stepped beyond the boundary of the moon-petal grove, the forest seemed to close in on him. The air grew heavier, thick with the scent of rot and cloying sweetness. Twisted, grasping roots snaked across his path, and the soft blue moss gave way to slick, black soil that tried to suck the boots from his feet. The whispering laughter he’d heard before grew louder, more malicious, seeming to come from the very bark of the trees around him. He ignored it, focusing on the simple, disciplined act of putting one foot in front of the other.

His survival training was a litany of rules that no longer applied. He found a stream, its water running clear over iridescent pebbles, but when he dipped a finger in, the liquid clung to his skin like oil and made his vision swim with dizzying fractals. He left it, his throat burning with thirst. He tried to hunt, but the creatures here were made of shadow and spite. Small, winged things with needle-like teeth swarmed him, and he spent a precious hour batting them away with his shield, their shrill cries scraping at his nerves. He was a fighter, trained for battlefields and dungeons, not this relentless, passive-aggressive warfare with nature itself.

Worse than the hunger or the thirst was the drain. The humming magic of this plane was a constant, leaching pressure against his soul. It wasn't an attack he could block or a spell he could resist; it was in the very air he breathed, a pervasive weariness that settled deep in his bones. Every swing of his sword felt heavier than the last. His shield became a leaden weight on his arm. His thoughts, usually clear and tactical, grew muddy and slow. Only the iron-clad discipline of his training kept him moving, kept him sane. He would find a defensible spot. He would check his perimeter. He would rest in short, alert bursts. He would not give in.

From the heart of her grove, Myfanwy watched. She needed no scrying pool; the trees themselves were her eyes. She saw the mortal stumble away from the clear stream, saw him flinch from the touch of a Dream-Thistle. She saw him methodically clear a small patch of ground, his movements brutally efficient, and settle with his back against a stone, shield raised even in rest.

At first, she felt a smug satisfaction. He was suffering. He was being worn down by the land itself, just as she had predicted. Any moment now, he would break. He would scream in frustration, or weep in despair, or make a fatal error born of panic. That was the way of mortals. They were fragile, emotional things, their resolve as brittle as dried leaves.

But he did not break. He endured. When a patch of phosphorescent fungi released hallucinogenic spores, he held his breath, pressed his face into his cloak, and waited with infuriating patience until the cloud dissipated. When the ground beneath him tried to soften into a mire, he tested it with the tip of his sword before each step, moving with a grim, graceless determination.

The cycle of the twin moons wore on. Myfanwy’s amusement soured into a strange, unfamiliar feeling. It was not respect—he was still a crude, ugly creature of iron and mud. It was… intrigue. He refused to despair. The Wilds threw their subtle horrors at him, and he met them not with magic or cleverness, but with a stubborn, brutish refusal to die. There was no artistry in it, no beauty, but there was a power she could not deny. He was a rock being battered by a storm, and while he was eroding, he was not yet crumbling. He was an anomaly, a thing of stubborn logic in a world of capricious chaos, and against her will, she found herself wanting to see how long the rock could possibly stand.

Her observation was cut short by a sound that did not belong in her grove. It wasn't the whisper of the trees or the chime of the flowers, but a wet, tearing crash from the ancient willows that marked her border. A wave of wrongness washed over the grove, a stench of decay and mindless rage that made the moon-petals recoil, their light dimming in protest.

Through the splintered trees stumbled a nightmare. It had the hulking frame of an owlbear, but it was a diseased, corrupted version of the creature. Patches of its feathers had sloughed off, revealing skin covered in pulsing, black veins. One of its owl-like eyes was a milky, blind orb, and a foul, dark slime dripped from its beak. A creeping blight had taken it, twisting its mind into a vessel of pure destruction. It bellowed, a guttural shriek that was half screech, half roar, and swiped a clawed arm at one of the oldest moon-petal bushes, shredding the glowing blossoms and leaving behind a smear of black ichor.

A cold fury, sharp and pristine, surged through Myfanwy. This was her sanctuary, a place of power nurtured for centuries. This blighted thing would not defile it. She raised her hands, and the air around her crackled. Tendrils of green energy coiled around her arms, and the roots beneath the owlbear’s feet began to writhe, thickening into thorny snares. She would bind it, crush it, and let the earth reclaim its rotten flesh.

But before her spell could take hold, a blur of motion shot past her from the edge of the woods. It was the mortal. Dawson moved with a speed she hadn’t thought his exhausted body capable of. There was no hesitation, no fear, only grim purpose. He didn’t run from the monster; he ran at it.

He bellowed a warrior’s challenge, a raw, human sound that cut through the creature's shrieking. Just as the owlbear reared up to bring its full weight down on the heart of the grove, Dawson slammed into it. His shield, a battered circle of steel and wood, met the beast’s charge with a deafening crack of impact. The force of the blow drove him back a step, his boots digging furrows in the soft earth, but he held. He grunted, muscles straining, and planted his feet, becoming an immovable wall of iron between the rampaging beast and her home.

The owlbear roared in fury, swiping with claws that could shear through oak. Sparks flew as they scraped against the shield’s surface. Dawson didn’t flinch. He moved with the beast, absorbing its frenzied attacks, his sword a flash of silver in the dimming light as he created an opening, stabbing deep into the creature’s blighted shoulder. The owlbear shrieked in pain and rage, its attention now fixed entirely on the mortal who dared to stand against it. Myfanwy stood frozen for a heartbeat, her spell half-formed on her lips, watching the crude, iron-clad man bleed for a place that had shown him nothing but contempt.

The shock held her for only a single, suspended heartbeat. The sight of the mortal’s dark red blood splattering onto the pale ground of her grove—a shield of flesh and steel protecting her home—shattered her stillness. The owlbear was a festering wound on the land, but the man was its cauterizing iron. A stubborn, bleeding, and unexpectedly noble fool.

"Mortal! Its leg! It favors the left!" she called out, her voice a sharp command that cut through the chaos. The green energy weaving between her fingers tightened, condensing from a wide net into a focused, piercing dart of power.

Dawson heard her. He didn't turn, didn't waste a single motion. He simply adjusted his footing. He met another claw swipe with his shield, the impact echoing with a deafening clang that made his teeth ache. Then, pivoting on his back foot, he rammed the shield’s heavy steel boss directly into the creature's left knee. There was a sickening, wet crunch as the joint gave way.

The owlbear shrieked, a high-pitched sound of pain and fury, and its weight slumped onto its uninjured leg. It was the exact opening Myfanwy needed. With a swift, downward thrust of her hands, she unleashed her spell. The ground beneath the owlbear's good leg tore open. Thick, thorny vines, hard as iron and covered in razored barbs, erupted from the soil. They coiled around the beast's ankle and calf, cinching tight and digging deep into its blighted flesh.

Trapped and unbalanced, the creature thrashed wildly. It turned its hateful, milky eye toward her, recognizing the source of its agony, but it was too late. Dawson was already moving. He lunged forward, ducking under a desperate, flailing claw, and drove his longsword upward with all the force his exhausted body could muster. The blade slid through the soft tissue under the owlbear’s beak, punching through gristle and bone and deep into its brain.

A final, gurgling sigh escaped the beast. Its massive body shuddered, went limp, and then collapsed, its dead weight tearing the vines from the earth as it fell. The corpse hit the ground with a heavy, final thud that seemed to shake the entire grove.

Silence descended, absolute and profound, broken only by the ragged sound of Dawson's breathing. He wrenched his sword free with a grunt and staggered back, leaning heavily on his shield for support. Blood flowed freely from a deep gash on his forearm where a claw had finally found its way past his guard. He was covered in sweat and grime, his armor smeared with the owlbear's foul, black blood. The adrenaline that had propelled him into the fight was gone, leaving only a visible, bone-deep exhaustion in its place.

Myfanwy stood perfectly still, watching him. The dead beast lay between them, a grotesque monument to their unwilling and brutally effective alliance. He had protected her sanctuary. He had bled for it. The rigid, transactional calculus of her world demanded that such an act be answered. A debt had been incurred.

She let her hands fall to her sides, the lingering green magic dissipating into the air. She walked toward him, her bare feet making no sound on the disturbed earth. He tracked her approach, his expression guarded, his grip still white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword. She stopped a few feet away, her gaze shifting from the weeping wound on his arm to his weary face.

"You are bleeding on my moon-petals," she said. The words held no scorn, only a flat observation. She tilted her head toward the heart of the grove, where a clean, smokeless fire danced within a circle of smooth river stones. "Come. The fire is warm. I have a salve for that."