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“No, this is just a tavern—a human tavern,” Liath told me, raising his voice a little to make himself heard. “It’s called ‘Harry’s Bar’ in fact—I know the owner. Do you want a drink?”
“Can we look around some first?” I asked.
I was fascinated by the humans. They were almost all dressed in tight blue trousers—even the females. And the few I saw that were not dressed like males were instead wearing incredibly short, tight skirts which seemed barely long enough to cover their crotches. Both modes of dress would have been considered unseemly for a maiden in either the Seelie or the Unseelie Realm, but here they appeared to be normal.
The humans were all dancing and drinking and laughing and none of them seemed to have noticed that Liath and I had appeared out of thin air. Though in their defense, we had come from the darkest corner of the bar.
“Look all you want,” Liath told me. “Don’t worry—humans are mostly harmless. But be careful—you won’t be able to do any magic here because of all the iron they use in their buildings.”
Iron, of course, saps Fae power—be it Seelie or Unseelie. I could feel its presence faintly in the frame of the building around us, but I couldn’t say that it bothered me much. And I could still see the sparks—they came freely from the humans, though they didn’t have any magic. So the sparks must be just positive emotions then, I thought to myself. I wondered if I could use the sparks coming from the patrons of the tavern to do magic the same way I could use Liath’s sparks or the sparks of the other Fae?
“Go on—explore,” Liath urged me. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“But…won’t the humans think we’re strange?” I asked uncertainly. After all, we weren’t dressed like them at all and in Liath’s case, he couldn’t be mistaken for human in the least. His huge height, gray skin, bronze eyes, and white hair stood out in the room filled with mortal beings.
But he only laughed.
“Maybe in the past, but the Mortal Realm has changed. You’ll see—you won’t ever have to make an excuse for your appearance—the humans themselves will make excuses for you.”
As he finished speaking, a mortal girl who looked to be around my age walked past us, heading for the back of the bar. She had on tight blue trousers and a short-sleeved shirt made of some soft-looking material. Her clothing emphasized her figure and I saw she was a curvy girl like me. Her long brown hair swished as she walked.
There was something different about this human, I thought, as she approached us. She had more sparks coming from her than almost anyone else in the noisy tavern combined. And they had a golden hue—the way my own sparks did. I wondered if she might have a bit of Fae blood in her somehow—was that possible?
Sometimes the fairies of the Seelie Court stole a human child and replaced it with one of their own—just for the sake of doing mischief. Such children were called “Changelings” and they often had no idea of their true heritage and origin.
To my surprise, the girl stopped right in front of us. She looked us up and down and grinned.
“Hey, is there a Lord of the Rings con in town?”
“A what?” I asked, frowning.
“Maybe World of Warcraft?” she continued, not answering my question. She pointed at me, “You’re an Elf maiden, right?”
“Oh, well…yes,” I said, uncertain if it was right to reveal myself to a mortal.
“I knew it! I love your ears—they look so real!”
Reflexively, I reached up to touch my pointed ears which stuck out through my hair.
“How did you ever get your hair that shade of blue?” the human girl continued. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Yes, my wife is quite beautiful,” Liath agreed amiably, which made me blush with pleasure.
“She really is,” the girl said sincerely. She studied Liath with a look of concentration on her face. “And you must be…hmm, you’re not quite an orc…”
“I am an Unseelie warrior,” Liath said helpfully.
“Oh, right—of course!” The girl frowned. “Uh—what franchise is that from? Never mind,” she said, before Liath could answer. “Anyway, great cosplay! You’re both killing it!”
I had no idea what the mortal girl thought we were killing, but she had already past us, heading for a sign that said, “Restrooms in the Rear.”
“Wow, you were right,” I said, looking up at Liath. “They don’t seem to mind that we look different at all!”
“They think we are dressing up as characters from some of their favorite books,” he explained. “Stories of the Fae Realms that have bled into the Mortal Realm which human authors write about.”
“I had no idea there was that much crossover between our Realms,” I remarked.
“There is—though a human has to have at least some Fae blood in their veins to visit either the Seelie or the Unseelie Court,” Liath told me as he led me to the counter at the front of the crowded tavern.
