CH 3: Choice of Fey

Other than the snarling wolf-people, the meadow was pretty chill. I wasn’t sure if it was from the personality modification, or something else, but I really wasn’t too worried about the wolves. I mean, they were all the way over there, and I was all the way over here, and there was at least twenty feet, no, make that ten feet, between us. And oh wow, the flowers here were amazing.

There was this purple one with huge petals that smelled absolutely divine. I crouched down to catch the scent better. The bees must have liked the flowers too, cuz they were buzzing all up and over them. Probably because the flowers smelled so sweet, a little bit like clover honey. I tenderly reached out and stroked the petal with my pinky...it felt so soft, softer than velvet, warm too, and moist.

“Squeee!” I squeed.

I plucked the flower and buried my face in it. It actually reminded me of a few other places I’d buried my face. At a few choice memories my cheeks started burning.

There was another type of flower prevalent as well, a glaringly bright yellow one that reminded me of scotch-broom. But this one also smelled nice, though with a bit of tartness mixed in, and not as sweet as the purple one. I plucked a few more, making an improvised bouquet of flowers.

The wolf-people approached, circling me and snarling. Or were they talking? Maybe they were talking? I decided to talk back.

“Hello there!” I said. I held out the flowers I’d been picking, minus the purple one I’d tucked behind my ear. “Would you like some? These things are amazing!”

The wolf-people looked to each other, their tongues lolling, and then to me, then back to each other. They each took a step back when I waved the flowers at them.

“Now just a second!” I told them. “They smell really really good! You really gotta try these!” I took a step after the first. It sneezed and took off, followed by the second. Strange, I thought. I glanced down at the flowers, and noticed something a bit odd, perhaps even, concerning.

Red blisters were spreading up from my hands, from where I’d touched the flowers. And the bits of skin that had been exposed the longest had pustules forming. One of them, the one on my pinkie, popped, and revealed a bit of hard, plastic like skin underneath. My nose started itching. Then my mouth. My cheeks were swelling too. The rash spread up my arms, down my neck, and onto my chest.

Someone had set the meadow to spinning, and there were so many bees buzzing all around! But instead of yellow and black, they were green. And tiny. And almost...humanoid? They looked like they were having fun! I wanted to be a bee too! I started pretending I was a bumble-bee! Buzz Buzz! I frollicked with them, until I tripped and began rolling through the meadow.

When I looked back at how foolishly I acted in that meadow, thankfully, it was short, before I collapsed in the flowers and grass, rolling, crushing more flowers in a seizure, with a pleasant froth coming from my mouth.

My eyes had closed for a second, but when I opened them, I was submerged completely in a viscous semi-fluid, and I couldn’t see far. It was difficult to move too. No scratch that. It was near impossible to move. I tried opening and closing my hands, which barely worked. I couldn’t move my legs or core more than an inch. Fuck. I couldn’t breathe. I thrashed, trying to find air. But there was nothing. I opened my mouth to scream, and some of the fluid made it to my tongue...It tasted sweet, and just a little tart. Almost like...grape jelly?

“Ammaza,” I said, or tried to say. The jelly muffled everything. The amazing tasting jelly that fell onto my tongue, which, by reflex, I swallowed. It tasted as good as the flowers smelled. Oh god, I was in love! I took another swallow, then another. It was really tasty! Breathing be damned, I needed more!

Some time later, I found myself in an air pocket, floating on the jelly. It was dark where I was, but the ceiling above me was low enough I could touch, and it was very hard, and it was very smooth. Some light came in from the walls all around, though they felt like they were miles away. But all that was unimportant. What mattered, was eating as much of this divine substance as I could.

I kept swallowing, sucking everything down that I possibly could.

Now, looking back at it, I know what you’re thinking. Conservation of volume, right? Or at the very least, of mass. The jelly had to go somewhere, and I couldn’t just displace more than my body’s weight in jelly without having my stomach explode. But magic, am I right? I never got full nor felt uncomfortable as I chowed down, and my belly never grew. And soon, I found myself at the bottom, with scant little jelly left. I did notice that the floor and the cylindrical walls were made of the same sort of glass, which was odd. But that was by far from the oddest thing there. The oddest thing, was that when I checked my skin for any remaining jelly, I found my skin was looking a bit translucent--almost tasty even. But no. I wouldn’t dream of tasting myself. Even though, I very much wanted more of that sweet sweet sweetness...I managed to resist.

But here’s the thing. Sitting at the bottom of a giant glass jar is super boring. And it’s not like you can climb out. Or shift the glass one direction or another. I was stuck. And I was bored. And I was tempted. So don’t go blaming me, if at some point I happened to slip just one little finger into my mouth...And then another, and then another, and then my hand, then my arm, then my other arm, then my legs. And oh my god, when did I get that flexible? Pretty soon, all that was left was my torso. I tasted absolutely phenomenal, and I wanted more. I stretched and strained my neck, and finally, I reached my chest.

Now, I’m not an expert on Jelly people, but I think that they do need at least something in their chest, because at some point as I was chowing down, everything went black. Again.

Ok, this next one was weird. Have you ever been in an old school trolley? Well, I found myself in this old red trolley, just like from Mr. Rogers. But instead of a happy go lucky trip, I had to make a choice. There was a lever marked with forward and reverse, and a lever marked for switching tracks. There was nothing else on this trolley, except for me. We were moving at a decent clip, faster than I thought was safe for trolleys to go.

We were coming down a decline, which might have explained the speed, and also the view. Before me there were two sets of tracks, a left and a right. I knew instinctively that the lever marked left or right corresponded to the tracks. I just knew it. Which kinda sucked, because there was no middle option. And I really wish there was one.

There were two sets of tracks up ahead, each representing a moral conundrum.

On one set of tracks, there was an out-of-commission sign blocking the tracks, just before a very large natural gas tank, which was adjacent to both a munitions factory, and a very active school-playground. Obviously, I wouldn’t be going that way. That would be a cascading fireball of disaster with horrendous casualties, at least judging from the dozens of kids I saw running around the playsets.

But on the other set of tracks, it was two children tied to the middle of the tracks, like in those old black-and-white cartoons with absolutely ridiculous villains tying a damsel in loops and loops of rope to a rail-road-track. Except two very young human adolescents, instead of the usual damsel.

What. The. Fuck.

Naturally, I tried throwing the forward lever into reverse. And of course. The trolley sped up. I was being forced to make a decision, where none should be made. Only two options. And it was me that had to make the choice.

Either an entire orphanage, with kids playing on a swing-set and falling down slides, or two little-kids tied to the track.

I was not prepared to make this decision.

I screamed.

The kids screamed.

I slammed all the levers, but the trolley didn’t slow down. Fuck. At least the two kids didn’t scream for long. But what they did scream would haunt me forever, along with the bumps I felt in the trolley, and the spray. FUCK.

Blackness once more.

I woke back in the black hallway, lined with columns, where the pedestals had been, where the tables had been, where the Reaper had been, but all that was missing. It was barely recognizable, except for the ballin floor, greco-roman-black columns, and radiant-blackness slab of a ceiling.

But before me were three very beautiful, and very unique women. The first one, on the left, was some kind of fairy, with dragonfly wings on her back. Her lips were painted azure, with glowing white pinpricks that seemed to dance across her very succulent lips. The middle was a slime girl, in shades of purple, and she smelled tangy. In fact, looking at her more closely, I thought she might have been made out of grape jelly. She smiled, with small strands of jelly-slime falling down her face. And the one on the right, if I were to make a guess based off of popular culture, was some kind of succubus, with raven wings, tail, and hooves.

Time to put some moves on. I approached them smiling, blurting the first awesome thing that popped into my head. “Good thing I brought my library card ladies,” I said. “Cuz I be checking you all out…” I wagged my eyebrows at them.

The Slime-Girl giggled, The Succubus groaned, and The Fairy winced.

“I will not dignify that with a response, candidate,” The Succubus said. She glanced over at The Fairy and said, “How did you convince the Wolf Lord to let one through?”

“I did not convince him,” The Fairy said. “Nor have I spoken to him in Seasons, before you allege improper behavior.”

“Hmm,” The Succubus said, looking thoughtful, and not at all convinced.

“I am just as surprised to be here as you,” The Fairy added, before turning to me. “Though, I am overjoyed to meet you, Candidate.”

The Slime-Girl nodded vigorously, sending the top of her head sloughing off to her chest, before she reformed. She licked her lips. “Tasty!” The Slime-Girl said.

“Then let us seek the cause of this,” The Succubus said as she pulled out a transparent video-screen, about the size of a phone, which she examined. I saw what looked like a bio for me, with a photo of me in my wedding suit. The Succubus growled, grinding her teeth together, clicking her fangs. “And this, perhaps, is the cause. Personality Tampering. An invalidated test.”

The Slime-Girl giggled, The Fairy winced, and The Succubus shouted, “PUGSTER!”

The pugs from before, and the Reaper, appeared from nowhere.

“My name was called?” The Grim Reaper, or Pugster as he was called, said.

The Succubus pointed at me. “You modified her personality prior to the test! How can we put faith in the results, with you having done so?”

“I fail to see the problem,” The Reaper replied, bending down to scratch Castro’s (the brown pug) butt, right on top of the tail.

“Fail to see the problem?” The Succubus said, arching her eyebrow so far, I lost sight of it behind her bangs. “The problem is that the entire test is invalid, and we cannot administer it once again, as the candidate already knows the test! How can we proceed? She cannot be denied a Fey Selection without invalidating the entire Choice, but the test cannot be administered twice...Do you understand now?” She was breathing hard as she finished her impassioned tirade.

“Hmmm,” Pugster said as he considered, before finally answering with a final. “No.” Before the Succubus blew up again, he added, “I believe that once again, perceived slights are out of proportion to reality.”

“If that is your stance, then perhaps we should go see the Council?” The Succubus said, crossing her arms.

Pugster frowned, as if skeletons could frown (they can’t). “Do you feel so hasty as to waste the Council’s non-time?” Pugster said. “None of the Council’s written rules were violated. If you feel there was an issue, then simply send her to the Wolf.”

“But she was tasty…” The Slime-Girl said.

The Fairy added, “It has been a while since my court has received a Daughter. It would not be fair to limit the Candidate’s options so significantly. Consider that the fault was not her own.”

“Well I shall have no part of this chicanery,” The Succubus said, before disappearing in a cloud of yellow smoke. She had in effect stormed off.

“I suppose that leaves two valid options,” Pugster said. “Are my services still required?”

Brutus (the black pug) yapped at The Reaper until Castro tackled Brutus in a fit of jealousy, even though Castro had been receiving all the pets.

“Perhaps if you could restore her personality to normal?” The Fairy said.

“Of course,” he said. “How could I have forgotten?”

With his hands now free, The Reaper pulled out his screen, made some changes, and then disappeared, along with the pugs. I felt a haze wash over my perception and clear, leaving me with a huge headache. Almost as bad as a hangover. Had I actually eaten myself out of a jar of jelly? Holy shit…

The Fairy waited several minutes for my head to clear, before turning her full attention to me. “Now you must choose. Most candidates do not end with such a selection, when choosing the Fey.”

“What normally happens instead?” I asked.

The Fairy shrugged. “If you and the wolves greeted each other with violence, then the Wolf Lord would stand here, and not I. If you failed to eat yourself from the grape jelly, then you’d not have the jelly-fae available. And depending on your choices in the trolley, you’d have been gifted the choice of demon or angel. Though most do not reach that stage of the test...but for you, you have two options available. How do you choose?”

A bit of a rough choice. Did I want to be a beautiful fairy, or a fairly gorgeous Slime-Girl?

“This is for my race selection, right?” I asked. Both women nodded. “What are the benefits of either?”

“Fairies are aristocrats, the true nobility of the Fey,” The Fairy answered. “We have the greatest Affinity, and shape the Lower Realms with ease.”

“But,” The Slime-Girl said, “Jelly-fae are yummy!”

I could not beat that logic, and I made my choice.