“The lower pasture is flooded.”
The voice was unfamiliar. Ed Straker looked up to see … he blinked. In an uncharacteristic gesture he rubbed his eyes and wondered when the last time he’d slept was. The … being … was still there, hovering about two inches off his desk top, surrounded by monumental, for it, gossamer wings. ‘I’ve finally cracked,’ he thought, nodding to the incensed small entity.
She lowered to the desktop and stamped a small, elegantly shod foot. “I’m serious!” That was a really loud voice, melodious and well modulated for such a small … person.
“What’s flooded?” he asked. It was his hallucination. He might as well take it seriously before someone figured out he was completely round the bend.
He suddenly wondered if maybe this wasn’t a hallucination when she marched over and bit him in the finger, drawing blood with very sharp teeth. “Now will you listen, you great gommering gob!? You’ve flooded us out!”
“Now see here .” He stopped what he was about to say. He was arguing with a … very, very angry fairy who was turning purplish and shaking it was so angry. “What pasture?” he asked instead.
Her mouth dropped open. “What pasture, the idiot asks. The one at the lower end of your back lots, you fool. The Greenman’s pasture. Our home. The one place we can … uhm … er … well, it’s flooded,” she ended indignantly.
“All right. I can see about getting it … drained. Will that help?”
“Of course it will help! Are all mortals so stupid?” She continued to glare at him. “Well?”
“Now?”
He had a feeling she’d rather rip his throat out than continue the conversation. “Now. Yes. Please.” She added the last as though it was being physically wrung from her with great pain. She gestured to the door expectantly.
All right, he probably needed a break. And some coffee. As he stepped out of his office he confirmed his suspicion he’d flipped out. Everyone was frozen in place including the pencil Ford was dropping. It hovered in the air just at the end of his grasping fingertips. Either the aliens were at it again, which he doubted since he was in his office when it started, or he was crazy. He refused to acknowledge the third option, that the fairy fluttering just in front of him was real and somehow she had managed to freeze his personnel in a moment of time. It was much saner to be crazy.
He refrained from examining that thought and followed the young … being out of the central command area of SHADO, through the back exit and out across the filming lots where everything was as frozen as it had been during the time lash incident. Ed firmly shut down the nightmare thoughts that set of memories engendered and walked on until twenty minutes later he was wishing he had wings like his companion who flitted ahead of him, wandering back to chivvy him onward. Finally, they came to a rustic fence he vaguely recalled and stopped.
On the other side was a wide pasture bordered with trees on three sides which was undeniably under water. Off to the right edge of the fence, Ed spotted a small portcullis looking thing which resolved into an irrigation gate as he investigated the area. It opened onto a long disused ditch which ran under the roadway between the studio back lot and the pasture. With a little effort, he opened the gate to allow the water to flow out of the drowned area. The fairy, sitting on the top rail of the fence nodded sagely and was gracious enough to thank him as he turned to go.
“Where go ye?” she asked as abruptly as she’d originally pointed out the place was under water.
Dusting his hands, he pointed out that the flood would be solved shortly and he had work to do.
“That you do, but not there,” she pointed toward the studio and SHADO. “There.” she shifted her stance to indicate the emptying field which was now ankle deep in mud. “That needs replenishing.”
Ed looked puzzled. What was she talking about? If he was going to be crazy, at least his hallucinations should make sense … within the context of the … Ed felt very tired. “What do you want?”
The winged woman smiled at him then, not the most reassuring thing he’d seen lately given the row of serrated looking teeth she revealed as her deep pink lips pulled up and back. “Why, you, of course. You did make the field infertile, you must fix it.”
“And how am I going to do that?” as soon as the irritable question passed his lips, Ed knew he wasn’t going to like the answer and had a very good idea what that answer was.
“Follow me,” she commanded and launched across the muddy plane that had probably been a fallow field when it flooded.
“Hell.” Ed climbed nimbly over the fence and took one regretful look at his expensive leather shoes before he followed his guide across the mud. As they neared the tree line, a horde of the small winged things surrounded the one leading him here. For a moment he was lost in the sheer beauty of the small beings for each was a proportional looking human body hanging between wings that would make butterflies and moths jealous. Then he noticed the two women and a cold chill ran up and down his spine a few times, as though once wasn’t enough.
They moved with sinuous grace, dark and light in complete contrast, white hair piled in luminous swirls on one, the other goth black, straight and hanging to her knees in a silken fall. The Goth was pale as death, black on black eyes fringed by long lashes and set slightly aslant under thin black brows. The other was touch with gold dust, pale lashes, eyebrows and mouth all glittering as with precious metal against skin like pale silk. Both were tall, high breasted, slim at the waist and full hipped with legs dancers would kill to have. His reaction was instantaneous and embarrassing.
The dark one was a blur and suddenly behind him, pressed against his back, her chin resting on his shoulder as she breathed chill air against his ear. “Ah. Mortal. Not bad.” She ran her hands over his shoulders and arms, then slid them around to pull him tight against her. He tried to ignore the press of her lightly clad flesh against him as he gazed into the pale blue eyes of the other.
“Choose.” The fairy who had invaded his office gave what sounded like an order.
“Choose what?” he asked before he thought about what he was seeing here.
Laugher floated up from the gathering. The chant went up of: “Choose. Choose. Choose. …”
The dark haired woman laughed in his ear. “Like Paris, you must choose,” she told him, her voice grating on his nerves. “Only, unlike Paris, you look upon the visage of both and your reward will be far more interesting and immediate,” she snarled. “Winter or Summer, mortal. And make it quick.” She released him and stepped back, a martial gleam in her black eyes.
The other shook her head, loosening the hair piled up to cascade over her shoulders. She smiled, no more kindly than the other. “Truly, Mab, you do put the poor man about. You cannot expect him to react like a dog and simply choose by scent. He must be told the stakes.” Her pale gaze came to rest on Ed’s face. “Not a bad face, as mortals go,” she continued. “You do understand, do you not?”
“No, I don’t,” he shot back honestly, wishing this game were at an end.
“This is the Green Man’s field. The flood has broken the fertility of the ground. It must be renewed in the ancient fashion,” she filled him in as she moved to stand directly before him, her eyes level with his. “Mortal and Sidhe must mate and make the land fertile again. You must choose. Mab,” she pointed to the dark Sidhe, “or me.”
“And you would be?”
“Oberon’s summer queen, Titania,” she answered with a regal incline of her head.
He wanted to laugh. Or scream. Why was he hallucinating ancient legends? “Why not both?” he heard himself asking. What the hell? Who did he think he was? Alec? Foster? And where the hell was Jackson and his straight jacket when he needed them?
The ladies gave each other a look and nodded. “So be it.”
Ed gulped in dismay as the ladies closed on him, their hands heading places no one had touched in … too long. He reminded himself that these were not real, that … that … that heat and cold and mouths … and … were all just delightful mental aberrations that … damn, that mud was cold!
…*
Ed Straker stood under the heat of his shower streaming water over him and soaking into his bones. He was weary as he had not been in some time. Alec had caught him in the back lots and shooed him home. He scowled at the dirt washing out of his hair and wondered what he’d done to get mud there. Not to mention his suit. It looked like he’d been rolled in the stuff. Of course, it was raining cats and dogs when Alec found him. They both presumed he’d fallen into a hole of some sort. When Ed couldn’t explain it, Alec diagnosed extreme fatigue and threatened his commanding officer with sick bay and Dr. Jackson’s ministrations if he didn’t go home immediately and get some sleep.
Ed had complied without arguing. Later he would worry about whether he’d worried Alec by doing so. The only thing keeping him awake under the shower was the throbbing of his right index finger. Something had bitten him and it was badly swollen and inflamed looking. Carefully, he washed the bite, squeezing out fluid and a bit of pus before applying antibiotic ointment and bandaging. The throb stopped and he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
* This is the PG-rated version of “The Green Man Pasture”. One for the adult audience can be read once you subscribed and confirmed being an adult. Subscription is costfree.
© dragon, February 2011
Notes: Fluff. Pure fluff. Fairies can be … interesting. Not mine not for profit.