Fae Debt
Lilia hummed a soft toon under his breath as he waited patiently in a private hospital waiting room. He’d been called back to the hospital only an hour after his meeting with Maleficia and he could only hope the humans hadn’t somehow fucked the operation up. Granted, Lilia had no idea how surgery was done or how difficult it was without magic, but he also didn’t really care. With Maleficia’s blessing, any nerves he’d had were thoroughly quelled. The boy was his. He could do anything he wanted so long as the child inevitably ended up in his care. He didn’t have to worry about potentially starting a war.
It took a weight off his chest. He didn’t bother hiding his grin, no matter how many looks he’d gotten from the guards who’d escorted him in. Everything was perfect . More than perfect! He could have as much fun as he wanted and Maleficia couldn’t get mad at him. It’d been centuries since she’d let him loose. Oh sure, he had his fun with the students at Night Raven and any humans that wandered into his wood, but he kept it mostly tame. He gave out curses of minor inconveniences and, mostly, harmless pranks, but nothing near as bad as he’d done in his youth. Maleficia hated the complaints she got from the senate and nobles whenever he played with them and eventually, he’d stopped targeting them, if only to avoid Maleficia’s ire.
He could do anything he wanted so long as it meant the child came under his care. He could straight up just steal the kid! And she couldn’t yell at him about it! A devious little giggle bubbled up from him.
The guard at the door shuddered, the scent of fear trailing over to him and Lilia gave them a little finger wave to put them at ease. Instead, the guard stiffened further and crowded closer to the wall. Poor them, but Lilia was having entirely too much fun playing around.
However, he was very curious about why exactly they’d called him. Mab help them all if that child died. Lilia had no illusions about his own self-control. If that child died despite Lilia’s efforts in keeping him alive- well, Lilia wasn’t sure what he’d do but he knew the Land of Dawning wouldn’t be standing by the end of it. That was without taking into account what Maleficia would do. She did so hate when her plans were upset.
It would be so very…unfortunate…for all involved.
His ears twitched up as a scuffle sounded down the hall, trailing closer, stopping just outside the door. Hushed voices argued back and forth before a knock echoed out. The door swung open immediately after, a red-haired woman pacing in with an absolutely thunderous look that was quickly wiped away the moment she saw Lilia.
“Mr. Vanrouge?” The woman, swept him with a look from head to toe, focusing on his ears for a second too long to be polite. He could forgive a child their curiosity; an adult was a completely different matter.
“Yes, that would be me,” he stood with a smile, slipping his phone into his pocket. The woman turned her gaze on the guard at the door before facing him again and, with a roll of her eyes, stuck her hand out.
Lilia blinked down at the hand for a long second. Slowly, he reached back, clasping her forearm tightly, feeling the outline of a magic pen in her sleeve. Her own hand tightened around his forearm, pressing against the blade hidden away in his coat sleeve.
“Dr. Burlywood,” she introduced herself stiffly, though that seemed more like her general personality rather than any fear or caution she had of him, “this may be blunt, but are you a full-blooded Fae?”
Well then .
Twice in as many days. What was his luck? Humans were so presumptuous, so ambitious, so brazen. He liked it. It was one of the many things he actually liked about humans. Their endless curiosity was endearing, even if they were oftentimes rude about it. He couldn’t truly begrudge them it though, not when it came to his species. Fae could smell each other for the most part. Fae blood was a very distinctive smell, although there were quite a few that had very subtle scents and hybrids were harder than most to pick out. Nonetheless, he answered the question.
“I am.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. He dearly hoped she wasn’t just questioning him to waste time. He may be Fae, but he had more sense for the passage of time than most and he most definitely didn’t like his to be squandered. His mood was teetering between good and downright chaotic. It was in her best interest to speak and quickly.
She nodded decisively and cast another look at the guard. Curiously, it wasn’t fear or caution that motivated her. The smell of annoyance drifted from her like a miasma. Something to do with the guard then. Odd. Most humans would appreciate the supposed safety.
“Then I’ll be clear,” Oh, oh, she was experienced with Fae, “there were complications with the surgery.”
Ah.
Well.
Lilia folded his hands in front of him and smiled at the lovely young woman he was about to kill. Lilia had never been one for the whole “don’t shoot the messenger” thing.
“The boy you brought in lost a lot of blood on the table and the toxin in his bloodstream stopped his blood from clotting. We’ve stemmed the blood flow as much as we could and applied medicinal magic to his injuries but he needs a transfusion.”
Speak faster .
His newest wasn’t dead yet, but if the good doctor didn’t get to the fucking point Lilia was going to lose his damn mind.
“We attempted to find a match for the transfusion only to have our tests come up inconclusive. I and my team have come to the decision that Fae blood would be the best option at this point. However, due to political tensions, no hospital in the Land of Dawning has any.”
She crossed her arms and leveled him with a cool look, stern and straightforward. There was no need for her to continue, not really. Lilia already knew what she was going to ask, but he wanted to hear her say it. He wondered absently if this was Maleficia’s doing. Perhaps she’d implanted a Fae-aligned human among the medical staff, because his luck was nowhere near good enough for something like this to happen without outside meddling.
The tension fell from his shoulders and he relaxed his grip on his hands. The doctor scowled at him subtly and Lilia smiled serenely back, waiting for her to continue. She rolled her eyes with a sigh.
“Do you consent to giving a transfusion solely for the purpose of treating the child you brought in?”
“Oh, my dear, I would be delighted .”
She gave him a stiff nod before turning on her heel to march to the door with the same stern air she’d entered with.
“Follow me, Mr. Vanrouge. We need to be quick about this. I want to get this done before the board hears about it and revokes my license.” She glared at the guard standing outside the door, but they didn’t stop her.
Lilia followed, floating down the hall after her at a brisk pace. They didn’t have to go far. His boy was laid out on a bed, his chest on display. His skin was a mottled grey, purple, and red that made Lilia feel sick.
A nurse dragged a chair beside the bed, his own face set into a mask of forced calm. The nurse barely gave him a look before Lilia was directed to the chair. He didn’t care though. All he had to do was sit in the chair and let them do what they were trained to do.
“Arm.”
Dr. Burlywood held out her hand and Lilia held his arm out for her. She grabbed his wrist in a firm hold, pushing his sleeve up. A cotton ball soaked in a horrid-smelling solution was swabbed across the crook of his elbow.
“We’ll need to do a direct transfusion. That means we’ll be connecting a line from you to the patient. Is that agreeable?” She glanced up at him as she released his arm and grabbed a plastic bag from a cart.
“Yes, I agree,” he said, not looking at her. Every ounce of his attention was on that dreadfully small boy. His arm was held up, stitches running in lines across it. It was swollen nearly three times the size it’d been only hours ago. A bag of fluids was connected to his neck where an I.V. rested.
Lilia barely noticed the needle enter his arm, nor did he notice when the doctor inserted the tube. He only noticed when she began attaching the tube to his son. He watched with a laser focus he hadn’t felt since Malleus was a hatchling.
He felt the moment his blood began to flow into the tube. He looked down, watching as bright crimson left him. It flowed, thick and powerful, drawn away from him like a magnet. He couldn’t help but watch, transfixed, as it ran up to the boy’s neck. His breath left him in a rush as his blood entered the child’s bloodstream. There was a split second where his magic throbbed and his mind split in two. He could feel the separation, like suddenly there were two of him and his brain was fighting over which to control.
The boy’s eyelids fluttered and a soft breath left him. Lilia sagged into his chair. He’d never given blood before. Very few Fae did. Blood and magic went hand in hand and for the majority of Fae, one was never without the other. They were creatures created from magic, borne from it at the dawn of magic. It wasn’t inaccurate to say they were magic.
Fae were so few compared to other species specifically because of their blood. When a Fae had a child outside of their own species it was inevitable that the child would come out more other than Fae. Without their magic, their blood conformed to what was around it and Lilia felt it when his blood met the child’s magic. There was an instant when he felt fire engulf him. It ran up that tube, from the boy to him just as his blood ran from him to the boy. It set him alight and burned everything in its path. He felt the moment his magic left his blood and his awareness of it faded.
He blinked lethargically and let his head tip back. It was so different from giving his magic to Malleus. It was slower and somehow both more and less direct. He couldn’t understand why any Fae would willingly donate to a random stranger. He definitely wouldn’t. Not ever. His sons would be the only ones to ever receive his blood.
Nausea rolled through him and his arm went numb and tingly. He groaned softly, turning his head into the soft chair he’d been given. Something was pushed into his unoccupied hand.
“Mr. Vanrouge, it’d be best if you ate and drank something. We need to keep your blood sugar stable during the process.”
Laboriously, he lifted the small paper cup he’d been given, sipping at the watered-down juice. In his opinion, juice was gross. It was overly sweet, filled with sugar and preservatives, and completely innutritious. Tomato juice was better by far, but the juice did make his head feel a tad less light and his stomach slightly less queasy.
He brought his arm up to rest on the bed next to the child’s uninjured one. It was fitting in a way. He’d given his magic to Malleus, his love to Silver, his time to Sebek, and now he was giving his blood to his newest. His smile shrank a bit, softening as he gazed at the sleeping gaunt face of the boy he’d found. Gently, so as not to disturb the I.V in his arm, he reached his hand out, running his fingers along the tiny hand next to his.
His skin was cold and icy, even paler than Lilia’s. His veins stuck out in bright blue and purple through near-transparent skin. He’d need to pick up his blankets from the cottage. The winter months could get frigid at Night Raven and the Valley was even worse. He could find a room close to his with a hearth. The boy would need warm clothes and new shoes and plenty of hats and gloves too. Lilia knew just how often children lost those. He must’ve bought at least a dozen each for Sebek and Silver.
He played with the dreadfully frail fingers, remembering the way Malleus and Silver had grasped his in their tiny little chubby hands when they were babies. Oh, how time flies. He took another reluctant sip of the watered-down juice.
“It should take about thirty minutes, maybe an hour if we want to be cautious. It’s up to you how long you’re willing to go for,” the doctor spoke quietly, staying a good respectful distance away from him and his child.
Lilia blinked away the lovesick haze that had taken over him. He didn’t care about showing his love for his kids, not like other Fae would. Nobody was strong enough to take advantage of that particular weakness of his.
“How much does he need?” There was something fragile about the moment, like if he spoke any louder it’d shatter. Maybe this was what Baul had felt the moment his daughter was born. Malleus’ birth had been chaotic and frantic and Lilia had felt more relieved than anything else.
“As much as you’re willing to give. He lost a lot. I’m not quite sure how he’s still alive, but in this case, there’s no such thing as too much.”
“I’ll give as much as he needs,” he said immediately. It didn’t really matter all too much how much Lilia lost, he could just take a blood bag from the hospital on his way out if he needed to. He could deal with blood loss well enough.
Dr. Burlywood nodded back at him, stern as she’d been the entire time, though no less polite. Truly, Lilia did love when humans learned the cultural norms of other races. It made everything so much easier in the long run. Especially when it came to more instinctual matters.
“We’ll go for an hour then. After that you’ll take a break,” she gave him a dead-eyed stare that dared him to protest, “and we’ll see where to go from there. The more blood we can get in him, the better. He’s got painkillers and fluids from the I.V here,” she pointed to the clearish yellow bag hanging above the bed, “if you’d like, I can go over what I can with you.”
The nurse on the other side of the room made a soft sound of protest before he cut himself off with a shrug.
“We’re getting our licenses revoked anyway,” Lilia heard the nurse mutter under his breath. Why were they doing something so dangerous to themselves? Lilia didn’t claim to know the laws of every country but evidently, his donating blood was against the Land of Dawning’s regulations in some way.
“Why do something that would affect you so negatively without any reward to yourself?” That was a question he continuously found himself asking humans over the years. He never understood the answer.
The nurse frowned at him, “We’re just doing what’s right. A kid doesn’t deserve to die just because the government’s too stubborn and racist.”
He still didn’t understand and he highly doubted he ever would. It just didn’t fit quite right in his brain. Why would anyone do something if it didn’t benefit them in some way? It seemed to be something solely limited to humans. Neither beastfolk nor merfolk had the same self-sacrificial tendencies.
He’d seen it plenty of times in the war. Enemy medics secretly treating Fae soldiers despite the threat of execution hanging over their heads. Human soldiers sparing Fae children despite knowing a Fae soldier would never do the same. Rarely anyway.
“I spent half of my residency in the Valley of Thorns,” the doctor spoke up next, “I met my wife there. I know how Fae work. When I look at him, all I can think about is how the government would treat my wife if we tried adopting. Quite frankly, it pisses me off. There are plenty of half-Fae kids in foster care that need good, stable, homes and the government just keeps getting in the way. If I can help one kid live past what he went through and come out of it with a parent and a family, then I guess I’ll lose my license. Seems like a fair trade to me.”
Lilia thought over her answer. He could understand that one far better than the nurse’s. She wasn’t helping out of “the goodness of her heart”. It was a trade for her and that was something a Fae could understand. Her government had angered her and this was her own retribution. She wanted his boy to live and get a family out of his suffering even if it meant losing the culmination of years of work and dedication. Two birds, one stone.
“Your wife is Fae.”
The doctor grabbed a clipboard off the cart, taking a glance at the monitoring machines. She was silent for a long moment and Lilia waited patiently. The good doctor had given him quite a bit of information already. But it did mean he was in their debt, which was just a tad annoying.
“Yes, she is,” she said finally, her voice low and cautious now for the first time since greeting him. Lilia smiled at her soothingly and, surprisingly, she actually relaxed a bit. Experienced with Fae indeed, though having a Fae partner most definitely explained a lot.
He placed his cup down on the arm of the chair, hoping it wouldn’t tip over, and flicked his hand. A stiff red sheet of parchment snapped into existence. With another swish of his hand, the Draconia royal sigil wrote itself upon the sheet in the top corner followed by a swift introduction and a brief explanation of their circumstances. With a snap of his fingers, the note duplicated, one flying over to the nurse while the other zipped over to the doctor.
“With this, the debt is repaid. One favor to the both of you, to be paid by me personally whenever you so choose,” He watched as the nurse grabbed the note like it was made of gold as he very well should, before turning his attention back to the doctor, “Hard work should be rewarded. This is your reward. Don’t spend it all in one place, okay,” he chirped happily, grinning delightedly as the woman folded the note carefully and placed it in her scrub pocket.
The next hour went by quickly, with Lilia drinking disgustingly watered-down juice. The nurse catered to his every need, checking his blood sugar and blood pressure levels while keeping an eye on his son’s condition. The doctor had left shortly after he’d given her his favor, citing paperwork and other patients. She’d come in every now and again to check up on them before leaving.
After the hour was up, Lilia was indeed almost strong-armed into taking a break. The I.V. tube was removed from his arm, though the connection port remained, and the nurse politely but firmly told him to eat and take a nap. And that was how the next four days went. He’d visited the dorm briefly to check up on everyone and help get the freshman sorted.
After that, four days went by with Lilia running back and forth between the school and the hospital. The child had woken up once, babbling about colors and cats, but after that…nothing. He slept and Lilia watched. There wasn’t much else for him to do other than keep an eye on him and sew up his clothes.
He’d found three different leather-bound books in his coat pockets and a veritable hoard of candy and dirty wrappers. Which he should’ve expected. At least it wasn’t rocks. Malleus had gone through an odd phase where he hid rocks in each of his coat pockets no matter how many times Lilia took them out.
The books were a surprise though. The language wasn’t one he’d encountered before and, for the first time in a long time, he’d had to use the translation enchantments at NRC to read them. History of Magic: Volume two had seemed like a normal enough text for a child to have, though Lilia admittedly didn’t know how or why it’d managed to fit in the boy’s pocket. The next book raised an eyebrow. Curses and Counter-curses: Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies. He’d need to come back to that one. How the kid had gotten a book on curses Lilia didn’t know, but he dearly wished to find out. What he’d read hadn’t even really been actual curses. It’d been offensive magic at worst and pranks at best. Still, it bore questioning. Books on magic were usually heavily restricted due to the risk of blot.
The last book was another history book. Hogwarts: A History was a thick tome but the first thing he’d noticed when he opened the cover was the neat, flowing, handwriting spelling out the name Hermione Granger on the opening page. The next thing he noticed was the crinkled dots spotted here and there across the thick parchment. The scent of saline wafted up subtly from them, a week old at the most.
Someone had been crying over the pages.
Lilia’s fingers tapped at the clipboard in his hand. It all told a rather sad story. An injured boy, a bloody sword, and a tear-stained book. There was more to this story than he’d anticipated, a lot more. Hopefully, he’d be able to get the full story out of the boy eventually. He just knew it’d torment him otherwise.
A soft squeak drifted up to him and an answering click echoed back from his throat. His hair shifted and a small nose nudged against his ear. A velvety tongue lapped at the shell of his ear and a soft giggle escaped him. The little fledgling had been practically attached at his hip for the last couple of days, seeking attention and sweets at every chance. Not that Lilia minded in the least. It was so much easier keeping track of his little familiars when they decided to tag along with him. He had more than a few stationed around the hospital, much to their resentment. None of them liked the rancid smell of the place, but they didn’t dare disobey him.
The little flying fox pup, on the other hand, didn’t seem nearly as obedient as the others. It wasn’t a bad thing per se, but it was unusual. She was a mischievous little thing and Lilia had found her crawling her way into Silver’s school bag at least twice . She was still too young to be sent on missions yet, or else he would’ve sent her to map out the forest around Diasomnia or spy on some of the students. Nothing too intensive or important, of course, just enough to keep her busy and out of trouble.
What with her age though, he’d been stuck between ordering her mother to keep a closer eye on her or taking her around with him. Her poor dam was at her wits end with the little one so Lilia had decided to take her along. She was an absolute little chatterbox and quite the amusing one, always flicking from one thing to the next.
She’d apparently decided Lilia’s hair was a perfect nest to roost in while he hung upside down on the hospital ceiling. He almost missed the way her incessant aimless chatter paused before she clicked at him pointedly. An alert, one of the first things he’d taught her in the few days she’d clung to him.
His eyes popped up from the clipboard, meeting a pair of hazy green ones. Lilia couldn’t help the way his smile stretched wide. The boy looked tiny in that hospital bed. Tiny and fragile and cold. He’d tell Malleus and Silver to pick up a thick blanket for him.
“Are you awake this time, Littlest One?”